Spark to Flame: A Finniss Story

Pt IV: Clear to Draft

Pt IV.

It was called 'hijacking'.

Peeta's torture had been more extensive than any of them had realized, and it suddenly made sense why Snow had let Gale and his team leave the Tribute Center without so much as a scratch.

Beetee and Plutarch had been quick to inform her of Peeta's condition, saying that the Capitol used fear conditioning enhanced with tracker jacker venom in order to distort his memories of her, making her seem more like a nightmarish vision than the girl he'd come to know and love throughout their time in the Games together. Though to be honest, at this point she didn't think that his perception of her was too far off the mark.

She'd been forced to spend the past few nights - and then some - in the hospital while she recovered from Peeta's assault. She hadn't thought that it would ever be necessary to wear a neck brace in order to heal from being strangled, but she was learning new things every day. She remembers sitting with Haymitch in her hiding place just hours before all of this had happened, remembers how he had said that Peeta was the Capitol's weapon, just as she was theirs. She wonders how he felt knowing just how much his words rung true.

Katniss slowly blinks, vision hazy as she stares at the perfect, spotless ceiling of her hospital room.

A nurse had come and given her a shot of sleep-inducing chemicals to help her rest, but they were taking longer than usual to work. She had taken a great many of these shots when she first came here, and she knew that it wasn't uncommon for someone to grow immune to them. But for her sake, she sincerely hopes that isn't the case for her.

It's very hard for her to focus on any one thing, let alone her own thoughts, but she idly thinks of Finnick and Annie and how they're doing...of what they're doing while she's laying here dying in a lone hospital room isolated from the rest of her family and civilization.

She might have been surprised at the bitter turn her thoughts had taken these past few days if it weren't for the numbing drugs flowing through her system, and even more she might have let a few tears slip because of it, but she doesn't feel deeply enough for her emotions to get past the wall of chemicals between her heart and veins, and in all honesty, she doesn't have the energy to.

It's her third day here, in this hospital bed, doing nothing whatsoever other than staring at the ceiling and waiting for the nurse to give her another shot.

Her third day.

And not one visitor.

She's sure that it's because Coin or Plutarch or possibly even Haymitch had told everyone that she needed her rest and not to disturb her, at least her rational mind is. Her irrational mind is panicked and scared and absolutely certain that everyone has forgotten about her, either because they're occupied with other things or because they just don't care, and it's been an ongoing battle inside her head for the past seventy-two hours.

She lightly exhales, the room growing darker with each slow blink she takes.

The drugs were working. Good.

Everything is hazy and she doesn't register visuals or sounds the way she would if artificial substances weren't in her system, and so she doesn't think much of it when the door to her right opens in slow motion and closes with a very long, muffled thud.

She knows it's probably just the drugs talking, but she swears that she sees the blurry image of Finnick's face looking down at her just before she blacks out.

~*~

Finnick sits quietly in his chair, watching over the sleeping form of the young Mockingjay in the bed beside him.