TWISTED // Clato | ✓

Chapter 30: Saving the Future

CATO'S POV:

My heart is racing at the speed of sound and I'm seriously afraid I'm going to burst. With each thud in my chest, my body convulses crazily and my breaths are staggered and shaky. All energy gone, my arms dangle limply from my bed as I lie flat on the bed staring at the ceiling.

Why is this happening to me????

The doctor stands over me, but I don't see him. My vision clouds as I stare at the ceiling, overcome by exhaustion, fatigue, and fear. Just when exactly will I cease to exist? At what time will I simply vaporize into the air, amounting to nothing more than a vanished memory?

I inhale deeply, but my diaphragm contracts unexpectedly and I hiccup.

"HADLEY!" The doctor's voice jars me and I shake back to reality. I stare into his face.

He calmly adjusts something beside my bed, without any concern. As if this happens every day.

He doesn't know. He doesn't know that I just changed the past.

"Where's Clove?" I whisper. He doesn't meet my eyes.

"Can I see her?" Still no response.

His eyes drift out the sunny window and he lets out his breath in a huge sigh. I stare at him.

"Sir?"

"I suppose... eventually..." His voice sounds stretched; fine. He says it more to the window than to me. His eyes travel along the frame but his words die into the air.

The hesitation in his manner drives me insane. My pulse is radiating in my limbs as I raise myself up in bed, and only then does he jerk around and push me back down.

"You... must... not... get... up," he hisses at me, before pressing a lever on the side of my bed. Restraining bars lower over my stomach. He regards me sadly before saying, "I'm sorry, but it is only necessary that you remain here while you recover."

I stare at him, but there's nothing I can do. I know the real reason he wants to keep me here. He doesn't think she'll make it. He doesn't want to give me false hope. But at this point I know things cannot get any worse, and all I am asking for is a chance to see her before she's taken from me.

He can grant me that much.

"Please," I whisper in a high-pitched squeak that belies my tough-looking exterior. I'm no longer the slaughtering killing machine from the Games. I'm... weak. And being held down by a doctor.

Why am I being held down by a doctor?!

I reach easily out from the bed and fumble over the side. My fingers find a raised, rounded bump, which I press. The bars roll back and I leap upward from the bed, pushing the startled doctor aside. I land on my feet, which, after lying in a bed for six months, are rather wobbly.

Tripping over my own legs, I charge into the hallway, barely considering the fact that all I'm wearing is a sheet.

I'm in an unfamiliar hallway, on my feet for the first time in weeks. But I'm done with hospitals, done with asylums, done with this crazy world. Where's the only other sane person in my life?

The hallway is actually rather empty. I head for the only open door, rushing past several confused nurses, and to the bedside.

A girl lies there, a girl with long black hair, which despite lying on a pillow for months, is extremely straight. Her eyes are closed in her pale face, her nose pointing upward like a knife on her face. Freckles dot her cheeks like sprinkled pepper. I fall forward on my knees. My hand reaches out and makes contact with her quiet, slender fingers.