District Eight [Thursday, Fandom time]
It had taken a lot of convincing for the higher-ups in Thirteen to allow their precious Mockingjay into battle. First, of course, she had been made pretty again. Her prep team had been saved from the Capitol, for which Katniss was grateful. The ugliest side of Thirteen showed when they were shown to her, though -- beaten, half-naked, and kept in a small cell with a drain for the three of them. They were still skittish, though they'd done their best with her appearance, and Katniss -- despite the large, ugly scar on her arm from Johanna, was back to Beauty Base Zero, as they called it.
Then she'd been given her bow. She didn't understand the technology, not at all, but it came alive in her hands, responding only to her voice. It would be useless in the hands of anyone else. With it came her suit -- an exquisitely tailored black bodysuit, the undersides of her arms white. She'd been shown where the little poison capsule's pocket was on her shoulder in case of enemy capture -- the pill had been named Nightlock, for her -- and she realized that Cinna had thought of everything.
And then she pushed that away, because she couldn't feel guilty over Cinna, too. She couldn't feel everyone's pain at once.
She'd tried to film a propo, and failed spectacularly -- a reminder of her stiffness during her first interviews with Caesar, as well. It was Haymitch who'd suggested she was only ever good in action -- Rue's death, drugging Peeta, the nightlock. This was how Panem saw her.
And that was how she'd ended up on a hovercraft, being lowered to the outskirts of District Eight.
The moment the last person disembarked, the equipment retracted. Then the craft lifted off and vanished. Katniss was left with a bodyguard made up of Gale, Boggs -- Coin's right-hand soldier -- and two other soldiers. The TV crew consisted of a pair of burly Capitol cameramen with heavy mobile cameras encasing their bodies like insect shells, a woman director named Cressida who had a shaved head tattooed with green vines, and her assistant, Messalla, a slim young man with several sets of earrings.
Boggs hustled them off the road toward a row of warehouses as a second hovercraft came in for a landing. This one brought crates of medical supplies and a crew of six medics -- Katniss could tell by their distinctive white outfits.
They all followed Boggs down an alley that ran between two dull gray warehouses. Only the occasional access ladder to the roof interrupted the scarred metal walls. When they emerged onto the street, it's was like entering another world.
The wounded from this morning's bombing were 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 was a scene from Katniss' old kitchen, where her mother treated the dying, multiplied by ten, by fifty, by a hundred. She had expected bombed-out buildings and instead found herself confronted with broken human bodies.
This was where they planned on filming her? She turned to Boggs. "This won't work," she said. "I won't be good here."
He must have seen the panic in her eyes, because he stopped a moment and placed his hands on her 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 caught sight of them, did a sort of double take, and then strode over over. Her dark brown eyes were puffy with fatigue and she smelled 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 dug into her neck and she shifted her shoulder to reposition it. With a jerk of her thumb, she ordered the medics into the
warehouse. They complied without question.
"This is Commander Paylor of Eight," said Boggs. "Commander, Soldier Katniss Everdeen."
"Yeah, I know who she is," said Paylor. "You're alive, then. We weren't sure." There was something like accusation in her voice.
"I'm still not sure myself," Katniss answered honestly.
"Been in recovery." Boggs tapped his head. "Bad concussion." He lowered his voice a moment. "Miscarriage. But she insisted on coming by to see your wounded."
"Well, we've got plenty of those," said Paylor.
"You think this is a good idea?" said Gale, frowning at the hospital. "Assembling your wounded like this?"
Katniss didn't. Any sort of contagious disease would spread like wildfire.
"I think it's slightly better than leaving them to die," said Paylor.
"That's not what I meant," Gale told 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 waved Katniss toward the door. "Come on in, Mockingjay. And by all means, bring your friends."
Katniss stepped through the curtain and her senses were assaulted. Her first impulse was to cover her nose to block out the stench of soiled linen, putrefying flesh, and vomit, all ripening in the heat of the warehouse. They had propped open skylights that crisscrossed the high metal roof, but any air that had managing to get in couldn't make a dent in the fog below. The thin shafts of sunlight provided the only illumination, and as her eyes adjusted, she could make out row upon row of wounded, in cots, on pallets, on the floor because there were so many to claim the space. The drone of black flies, the moaning of people in pain, and the sobs of their attending loved ones combined into a wrenching chorus.
