Mockingjay

1

I stare down at my shoes, watching as a fine layer of ash settles on the worn leather. This is where the bed I shared with my sister, Prim, stood. Over there was the kitchen table. The bricks of the chimney, which collapsed in a charred heap, provide a point of reference for the rest of the house. How else could I orient myself in this sea of gray?

Almost nothing remains of District 12. A month ago, the Capitol’s firebombs obliterated the poor coal miners’ houses in the Seam, the shops in the town, even the Justice Building. The only area that escaped incineration was the Victor’s Village. I don’t know why exactly. Perhaps so anyone forced to come here on Capitol business would have somewhere decent to stay. The odd reporter. A committee assessing the condition of the coal mines. A squad of Peacekeepers checking for returning refugees.

But no one is returning except me. And that’s only for a brief visit. The authorities in District 13 were against my coming back. They viewed it as a costly and pointless venture, given that at least a dozen invisible hovercraft are circling overhead for my protection and there’s no intelligence to be gained. I had to see it, though. So much so that I made it a condition of my cooperating with any of their plans.

Finally, Plutarch Heavensbee, the Head Gamemaker who had organized the rebels in the Capitol, threw up his hands. «Let her go. Better to waste a day than another month. Maybe a little tour of Twelve is just what she needs to convince her we’re on the same side.»

The same side. A pain stabs my left temple and I press my hand against it. Right on the spot where Johanna Mason hit me with the coil of wire. The memories swirl as I try to sort out what is true and what is false. What series of events led me to be standing in the ruins of my city? This is hard because the effects of the concussion she gave me haven’t completely subsided and my thoughts still have a tendency to jumble together. Also, the drugs they use to control my pain and mood sometimes make me see things. I guess. I’m still not entirely convinced that I was hallucinating the night the floor of my hospital room transformed into a carpet of writhing snakes.

I use a technique one of the doctors suggested. I start with the simplest things I know to be true and work toward the more complicated. The list begins to roll in my head….

My name is Katniss Everdeen. I am seventeen years old. My home is District 12. I was in the Hunger Games. I escaped. The Capitol hates me. Peeta was taken prisoner. He is thought to be dead. Most likely he is dead. It is probably best if he is dead….

«Katniss. Should I come down?» My best friend Gale’s voice reaches me through the headset the rebels insisted I wear. He’s up in a hovercraft, watching me carefully, ready to swoop in if anything goes amiss. I realize I’m crouched down now, elbows on my thighs, my head braced between my hands. I must look on the verge of some kind of breakdown. This won’t do. Not when they’re finally weaning me off the medication.

I straighten up and wave his offer away. «No. I’m fine.» To reinforce this, I begin to move away from my old house and in toward the town. Gale asked to be dropped off in 12 with me, but he didn’t force the issue when I refused his company. He understands I don’t want anyone with me today. Not even him. Some walks you have to take alone.

The summer’s been scorching hot and dry as a bone. There’s been next to no rain to disturb the piles of ash left by the attack. They shift here and there, in reaction to my footsteps. No breeze to scatter them. I keep my eyes on what I remember as the road, because when I first landed in the Meadow, I wasn’t careful and I walked right into a rock. Only it wasn’t a rock—it was someone’s skull. It rolled over and over and landed faceup, and for a long time I couldn’t stop looking at the teeth, wondering whose they were, thinking of how mine would probably look the same way under similar circumstances.

I stick to the road out of habit, but it’s a bad choice, because it’s full of the remains of those who tried to flee. Some were incinerated entirely. But others, probably overcome with smoke, escaped the worst of the flames and now lie reeking in various states of decomposition, carrion for scavengers, blanketed by flies. I killed you, I think as I pass a pile. And you. And you.

Because I did. It was my arrow, aimed at the chink in the force field surrounding the arena, that brought on this firestorm of retribution. That sent the whole country of Panem into chaos.

In my head I hear President Snow’s words, spoken the morning I was to begin the Victory Tour.

«Katniss Everdeen, the girl who was on fire, you have provided a spark that, left unattended, may grow to an inferno that destroys Panem.» It turns out he wasn’t exaggerating or simply trying to scare me. He was, perhaps, genuinely attempting to enlist my help. But I had already set something in motion that I had no ability to control.

Burning. Still burning, I think numbly. The fires at the coal mines belch black smoke in the distance. There’s no one left to care, though. More than ninety percent of the district’s population is dead. The remaining eight hundred or so are refugees in District 13—which, as far as I’m concerned, is the same thing as being homeless forever.

I know I shouldn’t think that; I know I should be grateful for the way we have been welcomed. Sick, wounded, starving, and empty-handed. Still, I can never get around the fact that District 13 was instrumental in 12’s destruction. This doesn’t absolve me of blame—there’s plenty of blame to go around. But without them, I would not have been part of a larger plot to overthrow the Capitol or had the wherewithal to do it.

The citizens of District 12 had no organized resistance movement of their own. No say in any of this. They only had the misfortune to have me. Some survivors think it’s good luck, though, to be free of District 12 at last. To have escaped the endless hunger and oppression, the perilous mines, the lash of our final Head Peacekeeper, Romulus Thread. To have a new home at all is seen as a wonder since, up until a short time ago, we hadn’t even known that District 13 still existed.

The credit for the survivors’ escape has landed squarely on Gale’s shoulders, although he’s loath to accept it. As soon as the Quarter Quell was over—as soon as I had been lifted from the arena—the electricity in District 12 was cut, the televisions went black, and the Seam became so silent, people could hear one another’s heartbeats. No one did anything to protest or celebrate what had happened in the arena. Yet within fifteen minutes, the sky was filled with hoverplanes and the bombs were raining down.

It was Gale who thought of the Meadow, one of the few places not filled with old wooden homes embedded with coal dust. He herded those he could in its direction, including my mother and Prim. He formed the team that pulled down the fence—now just a harmless chain-link barrier, with the electricity off—and led the people into the woods. He took them to the only place he could think of, the lake my father had shown me as a child. And it was from there they watched the distant flames eat up everything they knew in the world.

By dawn the bombers were long gone, the fires dying, the final stragglers rounded up. My mother and Prim had set up a medical area for the injured and were attempting to treat them with whatever they could glean from the woods. Gale had two sets of bows and arrows, one hunting knife, one fishing net, and over eight hundred terrified people to feed. With the help of those who were able-bodied, they managed for three days. And that’s when the hovercraft unexpectedly arrived to evacuate them to District 13, where there were more than enough clean, white living compartments, plenty of clothing, and three meals a day. The compartments had the disadvantage of being underground, the clothing was identical, and the food was relatively tasteless, but for the refugees of 12, these were minor considerations. They were safe. They were being cared for. They were alive and eagerly welcomed.

This enthusiasm was interpreted as kindness. But a man named Dalton, a District 10 refugee who’d made it to 13 on foot a few years ago, leaked the real motive to me. «They need you. Me. They need us all. Awhile back, there was some sort of pox epidemic that killed a bunch of them and left a lot more infertile. New breeding stock. That’s how they see us.» Back in 10, he’d worked on one of the beef ranches, maintaining the genetic diversity of the herd with the implantation of long-frozen cow embryos. He’s very likely right about 13, because there don’t seem to be nearly enough kids around. But so what? We’re not being kept in pens, we’re being trained for work, the children are being educated. Those over fourteen have been given entry-level ranks in the military and are addressed respectfully as «Soldier.» Every single refugee was granted automatic citizenship by the authorities of 13.

Still, I hate them. But, of course, I hate almost everybody now. Myself more than anyone.

The surface beneath my feet hardens, and under the carpet of ash, I feel the paving stones of the square. Around the perimeter is a shallow border of refuse where the shops stood. A heap of blackened rubble has replaced the Justice Building. I walk to the approximate site of the bakery Peeta’s family owned. Nothing much left but the melted lump of the oven. Peeta’s parents, his two older brothers—none of them made it to 13. Fewer than a dozen of what passed for District 12’s well-to-do escaped the fire. Peeta would have nothing to come home to, anyway. Except me…

I back away from the bakery and bump into something, lose my balance, and find myself sitting on a hunk of sun-heated metal. I puzzle over what it might have been, then remember Thread’s recent renovations of the square. Stocks, whipping posts, and this, the remains of the gallows. Bad. This is bad. It brings on the flood of images that torments me, awake or asleep. Peeta being tortured—drowned, burned, lacerated, shocked, maimed, beaten—as the Capitol tries to get information about the rebellion that he doesn’t know. I squeeze my eyes shut and try to reach for him across the hundreds and hundreds of miles, to send my thoughts into his mind, to let him know he is not alone. But he is. And I can’t help him.

Running. Away from the square and to the one place the fire did not destroy. I pass the wreckage of the mayor’s house, where my friend Madge lived. No word of her or her family. Were they evacuated to the Capitol because of her father’s position, or left to the flames? Ashes billow up around me, and I pull the hem of my shirt up over my mouth. It’s not wondering what I breathe in, but who, that threatens to choke me.

The grass has been scorched and the gray snow fell here as well, but the twelve fine houses of the Victor’s Village are unscathed. I bolt into the house I lived in for the past year, slam the door closed, and lean back against it. The place seems untouched. Clean. Eerily quiet. Why did I come back to 12? How can this visit help me answer the question I can’t escape?

«What am I going to do?» I whisper to the walls. Because I really don’t know.

People keep talking at me, talking, talking, talking. Plutarch Heavensbee. His calculating assistant, Fulvia Cardew. A mishmash of district leaders. Military officials. But not Alma Coin, the president of 13, who just watches. She’s fifty or so, with gray hair that falls in an unbroken sheet to her shoulders. I’m somewhat fascinated by her hair, since it’s so uniform, so without a flaw, a wisp, even a split end. Her eyes are gray, but not like those of people from the Seam. They’re very pale, as if almost all the color has been sucked out of them. The color of slush that you wish would melt away.

What they want is for me to truly take on the role they designed for me. The symbol of the revolution. The Mockingjay. It isn’t enough, what I’ve done in the past, defying the Capitol in the Games, providing a rallying point. I must now become the actual leader, the face, the voice, the embodiment of the revolution. The person who the districts—most of which are now openly at war with the Capitol—can count on to blaze the path to victory. I won’t have to do it alone. They have a whole team of people to make me over, dress me, write my speeches, orchestrate my appearances—as if that doesn’t sound horribly familiar—and all I have to do is play my part. Sometimes I listen to them and sometimes I just watch the perfect line of Coin’s hair and try to decide if it’s a wig. Eventually, I leave the room because my head starts to ache or it’s time to eat or if I don’t get above ground I might start screaming. I don’t bother to say anything. I simply get up and walk out.

Yesterday afternoon, as the door was closing behind me, I heard Coin say, «I told you we should have rescued the boy first.» Meaning Peeta. I couldn’t agree more. He would’ve been an excellent mouthpiece.

And who did they fish out of the arena instead? Me, who won’t cooperate. Beetee, an older inventor from 3, who I rarely see because he was pulled into weapons development the minute he could sit upright. Literally, they wheeled his hospital bed into some top secret area and now he only occasionally shows up for meals. He’s very smart and very willing to help the cause, but not really firebrand material. Then there’s Finnick Odair, the sex symbol from the fishing district, who kept Peeta alive in the arena when I couldn’t. They want to transform Finnick into a rebel leader as well, but first they’ll have to get him to stay awake for more than five minutes. Even when he is conscious, you have to say everything to him three times to get through to his brain. The doctors say it’s from the electrical shock he received in the arena, but I know it’s a lot more complicated than that. I know that Finnick can’t focus on anything in 13 because he’s trying so hard to see what’s happening in the Capitol to Annie, the mad girl from his district who’s the only person on earth he loves.

Despite serious reservations, I had to forgive Finnick for his role in the conspiracy that landed me here. He, at least, has some idea of what I’m going through. And it takes too much energy to stay angry with someone who cries so much.

I move through the downstairs on hunter’s feet, reluctant to make any sound. I pick up a few remembrances: a photo of my parents on their wedding day, a blue hair ribbon for Prim, the family book of medicinal and edible plants. The book falls open to a page with yellow flowers and I shut it quickly because it was Peeta’s brush that painted them.

What am I going to do?

Is there any point in doing anything at all? My mother, my sister, and Gale’s family are finally safe. As for the rest of 12, people are either dead, which is irreversible, or protected in 13. That leaves the rebels in the districts. Of course, I hate the Capitol, but I have no confidence that my being the Mockingjay will benefit those who are trying to bring it down. How can I help the districts when every time I make a move, it results in suffering and loss of life? The old man shot in District 11 for whistling. The crackdown in 12 after I intervened in Gale’s whipping. My stylist, Cinna, being dragged, bloody and unconscious, from the Launch Room before the Games. Plutarch’s sources believe he was killed during interrogation.

Brilliant, enigmatic, lovely Cinna is dead because of me. I push the thought away because it’s too impossibly painful to dwell on without losing my fragile hold on the situation entirely.

What am I going to do?

To become the Mockingjay… could any good I do possibly outweigh the damage? Who can I trust to answer that question? Certainly not that crew in 13. I swear, now that my family and Gale’s are out of harm’s way, I could run away. Except for one unfinished piece of business. Peeta. If I knew for sure that he was dead, I could just disappear into the woods and never look back. But until I do, I’m stuck.

I spin on my heel at the sound of a hiss. In the kitchen doorway, back arched, ears flattened, stands the ugliest tomcat in the world. «Buttercup,» I say. Thousands of people are dead, but he has survived and even looks well fed. On what? He can get in and out of the house through a window we always left ajar in the pantry. He must have been eating field mice. I refuse to consider the alternative.

I squat down and extend a hand. «Come here, boy.» Not likely. He’s angry at his abandonment. Besides, I’m not offering food, and my ability to provide scraps has always been my main redeeming quality to him. For a while, when we used to meet up at the old house because we both disliked this new one, we seemed to be bonding a little. That’s clearly over. He blinks those unpleasant yellow eyes.

«Want to see Prim?» I ask. Her name catches his attention. Besides his own, it’s the only word that means anything to him. He gives a rusty meow and approaches me. I pick him up, stroking his fur, then go to the closet and dig out my game bag and unceremoniously stuff him in. There’s no other way I’ll be able to carry him on the hovercraft, and he means the world to my sister. Her goat, Lady, an animal of actual value, has unfortunately not made an appearance.

In my headset, I hear Gale’s voice telling me we must go back. But the game bag has reminded me of one more thing that I want. I sling the strap of the bag over the back of a chair and dash up the steps to my bedroom. Inside the closet hangs my father’s hunting jacket. Before the Quell, I brought it here from the old house, thinking its presence might be of comfort to my mother and sister when I was dead. Thank goodness, or it’d be ash now.

The soft leather feels soothing and for a moment I’m calmed by the memories of the hours spent wrapped in it. Then, inexplicably, my palms begin to sweat. A strange sensation creeps up the back of my neck. I whip around to face the room and find it empty. Tidy. Everything in its place. There was no sound to alarm me. What, then?

My nose twitches. It’s the smell. Cloying and artificial. A dab of white peeks out of a vase of dried flowers on my dresser. I approach it with cautious steps. There, all but obscured by its preserved cousins, is a fresh white rose. Perfect. Down to the last thorn and silken petal.

And I know immediately who’s sent it to me.

President Snow.

When I begin to gag at the stench, I back away and clear out. How long has it been here? A day? An hour? The rebels did a security sweep of the Victor’s Village before I was cleared to come here, checking for explosives, bugs, anything unusual. But perhaps the rose didn’t seem noteworthy to them. Only to me.

Downstairs, I snag the game bag off the chair, bouncing it along the floor until I remember it’s occupied. On the lawn, I frantically signal to the hovercraft while Buttercup thrashes. I jab him with my elbow, but this only infuriates him. A hovercraft materializes and a ladder drops down. I step on and the current freezes me until I’m lifted on board.

Gale helps me from the ladder. «You all right?»

«Yeah,» I say, wiping the sweat off my face with my sleeve.

He left me a rose! I want to scream, but it’s not information I’m sure I should share with someone like Plutarch looking on. First of all, because it will make me sound crazy. Like I either imagined it, which is quite possible, or I’m overreacting, which will buy me a trip back to the drug-induced dreamland I’m trying so hard to escape. No one will fully understand—how it’s not just a flower, not even just President Snow’s flower, but a promise of revenge—because no one else sat in the study with him when he threatened me before the Victory Tour.

Positioned on my dresser, that white-as-snow rose is a personal message to me. It speaks of unfinished business. It whispers, I can find you. I can reach you. Perhaps I am watching you now.

2

Are there Capitol hoverplanes speeding in to blow us out of the sky? As we travel over District 12, I watch anxiously for signs of an attack, but nothing pursues us. After several minutes, when I hear an exchange between Plutarch and the pilot confirming that the airspace is clear, I begin to relax a little.

Gale nods at the howls coming from my game bag. «Now I know why you had to go back.»

«If there was even a chance of his recovery.» I dump the bag onto a seat, where the loathsome creature begins a low, deep-throated growl. «Oh, shut up,» I tell the bag as I sink into the cushioned window seat across from it.

Gale sits next to me. «Pretty bad down there?»

«Couldn’t be much worse,» I answer. I look in his eyes and see my own grief reflected there. Our hands find each other, holding fast to a part of 12 that Snow has somehow failed to destroy. We sit in silence for the rest of the trip to 13, which only takes about forty-five minutes. A mere week’s journey on foot. Bonnie and Twill, the District 8 refugees who I encountered in the woods last winter, weren’t so far from their destination after all. They apparently didn’t make it, though. When I asked about them in 13, no one seemed to know who I was talking about. Died in the woods, I guess.

From the air, 13 looks about as cheerful as 12. The rubble isn’t smoking, the way the Capitol shows it on television, but there’s next to no life aboveground. In the seventy-five years since the Dark Days—when 13 was said to have been obliterated in the war between the Capitol and the districts—almost all new construction has been beneath the earth’s surface. There was already a substantial underground facility here, developed over centuries to be either a clandestine refuge for government leaders in time of war or a last resort for humanity if life above became unlivable. Most important for the people of 13, it was the center of the Capitol’s nuclear weapons development program. During the Dark Days, the rebels in 13 wrested control from the government forces, trained their nuclear missiles on the Capitol, and then struck a bargain: They would play dead in exchange for being left alone. The Capitol had another nuclear arsenal out west, but it couldn’t attack 13 without certain retaliation. It was forced to accept 13’s deal. The Capitol demolished the visible remains of the district and cut off all access from the outside. Perhaps the Capitol’s leaders thought that, without help, 13 would die off on its own. It almost did a few times, but it always managed to pull through due to strict sharing of resources, strenuous discipline, and constant vigilance against any further attacks from the Capitol.

Now the citizens live almost exclusively underground. You can go outside for exercise and sunlight but only at very specific times in your schedule. You can’t miss your schedule. Every morning, you’re supposed to stick your right arm in this contraption in the wall. It tattoos the smooth inside of your forearm with your schedule for the day in a sickly purple ink. 7:00—Breakfast. 7:30—Kitchen Duties. 8:30—Education Center, Room 17. And so on. The ink is indelible until 22:00—Bathing. That’s when whatever keeps it water resistant breaks down and the whole schedule rinses away. The lights-out at 22:30 signals that everyone not on the night shift should be in bed.

At first, when I was so ill in the hospital, I could forgo being imprinted. But once I moved into Compartment 307 with my mother and sister, I was expected to get with the program. Except for showing up for meals, though, I pretty much ignore the words on my arm. I just go back to our compartment or wander around 13 or fall asleep somewhere hidden. An abandoned air duct. Behind the water pipes in the laundry. There’s a closet in the Education Center that’s great because no one ever seems to need school supplies. They’re so frugal with things here, waste is practically a criminal activity. Fortunately, the people of 12 have never been wasteful. But once I saw Fulvia Cardew crumple up a sheet of paper with just a couple of words written on it and you would’ve thought she’d murdered someone from the looks she got. Her face turned tomato red, making the silver flowers inlaid in her plump cheeks even more noticeable. The very portrait of excess. One of my few pleasures in 13 is watching the handful of pampered Capitol «rebels» squirming as they try to fit in.

