Previously, in Panem:
“Lois isn’t buried here, Clark,” Beetee said.
“What?!” Clark looked at him, stunned. “But … but …” He stood up, pointing to the grave marker, his face showing his confusion.
“After the bodies were returned to their districts the day after the Games, I went to the cemetery to see Lois’s body,” Sam said. “The caretaker let me in.”
“We would never have allowed him to go in by himself,” Beetee added.
“I opened the casket, and — it wasn’t Lois inside,” Sam continued. “I had planned to put her token in the casket with her, but then — it wasn’t her.”
Shocked, Clark asked, “Who was it?” His eyes were wide with dread. What had happened to Lois’s body? Had it been taken for experimentation, perhaps to make muttations? Had it been dumped in the wilderness for animals to devour?
“Clover Mildsmith, the girl from District 12,” Beetee said.
“Lucy said she wasn’t allowed to put Lois’s token in her casket because her body was too badly deteriorated,” Clark said, realizing something. “But she’d only been dead for one day, not long enough to break down that much …”
“Clover’s body was deteriorated,” Beetee said. “Even with refrigerator units, she’d been dead for almost two weeks, and the electricity on those units went out frequently this year, because no one had serviced the hovercraft before sending it to the arena.”
“But why was Clover’s body sent here?” Clark asked. “What about her family in District 12?”
“Tribute funerals are rarely open casket in District 12,” Beetee told Clark. “Their tributes are killed early in the Games so often that it wouldn’t be a good idea. We knew there was little chance that her family would try to see her, and Haymitch agreed.”
“But why was she sent here?” Clark asked again. “Wouldn’t her family have been upset if they had opened the casket and found a strange girl inside?” He remembered Clover. Aside from being close in height, the skinny, blonde-haired girl had looked nothing like Lois. There would have been no mistaking the fact that the wrong body had been sent. “And why did Haymitch agree to it? Is this some kind of sick joke?!”
“I asked that myself,” Sam said, “when I went to Victor’s Village to find out what had happened. All of the mentors are supposed to sign off on the caskets to make sure the correct bodies are sent back to their districts. With four mentors, there should have been no mistake. And yet, somehow, the wrong body had been shipped to District 3.
“I was angry when I reached Victor’s Village, but after the four victors and I met in Beetee’s house — the only one we could be sure had no bugs — and they explained what had happened, I understood.”
“And you were okay with that?” Clark demanded. “Okay with the fact that your daughter is buried in District 12, far away from everyone who cared for her? Okay with the fact that your living daughter thinks she’s buried here?”
“She’s not buried …” Wiress started.
“Not buried?! What happened to her, then? Where is her body?!” Clark clenched his fists angrily. Nothing made sense, and no one was giving him a straight answer.
Sam’s next words changed everything. “Lois isn’t buried in District 12, or anywhere else.” He put up a hand to stop Clark’s angry response. “Clark, Lois is alive.”
And now:
Chapter Forty-Seven
For a moment, Clark could only stare at Sam, his mouth hanging open in shock. Myriad emotions ran through him — hope, joy, disbelief. Then his eyes narrowed suspiciously.
“I don’t believe you,” he told Sam. “I heard the cannon go off! She was lying there, not moving at all. Her heart wasn’t beating. There’s no way she’s alive.”
“She was suffering from severe hypothermia,” Sam told him. “In some cases, hypothermia can lower the heartrate until it’s almost undetectable. The sensor in the tracker tells the cannon to go off after six seconds with no heartbeat. In severe cases of hypothermia, the heartrate can drop to as little as five to ten beats per minute — which would fool the sensor into declaring a person dead.”
Clark was still suspicious, but hope was beginning to break through again. He hadn’t thought Lois might survive being frozen, so he’d stopped listening for her heartbeat after the cannon had gone off — there had been no reason to listen anymore.
