Her body is below me. Her gray eyes are still open, but the light is gone from them. I keep glancing back to make sure that she is still dead. That she doesn't rise up with another smile and a flick of her hair.
It takes me a while to see the hovercraft over me. Its only when the light shines down that I look up into the depths of the machine. The ladder slides down. I comply without a thought, placing my hands on it. My right one is still clutching the knife. I don't let it go. I can't, and that's not because of the current.
When I am lifted up, people in white uniforms surround me. They are telling me something, something that I don't hear because my mind is speeding at a thousand miles an hour. Kirwan, Valzen, the girl from 10, District 11, Carama, the birds, Ebb, Thella.
"Ayla, we're going to need you to let go of the knife," a woman says. "Ayla? Ayla, can you hear me?"
I can. But I can't let this go. I need something to hold on to, or I'll go spinning into insanity. "I can't," I say. "I need it."
"Ayla, let go. Please don't make us use-"
"No! Can't you understand? I need it to keep myself alive!"
"Ayla, you're going to be fine." Kirwan's words. She says something else, but I'm not listening anymore. I have to get out of here. I have to get out. I start to scream hysterically. I don't know what comes out of my mouth, but pure noise would not be the answer. I scream at everyone. Valzen, my mother, my father. Ebb. The Capitol. District 2.
Then there's the prick of a needle and I slip into unconsciousness.
I don't let go of the knife.
Maybe everything would be better if I stayed this way. With soft blankets covering me and the morphling in my system. It would be so much easier to cope.
But they won't let me. Already I feel my euphoria draining away. I try to sleep. It's easy.
So easy.
Enobaria visits me in my room. I want someone near. I want to put my arms around her neck and sob.
But that is a weakness. And Enobaria does not allow weakness. So instead, I sit up and give her a wounded smile. "Hello," I say. My voice is scratchy and horrible and distant and I sound like, well, like I've just come out of the Games.
"You did good out there," she says. She lays something on my table. It's Valzen's knife. I don't know how she got it back.
She leaves me alone again.
Coyra dresses me in the outfit I will wear to face Panem. To see a recap of the Games.
It's beautiful. A dress made of soft red silk that cuts a dramatic neckline that is low but not too low. It stops a few inches before my knees. My body is waxed and shaved again. My makeup is drastic as well. My eyes are lined in black, and then in red. My lips are painted the same color, and my entire face is covered in a powder that makes my skin seem clear and smooth.
Because Panem does not want to see a tribute. They want to see a victor.
The lights are blinding. The applause is deafening. The audiance is on their feet, screaming their lungs out. But I feel hollow inside.
They don't know what it feels like. To be inches away from your death. To have someone that you love ripped away from you with the whistle of a knife. A knife that now rests under my pillow. These people. How can you do this to us?
Caesar greets me with a hug. I return it only because I have to. But if I had it my way, Valzen's knife would find it's way into his back.
We watch the replay. It focuses on me, mostly, but Valzen and Kirwan are included as well. I see Ebb's death. She killed him from behind. No chance. And then Kirwan's death. They don't show anything but me rushing to him, and then him telling me that I will be fine. Telling me to win. The Capitol has no room for love. They play Valzen's death in full. Every single bit of it. They end with me standing over her, soaked in blood, with her knife.
There is cheering. There is celebration. There are screams of my name.
Caesar asks me a few more questions, which I answer with the voice of someone who is composed and perfect. Even though that is far from true.
And then it's over.
I want to go home.
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