I don’t know how long I’ll be able to get away with my complete disregard for the clockwork precision of attendance required by my hosts. Right now, they leave me alone because I’m classified as mentally disoriented—it says so right on my plastic medical bracelet—and everyone has to tolerate my ramblings. But that can’t last forever. Neither can their patience with the Mockingjay issue.

From the landing pad, Gale and I walk down a series of stairways to Compartment 307. We could take the elevator, only it reminds me too much of the one that lifted me into the arena. I’m having a hard time adjusting to being underground so much. But after the surreal encounter with the rose, for the first time the descent makes me feel safer.

I hesitate at the door marked 307, anticipating the questions from my family. «What am I going to tell them about Twelve?» I ask Gale.

«I doubt they’ll ask for details. They saw it burn. They’ll mostly be worried about how you’re handling it.» Gale touches my cheek. «Like I am.»

I press my face against his hand for a moment. «I’ll survive.»

Then I take a deep breath and open the door. My mother and sister are home for 18:00—Reflection, a half hour of downtime before dinner. I see the concern on their faces as they try to gauge my emotional state. Before anyone can ask anything, I empty my game bag and it becomes 18:00—Cat Adoration. Prim just sits on the floor weeping and rocking that awful Buttercup, who interrupts his purring only for an occasional hiss at me. He gives me a particularly smug look when she ties the blue ribbon around his neck.

My mother hugs the wedding photo tightly against her chest and then places it, along with the book of plants, on our government-issued chest of drawers. I hang my father’s jacket on the back of a chair. For a moment, the place almost seems like home. So I guess the trip to 12 wasn’t a complete waste.

We’re heading down to the dining hall for 18:30—Dinner when Gale’s communicuff begins to beep. It looks like an oversized watch, but it receives print messages. Being granted a communicuff is a special privilege that’s reserved for those important to the cause, a status Gale achieved by his rescue of the citizens of 12. «They need the two of us in Command,» he says.

Trailing a few steps behind Gale, I try to collect myself before I’m thrown into what’s sure to be another relentless Mockingjay session. I linger in the doorway of Command, the high-tech meeting/war council room complete with computerized talking walls, electronic maps showing the troop movements in various districts, and a giant rectangular table with control panels I’m not supposed to touch. No one notices me, though, because they’re all gathered at a television screen at the far end of the room that airs the Capitol broadcast around the clock. I’m thinking I might be able to slip away when Plutarch, whose ample frame has been blocking the television, catches sight of me and waves urgently for me to join them. I reluctantly move forward, trying to imagine how it could be of interest to me. It’s always the same. War footage. Propaganda. Replaying the bombings of District 12. An ominous message from President Snow. So it’s almost entertaining to see Caesar Flickerman, the eternal host of the Hunger Games, with his painted face and sparkly suit, preparing to give an interview. Until the camera pulls back and I see that his guest is Peeta.

A sound escapes me. The same combination of gasp and groan that comes from being submerged in water, deprived of oxygen to the point of pain. I push people aside until I am right in front of him, my hand resting on the screen. I search his eyes for any sign of hurt, any reflection of the agony of torture. There is nothing. Peeta looks healthy to the point of robustness. His skin is glowing, flawless, in that full-body-polish way. His manner’s composed, serious. I can’t reconcile this image with the battered, bleeding boy who haunts my dreams.

Caesar settles himself more comfortably in the chair across from Peeta and gives him a long look.

«So… Peeta… welcome back.»

Peeta smiles slightly. «I bet you thought you’d done your last interview with me, Caesar.»

«I confess, I did,» says Caesar. «The night before the Quarter Quell… well, who ever thought we’d see you again?»

«It wasn’t part of my plan, that’s for sure,» says Peeta with a frown.

Caesar leans in to him a little. «I think it was clear to all of us what your plan was. To sacrifice yourself in the arena so that Katniss Everdeen and your child could survive.»

«That was it. Clear and simple.» Peeta’s fingers trace the upholstered pattern on the arm of the chair.

«But other people had plans as well.»

Yes, other people had plans, I think. Has Peeta guessed, then, how the rebels used us as pawns? How my rescue was arranged from the beginning? And finally, how our mentor, Haymitch Abernathy, betrayed us both for a cause he pretended to have no interest in?

In the silence that follows, I notice the lines that have formed between Peeta’s eyebrows. He has guessed or he has been told. But the Capitol has not killed or even punished him. For right now, that exceeds my wildest hopes. I drink in his wholeness, the soundness of his body and mind. It runs through me like the morphling they give me in the hospital, dulling the pain of the last weeks.

«Why don’t you tell us about that last night in the arena?» suggests Caesar. «Help us sort a few things out.»

Peeta nods but takes his time speaking. «That last night… to tell you about that last night… well, first of all, you have to imagine how it felt in the arena. It was like being an insect trapped under a bowl filled with steaming air. And all around you, jungle… green and alive and ticking. That giant clock ticking away your life. Every hour promising some new horror. You have to imagine that in the past two days, sixteen people have died—some of them defending you. At the rate things are going, the last eight will be dead by morning. Save one. The victor. And your plan is that it won’t be you.»

My body breaks out in a sweat at the memory. My hand slides down the screen and hangs limply at my side. Peeta doesn’t need a brush to paint images from the Games. He works just as well in words.

«Once you’re in the arena, the rest of the world becomes very distant,» he continues. «All the people and things you loved or cared about almost cease to exist. The pink sky and the monsters in the jungle and the tributes who want your blood become your final reality, the only one that ever mattered. As bad as it makes you feel, you’re going to have to do some killing, because in the arena, you only get one wish. And it’s very costly.»

«It costs your life,» says Caesar.

«Oh, no. It costs a lot more than your life. To murder innocent people?» says Peeta. «It costs everything you are.»

«Everything you are,» repeats Caesar quietly.

A hush has fallen over the room, and I can feel it spreading across Panem. A nation leaning in toward its screens. Because no one has ever talked about what it’s really like in the arena before.

Peeta goes on. «So you hold on to your wish. And that last night, yes, my wish was to save Katniss. But even without knowing about the rebels, it didn’t feel right. Everything was too complicated. I found myself regretting I hadn’t run off with her earlier in the day, as she had suggested. But there was no getting out of it at that point.»

«You were too caught up in Beetee’s plan to electrify the salt lake,» says Caesar.

«Too busy playing allies with the others. I should have never let them separate us!» Peeta bursts out.

«That’s when I lost her.»

«When you stayed at the lightning tree, and she and Johanna Mason took the coil of wire down to the water,» Caesar clarifies.

«I didn’t want to!» Peeta flushes in agitation. «But I couldn’t argue with Beetee without indicating we were about to break away from the alliance. When that wire was cut, everything just went insane. I can only remember bits and pieces. Trying to find her. Watching Brutus kill Chaff. Killing Brutus myself. I know she was calling my name. Then the lightning bolt hit the tree, and the force field around the arena… blew out.»

«Katniss blew it out, Peeta,» says Caesar. «You’ve seen the footage.»

«She didn’t know what she was doing. None of us could follow Beetee’s plan. You can see her trying to figure out what to do with that wire,» Peeta snaps back.

«All right. It just looks suspicious,» says Caesar. «As if she was part of the rebels’ plan all along.»

Peeta’s on his feet, leaning in to Caesar’s face, hands locked on the arms of his interviewer’s chair.

«Really? And was it part of her plan for Johanna to nearly kill her? For that electric shock to paralyze her? To trigger the bombing?» He’s yelling now. «She didn’t know, Caesar! Neither of us knew anything except that we were trying to keep each other alive!»

Caesar places his hand on Peeta’s chest in a gesture that’s both self-protective and conciliatory. «Okay, Peeta, I believe you.»

«Okay.» Peeta withdraws from Caesar, pulling back his hands, running them through his hair, mussing his carefully styled blond curls. He slumps back in his chair, distraught.

Caesar waits a moment, studying Peeta. «What about your mentor, Haymitch Abernathy?»

Peeta’s face hardens. «I don’t know what Haymitch knew.»

«Could he have been part of the conspiracy?» asks Caesar.

«He never mentioned it,» says Peeta.

Caesar presses on. «What does your heart tell you?»

«That I shouldn’t have trusted him,» says Peeta. «That’s all.»

I haven’t seen Haymitch since I attacked him on the hovercraft, leaving long claw marks down his face. I know it’s been bad for him here. District 13 strictly forbids any production or consumption of intoxicating beverages, and even the rubbing alcohol in the hospital is kept under lock and key. Finally, Haymitch is being forced into sobriety, with no secret stashes or home-brewed concoctions to ease his transition. They’ve got him in seclusion until he’s dried out, as he’s not deemed fit for public display. It must be excruciating, but I lost all my sympathy for Haymitch when I realized how he had deceived us. I hope he’s watching the Capitol broadcast now, so he can see that Peeta has cast him off as well.

Caesar pats Peeta’s shoulder. «We can stop now if you want.»

«Was there more to discuss?» says Peeta wryly.

«I was going to ask your thoughts on the war, but if you’re too upset…» begins Caesar.

«Oh, I’m not too upset to answer that.» Peeta takes a deep breath and then looks straight into the camera. «I want everyone watching—whether you’re on the Capitol or the rebel side—to stop for just a moment and think about what this war could mean. For human beings. We almost went extinct fighting one another before. Now our numbers are even fewer. Our conditions more tenuous. Is this really what we want to do? Kill ourselves off completely? In the hopes that—what? Some decent species will inherit the smoking remains of the earth?»

«I don’t really… I’m not sure I’m following…» says Caesar.

«We can’t fight one another, Caesar,» Peeta explains. «There won’t be enough of us left to keep going. If everybody doesn’t lay down their weapons—and I mean, as invery soon—it’s all over, anyway.»

«So… you’re calling for a cease-fire?» Caesar asks.

«Yes. I’m calling for a cease-fire,» says Peeta tiredly. «Now why don’t we ask the guards to take me back to my quarters so I can build another hundred card houses?»

Caesar turns to the camera. «All right. I think that wraps it up. So back to our regularly scheduled programming.»

Music plays them out, and then there’s a woman reading a list of expected shortages in the Capitol—fresh fruit, solar batteries, soap. I watch her with uncharacteristic absorption, because I know everyone will be waiting for my reaction to the interview. But there’s no way I can process it all so quickly—the joy of seeing Peeta alive and unharmed, his defense of my innocence in collaborating with the rebels, and his undeniable complicity with the Capitol now that he’s called for a cease-fire. Oh, he made it sound as if he were condemning both sides in the war. But at this point, with only minor victories for the rebels, a cease-fire could only result in a return to our previous status. Or worse.

Behind me, I can hear the accusations against Peeta building. The words traitor, liar, and enemy bounce off the walls. Since I can neither join in the rebels’ outrage nor counter it, I decide the best thing to do is clear out. As I reach the door, Coin’s voice rises above the others. «You have not been dismissed, Soldier Everdeen.»

One of Coin’s men lays a hand on my arm. It’s not an aggressive move, really, but after the arena, I react defensively to any unfamiliar touch. I jerk my arm free and take off running down the halls. Behind me, there’s the sound of a scuffle, but I don’t stop. My mind does a quick inventory of my odd little hiding places, and I wind up in the supply closet, curled up against a crate of chalk.

«You’re alive,» I whisper, pressing my palms against my cheeks, feeling the smile that’s so wide it must look like a grimace. Peeta’s alive. And a traitor. But at the moment, I don’t care. Not what he says, or who he says it for, only that he is still capable of speech.

After a while, the door opens and someone slips in. Gale slides down beside me, his nose trickling blood.

«What happened?» I ask.

«I got in Boggs’s way,» he answers with a shrug. I use my sleeve to wipe his nose. «Watch it!»

I try to be gentler. Patting, not wiping. «Which one is he?»

«Oh, you know. Coin’s right-hand lackey. The one who tried to stop you.» He pushes my hand away.

«Quit! You’ll bleed me to death.»

The trickle has turned to a steady stream. I give up on the first-aid attempts. «You fought with Boggs?»

«No, just blocked the doorway when he tried to follow you. His elbow caught me in the nose,» says Gale.

«They’ll probably punish you,» I say.

«Already have.» He holds up his wrist. I stare at it uncomprehendingly. «Coin took back my communicuff.»

I bite my lip, trying to remain serious. But it seems so ridiculous. «I’m sorry, Soldier Gale Hawthorne.»

«Don’t be, Soldier Katniss Everdeen.» He grins. «I felt like a jerk walking around with it anyway.» We both start laughing. «I think it was quite a demotion.»

This is one of the few good things about 13. Getting Gale back. With the pressure of the Capitol’s arranged marriage between Peeta and me gone, we’ve managed to regain our friendship. He doesn’t push it any further—try to kiss me or talk about love. Either I’ve been too sick, or he’s willing to give me space, or he knows it’s just too cruel with Peeta in the hands of the Capitol. Whatever the case, I’ve got someone to tell my secrets to again.

«Who are these people?» I say.

«They’re us. If we’d had nukes instead of a few lumps of coal,» he answers.

«I like to think Twelve wouldn’t have abandoned the rest of the rebels back in the Dark Days,» I say.

«We might have. If it was that, surrender, or start a nuclear war,» says Gale. «In a way, it’s remarkable they survived at all.»

Maybe it’s because I still have the ashes of my own district on my shoes, but for the first time, I give the people of 13 something I have withheld from them: credit. For staying alive against all odds. Their early years must have been terrible, huddled in the chambers beneath the ground after their city was bombed to dust. Population decimated, no possible ally to turn to for aid. Over the past seventy-five years, they’ve learned to be self-sufficient, turned their citizens into an army, and built a new society with no help from anyone. They would be even more powerful if that pox epidemic hadn’t flattened their birthrate and made them so desperate for a new gene pool and breeders. Maybe they are militaristic, overly programmed, and somewhat lacking in a sense of humor. They’re here. And willing to take on the Capitol.

«Still, it took them long enough to show up,» I say.

«It wasn’t simple. They had to build up a rebel base in the Capitol, get some sort of underground organized in the districts,» he says. «Then they needed someone to set the whole thing in motion. They needed you.»

«They needed Peeta, too, but they seem to have forgotten that,» I say.

Gale’s expression darkens. «Peeta might have done a lot of damage tonight. Most of the rebels will dismiss what he said immediately, of course. But there are districts where the resistance is shakier. The cease-fire’s clearly President Snow’s idea. But it seems so reasonable coming out of Peeta’s mouth.»

I’m afraid of Gale’s answer, but I ask anyway. «Why do you think he said it?»

«He might have been tortured. Or persuaded. My guess is he made some kind of deal to protect you. He’d put forth the idea of the cease-fire if Snow let him present you as a confused pregnant girl who had no idea what was going on when she was taken prisoner by the rebels. This way, if the districts lose, there’s still a chance of leniency for you. If you play it right.» I must still look perplexed because Gale delivers the next line very slowly. «Katniss… he’s still trying to keep you alive.»

To keep me alive?And then I understand. The Games are still on. We have left the arena, but since Peeta and I weren’t killed, his last wish to preserve my life still stands. His idea is to have me lie low, remain safe and imprisoned, while the war plays out. Then neither side will really have cause to kill me. And Peeta? If the rebels win, it will be disastrous for him. If the Capitol wins, who knows? Maybe we’ll both be allowed to live—if I play it right—to watch the Games go on…

Images flash through my mind: the spear piercing Rue’s body in the arena, Gale hanging senseless from the whipping post, the corpse-littered wasteland of my home. And for what? For what? As my blood turns hot, I remember other things. My first glimpse of an uprising in District 8. The victors locked hand in hand the night before the Quarter Quell. And how it was no accident, my shooting that arrow into the force field in the arena. How badly I wanted it to lodge deep in the heart of my enemy.

I spring up, upsetting a box of a hundred pencils, sending them scattering around the floor.

«What is it?» Gale asks.

«There can’t be a cease-fire.» I lean down, fumbling as I shove the sticks of dark gray graphite back into the box. «We can’t go back.»

«I know.» Gale sweeps up a handful of pencils and taps them on the floor into perfect alignment.

«Whatever reason Peeta had for saying those things, he’s wrong.» The stupid sticks won’t go in the box and I snap several in my frustration.

«I know. Give it here. You’re breaking them to bits.» He pulls the box from my hands and refills it with swift, concise motions.

«He doesn’t know what they did to Twelve. If he could’ve seen what was on the ground» — I start.

«Katniss, I’m not arguing. If I could hit a button and kill every living soul working for the Capitol, I would do it. Without hesitation.» He slides the last pencil into the box and flips the lid closed. «The question is, what are you going to do?»

It turns out the question that’s been eating away at me has only ever had one possible answer. But it took Peeta’s ploy for me to recognize it.

What am I going to do?

I take a deep breath. My arms rise slightly—as if recalling the black-and-white wings Cinna gave me—then come to rest at my sides.

«I’m going to be the Mockingjay.»

3

Buttercup’s eyes reflect the faint glow of the safety light over the door as he lies in the crook of Prim’s arm, back on the job, protecting her from the night. She’s snuggled close to my mother. Asleep, they look just as they did the morning of the reaping that landed me in my first Games. I have a bed to myself because I’m recuperating and because no one can sleep with me anyway, what with the nightmares and the thrashing around.

After tossing and turning for hours, I finally accept that it will be a wakeful night. Under Buttercup’s watchful eye, I tiptoe across the cold tiled floor to the dresser.

The middle drawer contains my government-issued clothes. Everyone wears the same gray pants and shirt, the shirt tucked in at the waist. Underneath the clothes, I keep the few items I had on me when I was lifted from the arena. My mockingjay pin. Peeta’s token, the gold locket with photos of my mother and Prim and Gale inside. A silver parachute that holds a spile for tapping trees, and the pearl Peeta gave me a few hours before I blew out the force field. District 13 confiscated my tube of skin ointment for use in the hospital, and my bow and arrows because only guards have clearance to carry weapons. They’re in safekeeping in the armory.

I feel around for the parachute and slide my fingers inside until they close around the pearl. I sit back on my bed cross-legged and find myself rubbing the smooth iridescent surface of the pearl back and forth against my lips. For some reason, it’s soothing. A cool kiss from the giver himself.

«Katniss?» Prim whispers. She’s awake, peering at me through the darkness. «What’s wrong?»

«Nothing. Just a bad dream. Go back to sleep.» It’s automatic. Shutting Prim and my mother out of things to shield them.

Careful not to rouse my mother, Prim eases herself from the bed, scoops up Buttercup, and sits beside me. She touches the hand that has curled around the pearl. «You’re cold.» Taking a spare blanket from the foot of the bed, she wraps it around all three of us, enveloping me in her warmth and Buttercup’s furry heat as well. «You could tell me, you know. I’m good at keeping secrets. Even from Mother.»

She’s really gone, then. The little girl with the back of her shirt sticking out like a duck tail, the one who needed help reaching the dishes, and who begged to see the frosted cakes in the bakery window. Time and tragedy have forced her to grow too quickly, at least for my taste, into a young woman who stitches bleeding wounds and knows our mother can hear only so much.

«Tomorrow morning, I’m going to agree to be the Mockingjay,» I tell her.

«Because you want to or because you feel forced into it?» she asks.

I laugh a little. «Both, I guess. No, I want to. I have to, if it will help the rebels defeat Snow.» I squeeze the pearl more tightly in my fist. «It’s just… Peeta. I’m afraid if we do win, the rebels will execute him as a traitor.»

Prim thinks this over. «Katniss, I don’t think you understand how important you are to the cause. Important people usually get what they want. If you want to keep Peeta safe from the rebels, you can.»

I guess I’m important. They went to a lot of trouble to rescue me. They took me to 12. «You mean… I could demand that they give Peeta immunity? And they’d have to agree to it?»

«I think you could demand almost anything and they’d have to agree to it.» Prim wrinkles her brow. «Only how do you know they’ll keep their word?»