He had frozen a few living things before. When his ability to freeze things with his breath had been developing, he’d tried freezing a section of a creek to see what would happen and had accidentally frozen a few fish in the process. Having heard that fish could sometimes be saved after being frozen, he had quickly rewarmed the water, but there had been no reviving the fish.
He had also once frozen a nest of tracker jackers after the muttation insects had tried to attack him when he was picking fruit out of the top of their tree. They had been nothing more than a nuisance to Clark, killing themselves when they attempted to sting him, but they were a potentially deadly threat to every person and animal in the vicinity, so he had frozen the nest, then knocked it to the ground and watched it shatter into tiny pieces. Not a single insect had survived.
It had never occurred to Clark that a person might survive being frozen. He could put out fires, freeze meat, and kill fish and insects with his freeze breath — what chance would a person have against it? Yet, if Sam was telling the truth, Lois had survived what he’d done to her.
He looked at Beetee and Wiress, who were nodding in agreement. Beetee pulled a device from his pocket and clicked a few buttons. Satisfied with what he saw on the screen, he nodded and handed it to Clark.
There was a photograph of Lois on the small screen of the device — but not as she had looked when Clark had last seen her. Her hair, which had been filthy and matted in spite of her efforts to finger-comb and braid it in the arena, had been cut short. She was too thin, but not as thin as she had been in the arena. Instead of the filthy, blood-stained tribute uniform she’d worn in the arena, she was dressed in a gray shirt that hung off of her skinny frame.
Lois’s eyes held the same thousand-yard stare that Clark had seen in himself and other victors, but she didn’t appear to be in pain. She just looked tired, with dark circles under her eyes and lines of exhaustion on her face — but she was alive. There was no doubt of that.
Clark looked up at Beetee, then back at the picture, half-afraid that it would prove to be an illusion. “But — but how? I saw the hovercraft pick her up. How did she escape? And where is she now?”
“The picture was taken the day she arrived in District 13,” Sam said, “and sent electronically to Beetee, who showed it to the rest of us as proof that she’d made it.”
“So it’s real!” Clark exclaimed. “District 13 really does still exist.”
The others looked at each other uneasily. “You’ve … heard rumors about District 13?” Beetee asked.
Realizing that he might have said too much, Clark replied, “I … I’ve seen the mockingjay in the newscasts. It’s always the same …”
“Not many people notice it.” Sam looked at Clark apprehensively, wondering what the young victor knew and whether they should have told him that Lois was alive.
“My father pointed it out to me,” Clark said quickly, “and after that I wondered if the news footage might be fake, especially after I noticed how details got changed after my Games to make things look … different.”
Wiress nodded. “Yes … changed … often.”
Beetee and Sam still looked uneasy, but decided to go ahead. “As to where Lois is …”
*****
With the victor safely out of the way, the claw was slowly lowered from the hovercraft that would carry the dead tributes back to the Capitol. Gently, it reached into the cave and picked up Lois’s body, bringing it inside the hovercraft.
The motion dislodged the poncho that had covered Lois’s face, leaving it open to the warming air and sunshine for a moment before the claw retreated into the hovercraft and the doors closed.
The two Avoxes who were in charge of the deceased tributes hurried to move the body from the claw to a nearby gurney. With the Games over, there was no need to refrigerate the final body — they would be back in the Capitol in less than an hour.
The first Avox, a young man from District 1 who had made the unforgivable mistake of speaking out against the Games after his girlfriend’s sister had been killed in them a few years ago, went to lift the body from the claw.
He recoiled at how cold it was. The last two bodies had been cold, but not like this. The still, silent girl in front of him was as cold as if she’d been placed in a freezer. He crossed himself, a common gesture in the part of District 1 he had come from, and waved to his partner, gesturing to him to come closer.
The second Avox, a middle-aged man who had once been a teacher in the Capitol, but who had also made the mistake of speaking out against the Games, pushed the gurney over and went to see what was wrong. He touched Lois’s body and knew immediately that this was one of the things that they should never mention.
