Splintered

Chapter Thirteen: All Aboard

The crisp morning air held a few lonely flakes. Several landed on the familiar building, coating its outside surface with a crisp, white crust. As if it were a jam-filled pastry, the inside told a different story. It practically oozed with warmth and activity.

Despite the heat of the interior, the mere sight of the structure chilled Hazel to the bone. The District Seven train station had been transformed from a simple, utilitarian structure to a museum of some of her worst memories. The day she left with Silus and the day she returned with only his casket. They replayed on a loop in her mind, burning through her bloodstream, pressing like a hot iron against her heart.

That was the weird thing about grief. It was like a predator lurking in the corners of her mind, waiting to pounce. She never knew what memory, smell, or sight would awaken it, flooding her senses with a throbbing pain. Hazel fought against the sensations, pushing them down beneath a fragile veneer of neutrality.

The worn wood platform was bubbling with the sheer number of people. It was a startling clash of Capitol and District. Like fish and birds shoved into a single, sweltering pool. The space teemed with uneasy bodies. Neither side was particularly comfortable being so close to the other.

District citizens clung to the fringes, pressed against the chilled walls, while peacekeepers and Capitol elites claimed the near center. If the train station was a target, Hazel, Festus, Indira, and her family were trapped within its bullseye.

With a shattering hiss, the newly arrived train doors slid open, unleashing a tide of Capitol press. Cameras sparked to life, lenses pivoting, and centering her and her companions within their sights.

Hazel shifted uncomfortably in the heeled boots Indira insisted she wear. The matching charcoal dress pants and the flowing cream-colored top suddenly felt odd. To an unknowing outsider, she looked to belong to neither Capitol nor District. She was clearly not impoverished like her people but, at the same time, lacked the extravagance of the Capitol.

Her attire made guilt rise to the surface of her unsettled emotions. The worn, weary expressions of her people sent nausea curling within her stomach. Many were thinner, more bony, with purple-gray hollows around their eyes. Granted only a brief reprieve to attend the gathering, they would return to the mills and logging sites once she departed. Her people had always been hard workers, but seeing them like this now, it was clear the increased load was overwhelming them all.

Worst of all, Hazel was powerless to do anything. She couldn't even share in their misery. Not anymore. Now, she was caught somewhere between the world she knew and the one dragging her further into its clutches with every passing day.

"What I wouldn't give to go for a run right now." She breathed, watching the press wade through the crowd.

"We can't leave soon enough," Sable replied behind her.

Hazel traced the edges of her pink bandage with her thumb. Indira had wrapped it for her that morning, scolding her when she noticed the bruising and slight trace of blood. The woman's warm hand suddenly encircled hers. All the escort's anger from earlier had melted away. "Try not to look so nervous, dear. We haven't even left seven yet."

The press inched closer by the second. Their lenses fixated on her as if they could see beneath the façade she was desperately clinging to.

As Hazel searched the faces of her family members, it was clear she wasn't the only one dealing with skyrocketing anxiousness. They all were in various stages of readjusting their clothing or reconfiguring their body postures. 

A beeline of peacekeepers stretched through the crowd as they loaded luggage into the waiting train. The vast majority belong to Indira. Her newly assigned squadron seemed less than enthused with the task.