"Katniss?" a voice croaked out from her left, breaking apart from the general din. "Katniss?" A hand reached for her out of the haze. She clung to it for support. Attached to the hand was a young woman with an injured leg. Blood has seeped through the heavy bandages, which are crawling with flies. Her face reflected her pain, but something else, too, something that seemed completely incongruous with her situation. "Is it really you?"
"Yeah, it's me," Katniss got out.
Joy. That was the expression on her face. At the sound of her voice, it brightened, erased the suffering momentarily.
"You're alive! We didn't know. People said you were, but we didn't know!" she said excitedly.
"I got pretty banged up. But I got better," Katniss said. "Just like you will."
"I've got to tell my brother!" The woman struggled to sit up and calls to someone a few beds down. "Eddy! Eddy! She's here! It's Katniss Everdeen!"
A boy, probably about twelve years old, turned to them. Bandages obscured half of his face. The side of his mouth Katniss could see opened as if to utter an exclamation. She went to him, pushed his damp brown curls back from his forehead. Murmured a greeting. He couldn't speak, but his one good eye fixed on her with such intensity, as if he was trying to memorize every detail of her face.
Katniss could hear her name rippling through the hot air, spreading out into the hospital. "Katniss! Katniss Everdeen!"
The sounds of pain and grief began to recede, to be replaced by words of anticipation. From all sides, voices beckoned her. She began to move, clasping the hands extended to her, touching the sound parts of those unable to move their limbs, saying hello, how are you, good to meet you. Nothing of importance, no amazing words of inspiration. But it didn't matter. Boggs was right. It was the sight of her, alive, that was the inspiration.
When they were outside again, Katniss leaned against the warehouse, catching her breath, accepting the canteen of water from Boggs. "You did great," he said.
Well, she hadn't thrown up or fainted. Mostly she'd ridden the wave of emotion through the place.
"We got some nice stuff in there," said Cressida. Katniss looked at the insect cameramen, perspiration pouring from under their equipment. Messalla scribbling notes. She had forgotten they were even filming her.
"I didn't do much, really," she said.
"You have to give yourself some credit for what you've done in the past," said Boggs.
At the thought of her past, Katniss' knees weakened, and she slid down the wall to sit. "That's a mixed bag."
"Well, you're not perfect by a long shot. But times being what they are, you'll have to do," said Boggs.
Gale squat down beside her, shaking his head. "I can't believe you let all those people touch you. I kept expecting you to make a break for the door."
"Shut up," she said with a laugh.
"Your mother's going to be very proud when she sees the footage," he said.
"My mother won't even notice me. She'll be too appalled by the conditions in there." she turned to Boggs and asked, "Is it like this in every district?"
"Yes. Most are under attack. We're trying to get in aid wherever we can, but it's not enough." He stopped a minute, distracted by something in his earpiece. Katniss realized she hadn't heard Haymitch's voice once, and fiddled with hers, wondering if it was broken. "We're to get to the airstrip. Immediately," Boggs said, lifting her to her feet with one hand. "There's a problem."
"What kind of problem?" asked Gale.
"Incoming bombers," said Boggs. He reached behind Katniss' neck and yanked Cinna's helmet up onto her head.
"Let's move!"
Unsure of what to do, Katniss took off running along the front of the warehouse, heading for the alley that led to the airstrip. But she didn't sense any immediate threat. The sky was an empty, cloudless blue. The street was clear except for the people hauling the wounded to the hospital. There was no enemy, no alarm. Then the sirens began to wail. Within seconds, a low-flying V-shaped formation of Capitol hoverplanes appeared above them, and the bombs began to fall.
Katniss was blown off her feet, into the front wall of the warehouse. There was a searing pain just above the back of herright knee. Something had struck her back as well, but didn't seem to have penetrated her vest. She tried to get up, but Boggs pushed her back down, shielding her body with his own. The ground rippled under her as bomb after bomb dropped from the planes and detonated.
"Katniss!" She was startled by Haymitch's voice in her ear.
"What? Yes, what? I'm here!" she answered.
"Listen to me. We can't land during the bombing, but it's imperative you're not spotted," he said.
"So they don't know I'm here?" She had assumed, as usual, it was her presence that brought on punishment.
"Intelligence thinks no. That this raid was already scheduled," said Haymitch.
Now Plutarch's voice came up, calm but forceful. The voice of a Head Gamemaker used to calling the shots under pressure. "There's a light blue warehouse three down from you. It has a bunker in the far north corner. Can you get there?"
