20

THE SICK AND THE WOUNDED

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At the sight of all the injured innocents, Evelyn's stomach churned at the thought of their pain and loss as a District. Not only had the buildings and land been ruined, but the lives of all the men, women and children had been put at risk, most of whom had been murdered in the bombings. But that wouldn't stop President Snow. In his eyes, the more they lost, the more power he held over them. He wasn't wrong.

"Don't film me in there," Katniss mumbled with her lips shaking due to the mix of emotions, anger, fear, loss, "I can't help them."

"Just let them see your face," Cressida nodded to her with a gloved hand resting on the Mockingjay's shoulder to show her support. Jaime doing the same to Evelyn despite how he felt about the situation.

The rest of the group stayed behind as Katniss walked down the centre of the room, the wounded on either side of her as they had yet to recognise her face and notice her presence within the building.

On the other hand, Evelyn's hand fell to the belt around her waist that held few medical supplies. She shrugged off her brother's hand and sauntered over to a wounded elder man, his eye bleeding profusely and dripping down his face to stain his clothes. He sat alone in pain with no one to hold his hand or give him comfort. Were his family among the wounded? The dead?

The District 11 female kneeled in front of him, "May I?" she asked, showing the bandage that she had in her hand and motioned to his eye. He wasn't one to push away her help, not even when she had been the one to murder his granddaughter in the games. He knew it wasn't her fault.

Evelyn took the gauze and wiped around his wounded eye with ease, not applying any pressure to cause any harm against him, "You're Evelyn Miracle," he coughed out weakly as she nodded her head, the brown curls falling in front of her face which she shook away and continued to clean his face, "I'm Nathan Wool."

He watched with his good eye as her face fell to show the discomfort, her lips parted to say something to him but he shushed her gently. "You are as much of a victim as she was, in her final moments my granddaughter showed that the system works. It makes people into the criminals that they want. But you, you did what you had to in order to survive and so you should," Evelyn felt her eyes water with tears but they didn't quite fall, "Years ago when you came to apologise after the Victory Tour, we pushed you away. But now, we can see that it was the Capitol all along. Not you."

"Not a day goes by that I don't think back to the arena, that I don't blame myself for what I had done," Evelyn whispered to the man with her eyes tearing up. His hand came to wipe the tears away, both of them unknowing of the camera that zoomed in on the interaction.

"Don't blame yourself, child," his soft voice stammered over to her, "Instead, blame him. Blame Snow. I do."

Evelyn placed a fresh gauze over his eyes and wrapped the bandage over his head to hold it in position, this time she did it tightly to help with the bleeding. "You don't understand how much your words mean to me," she took his hand and gave it a squeeze, "Thank you."

"Don't stop fighting for the future, don't ever stop, you hear me?" he waved her off with his hand, shooing her away to help as many others as she could with the limited supplies she had.

Evelyn didn't want to leave the man who she knew was in pain, but she wanted to help the others. No, she needed to. Her eyes fell on Katniss just as her presence seemed to be noticed by a female, blood drying on her head.

"I came to see you," the girl on fire breathed out, the emotion and shock clear in her voice.

"But what about the baby?" another District 8 citizen asked her. Evelyn had completely forgotten about the child that was rumoured to be growing within the girl, despite the fact that Katniss had not once brought it up around her.

"I lost it," Katniss muttered out with every letter echoing around the silent room so her voice would be heard.

"Are you fighting, Katniss?" a child asked as a bandage wrapped around his neck, but it didn't stop him from having a gun handing from around his shoulder, "Are you here to fight with us?"

"I am. I will."

The boy pressed his three fingers to his lips and raised them in the air with pride, his hand stationed highly in the air to show his support to the Mockingjay and the rebellion she was soon to start. One by one, more fingers were shoved in the air by everyone else in the room. Nathan Wool being no exception to the display for the woman. Evelyn met his gaze and followed in his lead, her own three fingers pressing against her pink lips and hanging in the air to join their cause.

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"Your mom is gonna be proud of you when she sees the footage," Gale remarked to Katniss with a prideful grin on his lips towards his childhood best friend. Despite the innocent message, it still hurt Jaime and Evelyn regardless, after just losing their whole family and not dealing with the loss proactively, "Will this play in the Districts?"

"It'll be tattooed on their eyes," Cressida replied with a satisfied grin on her lips.

Suddenly, all attention was on Boggs as multiple beeping noises could be heard on his multiple devices. "There's a problem," his gruff voice came behind them. The group slowed to a stop in the rubble.

"What kind of problem?" Jaime asked Boggs, his hand instinctively falling to his gun at his side.

