第60章

  i ask.
  "no." a long time passes before he adds, "she crept up on me."
  i search my heart, but at the moment the only person i can feel creeping up on me is snow.
  it must be midnight, it must be tomorrow when haymitch pushes open the door. "they're back. we're wanted in the hospital." my mouth opens with a flood of questions that he cuts off with "that's all i know."
  i want to run, but finnick's acting so strange, as if he's lost the ability to move, so i take his hand and lead him like a small child. through special defense, into the elevator that goes this way and that, and on to the hospital wing. the place is in an uproar, with doctors shouting orders and the wounded being wheeled through the halls in their beds.
  we're sideswiped by a gurney bearing an unconscious, emaciated young woman with a shaved head. her flesh shows bruises and oozing scabs. johanna mason. who actually knew rebel secrets. at least the one about me. and this is how she has paid for it.
  through a doorway, i catch a glimpse of gale, stripped to the waist, perspiration streaming down his face as a doctor removes something from under his shoulder blade with a long pair of tweezers. wounded, but alive. i call his name, start toward him until a nurse pushes me back and shuts me out.
  "finnick!" something between a shriek and a cry of joy. a lovely if somewhat bedraggled young woman--dark tangled hair, sea green eyes--runs toward us in nothing but a sheet. "finnick!" and suddenly, it's as if there's no one in the world but these two, crashing through space to reach each other. they collide, enfold, lose their balance, and slam against a wall, where they stay. clinging into one being. indivisible.
  a pang of jealousy hits me. not for either finnick or annie but for their certainty. no one seeing them could doubt their love.
  boggs, looking a little worse for wear but uninjured, finds haymitch and me. "we got them all out. except enobaria. but since she's from two, we doubt she's being held anyway. peeta's at the end of the hall. the effects of the gas are just wearing off. you should be there when he wakes."
  peeta.
  alive and well--maybe not well but alive and here. away from snow. safe. here. with me. in a minute i can touch him. see his smile. hear his laugh.
  haymitch's grinning at me. "come on, then," he says.
  i'm light-headed with giddiness. what will i say? oh, who cares what i say? peeta will be ecstatic no matter what i do. he'll probably be kissing me anyway. i wonder if it will feel like those last kisses on the beach in the arena, the ones i haven't dared let myself consider until this moment.
  peeta's awake already, sitting on the side of the bed, looking bewildered as a trio of doctors reassure him, flash lights in his eyes, check his pulse. i'm disappointed that mine was not the first face he saw when he woke, but he sees it now. his features register disbelief and something more intense that i can't quite place. desire? desperation? surely both, for he sweeps the doctors aside, leaps to his feet, and moves toward me. i run to meet him, my arms extended to embrace him. his hands are reaching for me, too, to caress my face, i think.
  my lips are just forming his name when his fingers lock around my throat.
  chapter 13
  the cold collar chafes my neck and makes the shivering even harder to control. at least i am no longer in the claustrophobic tube, while the machines click and whir around me, listening to a disembodied voice telling me to hold still while i try to convince myself i can still breathe. even now, when i've been assured there will be no permanent damage, i hunger for air.
  the medical team's main concerns--damage to my spinal cord, airway, veins, and arteries--have been allayed. bruising, hoarseness, the sore larynx, this strange little cough--not to be worried about. it will all be fine. the mockingjay will not lose her voice. where, i want to ask, is the doctor who determines if i am losing my mind?