"We'll do our best," said Boggs. Plutarch must have been in everyone's ear, because Katniss' bodyguards and crew were getting up.
"You've got maybe forty-five seconds to the next wave," said Plutarch.
Katniss gave a grunt of pain as her injured leg absorbed the weight of her body. No time to check the injury now, though. Boggs matched her slow pace, but everyone else stayed behind her, at her sides, protecting her. She could see the bunker, but they only made it to an alley before the next wave hit. This time it was Gale who threw his body over hers, protecting her as best he could.
"You all right?" he asked when it was nearly over, his words nearly drowned out by an explosion.
"Yeah. I don't think they've seen me," Katniss answered. "I mean, they're not following us."
"No, they've targeted something else," said Gale.
"I know, but there's nothing back there but--" The realization hit them both at the same time.
"The hospital." Instantly, Gale was up and shouting to the others. "They're targeting the hospital!"
"Not your problem," said Plutarch firmly. "Get to the bunker."
"But there's nothing there but the wounded!" Katniss said.
"Katniss." She could hear the warning note in Haymitch's voice and knew what was coming. "Don't you even think about--!" She yanked the earpiece free and let it hang from its wire. With that distraction gone, she could hear another sound.
Machine gun fire coming from the roof of the dirt brown warehouse across the alley. Someone was returning fire.
Before anyone could stop her, she made a dash for an access ladder and began to scale it. Climbing. One of the things she did best
"Don't stop!" she heard Gale say behind her. Katniss made the roof and dragged herself onto the tar. She stopped long enough to pull Gale up beside her, and then they took off for the row of machine gun nests on the street side of the warehouse. Each looked to be manned by a few rebels.
"Boggs know you're up here?" To her left, Katniss could see Paylor behind one of the guns, looking at them quizzically.
She tried to be evasive without flat-out lying. "He knows where we are, all right."
Paylor laughed. "I bet he does. You been trained in these?" She slapped the stock of her gun.
"I have. In Thirteen," said Gale. "But I'd rather use my own weapons."
"Yes, we've got our bows." Katniss held hers up, then realized how decorative it must have seemed. "It's more deadly than it looks."
"It would have to be," said Paylor. "All right. We expect at least three more waves. They have to drop their sight shields before they release the bombs. That's our chance. Stay low!" Katniss positioned herself to shoot from one knee.
There was no time for further discussion, as the planes appeared in a V formation. Katniss estimated the lead time on the hoverplanes and let her arrow fly. She caught the inside wing of one, causing it to burst into flames. Gale just missed the point plane. A fire bloomed on an empty warehouse roof across from us. He swore under his breath.
The hoverplane Katniss had hit swerved out of formation, but still released its bombs. It didn't disappear, though.
Neither did one other she assumed was hit by gunfire. The damage must have prevented the sight shield from reactivating.
"Good shot," said Gale.
"I wasn't even aiming for that one," she muttered. "They're faster than
we think."
"Positions!" Paylor shouted. The next wave of hoverplanes was appearing already.
Katniss and Gale, through mutual agreement, loaded their Beetee-crafted explosive-tipped arrows. Those warehouses across the way looked deserted anyway.
As the planes swept silently in, she made another decision. "I'm standing!" she shouted to Gale, and rose to her feet.
This was the position she got the best accuracy from. She led earlier and scored a direct hit on the point plane, blasting a hole in its belly. Gale blew the tail off a second. It flipped and crashed into the street, setting off a series of explosions as its cargo went off.
Without warning, a third V formation unveiled. This time, Gale squarely hit the point plane. Katniss took the wing off the second bomber, causing it to spin into the one behind it. Together they collided into the roof of the warehouse across from the hospital. A fourth went down from gunfire.
"All right, that's it," Paylor said.
Flames and heavy black smoke from the wreckage obscured their view. "Did they hit the hospital?"
"Must have," Paylor said grimly.
As Katniss hurred toward the ladders at the far end of the warehouse, the sight of Messalla and one of the insects emerging from behind an air duct surprised me. She had thought they'd have been hunkered down in the alley.
"They're growing on me," said Gale.
Katniss scrambled down a ladder. When her feet hit the ground, she found a bodyguard, Cressida, and the other insect waiting. She expected resistance, but Cressida just waved her toward the hospital. She was yelling, "I don't care, Plutarch! Just give me five more minutes!" Not one to question a free pass, Katniss took off into the street.
.