The two Avoxes had been assigned to collect the bodies of dead tributes as further punishment for speaking out against the Games. They did their best to treat the bodies of the dead with respect — it was the only thing they could do for them — but sometimes a death was so terrible or so bizarre that they silently agreed never to mention it in any way, both for their own sakes and for the sakes of the tributes’ families. There were some things about the Games that were best forgotten.
Shaking his head, the second Avox wrapped the poncho around Lois’s lower half and gestured for the other Avox to do the same. With the poncho protecting their hands from the inexplicably cold body, they picked Lois up and set her on the gurney, quickly strapping the body in place to keep it from falling off in turbulence.
The two men pushed the gurney into its place and secured it. Then the teacher put a hand up to the young man from District 1, pointing to Lois, shaking his head, and making a zipping motion over his lips, indicating that what they had found should never be mentioned in any way.
The District 1 Avox nodded in agreement. In the three years they had worked together, taking care of the bodies of the deceased, they had seen some disturbing things, the sort of things that were never shown on television, but Lois’s cold body — too cold even for the artificially chilled arena — was one they had never seen before.
As the hovercraft sped up, they hurried to take their seats, steeling themselves against the next part of their grim annual task — helping the tribute nurses unload the bodies and bring them to the morgue in the lowest level of the Training Center, where the tribute doctor would give each body a nominal examination and watch the footage that showed each tribute’s death, then fill out their death certificates.
The Avoxes’ seats faced a blank wall, away from the refrigerator units and the gurney containing the last body. As such, neither noticed that the final corpse was breathing.
*****
Cold. Thirst.
Those were the first things Lois became aware of as she began to regain consciousness. She was colder than she had ever been in her life, and as thirsty as if she hadn’t had a drink in days.
Maybe a sponsor will send some hot chocolate, or some coffee. That would be nice. Even some tea. Or maybe Clark can heat some water on the fire. Hot water would be warm, at least.
The fire must have gone out, though. I wouldn’t be so cold if it were still burning. Still, even cold water would taste good. Maybe Clark could lower his glasses and stare at it like he was looking for something. The water always seemed warmer then.
Lois opened her eyes slowly, looking in confusion at the fluorescent lights overhead. Where was she? What had happened to the cave? Where was Clark?
She must have been dreaming, but she was still cold and thirsty — and sleepy. More than anything, she wanted to go back to sleep — but some deep instinct told her that it would be fatal to do so. She had to stay awake.
Where is Clark? Lois wondered. She wasn’t in the arena anymore — was she? But if she wasn’t in the arena, then she must be the victor, and that meant —
No. Lois shook her head violently, banging it against the metal table she was lying on. Clark couldn’t be dead. He’d been fine when she’d seen him, crouching over her with the knife in his hand.
Confused, she lifted her hands to touch her throat, then her chest, then her stomach. There were no injuries. Hadn’t Clark been preparing to kill her when she’d closed her eyes? He couldn’t be dead — not unless …
Impossible. Lois shook her head again, growing more alert as she did so. Clark wouldn’t have killed himself so she could live. He barely knew her — and she was sure he knew the consequences for his family and friends if he committed suicide in the arena. There had to be some other explanation.
They must still be in the arena, or in a Launch Room below the arena — though she wondered dimly how Clark had gotten them past the force field and down into one of the rooms. She must have lost consciousness, and Clark had gotten them somewhere with supplies, and that was how she was still alive. He would be back any moment now.
Where’s my poncho? she wondered. I’d be warmer if I had it. She was wearing only her torn, filthy tribute uniform. Even her shoes were gone. Her feet were bare, cold, blood-stained — and when she moved her feet, she vaguely felt something hit the bottom of one foot.
A tag was attached to one toe.
A tag?