I remember all of the lies Haymitch told Peeta and me to get us to do what he wanted. What’s to keep the rebels from reneging on the deal? A verbal promise behind closed doors, even a statement written on paper—these could easily evaporate after the war. Their existence or validity denied. Any witnesses in Command will be worthless. In fact, they’d probably be the ones writing out Peeta’s death warrant. I’ll need a much larger pool of witnesses. I’ll need everyone I can get.

«It will have to be public,» I say. Buttercup gives a flick of his tail that I take as agreement. «I’ll make Coin announce it in front of the entire population of Thirteen.»

Prim smiles. «Oh, that’s good. It’s not a guarantee, but it will be much harder for them to back out of their promise.»

I feel the kind of relief that follows an actual solution. «I should wake you up more often, little duck.»

«I wish you would,» says Prim. She gives me a kiss. «Try and sleep now, all right?» And I do.

In the morning, I see that 7:00—Breakfast is directly followed by 7:30—Command , which is fine since I may as well start the ball rolling. At the dining hall, I flash my schedule, which includes some kind of ID number, in front of a sensor. As I slide my tray along the metal shelf before the vats of food, I see breakfast is its usual dependable self—a bowl of hot grain, a cup of milk, and a small scoop of fruit or vegetables. Today, mashed turnips. All of it comes from 13’s underground farms. I sit at the table assigned to the Everdeens and the Hawthornes and some other refugees, and shovel my food down, wishing for seconds, but there are never seconds here. They have nutrition down to a science. You leave with enough calories to take you to the next meal, no more, no less. Serving size is based on your age, height, body type, health, and amount of physical labor required by your schedule. The people from 12 are already getting slightly larger portions than the natives of 13 in an effort to bring us up to weight. I guess bony soldiers tire too quickly. It’s working, though. In just a month, we’re starting to look healthier, particularly the kids.

Gale sets his tray beside me and I try not to stare at his turnips too pathetically, because I really want more, and he’s already too quick to slip me his food. Even though I turn my attention to neatly folding my napkin, a spoonful of turnips slops into my bowl.

«You’ve got to stop that,» I say. But since I’m already scooping up the stuff, it’s not too convincing.

«Really. It’s probably illegal or something.» They have very strict rules about food. For instance, if you don’t finish something and want to save it for later, you can’t take it from the dining hall. Apparently, in the early days, there was some incident of food hoarding. For a couple of people like Gale and me, who’ve been in charge of our families’ food supply for years, it doesn’t sit well. We know how to be hungry, but not how to be told how to handle what provisions we have. In some ways, District 13 is even more controlling than the Capitol.

«What can they do? They’ve already got my communicuff,» says Gale.

As I scrape my bowl clean, I have an inspiration. «Hey, maybe I should make that a condition of being the Mockingjay.»

«That I can feed you turnips?» he says.

«No, that we can hunt.» That gets his attention. «We’d have to give everything to the kitchen. But still, we could…» I don’t have to finish because he knows. We could be aboveground. Out in the woods. We could be ourselves again.

«Do it,» he says. «Now’s the time. You could ask for the moon and they’d have to find some way to get it.»

He doesn’t know that I’m already asking for the moon by demanding they spare Peeta’s life. Before I can decide whether or not to tell him, a bell signals the end of our eating shift. The thought of facing Coin alone makes me nervous. «What are you scheduled for?»

Gale checks his arm. «Nuclear History class. Where, by the way, your absence has been noted.»

«I have to go to Command. Come with me?» I ask.

«All right. But they might throw me out after yesterday.» As we go to drop off our trays, he says, «You know, you better put Buttercup on your list of demands, too. I don’t think the concept of useless pets is well known here.»

«Oh, they’ll find him a job. Tattoo it on his paw every morning,» I say. But I make a mental note to include him for Prim’s sake.

By the time we get to Command, Coin, Plutarch, and all their people have already assembled. The sight of Gale raises some eyebrows, but no one throws him out. My mental notes have become too jumbled, so I ask for a piece of paper and a pencil right off. My apparent interest in the proceedings—the first I’ve shown since I’ve been here—takes them by surprise. Several looks are exchanged. Probably they had some extra-special lecture planned for me. But instead, Coin personally hands me the supplies, and everyone waits in silence while I sit at the table and scrawl out my list. Buttercup. Hunting. Peeta’s immunity. Announced in public.

This is it. Probably my only chance to bargain. Think. What else do you want? I feel him, standing at my shoulder. Gale, I add to the list. I don’t think I can do this without him.

The headache’s coming on and my thoughts begin to tangle. I shut my eyes and start to recite silently.

My name is Katniss Everdeen. I am seventeen years old. My home is District 12. I was in the Hunger Games. I escaped. The Capitol hates me. Peeta was taken prisoner. He is alive. He is a traitor but alive. I have to keep him alive…

The list. It still seems too small. I should try to think bigger, beyond our current situation where I am of the utmost importance, to the future where I may be worth nothing. Shouldn’t I be asking for more? For my family? For the remainder of my people? My skin itches with the ashes of the dead. I feel the sickening impact of the skull against my shoe. The scent of blood and roses stings my nose.

The pencil moves across the page on its own. I open my eyes and see the wobbly letters. I KILL SNOW. If he’s captured, I want the privilege.

Plutarch gives a discreet cough. «About done there?» I glance up and notice the clock. I’ve been sitting here for twenty minutes. Finnick isn’t the only one with attention problems.

«Yeah,» I say. My voice sounds hoarse, so I clear my throat. «Yeah, so this is the deal. I’ll be your Mockingjay.»

I wait so they can make their sounds of relief, congratulate, slap one another on the back. Coin stays as impassive as ever, watching me, unimpressed.

«But I have some conditions.» I smooth out the list and begin. «My family gets to keep our cat.» My tiniest request sets off an argument. The Capitol rebels see this as a nonissue—of course, I can keep my pet—while those from 13 spell out what extreme difficulties this presents. Finally it’s worked out that we’ll be moved to the top level, which has the luxury of an eight-inch window aboveground. Buttercup may come and go to do his business. He will be expected to feed himself. If he misses curfew, he will be locked out. If he causes any security problems, he’ll be shot immediately.

That sounds okay. Not so different from how he’s been living since we left. Except for the shooting part.

If he looks too thin, I can slip him a few entrails, provided my next request is allowed.

«I want to hunt. With Gale. Out in the woods,» I say. This gives everyone pause.

«We won’t go far. We’ll use our own bows. You can have the meat for the kitchen,» adds Gale.

I hurry on before they can say no. «It’s just… I can’t breathe shut up here like a… I would get better, faster, if… I could hunt.»

Plutarch begins to explain the drawbacks here—the dangers, the extra security, the risk of injury—but Coin cuts him off. «No. Let them. Give them two hours a day, deducted from their training time. A quarter-mile radius. With communication units and tracker anklets. What’s next?»

I skim my list. «Gale. I’ll need him with me to do this.»

«With you how? Off camera? By your side at all times? Do you want him presented as your new lover?» Coin asks.

She hasn’t said this with any particular malice—quite the contrary, her words are very matter-of-fact.

But my mouth still drops open in shock. «What?»

«I think we should continue the current romance. A quick defection from Peeta could cause the audience to lose sympathy for her,» says Plutarch. «Especially since they think she’s pregnant with his child.»

«Agreed. So, on-screen, Gale can simply be portrayed as a fellow rebel. Is that all right?» says Coin. I just stare at her. She repeats herself impatiently. «For Gale. Will that be sufficient?»

«We can always work him in as your cousin,» says Fulvia.

«We’re not cousins,» Gale and I say together.

«Right, but we should probably keep that up for appearances’ sake on camera,» says Plutarch. «Off camera, he’s all yours. Anything else?»

I’m rattled by the turn in the conversation. The implications that I could so readily dispose of Peeta, that I’m in love with Gale, that the whole thing has been an act. My cheeks begin to burn. The very notion that I’m devoting any thought to who I want presented as my lover, given our current circumstances, is demeaning. I let my anger propel me into my greatest demand. «When the war is over, if we’ve won, Peeta will be pardoned.»

Dead silence. I feel Gale’s body tense. I guess I should have told him before, but I wasn’t sure how he’d respond. Not when it involved Peeta.

«No form of punishment will be inflicted,» I continue. A new thought occurs to me. «The same goes for the other captured tributes, Johanna and Enobaria.» Frankly, I don’t care about Enobaria, the vicious District 2 tribute. In fact, I dislike her, but it seems wrong to leave her out.

«No,» says Coin flatly.

«Yes,» I shoot back. «It’s not their fault you abandoned them in the arena. Who knows what the Capitol’s doing to them?»

«They’ll be tried with other war criminals and treated as the tribunal sees fit,» she says.

«They’ll be granted immunity!» I feel myself rising from my chair, my voice full and resonant. «You will personally pledge this in front of the entire population of District Thirteen and the remainder of Twelve. Soon. Today. It will be recorded for future generations. You will hold yourself and your government responsible for their safety, or you’ll find yourself another Mockingjay!»

My words hang in the air for a long moment.

«That’s her!» I hear Fulvia hiss to Plutarch. «Right there. With the costume, gunfire in the background, just a hint of smoke.»

«Yes, that’s what we want,» says Plutarch under his breath.

I want to glare at them, but I feel it would be a mistake to turn my attention from Coin. I can see her tallying the cost of my ultimatum, weighing it against my possible worth.

«What do you say, President?» asks Plutarch. «You could issue an official pardon, given the circumstances. The boy… he’s not even of age.»

«All right,» Coin says finally. «But you’d better perform.»

«I’ll perform when you’ve made the announcement,» I say.

«Call a national security assembly during Reflection today,» she orders. «I’ll make the announcement then. Is there anything left on your list, Katniss?»

My paper’s crumpled into a ball in my right fist. I flatten the sheet against the table and read the rickety letters. «Just one more thing. I kill Snow.»

For the first time ever, I see the hint of a smile on the president’s lips. «When the time comes, I’ll flip you for it.»

Maybe she’s right. I certainly don’t have the sole claim against Snow’s life. And I think I can count on her getting the job done. «Fair enough.»

Coin’s eyes have flickered to her arm, the clock. She, too, has a schedule to adhere to. «I’ll leave her in your hands, then, Plutarch.» She exits the room, followed by her team, leaving only Plutarch, Fulvia, Gale, and myself.

«Excellent. Excellent.» Plutarch sinks down, elbows on the table, rubbing his eyes. «You know what I miss? More than anything? Coffee. I ask you, would it be so unthinkable to have something to wash down the gruel and turnips?»

«We didn’t think it would be quite so rigid here,» Fulvia explains to us as she massages Plutarch’s shoulders. «Not in the higher ranks.»

«Or at least there’d be the option of a little side action,» says Plutarch. «I mean, even Twelve had a black market, right?»

«Yeah, the Hob,» says Gale. «It’s where we traded.»

«There, you see? And look how moral you two are! Virtually incorruptible.» Plutarch sighs. «Oh, well, wars don’t last forever. So, glad to have you on the team.» He reaches a hand out to the side, where Fulvia is already extending a large sketchbook bound in black leather. «You know in general what we’re asking of you, Katniss. I’m aware you have mixed feelings about participating. I hope this will help.»

Plutarch slides the sketchbook across to me. For a moment, I look at it suspiciously. Then curiosity gets the better of me. I open the cover to find a picture of myself, standing straight and strong, in a black uniform. Only one person could have designed the outfit, at first glance utterly utilitarian, at second a work of art. The swoop of the helmet, the curve to the breastplate, the slight fullness of the sleeves that allows the white folds under the arms to show. In his hands, I am again a mockingjay.

«Cinna,» I whisper.

«Yes. He made me promise not to show you this book until you’d decided to be the Mockingjay on your own. Believe me, I was very tempted,» says Plutarch. «Go on. Flip through.»

I turn the pages slowly, seeing each detail of the uniform. The carefully tailored layers of body armor, the hidden weapons in the boots and belt, the special reinforcements over my heart. On the final page, under a sketch of my mockingjay pin, Cinna’s written, I’m still betting on you.

«When did he…» My voice fails me.

«Let’s see. Well, after the Quarter Quell announcement. A few weeks before the Games maybe? There are not only the sketches. We have your uniforms. Oh, and Beetee’s got something really special waiting for you down in the armory. I won’t spoil it by hinting,» says Plutarch.

«You’re going to be the best-dressed rebel in history,» says Gale with a smile. Suddenly, I realize he’s been holding out on me. Like Cinna, he’s wanted me to make this decision all along.

«Our plan is to launch an Airtime Assault,» says Plutarch. «To make a series of what we call propos—which is short for ‘propaganda spots’—featuring you, and broadcast them to the entire population of Panem.»

«How? The Capitol has sole control of the broadcasts,» says Gale.

«But we have Beetee. About ten years ago, he essentially redesigned the underground network that transmits all the programming. He thinks there’s a reasonable chance it can be done. Of course, we’ll need something to air. So, Katniss, the studio awaits your pleasure.» Plutarch turns to his assistant. «Fulvia?»

«Plutarch and I have been talking about how on earth we can pull this off. We think that it might be best to build you, our rebel leader, from the outside… in. That is to say, let’s find the most stunning Mockingjay look possible, and then work your personality up to deserving it!» she says brightly.

«You already have her uniform,» says Gale.

«Yes, but is she scarred and bloody? Is she glowing with the fire of rebellion? Just how grimy can we make her without disgusting people? At any rate, she has to be something. I mean, obviously this»—Fulvia moves in on me quickly, framing my face with her hands—«won’t cut it.» I jerk my head back reflexively but she’s already busy gathering her things. «So, with that in mind, we have another little surprise for you. Come, come.»

Fulvia gives us a wave, and Gale and I follow her and Plutarch out into the hall.

«So well intended, and yet so insulting,» Gale whispers in my ear.

«Welcome to the Capitol,» I mouth back. But Fulvia’s words have no effect on me. I wrap my arms tightly around the sketchbook and allow myself to feel hopeful. This must be the right decision. If Cinna wanted it.

We board an elevator, and Plutarch checks his notes. «Let’s see. It’s Compartment Three-Nine-Oh-Eight.» He presses a button marked 39 , but nothing happens.

«You must have to key it,» says Fulvia.

Plutarch pulls a key attached to a thin chain from under his shirt and inserts it into a slot I hadn’t noticed before. The doors slide shut. «Ah, there we are.»

The elevator descends ten, twenty, thirty-plus levels, farther down than I even knew District 13 went. It opens on a wide white corridor lined with red doors, which look almost decorative compared to the gray ones on the upper floors. Each is plainly marked with a number 3901, 3902, 3903…

As we step out, I glance behind me to watch the elevator close and see a metallic grate slide into place over the regular doors. When I turn, a guard has materialized from one of the rooms at the far end of the corridor. A door swings silently shut behind him as he strides toward us.

Plutarch moves to meet him, raising a hand in greeting, and the rest of us follow behind him. Something feels very wrong down here. It’s more than the reinforced elevator, or the claustrophobia of being so far underground, or the caustic smell of antiseptic. One look at Gale’s face and I can tell he senses it as well.

«Good morning, we were just looking for—» Plutarch begins.

«You have the wrong floor,» says the guard abruptly.

«Really?» Plutarch double-checks his notes. «I’ve got Three-Nine-Oh-Eight written right here. I wonder if you could just give a call up to—»

«I’m afraid I have to ask you to leave now. Assignment discrepancies can be addressed at the Head Office,» says the guard.

It’s right ahead of us. Compartment 3908. Just a few steps away. The door—in fact, all the doors—seem incomplete. No knobs. They must swing free on hinges like the one the guard appeared through.

«Where is that again?» asks Fulvia.

«You’ll find the Head Office on Level Seven,» says the guard, extending his arms to corral us back to the elevator.

From behind door 3908 comes a sound. Just a tiny whimper. Like something a cowed dog might make to avoid being struck, only all too human and familiar. My eyes meet Gale’s for just a moment, but it’s long enough for two people who operate the way we do. I let Cinna’s sketchbook fall at the guard’s feet with a loud bang. A second after he leans down to retrieve it, Gale leans down, too, intentionally bumping heads. «Oh, I’m sorry,» he says with a light laugh, catching the guard’s arms as if to steady himself, turning him slightly away from me.

That’s my chance. I dart around the distracted guard, push open the door marked 3908 , and find them. Half-naked, bruised, and shackled to the wall.

My prep team.

4

The stink of unwashed bodies, stale urine, and infection breaks through the cloud of antiseptic. The three figures are only just recognizable by their most striking fashion choices: Venia’s gold facial tattoos.

Flavius’s orange corkscrew curls. Octavia’s light evergreen skin, which now hangs too loosely, as if her body were a slowly deflating balloon.

On seeing me, Flavius and Octavia shrink back against the tiled walls like they’re anticipating an attack, even though I have never hurt them. Unkind thoughts were my worst offense against them, and those I kept to myself, so why do they recoil?

The guard’s ordering me out, but by the shuffling that follows, I know Gale has somehow detained him. For answers, I cross to Venia, who was always the strongest. I crouch down and take her icy hands, which clutch mine like vises.

«What happened, Venia?» I ask. «What are you doing here?»

«They took us. From the Capitol,» she says hoarsely.

Plutarch enters behind me. «What on earth is going on?»

«Who took you?» I press her.

«People,» she says vaguely. «The night you broke out.»

«We thought it might be comforting for you to have your regular team,» Plutarch says behind me. «Cinna requested it.»

«Cinna requested this?» I snarl at him. Because if there’s one thing I know, it’s that Cinna would never have approved the abuse of these three, who he managed with gentleness and patience. «Why are they being treated like criminals?»

«I honestly don’t know.» There’s something in his voice that makes me believe him, and the pallor on Fulvia’s face confirms it. Plutarch turns to the guard, who’s just appeared in the doorway with Gale right behind him. «I was only told they were being confined. Why are they being punished?»

«For stealing food. We had to restrain them after an altercation over some bread,» says the guard.

Venia’s brows come together as if she’s still trying to make sense of it. «No one would tell us anything. We were so hungry. It was just one slice she took.»

Octavia begins to sob, muffling the sound in her ragged tunic. I think of how, the first time I survived the arena, Octavia sneaked me a roll under the table because she couldn’t bear my hunger. I crawl across to her shaking form. «Octavia?» I touch her and she flinches. «Octavia? It’s going to be all right. I’ll get you out of here, okay?»

«This seems extreme,» says Plutarch.

«It’s because they took a slice of bread?» asks Gale.

«There were repeated infractions leading up to that. They were warned. Still they took more bread.» The guard pauses a moment, as if puzzled by our density. «You can’t take bread.»

I can’t get Octavia to uncover her face, but she lifts it slightly. The shackles on her wrists shift down a few inches, revealing raw sores beneath them. «I’m bringing you to my mother.» I address the guard. «Unchain them.»

The guard shakes his head. «It’s not authorized.»

«Unchain them! Now!» I yell.

This breaks his composure. Average citizens don’t address him this way. «I have no release orders. And you have no authority to—»

«Do it on my authority,» says Plutarch. «We came to collect these three anyway. They’re needed for Special Defense. I’ll take full responsibility.»

The guard leaves to make a call. He returns with a set of keys. The preps have been forced into cramped body positions for so long that even once the shackles are removed, they have trouble walking. Gale, Plutarch, and I have to help them. Flavius’s foot catches on a metal grate over a circular opening in the floor, and my stomach contracts when I think of why a room would need a drain. The stains of human misery that must have been hosed off these white tiles…

In the hospital, I find my mother, the only one I trust to care for them. It takes her a minute to place the three, given their current condition, but already she wears a look of consternation. And I know it’s not a result of seeing abused bodies, because they were her daily fare in District 12, but the realization that this sort of thing goes on in 13 as well.

My mother was welcomed into the hospital, but she’s viewed as more of a nurse than a doctor, despite her lifetime of healing. Still, no one interferes when she guides the trio into an examination room to assess their injuries. I plant myself on a bench in the hall outside the hospital entrance, waiting to hear her verdict. She will be able to read in their bodies the pain inflicted upon them.