"Oh, no," she whispered as she caught sight of the hospital. What used to be the hospital. She moved past the wounded, past the burning plane wrecks, fixated on the disaster ahead of her. People screaming, running about frantically, but unable to help. The bombs collapsed the hospital roof and set the building on fire, effectively trapping the patients within. A group of rescuers had assembled, trying to clear a path to the inside. But Katniss already knew what they would find. If the crushing debris and the flames hadn't gotten them, the smoke had.
"Come on, Katniss. Haymitch says they can get a hovercraft in for us now," Gale said at her shoulder. But she couldn't seem to move.
"Why would they do that? Why would they target people who were already dying?" she asked him.
"Scare others off. Prevent the wounded from seeking help," said Gale. "Those people you met, they were expendable. To Snow, anyway. If the Capitol wins, what will it do with a bunch of damaged slaves?"
Katniss slowly turned her back to the hospital and found Cressida, flanked by the insects, standing a couple of yards in front of her. Her manner was unrattled. Cool even. "Katniss," she said, "President Snow just had them air the bombing live. Then he made an appearance to say that this was his way of sending a message to the rebels. What about you? Would you like to tell the rebels anything?"
"Yes," she whispered. The red blinking light on one of the cameras caught her eye. She was being recorded.
"Yes," she said more forcefully. Everyone was drawing away from her -- Gale, Cressida, the insects -- giving her the stage. But she stayed focused on the red light. "I want to tell the rebels that I am alive. That I'm right here in District Eight, where the Capitol has just bombed a hospital full of unarmed men, women, and children. There will be no survivors." The shock she had been feeling began to give way to fury. "I want to tell people that if you think for one second the Capitol will treat us fairly if there's a cease-fire, you're deluding yourself. Because you know who they
are and what they do." Her hands went out automatically, as if to indicate the whole horror around her. "This is what they do! And we must fight back!"
She was moving in toward the camera now, carried forward by her rage. "President Snow says he's sending us a message? Well, I have one for him. You can torture us and bomb us and burn our districts to the ground, but do you see that?" One of the cameras followed as she pointed to the planes burning on the roof of the warehouse across from them. The Capitol seal on a wing glowed clearly through the flames. "Fire is catching!" Katniss was shouting now, determined that Snow would not miss a word. "And if we burn, you burn with us!"
Her last words lingered in the air, until Cressida called, "Cut!" She gave Katniss a nod of approval. "That's a wrap."
[warning for violent images and battle scenarios! Stolen from Mockingjay, etc.]
Then she'd been given her bow. She didn't understand the technology, not at all, but it came alive in her hands, responding only to her voice. It would be useless in the hands of anyone else. With it came her suit -- an exquisitely tailored black bodysuit, the undersides of her arms white. She'd been shown where the little poison capsule's pocket was on her shoulder in case of enemy capture -- the pill had been named Nightlock, for her -- and she realized that Cinna had thought of everything.
And then she pushed that away, because she couldn't feel guilty over Cinna, too. She couldn't feel everyone's pain at once.
She'd tried to film a propo, and failed spectacularly -- a reminder of her stiffness during her first interviews with Caesar, as well. It was Haymitch who'd suggested she was only ever good in action -- Rue's death, drugging Peeta, the nightlock. This was how Panem saw her.
And that was how she'd ended up on a hovercraft, being lowered to the outskirts of District Eight.
The moment the last person disembarked, the equipment retracted. Then the craft lifted off and vanished. Katniss was left with a bodyguard made up of Gale, Boggs -- Coin's right-hand soldier -- and two other soldiers. The TV crew consisted of a pair of burly Capitol cameramen with heavy mobile cameras encasing their bodies like insect shells, a woman director named Cressida who had a shaved head tattooed with green vines, and her assistant, Messalla, a slim young man with several sets of earrings.
Boggs hustled them off the road toward a row of warehouses as a second hovercraft came in for a landing. This one brought crates of medical supplies and a crew of six medics -- Katniss could tell by their distinctive white outfits.
They all followed Boggs down an alley that ran between two dull gray warehouses. Only the occasional access ladder to the roof interrupted the scarred metal walls. When they emerged onto the street, it's was like entering another world.
The wounded from this morning's bombing were 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 was a scene from Katniss' old kitchen, where her mother treated the dying, multiplied by ten, by fifty, by a hundred. She had expected bombed-out buildings and instead found herself confronted with broken human bodies.
