Made of Ashes

Chapter 7

The hovercraft makes a quick, spiral descent onto a wide road on the outskirts of 8. Almost immediately, the door opens, the stairs slide into place, and we're spit out onto the asphalt. The moment the last person disembarks, the equipment retracts. Then the craft lifts off and vanishes. I'm left with a bodyguard made up of Gale, Boggs, and two other soldiers. The TV crew consists of a pair of burly Capitol cameramen with heavy mobile cameras encasing their bodies like insect shells, a woman director named Cressida who has a shaved head tattooed with green vines, and her assistant, Messalla, a slim young man with several sets of earrings. On careful observation, I see his tongue has been pierced, too, and he wears a stud with a silver ball the size of a marble.

Boggs hustles us off the road toward a row of warehouses as a second hovercraft comes in for a landing. This one brings crates of medical supplies and a crew of six medics – I can tell by their distinctive white outfits. We all follow Boggs down an alley that runs between two dull gray warehouses. Only the occasional access ladder to the roof interrupts the scarred metal walls. When we emerge onto the street, it's like we've entered another world.

The wounded from this morning's bombing are being brought in. On homemade stretchers, in wheelbarrows, on carts, slung across shoulders, and clenched tight in arms. Bleeding, limbless, unconscious. Propelled by desperate people to a warehouse with a sloppily painted H above the doorway. It's a scene from my old kitchen, where my mother treated the dying, multiplied by ten, by fifty, by a hundred. I had expected bombed-out buildings and instead find myself confronted with broken human bodies.

This is where they plan on filming me? I turn to Boggs. "This won't work," I say. "I won't be good here."

He must see the panic in my eyes, because he stops a moment and places his hands on my shoulders. "You will. Just let them see you. That will do more for them than any doctor in the world could."

A woman directing the incoming patients catches sight of us, does a sort of double take, and then strides over. Her dark brown eyes are puffy with fatigue and she smells of metal and sweat. A bandage around her throat needed changing about three days ago. The strap of the automatic weapon slung across her back digs into her neck and she shifts her shoulder to reposition it. With a jerk of her thumb, she orders the medics into the warehouse. They comply without question.

"This is Commander Paylor of Eight," says Boggs. "Commander, Soldier Katniss Everdeen."

She looks young to be a commander. Early thirties. But there's an authoritative tone to her voice that makes you feel her appointment wasn't arbitrary. Beside her, in my spanking-new outfit, scrubbed and shiny, I feel like a recently hatched chick, untested and only just learning how to navigate the world.

"Yeah, I know who she is," says Paylor. "You're alive, then. We weren't sure." Am I wrong or is there a note of accusation in her voice?

"I'm still not sure myself," I answer.

"Been in recovery." Boggs taps his head. "Bad concussion. Mandatory fetal monitoring. But she insisted on coming by to see your wounded."

"Well, we've got plenty of those," says Paylor.

"You think this is a good idea?" says Gale, frowning at the hospital. "Assembling your wounded like this?"

I don't. Any sort of contagious disease would spread through this place like wildfire.

"I think it's slightly better than leaving them to die," says Paylor.

"That's not what I meant," Gale tells her.

"Well, currently that's my other option. But if you come up with a third and get Coin to back it, I'm all ears." Paylor waves me toward the door. "Come on in, Mockingjay. And by all means, bring your friends."