Gale sits next to me and puts an arm around my shoulder. «She’ll fix them up.» I give a nod, wondering if he’s thinking about his own brutal flogging back in 12.

Plutarch and Fulvia take the bench across from us but don’t offer any comments on the state of my prep team. If they had no knowledge of the mistreatment, then what do they make of this move on President Coin’s part? I decide to help them out.

«I guess we’ve all been put on notice,» I say.

«What? No. What do you mean?» asks Fulvia.

«Punishing my prep team’s a warning,» I tell her. «Not just to me. But to you, too. About who’s really in control and what happens if she’s not obeyed. If you had any delusions about having power, I’d let them go now. Apparently, a Capitol pedigree is no protection here. Maybe it’s even a liability.»

«There is no comparison between Plutarch, who masterminded the rebel breakout, and those three beauticians,» says Fulvia icily.

I shrug. «If you say so, Fulvia. But what would happen if you got on Coin’s bad side? My prep team was kidnapped. They can at least hope to one day return to the Capitol. Gale and I can live in the woods. But you? Where would you two run?»

«Perhaps we’re a little more necessary to the war effort than you give us credit for,» says Plutarch, unconcerned.

«Of course you are. The tributes were necessary to the Games, too. Until they weren’t,» I say. «And then we were very disposable—right, Plutarch?»

That ends the conversation. We wait in silence until my mother finds us. «They’ll be all right,» she reports. «No permanent physical injuries.»

«Good. Splendid,» says Plutarch. «How soon can they be put to work?»

«Probably tomorrow,» she answers. «You’ll have to expect some emotional instability, after what they’ve been through. They were particularly ill prepared, coming from their life in the Capitol.»

«Weren’t we all?» says Plutarch.

Either because the prep team’s incapacitated or I’m too on edge, Plutarch releases me from Mockingjay duties for the rest of the day. Gale and I head down to lunch, where we’re served bean and onion stew, a thick slice of bread, and a cup of water. After Venia’s story, the bread sticks in my throat, so I slide the rest of it onto Gale’s tray. Neither of us speaks much during lunch, but when our bowls are clean, Gale pulls up his sleeve, revealing his schedule. «I’ve got training next.»

I tug up my sleeve and hold my arm next to his. «Me, too.» I remember that training equals hunting now.

My eagerness to escape into the woods, if only for two hours, overrides my current concerns. An immersion into greenery and sunlight will surely help me sort out my thoughts. Once off the main corridors, Gale and I race like schoolchildren for the armory, and by the time we arrive, I’m breathless and dizzy. A reminder that I’m not fully recovered. The guards provide our old weapons, as well as knives and a burlap sack that’s meant for a game bag. I tolerate having the tracker clamped to my ankle, try to look as if I’m listening when they explain how to use the handheld communicator. The only thing that sticks in my head is that it has a clock, and we must be back inside 13 by the designated hour or our hunting privileges will be revoked. This is one rule I think I will make an effort to abide.

We go outside into the large, fenced-in training area beside the woods. Guards open the well-oiled gates without comment. We would be hard-pressed to get past this fence on our own—thirty feet high and always buzzing with electricity, topped with razor-sharp curls of steel. We move through the woods until the view of the fence has been obscured. In a small clearing, we pause and drop back our heads to bask in the sunlight. I turn in a circle, my arms extended at my sides, revolving slowly so as not to set the world spinning.

The lack of rain I saw in 12 has damaged the plants here as well, leaving some with brittle leaves, building a crunchy carpet under our feet. We take off our shoes. Mine don’t fit right anyway, since in the spirit of waste-not-want-not that rules 13, I was issued a pair someone had outgrown. Apparently, one of us walks funny, because they’re broken in all wrong.

We hunt, like in the old days. Silent, needing no words to communicate, because here in the woods we move as two parts of one being. Anticipating each other’s movements, watching each other’s backs. How long has it been? Eight months? Nine? Since we had this freedom? It’s not exactly the same, given all that’s happened and the trackers on our ankles and the fact that I have to rest so often. But it’s about as close to happiness as I think I can currently get.

The animals here are not nearly suspicious enough. That extra moment it takes to place our unfamiliar scent means their death. In an hour and a half, we’ve got a mixed dozen—rabbits, squirrels, and turkeys—and decide to knock off to spend the remaining time by a pond that must be fed by an underground spring, since the water’s cool and sweet.

When Gale offers to clean the game, I don’t object. I stick a few mint leaves on my tongue, close my eyes, and lean back against a rock, soaking in the sounds, letting the scorching afternoon sun burn my skin, almost at peace until Gale’s voice interrupts me. «Katniss, why do you care so much about your prep team?»

I open my eyes to see if he’s joking, but he’s frowning down at the rabbit he’s skinning. «Why shouldn’t I?»

«Hm. Let’s see. Because they’ve spent the last year prettying you up for slaughter?» he suggests.

«It’s more complicated than that. I know them. They’re not evil or cruel. They’re not even smart. Hurting them, it’s like hurting children. They don’t see… I mean, they don’t know…» I get knotted up in my words.

«They don’t know what, Katniss?» he says. «That tributes—who are the actual children involved here, not your trio of freaks—are forced to fight to the death? That you were going into that arena for people’s amusement? Was that a big secret in the Capitol?»

«No. But they don’t view it the way we do,» I say. «They’re raised on it and—»

«Are you actually defending them?» He slips the skin from the rabbit in one quick move.

That stings, because, in fact, I am, and it’s ridiculous. I struggle to find a logical position. «I guess I’m defending anyone who’s treated like that for taking a slice of bread. Maybe it reminds me too much of what happened to you over a turkey!»

Still, he’s right. It does seem strange, my level of concern over the prep team. I should hate them and want to see them strung up. But they’re so clueless, and they belonged to Cinna, and he was on my side, right?

«I’m not looking for a fight,» Gale says. «But I don’t think Coin was sending you some big message by punishing them for breaking the rules here. She probably thought you’d see it as a favor.» He stuffs the rabbit in the sack and rises. «We better get going if we want to make it back on time.»

I ignore his offer of a hand up and get to my feet unsteadily. «Fine.» Neither of us talks on the way back, but once we’re inside the gate, I think of something else. «During the Quarter Quell, Octavia and Flavius had to quit because they couldn’t stop crying over me going back in. And Venia could barely say good-bye.»

«I’ll try and keep that in mind as they… remake you,» says Gale.

«Do,» I say.

We hand the meat over to Greasy Sae in the kitchen. She likes District 13 well enough, even though she thinks the cooks are somewhat lacking in imagination. But a woman who came up with a palatable wild dog and rhubarb stew is bound to feel as if her hands are tied here.

Exhausted from hunting and my lack of sleep, I go back to my compartment to find it stripped bare, only to remember we’ve been moved because of Buttercup. I make my way up to the top floor and find Compartment E. It looks exactly like Compartment 307, except for the window—two feet wide, eight inches high—centered at the top of the outside wall. There’s a heavy metal plate that fastens over it, but right now it’s propped open, and a certain cat is nowhere to be seen. I stretch out on my bed, and a shaft of afternoon sunlight plays on my face. The next thing I know, my sister is waking me for 18:00—Reflection.

Prim tells me they’ve been announcing the assembly since lunch. The entire population, except those needed for essential jobs, is required to attend. We follow directions to the Collective, a huge room that easily holds the thousands who show up. You can tell it was built for a larger gathering, and perhaps it held one before the pox epidemic. Prim quietly points out the widespread fallout from that disaster—the pox scars on people’s bodies, the slightly disfigured children. «They’ve suffered a lot here,» she says.

After this morning, I’m in no mood to feel sorry for 13. «No more than we did in Twelve,» I say. I see my mother lead in a group of mobile patients, still wearing their hospital nightgowns and robes. Finnick stands among them, looking dazed but gorgeous. In his hands he holds a piece of thin rope, less than a foot in length, too short for even him to fashion into a usable noose. His fingers move rapidly, automatically tying and unraveling various knots as he gazes about. Probably part of his therapy. I cross to him and say, «Hey, Finnick.» He doesn’t seem to notice, so I nudge him to get his attention. «Finnick! How are you doing?»

«Katniss,» he says, gripping my hand. Relieved to see a familiar face, I think. «Why are we meeting here?»

«I told Coin I’d be her Mockingjay. But I made her promise to give the other tributes immunity if the rebels won,» I tell him. «In public, so there are plenty of witnesses.»

«Oh. Good. Because I worry about that with Annie. That she’ll say something that could be construed as traitorous without knowing it,» says Finnick.

Annie. Uh-oh. Totally forgot her. «Don’t worry, I took care of it.» I give Finnick’s hand a squeeze and head straight for the podium at the front of the room. Coin, who is glancing over her statement, raises her eyebrows at me. «I need you to add Annie Cresta to the immunity list,» I tell her.

The president frowns slightly. «Who’s that?»

«She’s Finnick Odair’s—» What? I don’t really know what to call her. «She’s Finnick’s friend. From District Four. Another victor. She was arrested and taken to the Capitol when the arena blew up.»

«Oh, the mad girl. That’s not really necessary,» she says. «We don’t make a habit of punishing anyone that frail.»

I think of the scene I walked in on this morning. Of Octavia huddled against the wall. Of how Coin and I must have vastly different definitions of frailty. But I only say, «No? Then it shouldn’t be a problem to add Annie.»

«All right,» says the president, penciling in Annie’s name. «Do you want to be up here with me for the announcement?» I shake my head. «I didn’t think so. Better hurry and lose yourself in the crowd. I’m about to begin.» I make my way back to Finnick.

Words are another thing not wasted in 13. Coin calls the audience to attention and tells them I have consented to be the Mockingjay, provided the other victors—Peeta, Johanna, Enobaria, and Annie—will be granted full pardon for any damage they do to the rebel cause. In the rumbling of the crowd, I hear the dissent. I suppose no one doubted I would want to be the Mockingjay. So naming a price—one that spares possible enemies—angers them. I stand indifferent to the hostile looks thrown my way.

The president allows a few moments of unrest, and then continues in her brisk fashion. Only now the words coming out of her mouth are news to me. «But in return for this unprecedented request, Soldier Everdeen has promised to devote herself to our cause. It follows that any deviance from her mission, in either motive or deed, will be viewed as a break in this agreement. The immunity would be terminated and the fate of the four victors determined by the law of District Thirteen. As would her own. Thank you.»

In other words, I step out of line and we’re all dead.

5

Another force to contend with. Another power player who has decided to use me as a piece in her games, although things never seem to go according to plan. First there were the Gamemakers, making me their star and then scrambling to recover from that handful of poisonous berries. Then President Snow, trying to use me to put out the flames of rebellion, only to have my every move become inflammatory. Next, the rebels ensnaring me in the metal claw that lifted me from the arena, designating me to be their Mockingjay, and then having to recover from the shock that I might not want the wings. And now Coin, with her fistful of precious nukes and her well-oiled machine of a district, finding it’s even harder to groom a Mockingjay than to catch one. But she has been the quickest to determine that I have an agenda of my own and am therefore not to be trusted. She has been the first to publicly brand me as a threat.

I run my fingers through the thick layer of bubbles in my tub. Cleaning me up is just a preliminary step to determining my new look. With my acid-damaged hair, sunburned skin, and ugly scars, the prep team has to make me pretty and then damage, burn, and scar me in a more attractive way.

«Remake her to Beauty Base Zero,» Fulvia ordered first thing this morning. «We’ll work from there.» Beauty Base Zero turns out to be what a person would look like if they stepped out of bed looking flawless but natural. It means my nails are perfectly shaped but not polished. My hair soft and shiny but not styled. My skin smooth and clear but not painted. Wax the body hair and erase the dark circles, but don’t make any noticeable enhancements. I suppose Cinna gave the same instructions the first day I arrived as a tribute in the Capitol. Only that was different, since I was a contestant. As a rebel, I thought I’d get to look more like myself. But it seems a televised rebel has her own standards to live up to.

After I rinse the lather from my body, I turn to find Octavia waiting with a towel. She is so altered from the woman I knew in the Capitol, stripped of the gaudy clothing, the heavy makeup, the dyes and jewelry and knickknacks she adorned her hair with. I remember how one day she showed up with bright pink tresses studded with blinking colored lights shaped like mice. She told me she had several mice at home as pets. The thought repulsed me at the time, since we consider mice vermin, unless cooked. But perhaps Octavia liked them because they were small, soft, and squeaky. Like her. As she pats me dry, I try to become acquainted with the District 13 Octavia. Her real hair turns out to be a nice auburn. Her face is ordinary but has an undeniable sweetness. She’s younger than I thought. Maybe early twenties. Devoid of the three-inch decorative nails, her fingers appear almost stubby, and they can’t stop trembling. I want to tell her it’s okay, that I’ll see that Coin never hurts her again. But the multicolored bruises flowering under her green skin only remind me how impotent I am.

Flavius, too, appears washed out without his purple lipstick and bright clothes. He’s managed to get his orange ringlets back in some sort of order, though. It’s Venia who’s the least changed. Her aqua hair lies flat instead of in spikes and you can see the roots growing in gray. However, the tattoos were always her most striking characteristic, and they’re as golden and shocking as ever. She comes and takes the towel from Octavia’s hands.

«Katniss is not going to hurt us,» she says quietly but firmly to Octavia. «Katniss did not even know we were here. Things will be better now.» Octavia gives a slight nod but doesn’t dare look me in the eye.

It’s no simple job getting me back to Beauty Base Zero, even with the elaborate arsenal of products, tools, and gadgets Plutarch had the foresight to bring from the Capitol. My preps do pretty well until they try to address the spot on my arm where Johanna dug out the tracker. None of the medical team was focusing on looks when they patched up the gaping hole. Now I have a lumpy, jagged scar that ripples out over a space the size of an apple. Usually, my sleeve covers it, but the way Cinna’s Mockingjay costume is designed, the sleeves stop just above the elbow. It’s such a concern that Fulvia and Plutarch are called in to discuss it. I swear, the sight of it triggers Fulvia’s gag reflex. For someone who works with a Gamemaker, she’s awfully sensitive. But I guess she’s used to seeing unpleasant things only on a screen.

«Everyone knows I have a scar here,» I say sullenly.

«Knowing it and seeing it are two different things,» says Fulvia. «It’s positively repulsive. Plutarch and I will think of something during lunch.»

«It’ll be fine,» says Plutarch with a dismissive wave of his hand. «Maybe an armband or something.»

Disgusted, I get dressed so I can head to the dining hall. My prep team huddles in a little group by the door. «Are they bringing your food here?» I ask.

«No,» says Venia. «We’re supposed to go to a dining hall.»

I sigh inwardly as I imagine walking into the dining hall, trailed by these three. But people always stare at me anyway. This will be more of the same. «I’ll show you where it is,» I say. «Come on.»

The covert glances and quiet murmurs I usually evoke are nothing compared to the reaction brought on by the sight of my bizarre-looking prep team. The gaping mouths, the finger pointing, the exclamations. «Just ignore them,» I tell my prep team. Eyes downcast, with mechanical movements, they follow me through the line, accepting bowls of grayish fish and okra stew and cups of water.

We take seats at my table, beside a group from the Seam. They show a little more restraint than the people from 13 do, although it may just be from embarrassment. Leevy, who was my neighbor back in 12, gives a cautious hello to the preps, and Gale’s mother, Hazelle, who must know about their imprisonment, holds up a spoonful of the stew. «Don’t worry,» she says. «Tastes better than it looks.»

But it’s Posy, Gale’s five-year-old sister, who helps the most. She scoots along the bench to Octavia and touches her skin with a tentative finger. «You’re green. Are you sick?»

«It’s a fashion thing, Posy. Like wearing lipstick,» I say.

«It’s meant to be pretty,» whispers Octavia, and I can see the tears threatening to spill over her lashes.

Posy considers this and says matter-of-factly, «I think you’d be pretty in any color.»

The tiniest of smiles forms on Octavia’s lips. «Thank you.»

«If you really want to impress Posy, you’ll have to dye yourself bright pink,» says Gale, thumping his tray down beside me. «That’s her favorite color.» Posy giggles and slides back down to her mother. Gale nods at Flavius’s bowl. «I wouldn’t let that get cold. It doesn’t improve the consistency.»

Everyone gets down to eating. The stew doesn’t taste bad, but there’s a certain sliminess that’s hard to get around. Like you have to swallow every bite three times before it really goes down.

Gale, who’s not usually much of a talker during meals, makes an effort to keep the conversation going, asking about the makeover. I know it’s his attempt at smoothing things over. We argued last night after he suggested I’d left Coin no choice but to counter my demand for the victors’ safety with one of her own. «Katniss, she’s running this district. She can’t do it if it seems like she’s caving in to your will.»

«You mean she can’t stand any dissent, even if it’s fair,» I’d countered.

«I mean you put her in a bad position. Making her give Peeta and the others immunity when we don’t even know what sort of damage they might cause,» Gale had said.

«So I should’ve just gone with the program and let the other tributes take their chances? Not that it matters, because that’s what we’re all doing anyway!» That was when I’d slammed the door in his face. I hadn’t sat with him at breakfast, and when Plutarch had sent him down to training this morning, I’d let him go without a word. I know he only spoke out of concern for me, but I really need him to be on my side, not Coin’s. How can he not know that?

After lunch, Gale and I are scheduled to go down to Special Defense to meet Beetee. As we ride the elevator, Gale finally says, «You’re still angry.»

«And you’re still not sorry,» I reply.

«I still stand by what I said. Do you want me to lie about it?» he asks.

«No, I want you to rethink it and come up with the right opinion,» I tell him. But this just makes him laugh. I have to let it go. There’s no point in trying to dictate what Gale thinks. Which, if I’m honest, is one reason I trust him.

The Special Defense level is situated almost as far down as the dungeons where we found the prep team. It’s a beehive of rooms full of computers, labs, research equipment, and testing ranges.

When we ask for Beetee, we’re directed through the maze until we reach an enormous plate-glass window. Inside is the first beautiful thing I’ve seen in the District 13 compound: a replication of a meadow, filled with real trees and flowering plants, and alive with hummingbirds. Beetee sits motionless in a wheelchair at the center of the meadow, watching a spring-green bird hover in midair as it sips nectar from a large orange blossom. His eyes follow the bird as it darts away, and he catches sight of us. He gives a friendly wave for us to join him inside.

The air’s cool and breathable, not humid and muggy as I’d expected. From all sides comes the whir of tiny wings, which I used to confuse with the sound of insects in our woods at home. I have to wonder what sort of fluke allowed such a pleasing place to be built here.

Beetee still has the pallor of someone in convalescence, but behind those ill-fitting glasses, his eyes are alight with excitement. «Aren’t they magnificent? Thirteen has been studying their aerodynamics here for years. Forward and backward flight, and speeds up to sixty miles per hour. If only I could build you wings like these, Katniss!»

«Doubt I could manage them, Beetee,» I laugh.

«Here one second, gone the next. Can you bring a hummingbird down with an arrow?» he asks.

«I’ve never tried. Not much meat on them,» I answer.

«No. And you’re not one to kill for sport,» he says. «I bet they’d be hard to shoot, though.»

«You could snare them maybe,» Gale says. His face takes on that distant look it wears when he’s working something out. «Take a net with a very fine mesh. Enclose an area and leave a mouth of a couple square feet. Bait the inside with nectar flowers. While they’re feeding, snap the mouth shut. They’d fly away from the noise but only encounter the far side of the net.»

«Would that work?» asks Beetee.

«I don’t know. Just an idea,» says Gale. «They might outsmart it.»

«They might. But you’re playing on their natural instincts to flee danger. Thinking like your prey… that’s where you find their vulnerabilities,» says Beetee.