This was where they planned on filming her? She turned to Boggs. "This won't work," she said. "I won't be good here."
He must have seen the panic in her eyes, because he stopped a moment and placed his hands on her 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 caught sight of them, did a sort of double take, and then strode over over. Her dark brown eyes were puffy with fatigue and she smelled 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 dug into her neck and she shifted her shoulder to reposition it. With a jerk of her thumb, she ordered the medics into the
warehouse. They complied without question.
"This is Commander Paylor of Eight," said Boggs. "Commander, Soldier Katniss Everdeen."
"Yeah, I know who she is," said Paylor. "You're alive, then. We weren't sure." There was something like accusation in her voice.
"I'm still not sure myself," Katniss answered honestly.
"Been in recovery." Boggs tapped his head. "Bad concussion." He lowered his voice a moment. "Miscarriage. But she insisted on coming by to see your wounded."
"Well, we've got plenty of those," said Paylor.
"You think this is a good idea?" said Gale, frowning at the hospital. "Assembling your wounded like this?"
Katniss didn't. Any sort of contagious disease would spread like wildfire.
"I think it's slightly better than leaving them to die," said Paylor.
"That's not what I meant," Gale told 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 waved Katniss toward the door. "Come on in, Mockingjay. And by all means, bring your friends."
Katniss stepped through the curtain and her senses were assaulted. Her first impulse was to cover her nose to block out the stench of soiled linen, putrefying flesh, and vomit, all ripening in the heat of the warehouse. They had propped open skylights that crisscrossed the high metal roof, but any air that had managing to get in couldn't make a dent in the fog below. The thin shafts of sunlight provided the only illumination, and as her eyes adjusted, she could make out row upon row of wounded, in cots, on pallets, on the floor because there were so many to claim the space. The drone of black flies, the moaning of people in pain, and the sobs of their attending loved ones combined into a wrenching chorus.
"Katniss?" a voice croaked out from her left, breaking apart from the general din. "Katniss?" A hand reached for her out of the haze. She clung to it for support. Attached to the hand was a young woman with an injured leg. Blood has seeped through the heavy bandages, which are crawling with flies. Her face reflected her pain, but something else, too, something that seemed completely incongruous with her situation. "Is it really you?"
"Yeah, it's me," Katniss got out.
Joy. That was the expression on her face. At the sound of her voice, it brightened, erased the suffering momentarily.
"You're alive! We didn't know. People said you were, but we didn't know!" she said excitedly.
"I got pretty banged up. But I got better," Katniss said. "Just like you will."
"I've got to tell my brother!" The woman struggled to sit up and calls to someone a few beds down. "Eddy! Eddy! She's here! It's Katniss Everdeen!"
A boy, probably about twelve years old, turned to them. Bandages obscured half of his face. The side of his mouth Katniss could see opened as if to utter an exclamation. She went to him, pushed his damp brown curls back from his forehead. Murmured a greeting. He couldn't speak, but his one good eye fixed on her with such intensity, as if he was trying to memorize every detail of her face.
Katniss could hear her name rippling through the hot air, spreading out into the hospital. "Katniss! Katniss Everdeen!"
The sounds of pain and grief began to recede, to be replaced by words of anticipation. From all sides, voices beckoned her. She began to move, clasping the hands extended to her, touching the sound parts of those unable to move their limbs, saying hello, how are you, good to meet you. Nothing of importance, no amazing words of inspiration. But it didn't matter. Boggs was right. It was the sight of her, alive, that was the inspiration.
When they were outside again, Katniss leaned against the warehouse, catching her breath, accepting the canteen of water from Boggs. "You did great," he said.
Well, she hadn't thrown up or fainted. Mostly she'd ridden the wave of emotion through the place.
"We got some nice stuff in there," said Cressida. Katniss looked at the insect cameramen, perspiration pouring from under their equipment. Messalla scribbling notes. She had forgotten they were even filming her.
"I didn't do much, really," she said.
"You have to give yourself some credit for what you've done in the past," said Boggs.
At the thought of her past, Katniss' knees weakened, and she slid down the wall to sit. "That's a mixed bag."
"Well, you're not perfect by a long shot. But times being what they are, you'll have to do," said Boggs.
Gale squat down beside her, shaking his head. "I can't believe you let all those people touch you. I kept expecting you to make a break for the door."
"Shut up," she said with a laugh.
"Your mother's going to be very proud when she sees the footage," he said.
