Stung

The Shadow Man and a helper lead Fo to a room lined with cages like an animal shelter. They toss her into a cage; Fo hits the cement surface hard, injuring her hand inside one of the cuffs; she feels “pain burning from [her] pinky finger to [her] elbow” (231). The men discuss how the Governor wants her to fight in the pits the next morning. Fo sees a raging, drooling female beast about her age on one side of her cage and Jonah on the other side. When Fo sees Jonah, she has a flashback in which she recalls the moments just before a doctor placed her in a medically-induced coma. Jonah is there as well. Fo begs him for help in escaping, and Jonah breaks his table restraints and injures the doctor to try to help her. Unable to think rationally, he scratches her back while trying to claw her from the table. Numb from the spinal medicine and unable to break free, Fo tells Jonah to run, and he does.

Now, in the cage adjacent to Fo’s, Jonah’s intentions are not clear. He stares at Fo instead of eating, and he manages to bend apart the bars that separate them a fraction of an inch.