Chapter 13

                                    

                                          
No more than a couple of minutes have passed by the time I come to, but it's long enough that I can sense something has changed. A palpable shift.
A sharp, visceral pain shoots through my abdomen, and the thick, tangy scent of blood hangs in the air. I don't need to look down to know that I'm the source, though I'm not exactly sure why.
I whip my head from side to side, trying to gain some sort of understanding of what just happened, but the scene before me makes no sense. Boggs kneels beside me, knuckles bleeding as he tries to calm me down and regulate my breathing while he calls for help. Haymitch stands in the corner, eyes wide in shock, unmoving. And Peeta...
I let out a choked sob as I extend my hand out, reaching desperately for my husband's unconscious, emaciated body. There's a dark bruise already blooming on his temple, no doubt where somebody—Boggs probably—knocked him out before he could do any real damage.
But invisible hands reach for me before I can get to him. They lift me onto some sort of stretcher as Plutarch rushes in the room and begins speaking to Haymitch in hushed tones. Haymitch stares blankly at some point on the wall while Plutarch worriedly relays some sort of information on Peeta's status, though the only word my ears manage to pick up as I'm carried out of the room is hijacked. Peeta's been hijacked. I don't know what that means. I don't know what any of this means.
I must be asleep. Yes, that's it. I must be asleep, and this must be my nightmare, because in no waking world would the Peeta I know ever have done what he just did.
The medics wheel me into a room full of doctors and expensive-looking machines. It is here that I'm fitted with a freezing cold neck brace and placed in a claustrophobic tube where the machines click and whir around me as I listen to a disembodied voice telling me to hold still, all while I try to convince myself I can still breathe.
Another searing jolt of pain radiates through my gut and I double over, clutching my stomach. That's when I see the blood. All over my jumpsuit. And so much of it. 
I want to scream or cry or at the very least beg for Prim or Haymitch or Finnick or someone to be there with me, but all that comes out is a choked wheeze. Strangers come to hold me down but I thrash against their touch, gasping for air until I feel the inevitable jab of sedative in my arm and slump back against the gurney, my wheezes slowly turning to whimpers. Nobody notices the stray tear that escapes the corner of my eye, streaking down my cheek.
They dull everything, the drugs, and depress my breathing enough for the doctors to analyze the damage Peeta has done. The medical team seems pleased with themselves, as their 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. Not permanently, at least.
A very alarmed Dr. Stein suddenly appears in the doorway, Prim in tow, and directs the team to move me to the operating room. Immediately.
The other doctors hesitate for a moment, as they'd prefer to monitor my breathing for a while longer, but Dr. Stein insists and starts to push the gurney herself before a team of medics take over. 
"Oh, Katniss," my sister mumbles. Her voice is as soft as the petals of the primrose for which she was named, and just as delicate.
She grips my hand tightly as I'm wheeled through a maze of brightly lit hallways while Dr. Stein frantically tries to explain what is happening to me. The pills had been working as planned, but the most recent trauma on my body has caused complications that are inducing severe hemorrhaging; she informs me she has no choice but to perform something she refers to as a surgical evacuation.