"My mother won't even notice me. She'll be too appalled by the conditions in there." she turned to Boggs and asked, "Is it like this in every district?"
"Yes. Most are under attack. We're trying to get in aid wherever we can, but it's not enough." He stopped a minute, distracted by something in his earpiece. Katniss realized she hadn't heard Haymitch's voice once, and fiddled with hers, wondering if it was broken. "We're to get to the airstrip. Immediately," Boggs said, lifting her to her feet with one hand. "There's a problem."
"What kind of problem?" asked Gale.
"Incoming bombers," said Boggs. He reached behind Katniss' neck and yanked Cinna's helmet up onto her head.
"Let's move!"
Unsure of what to do, Katniss took off running along the front of the warehouse, heading for the alley that led to the airstrip. But she didn't sense any immediate threat. The sky was an empty, cloudless blue. The street was clear except for the people hauling the wounded to the hospital. There was no enemy, no alarm. Then the sirens began to wail. Within seconds, a low-flying V-shaped formation of Capitol hoverplanes appeared above them, and the bombs began to fall.
Katniss was blown off her feet, into the front wall of the warehouse. There was a searing pain just above the back of herright knee. Something had struck her back as well, but didn't seem to have penetrated her vest. She tried to get up, but Boggs pushed her back down, shielding her body with his own. The ground rippled under her as bomb after bomb dropped from the planes and detonated.
"Katniss!" She was startled by Haymitch's voice in her ear.
"What? Yes, what? I'm here!" she answered.
"Listen to me. We can't land during the bombing, but it's imperative you're not spotted," he said.
"So they don't know I'm here?" She had assumed, as usual, it was her presence that brought on punishment.
"Intelligence thinks no. That this raid was already scheduled," said Haymitch.
Now Plutarch's voice came up, calm but forceful. The voice of a Head Gamemaker used to calling the shots under pressure. "There's a light blue warehouse three down from you. It has a bunker in the far north corner. Can you get there?"
"We'll do our best," said Boggs. Plutarch must have been in everyone's ear, because Katniss' bodyguards and crew were getting up.
"You've got maybe forty-five seconds to the next wave," said Plutarch.
Katniss gave a grunt of pain as her injured leg absorbed the weight of her body. No time to check the injury now, though. Boggs matched her slow pace, but everyone else stayed behind her, at her sides, protecting her. She could see the bunker, but they only made it to an alley before the next wave hit. This time it was Gale who threw his body over hers, protecting her as best he could.
"You all right?" he asked when it was nearly over, his words nearly drowned out by an explosion.
"Yeah. I don't think they've seen me," Katniss answered. "I mean, they're not following us."
"No, they've targeted something else," said Gale.
"I know, but there's nothing back there but--" The realization hit them both at the same time.
"The hospital." Instantly, Gale was up and shouting to the others. "They're targeting the hospital!"
"Not your problem," said Plutarch firmly. "Get to the bunker."
"But there's nothing there but the wounded!" Katniss said.
"Katniss." She could hear the warning note in Haymitch's voice and knew what was coming. "Don't you even think about--!" She yanked the earpiece free and let it hang from its wire. With that distraction gone, she could hear another sound.
Machine gun fire coming from the roof of the dirt brown warehouse across the alley. Someone was returning fire.
Before anyone could stop her, she made a dash for an access ladder and began to scale it. Climbing. One of the things she did best
"Don't stop!" she heard Gale say behind her. Katniss made the roof and dragged herself onto the tar. She stopped long enough to pull Gale up beside her, and then they took off for the row of machine gun nests on the street side of the warehouse. Each looked to be manned by a few rebels.
"Boggs know you're up here?" To her left, Katniss could see Paylor behind one of the guns, looking at them quizzically.
She tried to be evasive without flat-out lying. "He knows where we are, all right."
Paylor laughed. "I bet he does. You been trained in these?" She slapped the stock of her gun.
"I have. In Thirteen," said Gale. "But I'd rather use my own weapons."
"Yes, we've got our bows." Katniss held hers up, then realized how decorative it must have seemed. "It's more deadly than it looks."
"It would have to be," said Paylor. "All right. We expect at least three more waves. They have to drop their sight shields before they release the bombs. That's our chance. Stay low!" Katniss positioned herself to shoot from one knee.
There was no time for further discussion, as the planes appeared in a V formation. Katniss estimated the lead time on the hoverplanes and let her arrow fly. She caught the inside wing of one, causing it to burst into flames. Gale just missed the point plane. A fire bloomed on an empty warehouse roof across from us. He swore under his breath.
