Scarred | The Hunger Games

27.

"So besides Brutus and Enobaria, who's left?" Katniss asks.

I slather what's left of the medicine I got earlier. Whilst the wounds were healing well earlier, they were reopened when I got slammed and brutalised by the rocks.

"So what do we do? We hunt 'em down?" Johanna suggests.

We're interrupted by a scream, it was a young girls' scream. "Katniss, help me!"

There was a look of recognition on Katniss' face, before it turns to horror. "Prim!"

"Katniss wait!" I call out, running after her. By time I catch up, I watch as she shoots down a bird, a jabberjay. "Hey, you ok?"

"Eula!" A girl's voice screams. Katniss looks at me, confused. "Eulalia! Help me! Where are you, come back!"

"OTTI!" I cry out, chasing after her voice as a million thoughts go through my head.

"Nova, it's just jabberjays." Katniss says, holding my shoulders.

"She's supposed to be dead." I mumble to myself. "But what if they brought her back after they took me out the room? Clearly resurrection is easily done." I remembered how Finnick easily brought me and Peeta back.

"Katniss!" A mans voice yells.

"Eula!"

"Help me!"

"Come back!"

"You did this to me!"

"Katniss!"

"Eulalia!"

We're swarmed by jabberjays, running as they start swooping at us. And just as I think we're gonna make it back, I slam against an invisible barrier. I slam my fist against it, watching the transparent blue ripples resonating with my every touch as everyone else tries to tell us to calm down.

My body crumbles to the ground, and I see Katniss' similarly fall as she covers her ears and closes her eyes. The jabberjays continue their attack, every so often pecking or scratching us, enough to make us flinch every time their touch coincides with the voices.

I pull Katniss into a hug, letting the birds swoop at my already torn wetsuit, as we both wait for the hour to pass.

***

I jolt as arms gently pull me away from Katniss, allowing Peeta to start comforting his lover. My collapse on the ground, my arms and legs giving out on me.

"You ok?" Johanna asks, and for the first time, I don't want to yell at her or blame her or anything.

I look up at Johanna, and I must have looked so distraught, that she hugged me. "Could she be alive? Is Otti alive?"

Johanna gives me a look. "You told me they tortured her before you kil- before she died. They must have recorded it then."

It only makes me more upset, knowing it was her actual screams of terror. It only breaks me more, the fact that I knew she was dead, then had hope she was alive, then realised she was dead, all over again.

I feel Johanna's warm hand under my jaw, breaking my trance to look at her. "You know I'm not at fault right? You know I didn't kill her? I had to keep the one thing I still had left of my humanity."

My eyes water up, hiccups bubbling in my chest. "I know. I'm sorry Jo, I just, I needed to blame someone and I just, it couldn't be me, I just- I'm sorry."

She pulled me into her chest, her hand cradling the back of my head as she gently rubbed my back. "I know doll. I'm sorry for calling you a slut."

I coughed out a laugh. "Hah, it's fine, I kind of deserved it after what I said."