I remember something I don’t like to think about. In preparation for the Quell, I saw a tape where Beetee, who was still a boy, connected two wires that electrocuted a pack of kids who were hunting him. The convulsing bodies, the grotesque expressions. Beetee, in the moments that led up to his victory in those long-ago Hunger Games, watched the others die. Not his fault. Only self-defense. We were all acting only in self-defense…

Suddenly, I want to leave the hummingbird room before somebody starts setting up a snare. «Beetee, Plutarch said you had something for me.»

«Right. I do. Your new bow.» He presses a hand control on the arm of the chair and wheels out of the room. As we follow him through the twists and turns of Special Defense, he explains about the chair. «I can walk a little now. It’s just that I tire so quickly. It’s easier for me to get around this way. How’s Finnick doing?»

«He’s… he’s having concentration problems,» I answer. I don’t want to say he had a complete mental meltdown.

«Concentration problems, eh?» Beetee smiles grimly. «If you knew what Finnick’s been through the last few years, you’d know how remarkable it is he’s still with us at all. Tell him I’ve been working on a new trident for him, though, will you? Something to distract him a little.» Distraction seems to be the last thing Finnick needs, but I promise to pass on the message.

Four soldiers guard the entrance to the hall marked Special Weaponry. Checking the schedules printed on our forearms is just a preliminary step. We also have fingerprint, retinal, and DNA scans, and have to step through special metal detectors. Beetee has to leave his wheelchair outside, although they provide him with another once we’re through security. I find the whole thing bizarre because I can’t imagine anyone raised in District 13 being a threat the government would have to guard against. Have these precautions been put in place because of the recent influx of immigrants?

At the door of the armory, we encounter a second round of identification checks—as if my DNA might have changed in the time it took to walk twenty yards down the hallway—and are finally allowed to enter the weapons collection. I have to admit the arsenal takes my breath away. Row upon row of firearms, launchers, explosives, armored vehicles. «Of course, the Airborne Division is housed separately,» Beetee tells us.

«Of course,» I say, as if this would be self-evident. I don’t know where a simple bow and arrow could possibly find a place in all this high-tech equipment, but then we come upon a wall of deadly archery weapons. I’ve played with a lot of the Capitol’s weapons in training, but none designed for military combat. I focus my attention on a lethal-looking bow so loaded down with scopes and gadgetry, I’m certain I can’t even lift it, let alone shoot it.

«Gale, maybe you’d like to try out a few of these,» says Beetee.

«Seriously?» Gale asks.

«You’ll be issued a gun eventually for battle, of course. But if you appear as part of Katniss’s team in the propos, one of these would look a little showier. I thought you might like to find one that suits you,» says Beetee.

«Yeah, I would.» Gale’s hands close around the very bow that caught my attention a moment ago, and he hefts it onto his shoulder. He points it around the room, peering through the scope.

«That doesn’t seem very fair to the deer,» I say.

«Wouldn’t be using it on deer, would I?» he answers.

«I’ll be right back,» says Beetee. He presses a code into a panel, and a small doorway opens. I watch until he’s disappeared and the door’s shut.

«So, it’d be easy for you? Using that on people?» I ask.

«I didn’t say that.» Gale drops the bow to his side. «But if I’d had a weapon that could’ve stopped what I saw happen in Twelve… if I’d had a weapon that could have kept you out of the arena… I’d have used it.»

«Me, too,» I admit. But I don’t know what to tell him about the aftermath of killing a person. About how they never leave you.

Beetee wheels back in with a tall, black rectangular case awkwardly positioned between his footrest and his shoulder. He comes to a halt and tilts it toward me. «For you.»

I set the case flat on the floor and undo the latches along one side. The top opens on silent hinges. Inside the case, on a bed of crushed maroon velvet, lies a stunning black bow. «Oh,» I whisper in admiration. I lift it carefully into the air to admire the exquisite balance, the elegant design, and the curve of the limbs that somehow suggests the wings of a bird extended in flight. There’s something else. I have to hold very still to make sure I’m not imagining it. No, the bow is alive in my hands. I press it against my cheek and feel the slight hum travel through the bones of my face. «What’s it doing?» I ask.

«Saying hello,» explains Beetee with a grin. «It heard your voice.»

«It recognizes my voice?» I ask.

«Only your voice,» he tells me. «You see, they wanted me to design a bow based purely on looks. As part of your costume, you know? But I kept thinking, What a waste. I mean, what if you do need it sometime? As more than a fashion accessory? So I left the outside simple, and left the inside to my imagination. Best explained in practice, though. Want to try those out?»

We do. A target range has already been prepared for us. The arrows that Beetee designed are no less remarkable than the bow. Between the two, I can shoot with accuracy over one hundred yards. The variety of arrows—razor sharp, incendiary, explosive—turn the bow into a multipurpose weapon. Each one is recognizable by a distinctive colored shaft. I have the option of voice override at any time, but have no idea why I would use it. To deactivate the bow’s special properties, I need only tell it «Good night.» Then it goes to sleep until the sound of my voice wakes it again.

I’m in good spirits by the time I get back to the prep team, leaving Beetee and Gale behind. I sit patiently through the rest of the paint job and don my costume, which now includes a bloody bandage over the scar on my arm to indicate I’ve been in recent combat. Venia affixes my mockingjay pin over my heart. I take up my bow and the sheath of normal arrows that Beetee made, knowing they would never let me walk around with the loaded ones. Then we’re out on the soundstage, where I seem to stand for hours while they adjust makeup and lighting and smoke levels. Eventually, the commands coming via intercom from the invisible people in the mysterious glassed-in booth become fewer and fewer. Fulvia and Plutarch spend more time studying and less time adjusting me. Finally, there’s quiet on the set. For a full five minutes I am simply considered. Then Plutarch says, «I think that does it.»

I’m beckoned over to a monitor. They play back the last few minutes of taping and I watch the woman on the screen. Her body seems larger in stature, more imposing than mine. Her face smudged but sexy. Her brows black and drawn in an angle of defiance. Wisps of smoke—suggesting she has either just been extinguished or is about to burst into flames—rise from her clothes. I do not know who this person is.

Finnick, who’s been wandering around the set for a few hours, comes up behind me and says with a hint of his old humor, «They’ll either want to kill you, kiss you, or be you.»

Everyone’s so excited, so pleased with their work. It’s nearly time to break for dinner, but they insist we continue. Tomorrow we’ll focus on speeches and interviews and have me pretend to be in rebel battles. Today they want just one slogan, just one line that they can work into a short propo to show to Coin.

«People of Panem, we fight, we dare, we end our hunger for justice!» That’s the line. I can tell by the way they present it that they’ve spent months, maybe years, working it out and are really proud of it. It seems like a mouthful to me, though. And stiff. I can’t imagine actually saying it in real life—unless I was using a Capitol accent and making fun of it. Like when Gale and I used to imitate Effie Trinket’s «May the odds beever in your favor!» But Fulvia’s right in my face, describing a battle I’ve just been in, and how my comrades-in-arms are all lying dead around me, and how, to rally the living, I must turn to the camera and shout out the line!

I’m hustled back to my place, and the smoke machine kicks in. Someone calls for quiet, the cameras start rolling, and I hear «Action!» So I hold my bow over my head and yell with all the anger I can muster, «People of Panem, we fight, we dare, we end our hunger for justice!»

There’s dead silence on the set. It goes on. And on.

Finally, the intercom crackles and Haymitch’s acerbic laugh fills the studio. He contains himself just long enough to say, «And that, my friends, is how a revolution dies.»

6

The shock of hearing Haymitch’s voice yesterday, of learning that he was not only functional but had some measure of control over my life again, enraged me. I left the studio directly and refused to acknowledge his comments from the booth today. Even so, I knew immediately he was right about my performance.

It took the whole of this morning for him to convince the others of my limitations. That I can’t pull it off. I can’t stand in a television studio wearing a costume and makeup in a cloud of fake smoke and rally the districts to victory. It’s amazing, really, how long I have survived the cameras. The credit for that, of course, goes to Peeta. Alone, I can’t be the Mockingjay.

We gather around the huge table in Command. Coin and her people. Plutarch, Fulvia, and my prep team. A group from 12 that includes Haymitch and Gale, but also a few others I can’t explain, like Leevy and Greasy Sae. At the last minute, Finnick wheels Beetee in, accompanied by Dalton, the cattle expert from 10. I suppose that Coin has assembled this strange assortment of people as witnesses to my failure.

However, it’s Haymitch who welcomes everyone, and by his words I understand that they have come at his personal invitation. This is the first time we’ve been in a room together since I clawed him. I avoid looking at him directly, but I catch a glimpse of his reflection in one of the shiny control consoles along the wall. He looks slightly yellow and has lost a lot of weight, giving him a shrunken appearance. For a second, I’m afraid he’s dying. I have to remind myself that I don’t care.

The first thing Haymitch does is to show the footage we’ve just shot. I seem to have reached some new low under Plutarch and Fulvia’s guidance. Both my voice and body have a jerky, disjointed quality, like a puppet being manipulated by unseen forces.

«All right,» Haymitch says when it’s over. «Would anyone like to argue that this is of use to us in winning the war?» No one does. «That saves time. So, let’s all be quiet for a minute. I want everyone to think of one incident where Katniss Everdeen genuinely moved you. Not where you were jealous of her hairstyle, or her dress went up in flames or she made a halfway decent shot with an arrow. Not where Peeta was making you like her. I want to hear one moment whereshe made you feel something real.»

Quiet stretches out and I’m beginning to think it will never end, when Leevy speaks up. «When she volunteered to take Prim’s place at the reaping. Because I’m sure she thought she was going to die.»

«Good. Excellent example,» says Haymitch. He takes a purple marker and writes on a notepad. «Volunteered for sister at reaping.» Haymitch looks around the table. «Somebody else.»

I’m surprised that the next speaker is Boggs, who I think of as a muscular robot that does Coin’s bidding. «When she sang the song. While the little girl died.» Somewhere in my head an image surfaces of Boggs with a young boy perched up on his hip. In the dining hall, I think. Maybe he’s not a robot after all.

«Who didn’t get choked up at that, right?» says Haymitch, writing it down.

«I cried when she drugged Peeta so she could go get him medicine and when she kissed him good-bye!» blurts out Octavia. Then she covers her mouth, like she’s sure this was a bad mistake.

But Haymitch only nods. «Oh, yeah. Drugs Peeta to save his life. Very nice.»

The moments begin to come thick and fast and in no particular order. When I took Rue on as an ally. Extended my hand to Chaff on interview night. Tried to carry Mags. And again and again when I held out those berries that meant different things to different people. Love for Peeta. Refusal to give in under impossible odds. Defiance of the Capitol’s inhumanity.

Haymitch holds up the notepad. «So, the question is, what do all of these have in common?»

«They were Katniss’s,» says Gale quietly. «No one told her what to do or say.»

«Unscripted, yes!» says Beetee. He reaches over and pats my hand. «So we should just leave you alone, right?»

People laugh. I even smile a little.

«Well, that’s all very nice but not very helpful,» says Fulvia peevishly. «Unfortunately, her opportunities for being wonderful are rather limited here in Thirteen. So unless you’re suggesting we toss her into the middle of combat—»

«That’s exactly what I’m suggesting,» says Haymitch. «Put her out in the field and just keep the cameras rolling.»

«But people think she’s pregnant,» Gale points out.

«We’ll spread the word that she lost the baby from the electrical shock in the arena,» Plutarch replies. «Very sad. Very unfortunate.»

The idea of sending me into combat is controversial. But Haymitch has a pretty tight case. If I perform well only in real-life circumstances, then into them I should go. «Every time we coach her or give her lines, the best we can hope for is okay. It has to come from her. That’s what people are responding to.»

«Even if we’re careful, we can’t guarantee her safety,» says Boggs. «She’ll be a target for every—»

«I want to go,» I break in. «I’m no help to the rebels here.»

«And if you’re killed?» asks Coin.

«Make sure you get some footage. You can use that, anyway,» I answer.

«Fine,» says Coin. «But let’s take it one step at a time. Find the least dangerous situation that can evoke some spontaneity in you.» She walks around Command, studying the illuminated district maps that show the ongoing troop positions in the war. «Take her into Eight this afternoon. There was heavy bombing this morning, but the raid seems to have run its course. I want her armed with a squad of bodyguards. Camera crew on the ground. Haymitch, you’ll be airborne and in contact with her. Let’s see what happens there. Does anyone have any other comments?»

«Wash her face,» says Dalton. Everyone turns to him. «She’s still a girl and you made her look thirty-five. Feels wrong. Like something the Capitol would do.»

As Coin adjourns the meeting, Haymitch asks her if he can speak to me privately. The others leave except for Gale, who lingers uncertainly by my side. «What are you worried about?» Haymitch asks him. «I’m the one who needs the bodyguard.»

«It’s okay,» I tell Gale, and he goes. Then there’s just the hum of the instruments, the purr of the ventilation system.

Haymitch takes the seat across from me. «We’re going to have to work together again. So, go ahead. Just say it.»

I think of the snarling, cruel exchange back on the hovercraft. The bitterness that followed. But all I say is «I can’t believe you didn’t rescue Peeta.»

«I know,» he replies.

There’s a sense of incompleteness. And not because he hasn’t apologized. But because we were a team. We had a deal to keep Peeta safe. A drunken, unrealistic deal made in the dark of night, but a deal just the same. And in my heart of hearts, I know we both failed.

«Now you say it,» I tell him.

«I can’t believe you let him out of your sight that night,» says Haymitch.

I nod. That’s it. «I play it over and over in my head. What I could have done to keep him by my side without breaking the alliance. But nothing comes to me.»

«You didn’t have a choice. And even if I could’ve made Plutarch stay and rescue him that night, the whole hovercraft would’ve gone down. We barely got out as it was.» I finally meet Haymitch’s eyes. Seam eyes. Gray and deep and ringed with the circles of sleepless nights. «He’s not dead yet, Katniss.»

«We’re still in the game.» I try to say this with optimism, but my voice cracks.

«Still in. And I’m still your mentor.» Haymitch points his marker at me. «When you’re on the ground, remember I’m airborne. I’ll have the better view, so do what I tell you.»

«We’ll see,» I answer.

I return to the Remake Room and watch the streaks of makeup disappear down the drain as I scrub my face clean. The person in the mirror looks ragged, with her uneven skin and tired eyes, but she looks like me. I rip the armband off, revealing the ugly scar from the tracker. There. That looks like me, too.

Since I’ll be in a combat zone, Beetee helps me with armor Cinna designed. A helmet of some interwoven metal that fits close to my head. The material’s supple, like fabric, and can be drawn back like a hood in case I don’t want it up full-time. A vest to reinforce the protection over my vital organs. A small white earpiece that attaches to my collar by a wire. Beetee secures a mask to my belt that I don’t have to wear unless there’s a gas attack. «If you see anyone dropping for reasons you can’t explain, put it on immediately,» he says. Finally, he straps a sheath divided into three cylinders of arrows to my back. «Just remember: Right side, fire. Left side, explosive. Center, regular. You shouldn’t need them, but better safe than sorry.»

Boggs shows up to escort me down to the Airborne Division. Just as the elevator arrives, Finnick appears in a state of agitation. «Katniss, they won’t let me go! I told them I’m fine, but they won’t even let me ride in the hovercraft!»

I take in Finnick—his bare legs showing between his hospital gown and slippers, his tangle of hair, the half-knotted rope twisted around his fingers, the wild look in his eyes—and know any plea on my part will be useless. Even I don’t think it’s a good idea to bring him. So I smack my hand on my forehead and say, «Oh, I forgot. It’s this stupid concussion. I was supposed to tell you to report to Beetee in Special Weaponry. He’s designed a new trident for you.»

At the word trident, it’s as if the old Finnick surfaces. «Really? What’s it do?»

«I don’t know. But if it’s anything like my bow and arrows, you’re going to love it,» I say. «You’ll need to train with it, though.»

«Right. Of course. I guess I better get down there,» he says.

«Finnick?» I say. «Maybe some pants?»

He looks down at his legs as if noticing his outfit for the first time. Then he whips off his hospital gown, leaving him in just his underwear. «Why? Do you find this»—he strikes a ridiculously provocative pose—«distracting?»

I can’t help laughing because it’s funny, and it’s extra funny because it makes Boggs look so uncomfortable, and I’m happy because Finnick actually sounds like the guy I met at the Quarter Quell.

«I’m only human, Odair.» I get in before the elevator doors close. «Sorry,» I say to Boggs.

«Don’t be. I thought you… handled that well,» he says. «Better than my having to arrest him, anyway.»

«Yeah,» I say. I sneak a sidelong glance at him. He’s probably in his mid-forties, with close-cropped gray hair and blue eyes. Incredible posture. He’s spoken out twice today in ways that make me think he would rather be friends than enemies. Maybe I should give him a chance. But he just seems so in step with Coin…

There’s a series of loud clicks. The elevator comes to a slight pause and then begins to move laterally to the left. «It goes sideways?» I ask.

«Yes. There’s a whole network of elevator paths under Thirteen,» he answers. «This one lies just above the transport spoke to the fifth airlift platform. It’s taking us to the Hangar.»

The Hangar. The dungeons. Special Defense. Somewhere food is grown. Power generated. Air and water purified. «Thirteen is even larger than I thought.»

«Can’t take credit for much of it,» says Boggs. «We basically inherited the place. It’s been all we can do to keep it running.»

The clicks resume. We drop down again briefly—just a couple of levels—and the doors open on the Hangar.

«Oh,» I let out involuntarily at the sight of the fleet. Row after row of different kinds of hovercraft. «Did you inherit these, too?»

«Some we manufactured. Some were part of the Capitol’s air force. They’ve been updated, of course,» says Boggs.

I feel that twinge of hatred against 13 again. «So, you had all this, and you left the rest of the districts defenseless against the Capitol.»

«It’s not that simple,» he shoots back. «We were in no position to launch a counterattack until recently. We could barely stay alive. After we’d overthrown and executed the Capitol’s people, only a handful of us even knew how to pilot. We could’ve nuked them with missiles, yes. But there’s always the larger question: If we engage in that type of war with the Capitol, would there be any human life left?»

«That sounds like what Peeta said. And you all called him a traitor,» I counter.

«Because he called for a cease-fire,» says Boggs. «You’ll notice neither side has launched nuclear weapons. We’re working it out the old-fashioned way. Over here, Soldier Everdeen.» He indicates one of the smaller hovercraft.

I mount the stairs and find it packed with the television crew and equipment. Everyone else is dressed in 13’s dark gray military jumpsuits, even Haymitch, although he seems unhappy about the snugness of his collar.

Fulvia Cardew hustles over and makes a sound of frustration when she sees my clean face. «All that work, down the drain. I’m not blaming you, Katniss. It’s just that very few people are born with camera-ready faces. Like him.» She snags Gale, who’s in a conversation with Plutarch, and spins him toward us. «Isn’t he handsome?»

Gale does look striking in the uniform, I guess. But the question just embarrasses us both, given our history. I’m trying to think of a witty comeback, when Boggs says brusquely, «Well, don’t expect us to be too impressed. We just saw Finnick Odair in his underwear.» I decide to go ahead and like Boggs.

There’s a warning of the upcoming takeoff and I strap myself into a seat next to Gale, facing off with Haymitch and Plutarch. We glide through a maze of tunnels that opens out onto a platform. Some sort of elevator device lifts the craft slowly up through the levels. All at once we’re outside in a large field surrounded by woods, then we rise off the platform and become wrapped in clouds.

Now that the flurry of activity leading up to this mission is over, I realize I have no idea what I’m facing on this trip to District 8. In fact, I know very little about the actual state of the war. Or what it would take to win it. Or what would happen if we did.

Plutarch tries to lay it out in simple terms for me. First of all, every district is currently at war with the Capitol except 2, which has always had a favored relationship with our enemies despite its participation in the Hunger Games. They get more food and better living conditions. After the Dark Days and the supposed destruction of 13, District 2 became the Capitol’s new center of defense, although it’s publicly presented as the home of the nation’s stone quarries, in the same way that 13 was known for graphite mining. District 2 not only manufactures weaponry, it trains and even supplies Peacekeepers.

