still trying to make sense of it. “No one would tell us anything. We were so hungry. It was just one slice she took.”
Octavia begins to sob, muffling the sound in her ragged tunic. I think of how, the first time I survived the arena, Octavia sneaked me a roll under the table because she couldn’t bear my hunger. I crawl across to her shaking form. “Octavia?” I touch her and she flinches. “Octavia? It’s going to be all right. I’ll get you out of here, okay?”
“This seems extreme,” says Plutarch.
“It’s because they took a slice of bread?” asks Gale.
“There were repeated infractions leading up to that. They were warned. Still they took more bread.” The guard pauses a moment, as if puzzled by our density. “You can’t take bread.”
I can’t get Octavia to uncover her face, but she lifts it slightly. The shackles on her wrists shift down a few inches, revealing raw sores beneath them. “I’m bringing you to my mother.” I address the guard. “Unchain them.”
The guard shakes his head. “It’s not authorized.”
“Unchain them! Now!” I yell.
This breaks his composure. Average citizens don’t address him this way. “I have no release orders. And you have no authority to—”
“Do it on my authority,” says Plutarch. “We came to collect these three anyway. They’re needed for Special Defense. I’ll take full responsibility.”
The guard leaves to make a call. He returns with a set of keys. The preps have been forced into cramped body positions for so long that even once the shackles are removed, they have trouble walking. Gale, Plutarch, and I have to help them. Flavius’s foot catches on a metal grate over a circular opening in the floor, and my stomach contracts when I think of why a room would need a drain. The stains of human misery that must have been hosed off these white tiles…
In the hospital, I find my mother, the only one I trust to care for them. It takes her a minute to place the three, given their current condition, but already she wears a look of consternation. And I know it’s not a result of seeing abused bodies, because they were her daily fare in District 12, but the realization that this sort of thing goes on in 13 as well.
My mother was welcomed into the hospital, but she’s viewed as more of a nurse than a doctor, despite her lifetime of healing. Still, no one interferes when she guides the trio into an examination room to assess their injuries. I plant myself on a bench in the hall outside the hospital entrance, waiting to hear her verdict. She will be able to read in their bodies the pain inflicted upon them.
Gale sits next to me and puts an arm around my shoulder. “She’ll fix them up.” I give a nod, wondering if he’s thinking about his own brutal flogging back in 12.
Plutarch and Fulvia take the bench across from us but don’t offer any comments on the state of my prep team. If they had no knowledge of the mistreatment, then what do they make of this move on President Coin’s part? I decide to help them out.
“I guess we’ve all been put on notice,” I say.
“What? No. What do you mean?” asks Fulvia.
“Punishing my prep team’s a warning,” I tell her. “Not just to me. But to you, too. About who’s really in control and what happens if she’s not obeyed. If you had any delusions about having power, I’d let them go now. Apparently, a Capitol pedigree is no protection here. Maybe it’s even a liability.”
“There is no comparison between Plutarch, who masterminded the rebel breakout, and those three beauticians,” says Fulvia icily.
I shrug. “If you say so, Fulvia. But what would happen if you got on Coin’s bad side? My prep team was kidnapped. They can at least hope to one day return to the Capitol. Gale and I can live in the woods. But you? Where would you two run?”
“Perhaps we’re a little more necessary to the war effort than you give us credit for,” says Plutarch, unconcerned.
“Of course you are. The tributes were necessary to the Games, too. Until they weren’t,” I say. “And then we were very disposable—right, Plutarch?”
That ends the conversation. We wait in silence until my mother finds us. “They’ll be all right,” she reports. “No permanent physical injuries.”
“Good. Splendid,” says Plutarch. “How soon can they be put to work?”
“Probably tomorrow,” she answers. “You’ll have to expect some emotional instability, after what