Uncovered Passions

44

Soldiers, medics, and crime scene investigators quickly came to the room after Gale'd sent the emergency message. The man, still unconscious, was cuffed and taken away and a man named Commander Gray questioned Gale and Katniss about the incident while others swabbed for evidence and took photographs.

"Did he say anything to you, Soldier Hawthorne?"

"No sir. When I came in, he was attacking Katniss. I immediately pulled him off of her. He swung at me, but I was able to get him in a choke hold and then knocked him out."

Commander Gray nodded, impressed. "Thank you, Hawthorne. Now, Miss Everdeen, can you please tell us everything you can remember about the attack?"

Katniss's eyes hadn't left the space on the floor where his body had lain, but they shot up when the man questioned her.

"About the attack?" She didn't understand. "Why do you care that he attacked me? He killed another person! That's what's important here!"

"Hey, Catnip," Gale tried to calm her, but Katniss ignored him.

"You think it matters that he touched me? A woman is dead...all because...all because..."

Gale wrapped his arm around her again.

"Ma'am," Commander Gray said, "it isn't your fault that woman is dead. And we do care about her, and we want to do what's right. That's why we need to question you. So we can understand why this happened. Did this man say anything to you, anything at all that might help us understand—"

"Snow sent him."

Everyone in the room stopped and looked at her.

"President Snow?" the Commander asked.

"Yes," she said, "he sent him to kill me."

"The man told you that?"

"Yes."

"Directly?"

"Yes," Katniss said, starting to get annoyed.

The Commander immediately barked something into his communicuff and everyone in the room reacted. Katniss's eyes were wide, not understanding at all what was going on, but Gale held her extra tight.

"Alright, follow me," the Commander said after a few minutes of exchanging details to his superiors. "We're taking you to a safe room."

"What? Why? What's going on?"

"Katniss," Gale told her with heavy eyes. "If Snow sent that man, that means...that means he knows we're here."

And Katniss suddenly realized: That meant Snow knew about Thirteen.

Gale and Katniss were led to a new room in a deeply secure part of Thirteen. A guard was stationed outside their door, Katniss's mother was sent for to check on her—she was the only person Gale trusted at the moment—and the rest of Thirteen's security forces went into overdrive.

Coin, Pierce and several others held an emergency meeting to try to assess their threat. While Anise cleaned her daughter's wounds and gave her tea with lots of sedatives, Coin and her council decided they couldn't risk the Capitol getting the upper hand on them and decided to preemptively attack. After only two hours of discussion, it was decided that Thirteen would send its forces to Five and Three to try and create a unified, independent block from Four to Thirteen.

And as Gale held Katniss, his fingers lightly tracing over the bruises forming on her arms and neck, Thirteen also learned that the assassin slipped in with all the refugees that had entered from Seven and Eight, so Coin decided to lockdown everyone who wasn't a native. All the refugees were required to report to an appointed officer and had to await screening to be approved and readmitted into the general population.