«You mean… some of the Peacekeepers are born in Two?» I ask. «I thought they all came from the Capitol.»

Plutarch nods. «That’s what you’re supposed to think. And some do come from the Capitol. But its population could never sustain a force that size. Then there’s the problem of recruiting Capitol-raised citizens for a dull life of deprivation in the districts. A twenty-year commitment to the Peacekeepers, no marriage, no children allowed. Some buy into it for the honor of the thing, others take it on as an alternative to punishment. For instance, join the Peacekeepers and your debts are forgiven. Many people are swamped in debt in the Capitol, but not all of them are fit for military duty. So District Two is where we turn for additional troops. It’s a way for their people to escape poverty and a life in the quarries. They’re raised with a warrior mind-set. You’ve seen how eager their children are to volunteer to be tributes.»

Cato and Clove. Brutus and Enobaria. I’ve seen their eagerness and their bloodlust, too. «But all the other districts are on our side?» I ask.

«Yes. Our goal is to take over the districts one by one, ending with District Two, thus cutting off the Capitol’s supply chain. Then, once it’s weakened, we invade the Capitol itself,» says Plutarch. «That will be a whole other type of challenge. But we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.»

«If we win, who would be in charge of the government?» Gale asks.

«Everyone,» Plutarch tells him. «We’re going to form a republic where the people of each district and the Capitol can elect their own representatives to be their voice in a centralized government. Don’t look so suspicious; it’s worked before.»

«In books,» Haymitch mutters.

«In history books,» says Plutarch. «And if our ancestors could do it, then we can, too.»

Frankly, our ancestors don’t seem much to brag about. I mean, look at the state they left us in, with the wars and the broken planet. Clearly, they didn’t care about what would happen to the people who came after them. But this republic idea sounds like an improvement over our current government.

«And if we lose?» I ask.

«If we lose?» Plutarch looks out at the clouds, and an ironic smile twists his lips. «Then I would expect next year’s Hunger Games to be quite unforgettable. That reminds me.» He takes a vial from his vest, shakes a few deep violet pills into his hand, and holds them out to us. «We named them nightlock in your honor, Katniss. The rebels can’t afford for any of us to be captured now. But I promise, it will be completely painless.»

I take hold of a capsule, unsure of where to put it. Plutarch taps a spot on my shoulder at the front of my left sleeve. I examine it and find a tiny pocket that both secures and conceals the pill. Even if my hands were tied, I could lean my head forward and bite it free.

Cinna, it seems, has thought of everything.

7

The hovercraft makes a quick, spiral descent onto a wide road on the outskirts of 8. Almost immediately, the door opens, the stairs slide into place, and we’re spit out onto the asphalt. The moment the last person disembarks, the equipment retracts. Then the craft lifts off and vanishes. I’m left with a bodyguard made up of Gale, Boggs, and two other soldiers. The TV crew consists of a pair of burly Capitol cameramen with heavy mobile cameras encasing their bodies like insect shells, a woman director named Cressida who has a shaved head tattooed with green vines, and her assistant, Messalla, a slim young man with several sets of earrings. On careful observation, I see his tongue has been pierced, too, and he wears a stud with a silver ball the size of a marble.

Boggs hustles us off the road toward a row of warehouses as a second hovercraft comes in for a landing. This one brings crates of medical supplies and a crew of six medics—I can tell by their distinctive white outfits. We all follow Boggs down an alley that runs between two dull gray warehouses. Only the occasional access ladder to the roof interrupts the scarred metal walls. When we emerge onto the street, it’s like we’ve entered another world.

The wounded from this morning’s bombing are being brought in. On homemade stretchers, in wheelbarrows, on carts, slung across shoulders, and clenched tight in arms. Bleeding, limbless, unconscious. Propelled by desperate people to a warehouse with a sloppily painted H above the doorway. It’s a scene from my old kitchen, where my mother treated the dying, multiplied by ten, by fifty, by a hundred. I had expected bombed-out buildings and instead find myself confronted with broken human bodies.

This is where they plan on filming me? I turn to Boggs. «This won’t work,» I say. «I won’t be good here.»

He must see the panic in my eyes, because he stops a moment and places his hands on my shoulders. «You will. Just let them see you. That will do more for them than any doctor in the world could.»

A woman directing the incoming patients catches sight of us, does a sort of double take, and then strides over. Her dark brown eyes are puffy with fatigue and she smells of metal and sweat. A bandage around her throat needed changing about three days ago. The strap of the automatic weapon slung across her back digs into her neck and she shifts her shoulder to reposition it. With a jerk of her thumb, she orders the medics into the warehouse. They comply without question.

«This is Commander Paylor of Eight,» says Boggs. «Commander, Soldier Katniss Everdeen.»

She looks young to be a commander. Early thirties. But there’s an authoritative tone to her voice that makes you feel her appointment wasn’t arbitrary. Beside her, in my spanking-new outfit, scrubbed and shiny, I feel like a recently hatched chick, untested and only just learning how to navigate the world.

«Yeah, I know who she is,» says Paylor. «You’re alive, then. We weren’t sure.» Am I wrong or is there a note of accusation in her voice?

«I’m still not sure myself,» I answer.

«Been in recovery.» Boggs taps his head. «Bad concussion.» He lowers his voice a moment.

«Miscarriage. But she insisted on coming by to see your wounded.»

«Well, we’ve got plenty of those,» says Paylor.

«You think this is a good idea?» says Gale, frowning at the hospital. «Assembling your wounded like this?»

I don’t. Any sort of contagious disease would spread through this place like wildfire.

«I think it’s slightly better than leaving them to die,» says Paylor.

«That’s not what I meant,» Gale tells her.

«Well, currently that’s my other option. But if you come up with a third and get Coin to back it, I’m all ears.» Paylor waves me toward the door. «Come on in, Mockingjay. And by all means, bring your friends.»

I glance back at the freak show that is my crew, steel myself, and follow her into the hospital. Some sort of heavy, industrial curtain hangs the length of the building, forming a sizable corridor. Corpses lie side by side, curtain brushing their heads, white cloths concealing their faces. «We’ve got a mass grave started a few blocks west of here, but I can’t spare the manpower to move them yet,» says Paylor. She finds a slit in the curtain and opens it wide.

My fingers wrap around Gale’s wrist. «Do not leave my side,» I say under my breath.

«I’m right here,» he answers quietly.

I step through the curtain and my senses are assaulted. My first impulse is to cover my nose to block out the stench of soiled linen, putrefying flesh, and vomit, all ripening in the heat of the warehouse. They’ve propped open skylights that crisscross the high metal roof, but any air that’s managing to get in can’t make a dent in the fog below. The thin shafts of sunlight provide the only illumination, and as my eyes adjust, I can make out row upon row of wounded, in cots, on pallets, on the floor because there are so many to claim the space. The drone of black flies, the moaning of people in pain, and the sobs of their attending loved ones have combined into a wrenching chorus.

We have no real hospitals in the districts. We die at home, which at the moment seems a far desirable alternative to what lies in front of me. Then I remember that many of these people probably lost their homes in the bombings.

Sweat begins to run down my back, fill my palms. I breathe through my mouth in an attempt to diminish the smell. Black spots swim across my field of vision, and I think there’s a really good chance I could faint. But then I catch sight of Paylor, who’s watching me so closely, waiting to see what I am made of, and if any of them have been right to think they can count on me. So I let go of Gale and force myself to move deeper into the warehouse, to walk into the narrow strip between two rows of beds.

«Katniss?» a voice croaks out from my left, breaking apart from the general din. «Katniss?» A hand reaches for me out of the haze. I cling to it for support. Attached to the hand is a young woman with an injured leg. Blood has seeped through the heavy bandages, which are crawling with flies. Her face reflects her pain, but something else, too, something that seems completely incongruous with her situation. «Is it really you?»

«Yeah, it’s me,» I get out.

Joy. That’s the expression on her face. At the sound of my voice, it brightens, erases the suffering momentarily.

«You’re alive! We didn’t know. People said you were, but we didn’t know!» she says excitedly.

«I got pretty banged up. But I got better,» I say. «Just like you will.»

«I’ve got to tell my brother!» The woman struggles to sit up and calls to someone a few beds down. «Eddy! Eddy! She’s here! It’s Katniss Everdeen!»

A boy, probably about twelve years old, turns to us. Bandages obscure half of his face. The side of his mouth I can see opens as if to utter an exclamation. I go to him, push his damp brown curls back from his forehead. Murmur a greeting. He can’t speak, but his one good eye fixes on me with such intensity, as if he’s trying to memorize every detail of my face.

I hear my name rippling through the hot air, spreading out into the hospital. «Katniss! Katniss Everdeen!» The sounds of pain and grief begin to recede, to be replaced by words of anticipation. From all sides, voices beckon me. I begin to move, clasping the hands extended to me, touching the sound parts of those unable to move their limbs, saying hello, how are you, good to meet you. Nothing of importance, no amazing words of inspiration. But it doesn’t matter. Boggs is right. It’s the sight of me, alive, that is the inspiration.

Hungry fingers devour me, wanting to feel my flesh. As a stricken man clutches my face between his hands, I send a silent thank-you to Dalton for suggesting I wash off the makeup. How ridiculous, how perverse I would feel presenting that painted Capitol mask to these people. The damage, the fatigue, the imperfections. That’s how they recognize me, why I belong to them.

Despite his controversial interview with Caesar, many ask about Peeta, assure me that they know he was speaking under duress. I do my best to sound positive about our future, but people are truly devastated when they learn I’ve lost the baby. I want to come clean and tell one weeping woman that it was all a hoax, a move in the game, but to present Peeta as a liar now would not help his image. Or mine. Or the cause.

I begin to fully understand the lengths to which people have gone to protect me. What I mean to the rebels. My ongoing struggle against the Capitol, which has so often felt like a solitary journey, has not been undertaken alone. I have had thousands upon thousands of people from the districts at my side. I was their Mockingjay long before I accepted the role.

A new sensation begins to germinate inside me. But it takes until I am standing on a table, waving my final goodbyes to the hoarse chanting of my name, to define it. Power. I have a kind of power I never knew I possessed. Snow knew it, as soon as I held out those berries. Plutarch knew when he rescued me from the arena. And Coin knows now. So much so that she must publicly remind her people that I am not in control.

When we’re outside again, I lean against the warehouse, catching my breath, accepting the canteen of water from Boggs. «You did great,» he says.

Well, I didn’t faint or throw up or run out screaming. Mostly, I just rode the wave of emotion rolling through the place.

«We got some nice stuff in there,» says Cressida. I look at the insect cameramen, perspiration pouring from under their equipment. Messalla scribbling notes. I had forgotten they were even filming me.

«I didn’t do much, really,» I say.

«You have to give yourself some credit for what you’ve done in the past,» says Boggs.

What I’ve done in the past? I think of the trail of destruction in my wake—my knees weaken and I slide down to a sitting position. «That’s a mixed bag.»

«Well, you’re not perfect by a long shot. But times being what they are, you’ll have to do,» says Boggs.

Gale squats down beside me, shaking his head. «I can’t believe you let all those people touch you. I kept expecting you to make a break for the door.»

«Shut up,» I say with a laugh.

«Your mother’s going to be very proud when she sees the footage,» he says.

«My mother won’t even notice me. She’ll be too appalled by the conditions in there.» I turn to Boggs and ask, «Is it like this in every district?»

«Yes. Most are under attack. We’re trying to get in aid wherever we can, but it’s not enough.» He stops a minute, distracted by something in his earpiece. I realize I haven’t heard Haymitch’s voice once, and fiddle with mine, wondering if it’s broken. «We’re to get to the airstrip. Immediately,» Boggs says, lifting me to my feet with one hand. «There’s a problem.»

«What kind of problem?» asks Gale.

«Incoming bombers,» says Boggs. He reaches behind my neck and yanks Cinna’s helmet up onto my head. «Let’s move!»

Unsure of what’s going on, I take off running along the front of the warehouse, heading for the alley that leads to the airstrip. But I don’t sense any immediate threat. The sky’s an empty, cloudless blue. The street’s clear except for the people hauling the wounded to the hospital. There’s no enemy, no alarm. Then the sirens begin to wail. Within seconds, a low-flying V-shaped formation of Capitol hoverplanes appears above us, and the bombs begin to fall. I’m blown off my feet, into the front wall of the warehouse. There’s a searing pain just above the back of my right knee. Something has struck my back as well, but doesn’t seem to have penetrated my vest. I try to get up, but Boggs pushes me back down, shielding my body with his own. The ground ripples under me as bomb after bomb drops from the planes and detonates.

It’s a horrifying sensation being pinned against the wall as the bombs rain down. What was that expression my father used for easy kills?Like shooting fish in a barrel. We are the fish, the street the barrel.

«Katniss!» I’m startled by Haymitch’s voice in my ear.

«What? Yes, what? I’m here!» I answer.

«Listen to me. We can’t land during the bombing, but it’s imperative you’re not spotted,» he says.

«So they don’t know I’m here?» I assumed, as usual, it was my presence that brought on punishment.

«Intelligence thinks no. That this raid was already scheduled,» says Haymitch.

«Now Plutarch’s voice comes up, calm but forceful. The voice of a Head Gamemaker used to calling the north corner. Can you get there?»

«We’ll do our best,» says Boggs. Plutarch must be in everyone’s ear, because my bodyguards and crew are getting up. My eye instinctively searches for Gale and sees he’s on his feet, apparently unharmed.

«You’ve got maybe forty-five seconds to the next wave,» says Plutarch.

I give a grunt of pain as my right leg takes the weight of my body, but I keep moving. No time to examine the injury. Better not to look now, anyway. Fortunately, I have on shoes that Cinna designed. They grip the asphalt on contact and spring free of it on release. I’d be hopeless in that ill-fitting pair that 13 assigned to me. Boggs has the lead, but no one else passes me. Instead they match my pace, protecting my sides, my back. I force myself into a sprint as the seconds tick away. We pass the second gray warehouse and run along a dirt brown building. Up ahead, I see a faded blue facade. Home of the bunker. We have just reached another alley, need only to cross it to arrive at the door, when the next wave of bombs begins. I instinctively dive into the alley and roll toward the blue wall. This time it’s Gale who throws himself over me to provide one more layer of protection from the bombing. It seems to go on longer this time, but we are farther away.

I shift onto my side and find myself looking directly into Gale’s eyes. For an instant the world recedes and there is just his flushed face, his pulse visible at his temple, his lips slightly parted as he tries to catch his breath.

«You all right?» he asks, his words nearly drowned out by an explosion.

«Yeah. I don’t think they’ve seen me,» I answer. «I mean, they’re not following us.»

«No, they’ve targeted something else,» says Gale.

«I know, but there’s nothing back there but—» The realization hits us at the same time.

«The hospital.» Instantly, Gale’s up and shouting to the others. «They’re targeting the hospital!»

«Not your problem,» says Plutarch firmly. «Get to the bunker.»

«But there’s nothing there but the wounded!» I say.

«Katniss.» I hear the warning note in Haymitch’s voice and know what’s coming. «Don’t you even think about—!» I yank the earpiece free and let it hang from its wire. With that distraction gone, I hear another sound. Machine gun fire coming from the roof of the dirt brown warehouse across the alley. Someone is returning fire. Before anyone can stop me, I make a dash for an access ladder and begin to scale it. Climbing. One of the things I do best.

«Don’t stop!» I hear Gale say behind me. Then there’s the sound of his boot on someone’s face. If it belongs to Boggs, Gale’s going to pay for it dearly later on. I make the roof and drag myself onto the tar. I stop long enough to pull Gale up beside me, and then we take off for the row of machine gun nests on the street side of the warehouse. Each looks to be manned by a few rebels. We skid into a nest with a pair of soldiers, hunching down behind the barrier.

«Boggs know you’re up here?» To my left I see Paylor behind one of the guns, looking at us quizzically.

I try to be evasive without flat-out lying. «He knows where we are, all right.»

Paylor laughs. «I bet he does. You been trained in these?» She slaps the stock of her gun.

«I have. In Thirteen,» says Gale. «But I’d rather use my own weapons.»

«Yes, we’ve got our bows.» I hold mine up, then realize how decorative it must seem. «It’s more deadly than it looks.»

«It would have to be,» says Paylor. «All right. We expect at least three more waves. They have to drop their sight shields before they release the bombs. That’s our chance. Stay low!» I position myself to shoot from one knee.

«Better start with fire,» says Gale.

I nod and pull an arrow from my right sheath. If we miss our targets, these arrows will land somewhere—probably the warehouses across the street. A fire can be put out, but the damage an explosive can do may be irreparable.

Suddenly, they appear in the sky, two blocks down, maybe a hundred yards above us. Seven small bombers in a V formation. «Geese!» I yell at Gale. He’ll know exactly what I mean. During migration season, when we hunt fowl, we’ve developed a system of dividing the birds so we don’t both target the same ones. I get the far side of the V, Gale takes the near, and we alternate shots at the front bird. There’s no time for further discussion. I estimate the lead time on the hoverplanes and let my arrow fly. I catch the inside wing of one, causing it to burst into flames. Gale just misses the point plane. A fire blooms on an empty warehouse roof across from us. He swears under his breath.

The hoverplane I hit swerves out of formation, but still releases its bombs. It doesn’t disappear, though. Neither does one other I assume was hit by gunfire. The damage must prevent the sight shield from reactivating.

«Good shot,» says Gale.

«I wasn’t even aiming for that one,» I mutter. I’d set my sights on the plane in front of it. «They’re faster than we think.»

«Positions!» Paylor shouts. The next wave of hoverplanes is appearing already.

«Fire’s no good,» Gale says. I nod and we both load explosive-tipped arrows. Those warehouses across the way look deserted anyway.

As the planes sweep silently in, I make another decision. «I’m standing!» I shout to Gale, and rise to my feet. This is the position I get the best accuracy from. I lead earlier and score a direct hit on the point plane, blasting a hole in its belly. Gale blows the tail off a second. It flips and crashes into the street, setting off a series of explosions as its cargo goes off.

Without warning, a third V formation unveils. This time, Gale squarely hits the point plane. I take the wing off the second bomber, causing it to spin into the one behind it. Together they collide into the roof of the warehouse across from the hospital. A fourth goes down from gunfire.

«All right, that’s it,» Paylor says.

Flames and heavy black smoke from the wreckage obscure our view. «Did they hit the hospital?»

«Must have,» she says grimly.

As I hurry toward the ladders at the far end of the warehouse, the sight of Messalla and one of the insects emerging from behind an air duct surprises me. I thought they’d still be hunkered down in the alley.

«They’re growing on me,» says Gale.

I scramble down a ladder. When my feet hit the ground, I find a bodyguard, Cressida, and the other insect waiting. I expect resistance, but Cressida just waves me toward the hospital. She’s yelling, «I don’t care, Plutarch! Just give me five more minutes!» Not one to question a free pass, I take off into the street.

«Oh, no,» I whisper as I catch sight of the hospital. What used to be the hospital. I move past the wounded, past the burning plane wrecks, fixated on the disaster ahead of me. People screaming, running about frantically, but unable to help. The bombs have collapsed the hospital roof and set the building on fire, effectively trapping the patients within. A group of rescuers has assembled, trying to clear a path to the inside. But I already know what they will find. If the crushing debris and the flames didn’t get them, the smoke did.

Gale’s at my shoulder. The fact that he does nothing only confirms my suspicions. Miners don’t abandon an accident until it’s hopeless.

«Come on, Katniss. Haymitch says they can get a hovercraft in for us now,» he tells me. But I can’t seem to move.

«Why would they do that? Why would they target people who were already dying?» I ask him.

«Scare others off. Prevent the wounded from seeking help,» says Gale. «Those people you met, they were expendable. To Snow, anyway. If the Capitol wins, what will it do with a bunch of damaged slaves?»

