CHAPTER fourty-nine| THE BOY

Billie Eilish~ Bury a friend
❝why aren't you scared of me? Why do you care for me?❞

➳

WARNING: MENTIONS
OF A SEIZURE

KATNISS HAD BEEN forced to wear a neck brace for a while. It did not look comfortable but for some reason, her raven hair tumbled passed it so elegantly that I had to remind myself that she was not comfortable every time I saw her turn her head. She looked at ease, although never peaceful, and as she glanced from me to yet another doctor there was a hint of relief within her.

The white brace was stripped from her neck by the Velcro straps as she watched me fiddle with my fingers. I wanted to offer her some kind of assistance or even just fill the space that she left open because she couldn't speak but I never quite did it; Dr. Grainger insisted that my uneasiness was a deep rooted problem that was created when I lied to the whole of Panem. I half knew that- it wasn't a fear, but I couldn't bring myself to speak to people without making sure that I knew what I would be saying was real.

Still, there was a strangely comfortable silence in the room as Katniss adjusted to the way she felt without with brace binding her neck together. At first she swallowed the thick lump in her throat and then she tried to breathe out of her mouth with little success; the wheezing reminded me of a toy that was deflating slowly. It made me want to wince, but I could not do something so obviously uncomfortable.

I stood up so that I could examine the bruises on her neck as the doctor put the brace on a nearby metal table. The area was tender and blue but it was not as bad as it was, and I could tell in Katniss's heart of hearts she was not at all angry at Peeta for what he did. I wished then that Finnick looked the same when he glanced at me- there was something within me that was so sure that he was angry with me. I had wondered what I had done; I wished some days that he would stop pretending and just tell me what it was that was so wrong with us now.

I wished that there was a way that I could show him that I could handle it.

Katniss recoiled when the Doctor touched her neck, and then the woman seemed to wince at her own actions.

"Ok, ok I'm sorry I know it is a little tender." She dissmissed as she tried to gently touch the bruises. I was yet to see why I was with the girl from 12 but I patiently waited in the white room with my eyes trained on anything but the walls- I hated the idea of the white walls more than Katniss seemed to hate the woman that was carelessly watching her try to function properly.

"Ok let's try your voice now." The woman decided. "My name is Katniss Everdeen, and I'm from District 12."

Katniss glanced at me as she tried to summon her voice. She looked worried, then distressed as her dusty vocals just about managed to scrape through her vocal chords and out her mouth.

"My-" she wheezed slowly.

"Ok take your time." The woman acknowledged when she heard how weak Katniss' voice was. "You've still got a lot of swelling in your vocal chords."

In a funny way seeing Katniss made me feel better. I was not the only mess, not when the other leader of the rebellion could hardly form a coherent sentence that could be heard by someone meters away. I hated the fact that I had become so selfish but somehow the scraty way she tried to repeat her name again made my head lift from the stone floor to watch her.

Plutarch glanced towards me as she finished her struggle. He looked almost giddy, but I was still unsure as to why I was in the room with them both. I did not want to be in here alone- for once I missed the patter of somebody's awaiting foot behind me as I finished off a task.

"I want to see him." Katniss tried as she turned to look at Heavensbee. Her voice was still weak but every now and then she would get a moment of clarity when her voice returned and each time I found myself wincing at the sound of it.

"He needs time." Plutarch reminded the Girl on Fire. "But, um we're trying something new today, and he's been calmer with the doctors. But we're strangers to him so, we're going to test his response with someone he trusts. Someone that can relate to him."

The hairs on the back of my neck stood abruptly when I felt the two look towards me. Whatever food that was in my stomach dropped to my feet as did the feeling of comfort inside me- panic began to rise up into my throat and bubble at the surface of my already too hot skin. I knew what they wanted, I remembered the last conversation I had with the boy and it left me utterly afraid to see him again. Not for Katniss, I could hardly handle people that were stable.

"No." I choked as I stopped leaning on the concrete wall. " Not Peeta- I-I don't know what that would do to me."

"Lorna, you are the only one that had a close enough relationship to him for this to work. You saw him in there; to him you are the only one that understands how he feels. It's a logical option and Dr. Granger had already confirmed that it would not damage your own recovery." Plutarch tried to reason.

I did not look at the man, instead I watched Katniss as she silently argued her case. It was not loud or obnoxious, it did not dissmiss the way I rubbed my perminantly rough skin or how I seemed to have panicked at the idea of it; she simply let me see the feeling that she had been holding in for years. It felt raw, vunderable, and it felt like she had kicked me in my stomach with my own selfishness.

"Please... Lorna. I need to know." Katniss whispered.

I felt sick and suddenly I wanted to see my brother. He would tell me what to do, I knew for sure that he would tell me that I could do it for Katniss and yet my brain was adamant that it was too far. Peeta was the past but right now, he was Katniss' future- the girl that had done so much to save me from the Capitol in the first place.

I hated what I had to do.

➳

The door into the white room was reinforced with enough steel to break my fingers if they got stuck between the door and the wall, and the luminous lighting bounced off the walls just as much as it had when I had entered his cage in the Capitol. There was something toxic in the air as two guards with actual faces opened the door and as I stepped into the room the air seemed to have worsened.

