Daughter of the Games (Sequel to Pregnant in the Games)

Chapter 15: Screwing Up

When I woke up, all of my memories were gone. 

It took me many minutes to recall what had happened the night before. I stared up at the ceiling, completely still. There was a small stinging sensation at the base of my neck, but besides that, I felt okay. The room reeked of cleaning chemicals. The last thing I could recall was getting off of the chariot after the parade. What's happened since then? When did I go to sleep? Why is there a stingining sensation in my  neck? Where am I? 

Then the memories came rushing back. Ni kissed me. I freaked out. When we reached our suite, Grey passed out, Luke was standing in my room, Ni looked like he was on the verge of a serious emotional breakdown, and somehow, I was knocked out. I remember feeling the stinging sensation and passing out moments later. So what happened? 

I looked around me. I'm in some sort of hospital room. On the other side of the room, Ivan was sleeping in the hospital bed. My heart rate accelerated. I jumped out of the bed and ran over to him, frantically running my eyes over him. After a few moments, I calmed down. There were no signs of him being hurt. He wasn't even hooked up to a heart monitor. I placed my hand on his shoulder, and he woke up. 

"Hey, Ivan," I said when Ivan opened his eyes. 

"Crystal!" Ivan sat up. "You're awake!" 

"Um... Yeah? What happened?" 

"What do you remember?"

"It's clear, up until the moment I passed out." 

"One of Luke's avox's did that. He feared your reaction to seeing him, so his solution was to inject you with a drug in case you attacked him. Well, the avox jumped straight to drugging you. You missed a lot while you were out," Ivan said. 

"How's Grey?" I asked. 

"She's alright now. Her symptoms are getting bad again. Her illness makes her dizzy and faint. Unfortunately, she's too proud to let anyone know when she's starting to feel like this. That's why she passed out. She's sleeping now. They gave her some medications, but obviously she'll only have it for the next few days before we go into the Games." 

"What are her other symptoms?" 

"Vomiting, hallucinations, extreme dehydration, mood swings... The list goes on. Basically any symptom you can imagine, she'll get." 

I frowned. "And as it gets worse?" 

"She'll be unable to move. She'll sleep all the time. She'll have difficulties breathing..." Ivan's voice faded away as his emotions overcame him. He blinked, and a tear ran down his cheek. "It's the most awful thing to watch your little sister wither away and be unable to do anything. Nothing hurts worse." 

I sat down on the hospital bed beside Ivan and put my hand on top of his, making eye contact. We sat like that for many moments, passing condolences back in forth through our eyes. Finally, he spoke again. 

"Ni had to be drugged to get him to calm down," Ivan said. 

"Excuse me?" 

"Yeah. I know. He was absolutely rabid when he came in. He looked like he was on the verge of killing someone. Then Luke jumped into action. He pinned him down and injected him with the same thing they injected you with. Then he had the avox take him away. I haven't seen him since." 

I frowned. "That's strange. I mean, I know that he was mad at me, but... rabid?" 

"Wait, he was mad at you? Why?" 

"Um... He kissed me." 

"What?" Ivan yelled, suddenly sitting straight up, as if he was ready to pounce at any moment. "Ni kissed you?"