A bookcomb I’ve wanted to do for a hot minute. For once it’s not Everlark centered. I decided to make a bookcomb for all the times Johanna and Katniss give off mean big sister / bullied little sister vibes. The vibes the films very much lacked, if I do say so myself.
-
Johanna Mason. From District 7. Lumber and paper, thus the tree. She won by very convincingly portraying herself as weak and helpless so that she would be ignored. Then she demonstrated a wicked ability to murder. She ruffles up her spiky hair and rolls her wide-set brown eyes. “Isn’t my costume awful? My stylist’s the biggest idiot in the Capitol. Our tributes have been trees for forty years under her. Wish I’d gotten Cinna. You look fantastic.”
Girl talk. That thing I’ve always been so bad at. Opinions on clothes, hair, makeup. So I lie. “Yeah, he’s been helping me design my own clothing line. You should see what he can do with velvet.” Velvet. The only fabric I could think of off the top of my head.
“I have. On your tour. That strapless number you wore in District Two? The deep blue one with the diamonds? So gorgeous I wanted to reach through the screen and tear it right off your back,” says Johanna.
I bet you did, I think. With a few inches of my flesh.
-
The other tributes begin to line up as well. I’m confused because, while they all are angry, some are giving us sympathetic pats on the shoulder, and Johanna Mason actually stops to straighten my pearl necklace.
“Make him pay for it, okay?” she says.
I nod, but I don’t know what she means.
-
“Lay off her,” I snap.
Johanna narrows her brown eyes at me in hatred. “Lay off her?” she hisses. She steps forward before I can react and slaps me so hard I see stars. “Who do you think got them out of that bleeding jungle for you? You — ”
-
We watch the water lap up over the undergarments. “So what were you doing with Nuts and Volts?” I ask.
“I told you — I got them for you. Haymitch said if we were to be allies I had to bring them to you,” says Johanna. “That’s what you told him, right?”
No, I think. But I nod my head in assent. “Thanks. I appreciate it.”
“I hope so.” She gives me a look filled with loathing, like I’m the biggest drag possible on her life. I wonder if this is what it’s like to have an older sister who really hates you.
“Tick, tock,” I hear behind me. I turn and see Wiress has crawled over. Her eyes are focused on the jungle.
“Oh, goody, she’s back. Okay, I’m going to sleep. You and Nuts can guard together,” Johanna says. She goes over and flings herself down beside Finnick.
-
“Get up,” I order, shaking Peeta and Finnick and Johanna awake. “Get up — we have to move.” There’s enough time, though, to explain the clock theory to them. About Wiress’s tick-tocking and how the movements of the invisible hands trigger a deadly force in each section.
I think I’ve convinced everyone who’s conscious except Johanna, who’s naturally opposed to liking anything I suggest. But even she agrees it’s better to be safe than sorry.
-
My fingers tighten on the knife handle at my belt.
“Go ahead. Try it. I don’t care if you are knocked up, I’ll rip your throat out,” says Johanna.
I know I can’t kill her right now. But it’s just a matter of time with Johanna and me. Before one of us offs the other.
-
Johanna, frankly, I could easily kill if it came down to protecting Peeta. Or maybe even just to shut her up.
-
“I should have never mentioned the clock,” I say bitterly. “Now they’ve taken that advantage away as well.”
“Only temporarily,” says Beetee. “At ten, we’ll see the wave again and be back on track.”
“Yes, they can’t redesign the whole arena,” says Peeta.
“It doesn’t matter,” says Johanna impatiently. “You had to tell us or we never would have moved our camp in the first place, brainless.” Ironically, her logical, if demeaning, reply is the only one that comforts me.
-
“I’m getting water,” she says.
I can’t help catching her hand as she passes me. “Don’t go in there. The birds —” I remember the birds must be gone, but I still don’t want anyone in there. Not even her.
“They can’t hurt me. I’m not like the rest of you. There’s no one left I love,” Johanna says, and frees her hand with an impatient shake. When she brings me back a shell of water, I take it with a silent nod of thanks, knowing how much she would despise the pity in my voice.
-
“Let’s each have three, and whoever is still alive at breakfast can take a vote on the rest,” says Johanna. I don’t know why this makes me laugh a little. I guess because it’s true. When I do, Johanna gives me a look that’s almost approving. No, not approving. But maybe slightly pleased.
-
“Wait, let me get Johanna up,” says Finnick. “She’ll be rabid if she thinks she missed something this important.”
“Or not,” I mutter, since she’s always pretty much rabid, but I don’t stop him, because I’d be angry myself if I was excluded from a plan at this point.
-
I give him a kiss and, before he can object any further, I let go and turn to Johanna. “Ready?”
“Why not?” says Johanna with a shrug. She’s clearly no happier about being teamed up than I am. But we’re all caught up in Beetee’s trap. “You guard, I’ll unwind. We can trade off later.”
-
The next thing I know, I’m lying on my back in the vines, a terrible pain in my left temple. Something’s wrong with my eyes. My vision blurs in and out of focus as I strain to make the two moons floating up in the sky into one. It’s hard to breathe, and I realize Johanna’s sitting on my chest, pinning me at the shoulders with her knees.
There’s a stab in my left forearm. I try to jerk away but I’m still too incapacitated. Johanna’s digging something, I guess the point of her knife, into my flesh, twisting it around. There’s an excruciating ripping sensation and warmth runs down my wrist, filling my palm. She swipes down my arm and coats half my face with my blood.
“Stay down!” she hisses. Her weight leaves my body and I’m alone.
-
The white curtain that divides my bed from the next patient’s whips back, and Johanna Mason stares down at me. At first I feel threatened, because she attacked me in the arena. I have to remind myself that she did it to save my life. It was part of the rebel plot. But still, that doesn’t mean she doesn’t despise me. Maybe her treatment of me was all an act for the Capitol?
