suzanna-kollinz-acliq-oyunlari-1-hisse-eng

of black fabric. Doctors in sterile white, masked and gloved,
already prepped to operate, go into action. Peeta’s so pale and
still on a silver table, tubes and wires springing out of him
every which way, and for a moment I forget we’re out of the
Games and I see the doctors as just one more threat, one more
pack of mutts designed to kill him. Petrified, I lunge for him,
but I’m caught and thrust back into another room, and a glass
door seals between us. I pound on the glass, screaming my
head off. Everyone ignores me except for some Capitol attendant
who appears behind me and offers me a beverage.
I slump down on the floor, my face against the door, staring
uncomprehendingly at the crystal glass in my hand. Icy cold,
filled with orange juice, a straw with a frilly white collar. How
wrong it looks in my bloody, filthy hand with its dirt-caked
nails and scars. My mouth waters at the smell, but I place it
carefully on the floor, not trusting anything so clean and pretty.
Through the glass, I see the doctors working feverishly on
Peeta, their brows creased in concentration. I see the flow of
liquids, pumping through the tubes, watch a wall of dials and
lights that mean nothing to me. I’m not sure, but I think his
heart stops twice.
It’s like being home again, when they bring in the hopelessly
mangled person from the mine explosion, or the woman in
her third day of labor, or the famished child struggling against
pneumonia and my mother and Prim, they wear that same
look on their faces. Now is the time to run away to the woods,
to hide in the trees until the patient is long gone and in anoth-
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