Chapter 22 : The Question
The hollow smelled like dirt and blood and something else—the metallic tang of healing that shouldn't be happening.
Rue slept against my good side, her breathing slow and steady. Exhaustion had claimed her completely, the terror of nearly dying followed by the shock of watching me survive what should have killed me. She'd simply shut down, her body's way of processing trauma.
Katniss hadn't slept at all.
She sat across from me in the dim light, back against the hollow's earthen wall, bow across her knees. Her eyes hadn't left my shoulder since we'd settled in. Through the torn fabric of my arena jacket, the wound was visible—and shrinking.
I drifted in and out of consciousness, my body demanding rest as it worked to repair the damage. Each time I surfaced, the wound looked different. Smaller. Pinker. Less like a spear hole and more like an old scar.
By evening, Katniss hadn't moved. Hadn't spoken. Just watched.
"That spear should have killed you."
Her voice broke hours of silence, flat and controlled. The voice she used when hunting—calm, focused, absolutely certain.
I considered lying. Searched for some explanation that made sense in a world without impossible abilities. Found nothing.
"Yes."
"But you're healing. I've been watching for hours." She nodded toward my shoulder. "The wound is closing. I can see it happening."
"Yes."
"How?"
The question hung between us like a blade. I looked at Rue, still sleeping, then back at Katniss. The cameras would be watching. The Gamemakers would be listening. Whatever I said now would be broadcast across Panem.
But some truths couldn't stay hidden forever.
"I don't know," I said. "Not completely. It started before the Games—before the Reaping, even. I heal faster than I should. Much faster." I paused, choosing words carefully. "I don't get poisoned. I can... store things. And I know when I'm being watched. Like a sense, almost."
Each admission was a risk. Each word a piece of armor stripped away.
"You mentioned poison." Katniss's eyes narrowed. "How do you know you're immune?"
"Tested it. During training." Not entirely true—I'd known from the moment I woke up in this body—but close enough. "The nightlock didn't affect me."
"You ate nightlock?"
"A small amount. Nothing happened." I managed something like a smile. "That's when I knew something was different."
"Different." She repeated the word like it tasted wrong. "Different doesn't cover this. Different is being a fast runner or having good eyes. This is—" She gestured at my shoulder, searching for words. "This is impossible."
"I know."
"Do you understand what that means? For me? For Rue?" Her voice cracked slightly. "I've been trusting someone who isn't even—"
"Human?" I finished. "I'm human. Whatever else I am, I'm human. I bleed. I hurt. I feel afraid." I met her eyes. "I feel tired and hungry and scared of dying. That hasn't changed."
"But you can't die. Not like the rest of us."
"I can die. The healing has limits—I can feel them. Major trauma, sustained damage, something that overwhelms the process..." I let out a breath. "The spear hurt more than anything I've ever felt. If it had hit my heart instead of my shoulder, I'd be dead."
She absorbed this, processing. Her hands had tightened on her bow, knuckles white.
"You volunteered because you knew you could survive."
"I volunteered because I wanted to choose my own fate. The abilities help, but they don't make me invincible." I shifted slightly, felt the healing wound protest. "On the Reaping stage, I didn't know if I'd live through the bloodbath. I just knew I was done being careful."
"You lied to me." The words came out hard, accusatory. "All this time—the training, the interviews, every moment since—you've been hiding this."
"I didn't know how to tell you something I barely understand myself."
"You should have tried."
She stood abruptly, walked to the hollow's entrance. Her silhouette blocked the fading light, shoulders rigid with tension. I watched her breathe, watched her process, and wondered if I'd just destroyed the alliance that had kept us both alive.
Rue stirred against my side.
Her dark eyes opened slowly, taking in the hollow, my face, Katniss's rigid back. The tension was obvious even to a child fresh from sleep.
"What's wrong?"
Neither of us answered immediately. Rue sat up, looked between us, and reached her own conclusion.
"He saved me." Her voice was quiet but steady. "Whatever he is, he saved me. The spear was going to kill me, and he jumped in front of it."
"Rue—" Katniss started.
"I don't care if he's different. I don't care if he heals fast or knows when cameras are watching." Rue's jaw set with surprising stubbornness. "He took a spear for me. That matters more than anything else."
Simple child logic. The kind that cut through complexity and found the heart of things.
Katniss was silent for a long moment. Then her shoulders dropped slightly—not relaxation, but something like acceptance.
She sat back down, closer than before. Her eyes found mine.
"If you die," she said quietly, "I won't forgive you."
Not forgiveness. Not trust fully restored. But not rejection either.
"I'll try not to."
My shoulder throbbed. The healing demanded payment—calories, rest, time—and I'd given it none of those things in sufficient quantity. Hunger clawed at my stomach, worse than anything I'd felt since entering the arena.
Katniss saw me shaking. Without a word, she retrieved food from my pack—the same pack that somehow contained more than it should, a mystery she still didn't ask about.
I ate mechanically. Bread, dried meat, the last of the fruit I'd stored from the Training Center. My body absorbed it like a sponge, converting nutrition into healing at impossible rates.
Rue watched the process with fascination rather than fear. "Does it hurt? The healing?"
"Sometimes. Big wounds are worse." I rolled my shoulder experimentally. The joint protested but moved. "This one was... significant."
"Will there be a scar?"
"Probably not." I'd learned that much about my abilities. Minor wounds vanished completely. Major ones left marks that faded over days. "My body doesn't like keeping reminders."
"That's strange."
"Everything about me is strange."
She smiled slightly—the first genuine expression since Marvel had pinned her in that net. "I like strange. Normal hasn't been very good to me."
Outside, the anthem began playing. We watched the projected faces through the hollow's entrance: Marvel from District 1, killed by Katniss's arrow. His portrait looked younger than he'd seemed in person, the predator's confidence replaced by official neutrality.
Fourteen dead. Ten alive.
The numbers were getting dangerous.
By morning, my shoulder was stiff but functional.
The wound looked weeks old—faded pink tissue where raw muscle had been hours ago. I tested my range of motion: reach forward, reach up, rotate. Everything worked, though with phantom aches that reminded me the damage had been real.
Katniss watched the demonstration without comment. Her expression was complicated—suspicion layered over relief layered over something I couldn't identify.
"If we survive this," she said finally, "you're explaining everything."
"Everything I understand," I agreed. "Which isn't much."
"Everything you know, then. No more secrets."
"No more secrets." The promise felt heavy. There were things I could never tell her—past lives, future knowledge, the truth of how I'd ended up in this body—but I'd share what I could.
She nodded once, accepting the terms.
Rue was already packing our minimal camp, moving with the efficiency of someone raised to work hard and fast. She'd recovered from yesterday's terror with remarkable speed, resilience forged in District 11's fields.
"Where do we go?" she asked.
"Away from here." I consulted my mental map of the arena. "The Careers will be hunting harder now that we've killed one of them. We need to stay mobile."
"What about our supplies?"
"We have enough for a few days. I have more stored." The admission came easier now that some truth was in the open. "We'll survive."
Katniss strapped her quiver across her back, counted her remaining arrows. "Seven left. I need to make them count."
"You will."
She looked at me—really looked, seeing whatever she saw. Then she turned toward the hollow's exit.
"Let's move."
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