I remember all those years in the woods, listening to Gale rant against the Capitol. Me, not paying close attention. Wondering why he even bothered to dissect its motives. Why thinking like our enemy would ever matter. Clearly, it could have mattered today. When Gale questioned the existence of the hospital, he was not thinking of disease, but this. Because he never underestimates the cruelty of those we face.

I slowly turn my back to the hospital and find Cressida, flanked by the insects, standing a couple of yards in front of me. Her manner’s unrattled. Cool even. «Katniss,» she says, «President Snow just had them air the bombing live. Then he made an appearance to say that this was his way of sending a message to the rebels. What about you? Would you like to tell the rebels anything?»

«Yes,» I whisper. The red blinking light on one of the cameras catches my eye. I know I’m being recorded. «Yes,» I say more forcefully. Everyone is drawing away from me—Gale, Cressida, the insects—giving me the stage. But I stay focused on the red light. «I want to tell the rebels that I am alive. That I’m right here in District Eight, where the Capitol has just bombed a hospital full of unarmed men, women, and children. There will be no survivors.» The shock I’ve been feeling begins to give way to fury. «I want to tell people that if you think for one second the Capitol will treat us fairly if there’s a cease-fire, you’re deluding yourself. Because you know who they are and what they do.» My hands go out automatically, as if to indicate the whole horror around me. «This is what they do! And we must fight back!»

I’m moving in toward the camera now, carried forward by my rage. «President Snow says he’s sending us a message? Well, I have one for him. You can torture us and bomb us and burn our districts to the ground, but do you see that?» One of the cameras follows as I point to the planes burning on the roof of the warehouse across from us. The Capitol seal on a wing glows clearly through the flames. «Fire is catching!» I am shouting now, determined that he will not miss a word. «And if we burn, you burn with us!»

My last words hang in the air. I feel suspended in time. Held aloft in a cloud of heat that generates not from my surroundings, but from my own being.

«Cut!» Cressida’s voice snaps me back to reality, extinguishes me. She gives me a nod of approval. «That’s a wrap.»

8

Boggs appears and gets a firm lock on my arm, but I’m not planning on running now. I look over at the hospital—just in time to see the rest of the structure give way—and the fight goes out of me. All those people, the hundreds of wounded, the relatives, the medics from 13, are no more. I turn back to Boggs, see the swelling on his face left by Gale’s boot. I’m no expert, but I’m pretty sure his nose is broken. His voice is more resigned than angry, though. «Back to the landing strip.» I obediently take a step forward and wince as I become aware of the pain behind my right knee. The adrenaline rush that overrode the sensation has passed and my body parts join in a chorus of complaints. I’m banged up and bloody and someone seems to be hammering on my left temple from inside my skull. Boggs quickly examines my face, then scoops me up and jogs for the runway. Halfway there, I puke on his bulletproof vest. It’s hard to tell because he’s short of breath, but I think he sighs.

A small hovercraft, different from the one that transported us here, waits on the runway. The second my team’s on board, we take off. No comfy seats and windows this time. We seem to be in some sort of cargo craft. Boggs does emergency first aid on people to hold them until we get back to 13. I want to take off my vest, since I got a fair amount of vomit on it as well, but it’s too cold to think about it. I lie on the floor with my head in Gale’s lap. The last thing I remember is Boggs spreading a couple of burlap sacks over me.

When I wake up, I’m warm and patched up in my old bed in the hospital. My mother’s there, checking my vital signs. «How do you feel?»

«A little beat-up, but all right,» I say.

«No one even told us you were going until you were gone,» she says.

I feel a pang of guilt. When your family’s had to send you off twice to the Hunger Games, this isn’t the kind of detail you should overlook. «I’m sorry. They weren’t expecting the attack. I was just supposed to be visiting the patients,» I explain. «Next time, I’ll have them clear it with you.»

«Katniss, no one clears anything with me,» she says.

It’s true. Even I don’t. Not since my father died. Why pretend? «Well, I’ll have them… notify you anyway.»

On the bedside table is a piece of shrapnel they removed from my leg. The doctors are more concerned with the damage my brain might have suffered from the explosions, since my concussion hadn’t fully healed to begin with. But I don’t have double vision or anything and I can think clearly enough. I’ve slept right through the late afternoon and night, and I’m starving. My breakfast is disappointingly small. Just a few cubes of bread soaking in warm milk. I’ve been called down to an early morning meeting at Command. I start to get up and then realize they plan to roll my hospital bed directly there. I want to walk, but that’s out, so I negotiate my way into a wheelchair. I feel fine, really. Except for my head, and my leg, and the soreness from the bruises, and the nausea that hit a couple minutes after I ate. Maybe the wheelchair’s a good idea.

As they wheel me down, I begin to get uneasy about what I will face. Gale and I directly disobeyed orders yesterday, and Boggs has the injury to prove it. Surely, there will be repercussions, but will they go so far as Coin annulling our agreement for the victors’ immunity? Have I stripped Peeta of what little protection I could give him?

When I get to Command, the only ones who’ve arrived are Cressida, Messalla, and the insects. Messalla beams and says, «There’s our little star!» and the others are smiling so genuinely that I can’t help but smile in return. They impressed me in 8, following me onto the roof during the bombing, making Plutarch back off so they could get the footage they wanted. They more than do their work, they take pride in it. Like Cinna.

I have a strange thought that if we were in the arena together, I would pick them as allies. Cressida, Messalla, and—and—«I have to stop calling you ‘the insects,’» I blurt out to the cameramen. I explain how I didn’t know their names, but their suits suggested the shelled creatures. The comparison doesn’t seem to bother them. Even without the camera shells, they strongly resemble each other. Same sandy hair, red beards, and blue eyes. The one with close-bitten nails introduces himself as Castor and the other, who’s his brother, as Pollux. I wait for Pollux to say hello, but he just nods. At first I think he’s shy or a man of few words. But something tugs on me—the position of his lips, the extra effort he takes to swallow—and I know before Castor tells me. Pollux is an Avox. They have cut out his tongue and he will never speak again. And I no longer have to wonder what made him risk everything to help bring down the Capitol.

As the room fills, I brace myself for a less congenial reception. But the only people who register any kind of negativity are Haymitch, who’s always out of sorts, and a sour-faced Fulvia Cardew. Boggs wears a flesh-colored plastic mask from his upper lip to his brow—I was right about the broken nose—so his expression’s hard to read. Coin and Gale are in the midst of some exchange that seems positively chummy.

When Gale slides into the seat next to my wheelchair, I say, «Making new friends?»

His eyes flicker to the president and back. «Well, one of us has to be accessible.» He touches my temple gently. «How do you feel?»

They must have served stewed garlic and squash for the breakfast vegetable. The more people who gather, the stronger the fumes are. My stomach turns and the lights suddenly seem too bright. «Kind of rocky,» I say. «How are you?»

«Fine. They dug out a couple of pieces of shrapnel. No big deal,» he says.

Coin calls the meeting to order. «Our Airtime Assault has officially launched. For any of you who missed yesterday’s twenty-hundred broadcast of our first propo—or the seventeen reruns Beetee has managed to air since—we will begin by replaying it.» Replaying it? So they not only got usable footage, they’ve already slapped together a propo and aired it repeatedly. My palms grow moist in anticipation of seeing myself on television. What if I’m still awful? What if I’m as stiff and pointless as I was in the studio and they’ve just given up on getting anything better? Individual screens slide up from the table, the lights dim slightly, and a hush falls over the room.

At first, my screen is black. Then a tiny spark flickers in the center. It blossoms, spreads, silently eating up the blackness until the entire frame is ablaze with a fire so real and intense, I imagine I feel the heat emanating from it. The image of my mockingjay pin emerges, glowing red-gold. The deep, resonant voice that haunts my dreams begins to speak. Claudius Templesmith, the official announcer of the Hunger Games, says, «Katniss Everdeen, the girl who was on fire, burns on.»

Suddenly, there I am, replacing the mockingjay, standing before the real flames and smoke of District 8. «I want to tell the rebels that I am alive. That I’m right here in District Eight, where the Capitol has just bombed a hospital full of unarmed men, women, and children. There will be no survivors.» Cut to the hospital collapsing in on itself, the desperation of the onlookers as I continue in voice-over. «I want to tell people that if you think for one second the Capitol will treat us fairly if there’s a cease-fire, you’re deluding yourself. Because you know who they are and what they do.» Back to me now, my hands lifting up to indicate the outrage around me. «This is what they do! And we must fight back!» Now comes a truly fantastic montage of the battle. The initial bombs falling, us running, being blown to the ground—a close-up of my wound, which looks good and bloody—scaling the roof, diving into the nests, and then some amazing shots of the rebels, Gale, and mostly me, me, me knocking those planes out of the sky. Smash-cut back to me moving in on the camera. «President Snow says he’s sending us a message? Well, I have one for him. You can torture us and bomb us and burn our districts to the ground, but do you see that?» We’re with the camera, tracking to the planes burning on the roof of the warehouse. Tight on the Capitol seal on a wing, which melts back into the image of my face, shouting at the president. «Fire is catching! And if we burn, you burn with us!» Flames engulf the screen again. Superimposed on them in black, solid letters are the words:

The words catch fire and the whole screen burns to blackness.

There’s a moment of silent relish, then applause followed by demands to see it again. Coin indulgently hits the replay button, and this time, since I know what will happen, I try to pretend that I’m watching this on my television at home in the Seam. An anti-Capitol statement. There’s never been anything like it on television. Not in my lifetime, anyway.

By the time the screen burns to black a second time, I need to know more. «Did it play all over Panem? Did they see it in the Capitol?»

«Not in the Capitol,» says Plutarch. «We couldn’t override their system, although Beetee’s working on it. But in all the districts. We even got it on in Two, which may be more valuable than the Capitol at this point in the game.»

«Is Claudius Templesmith with us?» I ask.

This gives Plutarch a good laugh. «Only his voice. But that’s ours for the taking. We didn’t even have to do any special editing. He said that actual line in your first Games.» He slaps his hand on the table. «What say we give another round of applause to Cressida, her amazing team, and, of course, our on-camera talent!»

I clap, too, until I realize I’m the on-camera talent and maybe it’s obnoxious that I’m applauding for myself, but no one’s paying attention. I can’t help noticing the strain on Fulvia’s face, though. I think how hard this must be for her, watching Haymitch’s idea succeed under Cressida’s direction, when Fulvia’s studio approach was such a flop.

Coin seems to have reached the end of her tolerance for self-congratulation. «Yes, well deserved. The result is more than we had hoped for. But I do have to question the wide margin of risk that you were willing to operate within. I know the raid was unforeseen. However, given the circumstances, I think we should discuss the decision to send Katniss into actual combat.»

The decision? To send me into combat? Then she doesn’t know that I flagrantly disregarded orders, ripped out my earpiece, and gave my bodyguards the slip? What else have they kept from her?

«It was a tough call,» says Plutarch, furrowing his brow. «But the general consensus was that we weren’t going to get anything worth using if we locked her in a bunker somewhere every time a gun went off.»

«And you’re all right with that?» asks the president.

Gale has to kick me under the table before I realize that she’s talking to me. «Oh! Yeah, I’m completely all right with that. It felt good. Doing something for a change.»

«Well, let’s be just a little more judicious with her exposure. Especially now that the Capitol knows what she can do,» says Coin. There’s a rumble of assent from around the table.

No one has ratted out Gale and me. Not Plutarch, whose authority we ignored. Not Boggs with his broken nose. Not the insects we led into fire. Not Haymitch—no, wait a minute. Haymitch is giving me a deadly smile and saying sweetly, «Yeah, we wouldn’t want to lose our little Mockingjay when she’s finally begun to sing.» I make a note to myself not to end up alone in a room with him, because he’s clearly having vengeful thoughts over that stupid earpiece.

«So, what else do you have planned?» asks the president.

Plutarch nods to Cressida, who consults a clipboard. «We have some terrific footage of Katniss at the hospital in Eight. There should be another propo in that with the theme ‘Because you know who they are and what they do.’ We’ll focus on Katniss interacting with the patients, particularly the children, the bombing of the hospital, and the wreckage. Messalla’s cutting that together. We’re also thinking about a Mockingjay piece. Highlight some of Katniss’s best moments intercut with scenes of rebel uprisings and war footage. We call that one ‘Fire is catching.’ And then Fulvia came up with a really brilliant idea.»

Fulvia’s mouthful-of-sour-grapes expression is startled right off her face, but she recovers. «Well, I don’t know how brilliant it is, but I was thinking we could do a series of propos called We Remember. In each one, we would feature one of the dead tributes. Little Rue from Eleven or old Mags from Four. The idea being that we could target each district with a very personal piece.»

«A tribute to your tributes, as it were,» says Plutarch.

«Thatis brilliant, Fulvia,» I say sincerely. «It’s the perfect way to remind people why they’re fighting.»

«I think it could work,» she says. «I thought we might use Finnick to intro and narrate the spots. If there was interest in them.»

«Frankly, I don’t see how we could have too many We Remember propos,» says Coin. «Can you start producing them today?»

«Of course,» says Fulvia, obviously mollified by the response to her idea.

Cressida has smoothed everything over in the creative department with her gesture. Praised Fulvia for what is, in fact, a really good idea, and cleared the way to continue her own on-air depiction of the Mockingjay. What’s interesting is that Plutarch seems to have no need to share in the credit. All he wants is for the Airtime Assault to work. I remember that Plutarch is a Head Gamemaker, not a member of the crew. Not a piece in the Games. Therefore, his worth is not defined by a single element, but by the overall success of the production. If we win the war, that’s when Plutarch will take his bow. And expect his reward.

The president sends everyone off to get to work, so Gale wheels me back to the hospital. We laugh a little about the cover-up. Gale says no one wanted to look bad by admitting they couldn’t control us. I’m kinder, saying they probably didn’t want to jeopardize the chance of taking us out again now that they’ve gotten some decent footage. Both things are probably true. Gale has to go meet Beetee down in Special Weaponry, so I doze off.

It seems like I’ve only shut my eyes for a few minutes, but when I open them, I flinch at the sight of Haymitch sitting a couple of feet from my bed. Waiting. Possibly for several hours if the clock is right. I think about hollering for a witness, but I’m going to have to face him sooner or later. Haymitch leans forward and dangles something on a thin white wire in front of my nose. It’s hard to focus on, but I’m pretty sure what it is. He drops it to the sheets. «That is your earpiece. I will give you exactly one more chance to wear it. If you remove it from your ear again, I’ll have you fitted with this.» He holds up some sort of metal headgear that I instantly name the head shackle. «It’s an alternative audio unit that locks around your skull and under your chin until it’s opened with a key. And I’ll have the only key. If for some reason you’re clever enough to disable it»—Haymitch dumps the head shackle on the bed and whips out a tiny silver chip—«I’ll authorize them to surgically implant this transmitter into your ear so that I may speak to you twenty-four hours a day.»

Haymitch in my head full-time. Horrifying. «I’ll keep the earpiece in,» I mutter.

«Excuse me?» he says.

«I’ll keep the earpiece in!» I say, loud enough to wake up half the hospital.

«You sure? Because I’m equally happy with any of the three options,» he tells me.

«I’m sure,» I say. I scrunch up the earpiece wire protectively in my fist and fling the head shackle back in his face with my free hand, but he catches it easily. Probably was expecting me to throw it. «Anything else?»

Haymitch rises to go. «While I was waiting… I ate your lunch.»

My eyes take in the empty stew bowl and tray on my bed table. «I’m going to report you,» I mumble into my pillow.

«You do that, sweetheart.» He goes out, safe in the knowledge that I’m not the reporting kind.

I want to go back to sleep, but I’m restless. Images from yesterday begin to flood into the present. The bombing, the fiery plane crashes, the faces of the wounded who no longer exist. I imagine death from all sides. The last moment before seeing a shell hit the ground, feeling the wing blown from my plane and the dizzying nosedive into oblivion, the warehouse roof falling down at me while I’m pinned helplessly to my cot. Things I saw, in person or on the tape. Things I caused with a pull of my bowstring. Things I will never be able to erase from my memory.

At dinner, Finnick brings his tray to my bed so we can watch the newest propo together on television. He was assigned quarters on my old floor, but he has so many mental relapses, he still basically lives in the hospital. The rebels air the «Because you know who they are and what they do» propo that Messalla edited. The footage is intercut with short studio clips of Gale, Boggs, and Cressida describing the incident. It’s hard to watch my reception in the hospital in 8 since I know what’s coming. When the bombs rain down on the roof, I bury my face in my pillow, looking up again at a brief clip of me at the end, after all the victims are dead.

At least Finnick doesn’t applaud or act all happy when it’s done. He just says, «People should know that happened. And now they do.»

«Let’s turn it off, Finnick, before they run it again,» I urge him. But as Finnick’s hand moves toward the remote control, I cry, «Wait!» The Capitol is introducing a special segment and something about it looks familiar. Yes, it’s Caesar Flickerman. And I can guess who his guest will be.

Peeta’s physical transformation shocks me. The healthy, clear-eyed boy I saw a few days ago has lost at least fifteen pounds and developed a nervous tremor in his hands. They’ve still got him groomed. But underneath the paint that cannot cover the bags under his eyes, and the fine clothes that cannot conceal the pain he feels when he moves, is a person badly damaged.

My mind reels, trying to make sense of it. I just saw him! Four—no, five—I think it was five days ago. How has he deteriorated so rapidly? What could they possibly have done to him in such a short time? Then it hits me. I replay in my mind as much as I can of his first interview with Caesar, searching for anything that would place it in time. There is nothing. They could have taped that interview a day or two after I blew up the arena, then done whatever they wanted to do to him ever since. «Oh, Peeta…» I whisper.

Caesar and Peeta have a few empty exchanges before Caesar asks him about rumors that I’m taping propos for the districts. «They’re using her, obviously,» says Peeta. «To whip up the rebels. I doubt she even really knows what’s going on in the war. What’s at stake.»

«Is there anything you’d like to tell her?» asks Caesar.

«There is,» says Peeta. He looks directly into the camera, right into my eyes. «Don’t be a fool, Katniss. Think for yourself. They’ve turned you into a weapon that could be instrumental in the destruction of humanity. If you’ve got any real influence, use it to put the brakes on this thing. Use it to stop the war before it’s too late. Ask yourself, do you really trust the people you’re working with? Do you really know what’s going on? And if you don’t… find out.»

Black screen. Seal of Panem. Show over.

Finnick presses the button on the remote that kills the power. In a minute, people will be here to do damage control on Peeta’s condition and the words that came out of his mouth. I will need to repudiate them. But the truth is, I don’t trust the rebels or Plutarch or Coin. I’m not confident that they tell me the truth. I won’t be able to conceal this. Footsteps are approaching.

Finnick grips me hard by the arms. «We didn’t see it.»

«What?» I ask.

«We didn’t see Peeta. Only the propo on Eight. Then we turned the set off because the images upset you. Got it?» he asks. I nod. «Finish your dinner.» I pull myself together enough so that when Plutarch and Fulvia enter, I have a mouthful of bread and cabbage. Finnick is talking about how well Gale came across on camera. We congratulate them on the propo. Make it clear it was so powerful, we tuned out right afterward. They look relieved. They believe us.

No one mentions Peeta.

9

I stop trying to sleep after my first few attempts are interrupted by unspeakable nightmares. After that, I just lie still and do fake breathing whenever someone checks on me. In the morning, I’m released from the hospital and instructed to take it easy. Cressida asks me to record a few lines for a new Mockingjay propo. At lunch, I keep waiting for people to bring up Peeta’s appearance, but no one does. Someone must have seen it besides Finnick and me.

I have training, but Gale’s scheduled to work with Beetee on weapons or something, so I get permission to take Finnick to the woods. We wander around awhile and then ditch our communicators under a bush. When we’re a safe distance away, we sit and discuss Peeta’s broadcast.

«I haven’t heard one word about it. No one’s told you anything?» Finnick says. I shake my head. He pauses before he asks, «Not even Gale?» I’m clinging to a shred of hope that Gale honestly knows nothing about Peeta’s message. But I have a bad feeling he does. «Maybe he’s trying to find a time to tell you privately.»