The hoverplane Katniss had hit swerved out of formation, but still released its bombs. It didn't disappear, though.
Neither did one other she assumed was hit by gunfire. The damage must have prevented the sight shield from reactivating.
"Good shot," said Gale.
"I wasn't even aiming for that one," she muttered. "They're faster than
we think."
"Positions!" Paylor shouted. The next wave of hoverplanes was appearing already.
Katniss and Gale, through mutual agreement, loaded their Beetee-crafted explosive-tipped arrows. Those warehouses across the way looked deserted anyway.
As the planes swept silently in, she made another decision. "I'm standing!" she shouted to Gale, and rose to her feet.
This was the position she got the best accuracy from. She led earlier and scored a direct hit on the point plane, blasting a hole in its belly. Gale blew the tail off a second. It flipped and crashed into the street, setting off a series of explosions as its cargo went off.
Without warning, a third V formation unveiled. This time, Gale squarely hit the point plane. Katniss took the wing off the second bomber, causing it to spin into the one behind it. Together they collided into the roof of the warehouse across from the hospital. A fourth went down from gunfire.
"All right, that's it," Paylor said.
Flames and heavy black smoke from the wreckage obscured their view. "Did they hit the hospital?"
"Must have," Paylor said grimly.
As Katniss hurred toward the ladders at the far end of the warehouse, the sight of Messalla and one of the insects emerging from behind an air duct surprised me. She had thought they'd have been hunkered down in the alley.
"They're growing on me," said Gale.
Katniss scrambled down a ladder. When her feet hit the ground, she found a bodyguard, Cressida, and the other insect waiting. She expected resistance, but Cressida just waved her toward the hospital. She was yelling, "I don't care, Plutarch! Just give me five more minutes!" Not one to question a free pass, Katniss took off into the street.
.
"Oh, no," she whispered as she caught sight of the hospital. What used to be the hospital. She moved past the wounded, past the burning plane wrecks, fixated on the disaster ahead of her. People screaming, running about frantically, but unable to help. The bombs collapsed the hospital roof and set the building on fire, effectively trapping the patients within. A group of rescuers had assembled, trying to clear a path to the inside. But Katniss already knew what they would find. If the crushing debris and the flames hadn't gotten them, the smoke had.
"Come on, Katniss. Haymitch says they can get a hovercraft in for us now," Gale said at her shoulder. But she couldn't seem to move.
"Why would they do that? Why would they target people who were already dying?" she asked him.
"Scare others off. Prevent the wounded from seeking help," said Gale. "Those people you met, they were expendable. To Snow, anyway. If the Capitol wins, what will it do with a bunch of damaged slaves?"
Katniss slowly turned her back to the hospital and found Cressida, flanked by the insects, standing a couple of yards in front of her. Her manner was unrattled. Cool even. "Katniss," she said, "President Snow just had them air the bombing live. Then he made an appearance to say that this was his way of sending a message to the rebels. What about you? Would you like to tell the rebels anything?"
"Yes," she whispered. The red blinking light on one of the cameras caught her eye. She was being recorded.
"Yes," she said more forcefully. Everyone was drawing away from her -- Gale, Cressida, the insects -- giving her the stage. But she stayed focused on the red light. "I want to tell the rebels that I am alive. That I'm right here in District Eight, where the Capitol has just bombed a hospital full of unarmed men, women, and children. There will be no survivors." The shock she had been feeling began to give way to fury. "I want to tell people that if you think for one second the Capitol will treat us fairly if there's a cease-fire, you're deluding yourself. Because you know who they
are and what they do." Her hands went out automatically, as if to indicate the whole horror around her. "This is what they do! And we must fight back!"
She was moving in toward the camera now, carried forward by her rage. "President Snow says he's sending us a message? Well, I have one for him. You can torture us and bomb us and burn our districts to the ground, but do you see that?" One of the cameras followed as she pointed to the planes burning on the roof of the warehouse across from them. The Capitol seal on a wing glowed clearly through the flames. "Fire is catching!" Katniss was shouting now, determined that Snow would not miss a word. "And if we burn, you burn with us!"
Her last words lingered in the air, until Cressida called, "Cut!" She gave Katniss a nod of approval. "That's a wrap."
[warning for violent images and battle scenarios! Stolen from Mockingjay, etc.]