“I’m alive,” I say rustily.
“No kidding, brainless.” Johanna walks over and plunks down on my bed, sending spikes of pain shooting across my chest. When she grins at my discomfort, I know we’re not in for some warm reunion scene. “Still a little sore?” With an expert hand, she quickly detaches the morphling drip from my arm and plugs it into a socket taped into the crook of her own. “They started cutting back my supply a few days ago. Afraid I’m going to turn into one of those freaks from Six. I’ve had to borrow from you when the coast was clear. Didn’t think you’d mind.”
-
“The impact ruptured your spleen. They couldn’t repair it.” She gives a dismissive wave of her hand. “Don’t worry, you don’t need one. And if you did, they’d find you one, wouldn’t they? It’s everybody’s job to keep you alive.”
“Is that why you hate me?” I ask.
“Partly,” she admits. “Jealousy is certainly involved. I also think you’re a little hard to swallow. With your tacky romantic drama and your defender-of-the-helpless act. Only it isn’t an act, which makes you more unbearable. Please feel free to take this personally.”
“You should have been the Mockingjay. No one would’ve had to feed you lines,” I say.
“True. But no one likes me,” she tells me.
-
The soreness from the bruised ribs, however, promises to hang on for a while. I begin to resent Johanna dipping into my morphling supply, but I still let her take whatever she likes.
-
I’m standing off to the side, clapping to the rhythm, when a bony hand pinches me above the elbow. Johanna scowls at me. “Are you going to miss the chance to let Snow see you dancing?” She’s right. What could spell victory louder than a happy Mockingjay twirling around to music?
-
Back in the hospital, I find Johanna in the same circumstance and spitting mad. I tell her about what Coin said. “Maybe you can train, too.”
“Fine. I’ll train. But I’m going to the stinking Capitol if I have to kill a crew and fly there myself,” says Johanna.
“Probably best not to bring that up in training,” I say. “But it’s nice to know I’ll have a ride.”
Johanna grins, and I feel a slight but significant shift in our relationship. I don’t know that we’re actually friends, but possibly the word allies would be accurate. That’s good. I’m going to need an ally.
-
After we stretch — which hurts — there’s a couple of hours of strengthening exercises — which hurt — and a five-mile run — which kills. Even with Johanna’s motivational insults driving me on, I have to drop out after a mile.
-
It’s a bad night in our room. Sleep’s out of the question. I think I can actually smell the ring of flesh around my chest burning, and Johanna’s fighting off withdrawal symptoms. Early on, when I apologize about cutting off her morphling supply, she waves it off, saying it had to happen anyway. But by three in the morning, I’m the target of every colorful bit of profanity District 7 has to offer. At dawn, she drags me out of bed, determined to get to training.
“I don’t think I can do it,” I confess.
“You can do it. We both can. We’re victors, remember? We’re the ones who can survive anything they throw at us,” she snarls at me. She’s a sick greenish color, shaking like a leaf. I get dressed.
We must be victors to make it through the morning. I think I’m going to lose Johanna when we realize it’s pouring outside. Her face turns ashen and she seems to have ceased breathing.
“It’s just water. It won’t kill us,” I say. She clenches her jaw and stomps out into the mud.
-
In the afternoon, we learn to assemble our guns. I manage it, but Johanna can’t hold her hands steady enough to fit the parts together. When York’s back is turned, I help her out.
-
When she tries to get discharged from the hospital, they won’t agree to let her live alone, even if she comes in for daily talks with the head doctor. I think they may have put two and two together about the morphling and this only adds to their view that she’s unstable. “She won’t be alone. I’m going to room with her,” I announce. There’s some dissent, but Haymitch takes our part, and by bedtime, we have a compartment across from Prim and my mother, who agrees to keep an eye on us.
-
She neatly returns my keepsakes to the drawer and climbs into the bed across from me just as the lights go out. “You’re not afraid I’ll kill you tonight?”
“Like I couldn’t take you,” I answer. Then we laugh, since both our bodies are so wrecked, it will be a miracle if we can get up the next day. But we do. Each morning, we do. And by the end of the week, my ribs feel almost like new, and Johanna can assemble her rifle without help.
-
I sit on my bed, trying to stuff information from my Military Tactics books into my head while memories of my nights with Peeta on the train distract me. After about twenty minutes, Johanna comes in and throws herself across the foot of my bed. “You missed the best part. Delly lost her temper at Peeta over how he treated you. She got very squeaky. It was like someone stabbing a mouse with a fork repeatedly. The whole dining hall was riveted.”
-
At the hospital room door, I watch Johanna for a moment, realize that most of her ferocity is in her abrasive attitude. Stripped of that, as she is now, there’s only a slight young woman, her wide-set eyes fighting to stay awake against the power of the drugs. Terrified of what sleep will bring. I cross to her and hold out the bundle.
“What’s that?” she says hoarsely. Damp edges of her hair form little spikes over her forehead.
“I made it for you. Something to put in your drawer.” I place it in her hands. “Smell it.”
She lifts the bundle to her nose and takes a tentative sniff. “Smells like home.” Tears flood her eyes.
-
Suddenly, she has my wrist in an iron grip. “You have to kill him, Katniss.”
“Don’t worry.” I resist the temptation to wrench my arm free.
“Swear it. On something you care about,” she hisses.
[…]
“On my family’s life,” I repeat.
She lets go and I rub my wrist. “Why do you think I’m going, anyway, brainless?”
That makes her smile a little. “I just needed to hear it.” She presses the bundle of pine needles to her nose and closes her eyes.
-
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