"Incoming bombers from the north," Boggs replied, his eyes drifting over to the north side of the landscape and searching the skies, "We need to find cover. Now."

"There's a whole hospital if innocents right through those walls and you want to get us to safety?" Evelyn asked with her hazel eyes widening. It made her sick that she would run like a coward and leave the children and the injured to fend for themselves.

"We aren't much help to them if we are dead," Jaime room his sister by the arm and pulled her with the others.

"There's a bunker in there," Commander Paylor pointed, the others close behind her, much to Evelyn's dismay.

Around them, alarms blared out to warn the others that there were incoming bombs and to hide. It wasn't much help to them seeming as they were all wounded. How were they supposed to run to safety when half of them couldn't even stand? What about the children?

Regardless, Paylor led the group through the building so they could get to safety, "Straight ahead and down the stairs."

Gunfire started to shoot from outside, gaining the attention of the two victors who rushed to the window, ignoring the shouts behind them. "Everdeen! Miracle!" Boggs shouted at them harshly, but their eyes stared at the piles of rubble but more specifically, the soldiers on it. They fired heavily into the skies at what they guessed could be the oncoming bombing aircraft, "Back away from the wall!"

Evelyn tackled Katniss to the side as an explosion erupted right outside the building, both of them would have been caught in the flames and the blast if the District 11 girl hadn't acted fast. Both of the girls only suffered from the ringing in their ears which they were used to.

"Evelyn!" Jaime screamed, the ringing drowned out his wounds. She didn't need to hear him to see the frantic look on his face that spread to Gale once he noticed it, Evelyn turned to see a tall structure beginning to fall, heading directly for them.

"Shit!" she cursed, feeling Gale's hands push her and Katniss out of the falling building just in time to barely miss it. On the other side, Jaime could only wonder if they made it out alive. The trio ran to the opening in the wall and looked up to the sky to see several helicarriers flying.

"They're going after somethin' in the south," Gale coughed out, the ash in his lungs from the burning buildings outside.

"The hospital," Evelyn muttered out.

The two aircraft flew right past the hospital with the noise of them soaring through the skies filling their ears, "They're circling around," Katniss informed them, running off and then shouted behind her at the two others who glanced at each other, "Come on!"

Evelyn pulled on Gale's hand and ran after Katniss, taking a dagger from the sheaths on her thigh for precaution. The red hilt of the dagger gripped tightly within her palm. They ran upstairs, nearly slipping on debris and had to duck as one of the aircraft flew right above them and gave them a fright. The plane headed right in front of them and bombed a building that was thankfully empty. It felt like a tease to the Miracle girl, like it was just the beginning.

Bullets made contact with the concrete beside their feet, making them jump out of the way to avoid getting shot just as one more plane flew above them, firing its explosives into the hospital and creating a blast.

"That's the hospital!" Katniss shouted out from the floor, "They're targeting the hospital!"

A third plane flew above them and fired even more bombs into the hospital just as all three lined up and prepared to circle back around to finish the job; but neither fighter was having it. Katniss aimed a red arrow at the aircraft above them, Gale doing the same with his crossbow but Evelyn couldn't, not with daggers and her swords. She took one of the guns from her holster and aimed it in the sky.

All three of them fired to the skies.

And all three planes collided with one another.

The hospital went up in red flames and an explosion that shook the ground beneath their feet. They were speechless. Evelyn was the first to run off, jumping down the steps to reach the ground in hopes she had seen it wrong. But she hadn't, neither of them had.

"We need to go in!" Evelyn screamed, feeling her brother push against her body as she tried to run forward.

"Help them!" Katniss pleaded with screams, "Help them! Get them out!"

Gale caught her body before she was too far.

"Katniss!" Cressida shouted at her, Pollux already filming what had happened, "Katniss! Can you tell everyone what you're seeing right now? Katniss, what do you wanna say?"

The girl on fire turned to the camera with the flames lighting up her face to show the look of despair on her features, her eyes falling right on the camera that the blonde woman pointed to eagerly. "I want the rebels to know that I'm alive! That I'm in District 8 where the Capitol just bombed a hospital filled with unarmed men, women and children! There will be no survivors! If you think, for one second that the Capitol will ever treat us fairly, you are lying to yourselves! Because we know who they are and what they do- This is what they do and we must fight back," Katniss turned to another camera behind her, one more focused on her face, "I have a message for President Snow, you can torture us and bomb us and burn our districts to the ground! But do you see that? Fire is catching and if we burn, you burn with us!"

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Katniss ate that line