White fluorescent lights burned through Katniss's eyelids. She tried to roll over to block the brightness, but she found something was not quite right.

She could not turn over.

Panicked, her eyes shot open, painfully absorbing the awful fake light into her dark brown eyes. Discomfort.

Katniss was in a little white room that was sterile and smelling of death, her body laid out on a cold metal table. She could feel its iciness through the thin paper medical gown she wore. Katniss quickly found the reason she could not move: her wrists and ankles were belted to the table with thick leather straps.

Panic.

In her confusion, she closed her eyes and tried to focus.

Focus.

Focus.

Focus.

Good.

Now Katniss, how did you get here?

Memories of the 75th Hunger Games blazed through her brain, giving her a throbbing headache from their speed. Mags dissolving into fog, Peeta running into the invisible barrier, Johanna entering the forest of screaming birds because she had no one left she loved…

A fateful night of darkness, running, screams, blind confusion. Enobaria and Brutus in pursuit. Johanna digging her blade into Katniss's arm. An arrow slamming into the forcefield. Fireworks. Huge metal birds descending from the sky, flashing their lights and deciding fates.

Nothing more.

Wait.

Arms taking her up brutally. Flashes of a gold insignia marked with an eagle taking flight.

No.

No.

No.

Realization.

Suddenly, the scent of blood and roses drew Katniss from her memories, and every muscle in her body tightened taut as catgut.

"Good. You've awakened, Ms. Everdeen," an old voice rasped, like steel on stone. "Now you can answer some questions for us. Fear.

Katniss didn't turn her head to see who it was, but kept her eyes closed, trying to soothe her aching temples. Secretly, her heart fluttered like a frightened sparrow with no way out of its cage.

President Snow stood next to her, dressed in a crisp black suit and yellow waistcoat, a white rose pinned to his lapel, matching the white uniforms of the two Peacekeepers flanking him. His reptilian blue eyes were like slits of sapphire, and his face was set in lines of age and evil.

"Ms. Everdeen, you know it is a great honor for the President to speak to you," he snarled. "Do respond, or you could discover…consequences."

"I don't find it an honor at all, since you have captured me and are holding me captive," Katniss snapped, flicking her eyes open and turning to face him. Anger. "You coward – where is my family? Where is Peeta? Where is Gale?"

Snow gave a smile more sour than rotten milk. "Be careful, Ms. Everdeen. You are all too willing to show your hand."

"Tell me, Snow, or I swear - "

"Swear what?" The President gave a clipped laugh and circled the table. "You can do nothing. Your body is bound. I have you, Ms. Everdeen. I have caught the Mockingjay."

"You have my body, not my mind." Defiance.

Snow chuckled and sat on a metal chair next to the table. "The mind and body are irreversibly connected, Ms. Everdeen. I have my…persuasions. I can make you talk."

The President unclipped the white rose from his lapel and dangled it over Katniss's face so all she could see was the pale bloom. She squirmed away, trying not to breathe in the rose's deadly scent, but the flower kept ballooning and kaleidescoping in her vision.

Death, death, death.

"Oh yes," Snow said, pleased. "I have my ways to make you talk."

"Never…Snow…" Katniss gasped, sweat rolling down her trembling skin. With all her strength, she clamped her eyes shut and held tight to her leather bonds, trying to think of Peeta to keep her mind off the toxic flower sucking her life away.

The poison was setting in, slow and painful, intensifying her headache and making her lungs burn like fire with every shallow breath. Her head spun, but her body kept her anchored, unable to die…

Agony.

Snow finally withdrew the rose and returned it to his lapel, standing and straightening his jacket. "Do try to recover in our absence, Ms. Everdeen. There is more to come."

"Like what?" Katniss growled, trying desperately not to slip into unconsciousness.

Snow leaned down over the table, hovering inches from her face, his blood-breath making her sick. "Many things," he murmured. "Perhaps your friend Finnick can make you talk?"

Rage flared through Katniss's brain, making her vision completely red. With a yell, she threw her head up from the table and cracked it into Snow's head, feeling the hard, satisfying smash of their skulls together.

Roaring, Snow stumbled back, clutching his head in intense anger. A smile twitched on the Mockingjay's face at the pain she caused him, but that was gone when Snow rose his ebony cane and swung its heavy silver head at Katniss's face. It connected with her jaw, snapping her head to the side and making her go blind with agony.

When she could feel again, she felt incredible throbbing in the left side of her face and the lost connection of jaw to her skull. Blood filled her mouth, and horror too over her brain as she realized she had bit the inside of her cheek terribly in the process. All she could do now was swallow the blood in order not to choke on it, and every intake of the metal-sweet thick liquid sent a jab of pain straight through her head.

"Take that, you demon," Snow hissed, leaning close to her again. "Now you'll keep your filthy mouth shut."

Saving up bloody saliva in her mouth, Katniss threw her head forward and spat in Snow's face, sending crimson across his visage and across his yellow waistcoat. Suprisingly, Snow just smiled slowly and wiped the scarlet spittle off his cheek. Then, with no hesitation, he struck Katniss hard across the face, sending her jaw into bouts of pain again as her garbled screams rang down the white walls.

Laughing sadistically, President Snow took a few steps back next to his guards. "You'' be a fun one to crush, Ms. Everdeen," he smiled. "Oh yes, I shall enjoy breaking you." He turned and walked out, followed by his awful men, leaving Katniss as a shivering mess on the table.

Coughing up a mouthful of fresh blood, Katniss gasped for breath, stomaching the pain. She was in enemy hands now, and all she could think of was everyone else. Finnick? He had Finnick too? What about Johanna? Gale? Or worst of all, Peeta?

With this last thought, Katniss felt another wave of fatigue hit her body and, putting her head to the side, Katniss let sleep envelop her. Maybe all it could afford her was an hour or so of sweet release, but that would do. She could stand to get away from reality for a while.