Suddenly, Lois realized where she was. This wasn’t the arena, or a Launch Room. She was in a morgue. Turning her head to one side, she saw what she had missed before — Mayson’s body, lying on another metal table. Beyond her lay Lumen, and beyond that more dead tributes.
I have to get out of here!
Struggling against her cold, stiff muscles, Lois tried to sit up, but succeeded only in rolling off the table. She hit the concrete floor hard, pain shooting through her hip and hand when she landed.
The numbness caused by the cold was fading now that she was moving again, reminding her of the rat bites and the burns where Clark had tried to cauterize the wounds, and she felt thirstier than ever. The fall had cleared away the last of the drowsiness. She was wide awake now, fully cognizant of the danger she was in.
She wasn’t victor. If she were, she wouldn’t be in the morgue. Somehow, she’d been mistaken for dead and removed from the arena. If she stayed here, though, she really would die, either from the rat bites, which had begun to bleed again, or from being killed by whoever discovered her.
Clark is the victor, Lois realized. He’s safe.
She felt such a strong wave of relief that it almost surprised her. Clark had become a friend, a good friend — in spite of her vow that no man would ever be able to get that close to her again. They had kept each other alive in the arena — and sane. In the end, she had been more concerned with how having to kill her would affect Clark than she had been with her own life — she’d known that there was no hope for her.
Now, things had changed. Clark was the victor, but somehow, Lois was alive. She didn’t know how she had survived, but she was glad that he hadn’t had to go through with ending her life.
Lois struggled to her hands and knees. I need to find Clark, she decided. He’ll help me.
But where was he? He had looked okay in the arena, but maybe he had been worse off than she’d thought. He might be in the tribute hospital — she knew there was one, as it had occasionally been shown after a particularly “exciting” Game.
She had no idea where the tribute hospital was, though. She thought it was in the same building, but she had no idea what floor it was on. It could be on the same floor as the morgue, or the training floor, or one of the district floors — she had no idea.
Even if she did find the hospital, Clark might not be there. He might be just as healthy as he’d appeared, and therefore be back on the District 9 floor. If she could find the elevator, she could get there easily — but he might not be there, and even if he was, there was every possibility he wouldn’t be alone.
She didn’t think Clark would hurt her — not if he could avoid it — but she couldn’t say the same for his mentors. Clark was the first victor they’d had in thirteen years, and she feared that they would kill her in order to protect Clark’s new status.
At least she knew what building she was in. She and Claude had heard their mentors talking about the morgue in the lowest level of the building. It had been one of the few times during training that she had felt sympathy for Claude — his face had turned deathly white at the realization that, for all his bravado, he would probably be dead soon.
Her sympathy had lasted only a moment — Claude had made a rude remark when he’d caught her staring at him, Lois had responded in kind, and their mentors had had to break up yet another argument between the two.
Lois had no idea where on the bottom floor the morgue was located — it didn’t look big enough to be the whole floor, but her vision was slightly blurred, so she couldn’t be sure.
Carefully, straining to hear any sound that might indicate danger, Lois crept forward. To her left were the rest of the metal tables on which the dead tributes lay, and beyond that a wall, but to the right, some fifteen feet away, was an open door.
Fifteen feet had never looked so far.
Clumsily, she tried to get to her feet, but couldn’t quite make it. She looked at the metal table, but immediately dismissed it. She couldn’t pull herself upright using it because it was on wheels, and if it rolled and hit another table, the sound might bring someone to investigate.
Crawling it was.
Slowly, Lois moved forward, her injured hip and hand protesting. The pain from the bites and burns was stronger now, every motion making them throb. Blood from her wounds trailed behind her as she moved.
Finally, she made it to the doorway. Clinging to the doorjamb, Lois slowly pulled herself to her feet. Her head spun dizzily for a moment, a feeling of nausea washing over her. Breathing deeply, she leaned her head against the wall until the feeling passed.