I knew where the windows were, and I managed to find them before I caught sight of the haunting skellington of Peeta Mellark. In the tall enforced glass I could see the eyes of Katniss and Heavensbee but also I could see Remy; the toxicity of the room dropped to below zero. He was plain in the grey t-shirt he wore but I could see the colour within him as he kept his eyes trained on the poor boy in the bed.

"Peeta." I muttered when I saw him glance at me. He did not looked deranged- he was not that much different from when I saw him the last time but now there were ropes between us, and a long distance between him and everyone that he loved.

"Lorna." Peeta marvelled. He glanced at the empty space beside his bed as if he was inviting me to sit down next to him. I tried not to glance at the glass for reassurance as I sat down; somehow I felt like he did not want to hurt me.

The bed was softer than mine. It was padded and the pillow that was placed behind his neck looked like it was filled enough for it to be bursting around his head. I was happy that he got to feel a form of comfort- that was the only difference in his situation from how I had found him before.

"Where are we." Peeta asked as his voice cracked.

"We live in District 13 now Peeta, they saved us. The people you told me about, they reminded me of everything- thanks to you I got to remember again." I recalled as Peeta also glanced at the glass. There was happiness within him when he realised that he had done something good, his fingers crawled along the bed sheet until they caught the ends of my own hand to hold. I let him hold my hand, if not to make him feel at home so that I didn't have to think about something else.

"My family hasn't come to see me." Peeta confessed when he looked at me again. His eyes were black- I cleared my throat silently to make sure that I did not step too far out of his comfort zone.

"Peeta-"

"There was an attack on Twelve." He muttered as he looked ahead of me and towards the wall. It took me by surprise but it also made my head spike with an uncontrollable ache as my chest tightened.

"And Five." I agreed with him as I tried to gently take my hand out of his grip. I did not make it that far.

"My family." He repeated.

I could not tell him what he wanted to hear and that made my heart crack a little bit within my chest- I remembered the pain that encased me when I lost my family all too well. I did not wish that on anyone, let alone someone that had so much love within him like Peeta had, so I shook my head as I tried to gather the right thoughts to make it ok again.

"They couldn't survive. I-I'm so sorry." I whispered.

His breaths were shaky when he looked away again and subtly pulled his eyebrows down towards his eyes where the blue circles were defined. Then he seemed to straighten up, his face became unresponsive and I could not help but feel like it was not Peeta that was sitting in front of me anymore. It was not his thoughts that had run through his brain.

"It's Katniss." Peeta muttered. "It's because of Katniss."

"No." I disagreed to make him look at me. Deranged still did not describe him, but he was no longer sane.

"Did she tell you to say that? After what you had to endure because of her?" Peeta asked.

I shook my head- then I watched as his chest began to rise higher than it had when I was talking to him before.

"No, Katniss has told me nothing; she can bearly speak." I answered him as I squeezed my hand that was not still being held tightly enough for it not to shake.

"She's a liar Lorna, she's a trick."

"It isn't real- Peeta look what Snow did to me. He can do anything to us, even make us hate the ones we love the most." I tried to convince him despiratly as he looked more and more like an animal.

His grip on my fingers tightened so that the ends began to go white as he seemed to realise something- the sickness that had engulfed him spread into his black eyes; he finally fit the word that people had been labelling him with. Deranged.

"She sent you hear to talk to me." Peeta accused as I tried to slip my fingers out of his hold. "She knows you're here now."

"No-"

"You can't trust her! She's a monster!" Peeta shouted as he hit his restraints.

I managed to slip my fingers out of his hold, just before he looked at me and his fists tightened even further. It would of broken my fingers- maybe even my hand- if I had let him keep me where I had been. Suddenly Peeta was not the only one that was panicked- my heart was beating in my ears.

"She is a mutt the Capitol created to destroy us. Do you understand me? YOU HAVE TO KILL HER LORNA. PLEASE."

Peeta silenced himself on his own as the door behind me was pulled open. I was in the middle of the two- then the boy from 12 opened his mouth and screamed a word so loudly that it made me throw my hands over my innocent ears.

"Fire."

The word caught my attention; my body began to convulse as I lost control of everything around me and what it was that kept me stuck to the concrete floor. I fell, my muscles spasmed without my consent, until I felt blood begin to build at the edge of my mouth. Then I realised that I had bitten my tongue- my eyes rapidly scanned the room as consciousness became another form of a window that I could watch everything around me through. I could not stop, the panic inside of me was almost unrecognisable compared to all of the new sensations.

She's having a seizure!

••••••••••
2222 words.

I would like to make sure that I am clear: I have never experience a seizure unlike the other delicate mental illness that I have mentioned in this series- I do not know what it truly makes the person feel. I have, however put many hours into researching seizures and their impact on the body and after a lot of inner turmoil, decided to add this experience into the book.

If you have experienced seizures and are open to sharing, then please contact me. I want to make sure that I am representing a serious issue and that I am not trivializing the experience and horror it can give a person. There won't me much of it that is mentioned- I just want to make sure that I can take this subject delicately.

Also, this is for i_get_so_triggered who needed another chapter to read ;l