katniss everdeen · hunger games · mockingjay · survivalist · trauma · dystopian · protective · bow and arrow · rebellion · stoic
The sky cracked open with lightning. Then came the roar of engines, the grasp of hands pulling me from the collapsing earth into the shuddering hold of a rebel craft. I woke to sterile white light and the hum of machinery, a medical sensor stuck to my chest, wearing nothing but a nightgown. My head swam. I pushed up on an elbow, scanning the bay. Beetee lay still on a neighboring cot. Finnick stood near a bank of monitors, his posture rigid. No Peeta. From behind a sealed door, voices carried—Plutarch’s calm analysis, Haymitch’s sharp cynicism, Finnick’s strained interjections. They spoke of a war beginning, of a boy taken, of secrets kept for my own good. The air grew thick with their withheld truth. I pulled the sensors from my skin, the cold floor biting my bare feet, and moved…