Carefully, she peered out into the hallway, pulling her head back in alarm when a ding sounded. A moment later, a man in a white coat walked past, a stack of forms in his hands, his footsteps echoing in the barren concrete hall.
Fortunately for Lois, he didn’t look up as he walked past the morgue, heading in the direction of a lighted room at the end of the hallway. He cursed as he reached it, stepping inside and slamming the door.
She didn’t waste any time. Leaning against the wall, unmindful of the smear of blood she left as her bitten hand touched the concrete surface, she moved, staggering like a drunken person, in the direction the man had come from as fast as she could without falling. She knew what the dinging sound had meant — an elevator was nearby.
Lois almost fell as she dragged herself in the direction of the elevator, but sheer stubbornness kept her on her feet as she lurched down the hall.
Approaching the elevator doors, Lois crossed her fingers, hoping that no one else was using the elevator. She had to get to the District 3 floor. Much as she wanted to find Clark, she knew that she didn’t have the stamina to search for him, nor could she hope to win a fight against anyone who might be with him. He might help her — if he could — but he might also be loyal to his mentors and unwilling to fight them to help her.
Her best hope for survival was to go to her mentors and hope they would help her, and that meant getting to the District 3 floor.
There was a small alcove in the concrete wall just before the elevator. Lois almost fell against the drinking fountain it contained, a splash of water hitting her in the face.
Licking her lips and holding onto the edge of the fountain, Lois looked at the drops of water sitting in the basin. Suddenly, she wanted that water more than she’d wanted anything in her life. The loss of blood was driving her thirst.
She knew that she shouldn’t stop, that she should make her way to the elevator on the other side of the hall, but the water looked so good. Surely she had time to drink just a little …
Giving in to temptation, Lois pressed on the metal bar, leaning down and taking a big mouthful of the cold fluid. Nothing had ever tasted better.
She was so intent on drinking that she didn’t notice the ding of the elevator arriving again, nor did she hear the doors open.
What she did hear was a man’s voice behind her. “Hey, do you know where Dr. Wellwood is … holy $#%^!”
Lois choked on her last mouthful of water. Coughing, she straightened too fast and almost fell as a wave of dizziness washed over her. Turning, she stared into the shocked eyes of Haymitch Abernathy.
He shook his head as though to clear it and rubbed his eyes. Looking at her again, he asked, “Aren’t you supposed to be in the morgue?”
“I … I … uh …” Lois’s usually quick mind was clouded by cold and blood loss. Without thinking, she said the first thing that came to mind. “There was a … a mistake. The C-Capitol decided to … to allow t-two victors this year.”
Haymitch stared at her. He knew very well that there was only one victor allowed, and that victor, Clark Kent of District 9, had been announced two hours earlier to great fanfare. Yet somehow, the girl he had allied himself with was standing in the hallway, leaning against the drinking fountain and trying to convince him that she was supposed to be alive.
“They announced the victor two hours ago, and it wasn’t you. Looks like the Capitol made a mistake, all right … but it wasn’t allowing two victors. They gave you a bad tracker.” Haymitch could scarcely contain his glee. “Jackasses … I knew they’d mess up sometime.”
He started toward her. Lois tensed, curling her fingers with their broken nails into claws. She didn’t have the strength to fight him, but if she could get his eyes, she might be able to get away while he was blinded.
She tried to claw him, but even hungover, Haymitch’s reflexes were much faster than hers. He grabbed her hands, pinning her against the wall. “You really need to come up with better excuses.”
Lois cried out involuntarily as his fingers touched the rat bite on her hand. In an instant, Haymitch’s hand was over her mouth. “Shut up,” he told her. “I’m not going to hurt you. But if you make noise, someone might —“
“Is someone there?” Dr. Wellwood stuck his head out of his office.
“Damn.” Haymitch let go of Lois and stepped in front of her. “I was looking for you.”
“Hungover again?” Wellwood rolled his eyes. “Look, Haymitch, I have to get the death certificates —“ He saw Lois leaning against the wall behind Haymitch. “What the hell?!”
Lois tried to run toward the elevator, but fell before she had taken two steps. Pushing herself up into a crawling position, she tried to move toward the elevator. If I can get the doors open and then push them closed before they can grab me, I might have a chance, she thought.
Haymitch stopped her before she could pull herself up enough to push the button for the elevator. Lois tried to bite him.
“Stop struggling,” Dr. Wellwood told her firmly. “You’re making the bleeding worse, and I’d hate to see you die now.” To Haymitch, he said, “Her tracker said she was dead. What happened?”
Haymitch shrugged. “Bad tracker, I guess. Everyone thinks she’s dead, so —”
Dr. Wellwood reached out to touch Lois, quickly pulling his hand back when she snapped her teeth at him.
“We’re not going to hurt you,” he tried to reassure her, but by this time Lois was too panicked to listen. In spite of her weakness, she was still trying to fight them.
“Keep her here,” Wellwood told Haymitch, taking off at a run for the hospital.
“Great,” Haymitch grumbled. He crouched down next to Lois as she tried to get up again, holding her in a sitting position. “Stay down. Wellwood once said he was waiting for something to change. I guess this is what he was waiting for. He’s not going to hurt you.”
Lois wasn’t listening. Even with her arms restrained and her legs forced into a kneeling position, she was still determined to get away. Once again, she tried to bite her would-be rescuer.
“You know, I’m beginning to think I should have left you here,” he complained. “A hangover’s bad enough without a rabid tribute.”
Fortunately for Haymitch, Dr. Wellwood returned at that moment with a gurney. Stopping a few feet from the struggling pair, he pulled a capped hypodermic syringe and a cleansing wipe in a packet from his pocket.
Ripping open the packet, the doctor tore open a rip in Lois’s shirt sleeve and held her arm securely. Quickly, he cleaned a spot on her arm and, as Haymitch held her head in place so she couldn’t attempt to bite, quickly injected the sedative.
“No!” Lois tried to swipe at the doctor when he let go of her arm, but her muscles didn’t seem to want to cooperate. “No, no … no …” she whimpered.
She’d been so close. She might have gotten out of there, might have escaped, but there was no chance now. She wanted to go home and see her sister again, and her parents and her friends … and Clark. Now she’d been poisoned …
Everything went black as she slumped to the floor.
Dr. Wellwood picked Lois up gently and put her on the gurney, securing her in place.
“What was that?” Haymitch asked.
“A sedative — the same kind that’s administered to uncooperative victors so I can give them proper care. She’ll wake up in half an hour or so.” Looking at Haymitch, he said, “I’ve never wanted any of the tributes to die. I only took this job because it meant that my four-year-old son’s cancer treatments would be paid for, as well as any other medical care my family needs. I’d have to pay it back if I quit, and I’d never be able to do that. He’s almost seventeen now, and healthy, but if I can’t pay back that debt, I’ll have to leave my family and my patients to serve twenty years as a Peacekeeper in some far-off district.” He moved the gurney toward the elevator.
“Aren’t you taking her to the hospital?” Haymitch asked.
Dr. Wellwood shook his head. “There’s too much chance of Gamemakers showing up there. I phoned in the information that the victor is fine and just needs some food and rest, but they may show up anyway. No one will check the District 3 floor — it will be deserted by tomorrow morning anyway. The District 3 mentors have already given their final interview for this year, so they should be back on their floor. I can treat her in her room, and she should be safe there until morning.”
“And after that?”
“That’s something we’re going to have to figure out.” The doctor turned and walked back in the direction of the hospital. “Get her up to the District 3 floor. I’ll be along with the supplies I need.”
Haymitch hit the button for the elevator, looking at the sleeping girl on the gurney. Quickly, he pushed the gurney inside and hit the button for the District 3 floor.