«Maybe,» I say.

We stay silent so long that a buck wanders into range. I take it down with an arrow. Finnick hauls it back to the fence.

For dinner, there’s minced venison in the stew. Gale walks me back to Compartment E after we eat. When I ask him what’s been going on, again there’s no mention of Peeta. As soon as my mother and sister are asleep, I slip the pearl from the drawer and spend a second sleepless night clutching it in my hand, replaying Peeta’s words in my head. «Ask yourself, do you really trust the people you’re working with? Do you really know what’s going on? And if you don’t… find out.» Find out. What? From who? And how can Peeta know anything except what the Capitol tells him? It’s just a Capitol propo. More noise. But if Plutarch thinks it’s just the Capitol line, why didn’t he tell me about it? Why hasn’t anyone let me or Finnick know?

Under this debate lies the real source of my distress: Peeta. What have they done to him? And what are they doing to him right now? Clearly, Snow did not buy the story that Peeta and I knew nothing about the rebellion. And his suspicions have been reinforced, now that I have come out as the Mockingjay. Peeta can only guess about the rebel tactics or make up things to tell his torturers. Lies, once discovered, would be severely punished. How abandoned by me he must feel. In his first interview, he tried to protect me from the Capitol and rebels alike, and not only have I failed to protect him, I’ve brought down more horrors upon him.

Come morning, I stick my forearm in the wall and stare groggily at the day’s schedule. Immediately after breakfast, I am slated for Production. In the dining hall, as I down my hot grain and milk and mushy beets, I spot a communicuff on Gale’s wrist. «When did you get that back, Soldier Hawthorne?» I ask.

«Yesterday. They thought if I’m going to be in the field with you, it could be a backup system of communication,» says Gale.

No one has ever offered me a communicuff. I wonder, if I asked for one, would I get it? «Well, I guess one of us has to be accessible,» I say with an edge to my voice.

«What’s that mean?» he says.

«Nothing. Just repeating what you said,» I tell him. «And I totally agree that the accessible one should be you. I just hope I still have access to you as well.»

Our eyes lock, and I realize how furious I am with Gale. That I don’t believe for a second that he didn’t see Peeta’s propo. That I feel completely betrayed that he didn’t tell me about it. We know each other too well for him not to read my mood and guess what has caused it.

«Katniss—» he begins. Already the admission of guilt is in his tone.

I grab my tray, cross to the deposit area, and slam the dishes onto the rack. By the time I’m in the hallway, he’s caught up with me.

«Why didn’t you say something?» he asks, taking my arm.

«Why didn’t I?» I jerk my arm free. «Why didn’t you, Gale? And I did, by the way, when I asked you last night about what had been going on!»

«I’m sorry. All right? I didn’t know what to do. I wanted to tell you, but everyone was afraid that seeing Peeta’s propo would make you sick,» he says.

«They were right. It did. But not quite as sick as you lying to me for Coin.» At that moment, his communicuff starts beeping. «There she is. Better run. You have things to tell her.»

For a moment, real hurt registers on his face. Then cold anger replaces it. He turns on his heel and goes. Maybe I have been too spiteful, not given him enough time to explain. Maybe everyone is just trying to protect me by lying to me. I don’t care. I’m sick of people lying to me for my own good. Because really it’s mostly for their own good. Lie to Katniss about the rebellion so she doesn’t do anything crazy. Send her into the arena without a clue so we can fish her out. Don’t tell her about Peeta’s propo because it might make her sick, and it’s hard enough to get a decent performance out of her as it is.

I do feel sick. Heartsick. And too tired for a day of production. But I’m already at Remake, so I go in.

Today, I discover, we will be returning to District 12. Cressida wants to do unscripted interviews with Gale and me throwing light on our demolished city.

«If you’re both up for that,» says Cressida, looking closely at my face.

«Count me in,» I say. I stand, uncommunicative and stiff, a mannequin, as my prep team dresses me, does my hair, and dabs makeup on my face. Not enough to show, only enough to take the edge off the circles under my sleepless eyes.

Boggs escorts me down to the Hangar, but we don’t talk beyond a preliminary greeting. I’m grateful to be spared another exchange about my disobedience in 8, especially since his mask looks so uncomfortable.

At the last moment, I remember to send a message to my mother about my leaving 13, and stress that it won’t be dangerous. We board a hovercraft for the short ride to 12 and I’m directed to a seat at a table where Plutarch, Gale, and Cressida are poring over a map. Plutarch’s brimming with satisfaction as he shows me the before/after effects of the first couple of propos. The rebels, who were barely maintaining a foothold in several districts, have rallied. They have actually taken 3 and 11—the latter so crucial since it’s Panem’s main food supplier—and have made inroads in several other districts as well.

«Hopeful. Very hopeful indeed,» says Plutarch. «Fulvia’s going to have the first round of We Remember spots ready tonight, so we can target the individual districts with their dead. Finnick’s absolutely marvelous.»

«It’s painful to watch, actually,» says Cressida. «He knew so many of them personally.»

«That’s what makes it so effective,» says Plutarch. «Straight from the heart. You’re all doing beautifully. Coin could not be more pleased.»

Gale didn’t tell them, then. About my pretending not to see Peeta and my anger at their cover-up. But I guess it’s too little, too late, because I still can’t let it go. It doesn’t matter. He’s not speaking to me, either.

It’s not until we land in the Meadow that I realize Haymitch isn’t among our company. When I ask Plutarch about his absence, he just shakes his head and says, «He couldn’t face it.»

«Haymitch? Not able to face something? Wanted a day off, more likely,» I say.

«I think his actual words were ‘I couldn’t face it without a bottle,’» says Plutarch.

I roll my eyes, long out of patience with my mentor, his weakness for drink, and what he can or can’t confront. But about five minutes after my return to 12, I’m wishing I had a bottle myself. I thought I’d come to terms with 12’s demise—heard of it, seen it from the air, and wandered through its ashes. So why does everything bring on a fresh pang of grief? Was I simply too out of it before to fully register the loss of my world? Or is it the look on Gale’s face as he takes in the destruction on foot that makes the atrocity feel brand-new?

Cressida directs the team to start with me at my old house. I ask her what she wants me to do. «Whatever you feel like,» she says. Standing back in my kitchen, I don’t feel like doing anything. In fact, I find myself focusing up at the sky—the only roof left—because too many memories are drowning me. After a while, Cressida says, «That’s fine, Katniss. Let’s move on.»

Gale doesn’t get off so easily at his old address. Cressida films him in silence for a few minutes, but just as he pulls the one remnant of his previous life from the ashes—a twisted metal poker—she starts to question him about his family, his job, life in the Seam. She makes him go back to the night of the firebombing and reenact it, starting at his house, working his way down across the Meadow and through the woods to the lake. I straggle behind the film crew and the bodyguards, feeling their presence to be a violation of my beloved woods. This is a private place, a sanctuary, already corrupted by the Capitol’s evil. Even after we’ve left behind the charred stumps near the fence, we’re still tripping over decomposing bodies. Do we have to record it for everyone to see?

By the time we reach the lake, Gale seems to have lost his ability to speak. Everyone’s dripping in sweat—especially Castor and Pollux in their insect shells—and Cressida calls for a break. I scoop up handfuls of water from the lake, wishing I could dive in and surface alone and naked and unobserved. I wander around the perimeter for a while. When I come back around to the little concrete house beside the lake, I pause in the doorway and see Gale propping the crooked poker he salvaged against the wall by the hearth. For a moment I have an image of a lone stranger, sometime far in the future, wandering lost in the wilderness and coming upon this small place of refuge, with the pile of split logs, the hearth, the poker. Wondering how it came to be. Gale turns and meets my eyes and I know he’s thinking about our last meeting here. When we fought over whether or not to run away. If we had, would District 12 still be there? I think it would. But the Capitol would still be in control of Panem as well.

Cheese sandwiches are passed around and we eat them in the shade of the trees. I intentionally sit at the far edge of the group, next to Pollux, so I don’t have to talk. No one’s talking much, really. In the relative quiet, the birds take back the woods. I nudge Pollux with my elbow and point out a small black bird with a crown. It hops to a new branch, momentarily opening its wings, showing off its white patches. Pollux gestures to my pin and raises his eyebrows questioningly. I nod, confirming it’s a mockingjay. I hold up one finger to say Wait, I’ll show you, and whistle a birdcall. The mockingjay cocks its head and whistles the call right back at me. Then, to my surprise, Pollux whistles a few notes of his own. The bird answers him immediately. Pollux’s face breaks into an expression of delight and he has a series of melodic exchanges with the mockingjay. My guess is it’s the first conversation he’s had in years. Music draws mockingjays like blossoms do bees, and in a short while he’s got half a dozen of them perched in the branches over our heads. He taps me on the arm and uses a twig to write a word in the dirt. SING?

Usually, I’d decline, but it’s kind of impossible to say no to Pollux, given the circumstances. Besides, the mockingjays’ song voices are different from their whistles, and I’d like him to hear them. So, before I actually think about what I’m doing, I sing Rue’s four notes, the ones she used to signal the end of the workday in 11. The notes that ended up as the background music to her murder. The birds don’t know that. They pick up the simple phrase and bounce it back and forth between them in sweet harmony. Just as they did in the Hunger Games before the muttations broke through the trees, chased us onto the Cornucopia, and slowly gnawed Cato to a bloody pulp—

«Want to hear them do a real song?» I burst out. Anything to stop those memories. I’m on my feet, moving back into the trees, resting my hand on the rough trunk of a maple where the birds perch. I have not sung «The Hanging Tree» out loud for ten years, because it’s forbidden, but I remember every word. I begin softly, sweetly, as my father did.

The mockingjays begin to alter their songs as they become aware of my new offering.

I have the birds’ attention now. In one more verse, surely they will have captured the melody, as it’s simple and repeats four times with little variation.

A hush in the trees. Just the rustle of leaves in the breeze. But no birds, mockingjay or other. Peeta’s right. They do fall silent when I sing. Just as they did for my father.

The birds are waiting for me to continue. But that’s it. Last verse. In the stillness I remember the scene. I was home from a day in the woods with my father. Sitting on the floor with Prim, who was just a toddler, singing «The Hanging Tree.» Making us necklaces out of scraps of old rope like it said in the song, not knowing the real meaning of the words. The tune was simple and easy to harmonize to, though, and back then I could memorize almost anything set to music after a round or two. Suddenly, my mother snatched the rope necklaces away and was yelling at my father. I started to cry because my mother never yelled, and then Prim was wailing and I ran outside to hide. As I had exactly one hiding spot—in the Meadow under a honeysuckle bush—my father found me immediately. He calmed me down and told me everything was fine, only we’d better not sing that song anymore. My mother just wanted me to forget it. So, of course, every word was immediately, irrevocably branded into my brain.

We didn’t sing it anymore, my father and I, or even speak of it. After he died, it used to come back to me a lot. Being older, I began to understand the lyrics. At the beginning, it sounds like a guy is trying to get his girlfriend to secretly meet up with him at midnight. But it’s an odd place for a tryst, a hanging tree, where a man was hung for murder. The murderer’s lover must have had something to do with the killing, or maybe they were just going to punish her anyway, because his corpse called out for her to flee. That’s weird obviously, the talking-corpse bit, but it’s not until the third verse that «The Hanging Tree» begins to get unnerving. You realize the singer of the song is the dead murderer. He’s still in the hanging tree. And even though he told his lover to flee, he keeps asking if she’s coming to meet him. The phrase Where I told you to run, so we’d both be free is the most troubling because at first you think he’s talking about when he told her to flee, presumably to safety. But then you wonder if he meant for her to run to him. To death. In the final stanza, it’s clear that that’s what he’s waiting for. His lover, with her rope necklace, hanging dead next to him in the tree.

I used to think the murderer was the creepiest guy imaginable. Now, with a couple of trips to the Hunger Games under my belt, I decide not to judge him without knowing more details. Maybe his lover was already sentenced to death and he was trying to make it easier. To let her know he’d be waiting. Or maybe he thought the place he was leaving her was really worse than death. Didn’t I want to kill Peeta with that syringe to save him from the Capitol? Was that really my only option? Probably not, but I couldn’t think of another at the time.

I guess my mother thought the whole thing was too twisted for a seven-year-old, though. Especially one who made her own rope necklaces. It wasn’t like hanging was something that only happened in a story. Plenty of people were executed that way in 12. You can bet she didn’t want me singing it in front of my music class. She probably wouldn’t like me doing it here for Pollux even, but at least I’m not—wait, no, I’m wrong. As I glance sideways, I see Castor has been taping me. Everyone is watching me intently. And Pollux has tears running down his cheeks because no doubt my freaky song has dredged up some terrible incident in his life. Great. I sigh and lean back against the trunk. That’s when the mockingjays begin their rendition of «The Hanging Tree.» In their mouths, it’s quite beautiful. Conscious of being filmed, I stand quietly until I hear Cressida call, «Cut!»

Plutarch crosses to me, laughing. «Where do you come up with this stuff? No one would believe it if we made it up!» He throws an arm around me and kisses me on the top of my head with a loud smack.

«You’re golden!»

«I wasn’t doing it for the cameras,» I say.

«Lucky they were on, then,» he says. «Come on, everybody, back to town!»

As we trudge back through the woods, we reach a boulder, and both Gale and I turn our heads in the same direction, like a pair of dogs catching a scent on the wind. Cressida notices and asks what lies that way. We admit, without acknowledging each other, it’s our old hunting rendezvous place. She wants to see it, even after we tell her it’s nothing really.

Nothing but a place where I was happy, I think.

Our rock ledge overlooking the valley. Perhaps a little less green than usual, but the blackberry bushes hang heavy with fruit. Here began countless days of hunting and snaring, fishing and gathering, roaming together through the woods, unloading our thoughts while we filled our game bags. This was the doorway to both sustenance and sanity. And we were each other’s key.

There’s no District 12 to escape from now, no Peacekeepers to trick, no hungry mouths to feed. The Capitol took away all of that, and I’m on the verge of losing Gale as well. The glue of mutual need that bonded us so tightly together for all those years is melting away. Dark patches, not light, show in the spaces between us. How can it be that today, in the face of 12’s horrible demise, we are too angry to even speak to each other?

Gale as good as lied to me. That was unacceptable, even if he was concerned about my well-being. His apology seemed genuine, though. And I threw it back in his face with an insult to make sure it stung. What is happening to us? Why are we always at odds now? It’s all a muddle, but I somehow feel that if I went back to the root of our troubles, my actions would be at the heart of it. Do I really want to drive him away?

My fingers encircle a blackberry and pluck it from its stem. I roll it gently between my thumb and forefinger. Suddenly, I turn to him and toss it in his direction. «And may the odds—» I say. I throw it high so he has plenty of time to decide whether to knock it aside or accept it.

Gale’s eyes train on me, not the berry, but at the last moment, he opens his mouth and catches it. He chews, swallows, and there’s a long pause before he says «—beever in your favor.» But he does say it.

Cressida has us sit in the nook in the rocks, where it’s impossible not to be touching, and coaxes us into talking about hunting. What drove us out into the woods, how we met, favorite moments. We thaw, begin to laugh a little, as we relate mishaps with bees and wild dogs and skunks. When the conversation turns to how it felt to translate our skill with weapons to the bombing in 8, I stop talking. Gale just says, «Long overdue.»

By the time we reach the town square, afternoon’s sinking into evening. I take Cressida to the rubble of the bakery and ask her to film something. The only emotion I can muster is exhaustion. «Peeta, this is your home. None of your family has been heard of since the bombing. Twelve is gone. And you’re calling for a cease-fire?» I look across the emptiness. «There’s no one left to hear you.»

As we stand before the lump of metal that was the gallows, Cressida asks if either of us has ever been tortured. In answer, Gale pulls off his shirt and turns his back to the camera. I stare at the lash marks, and again hear the whistling of the whip, see his bloody figure hanging unconscious by his wrists.

«I’m done,» I announce. «I’ll meet you at the Victor’s Village. Something for… my mother.»

I guess I walked here, but the next thing I’m conscious of is sitting on the floor in front of the kitchen cabinets of our house in the Victor’s Village. Meticulously lining ceramic jars and glass bottles into a box. Placing clean cotton bandages between them to prevent breaking. Wrapping bunches of dried flowers.

Suddenly, I remember the rose on my dresser. Was it real? If so, is it still up there? I have to resist the temptation to check. If it’s there, it will only frighten me all over again. I hurry with my packing.

When the cabinets are empty, I rise to find that Gale has materialized in my kitchen. It’s disturbing how soundlessly he can appear. He’s leaning on the table, his fingers spread wide against the wood grain. I set the box between us. «Remember?» he asks. «This is where you kissed me.»

So the heavy dose of morphling administered after the whipping wasn’t enough to erase that from his consciousness. «I didn’t think you’d remember that,» I say.

«Have to be dead to forget. Maybe even not then,» he tells me. «Maybe I’ll be like that man in ‘The Hanging Tree.’ Still waiting for an answer.» Gale, who I have never seen cry, has tears in his eyes. To keep them from spilling over, I reach forward and press my lips against his. We taste of heat, ashes, and misery. It’s a surprising flavor for such a gentle kiss. He pulls away first and gives me a wry smile. «I knew you’d kiss me.»

«How?» I say. Because I didn’t know myself.

«Because I’m in pain,» he says. «That’s the only way I get your attention.» He picks up the box. «Don’t worry, Katniss. It’ll pass.» He leaves before I can answer.

I’m too weary to work through his latest charge. I spend the short ride back to 13 curled up in a seat, trying to ignore Plutarch going on about one of his favorite subjects—weapons mankind no longer has at its disposal. High-flying planes, military satellites, cell disintegrators, drones, biological weapons with expiration dates. Brought down by the destruction of the atmosphere or lack of resources or moral squeamishness. You can hear the regret of a Head Gamemaker who can only dream of such toys, who must make do with hovercraft and land-to-land missiles and plain old guns.

After dropping off my Mockingjay suit, I go straight to bed without eating. Even so, Prim has to shake me to get me up in the morning. After breakfast, I ignore my schedule and take a nap in the supply closet. When I come to, crawling out from between the boxes of chalk and pencils, it’s dinnertime again. I get an extra-large portion of pea soup and am headed back to Compartment E when Boggs intercepts me.

«There’s a meeting in Command. Disregard your current schedule,» he says.

«Done,» I say.

«Did you follow it at all today?» he asks in exasperation.

«Who knows? I’m mentally disoriented.» I hold up my wrist to show my medical bracelet and realize it’s gone. «See? I can’t even remember they took my bracelet. Why do they want me in Command? Did I miss something?»

«I think Cressida wanted to show you the Twelve propos. But I guess you’ll see them when they air,» he says.

«That’s what I need a schedule of. When the propos air,» I say. He shoots me a look but doesn’t comment further.

People have crowded into Command, but they’ve saved me a seat between Finnick and Plutarch. The screens are already up on the table, showing the regular Capitol feed.

«What’s going on? Aren’t we seeing the Twelve propos?» I ask.

«Oh, no,» says Plutarch. «I mean, possibly. I don’t know exactly what footage Beetee plans to use.»

«Beetee thinks he’s found a way to break into the feed nationwide,» says Finnick. «So that our propos will air in the Capitol, too. He’s down working on it in Special Defense now. There’s live programming tonight. Snow’s making an appearance or something. I think it’s starting.»

The Capitol seal appears, underscored by the anthem. Then I’m staring directly into President Snow’s snake eyes as he greets the nation. He seems barricaded behind his podium, but the white rose in his lapel is in full view. The camera pulls back to include Peeta, off to one side in front of a projected map of Panem. He’s sitting in an elevated chair, his shoes supported by a metal rung. The foot of his prosthetic leg taps out a strange irregular beat. Beads of sweat have broken through the layer of powder on his upper lip and forehead. But it’s the look in his eyes—angry yet unfocused—that frightens me the most.

«He’s worse,» I whisper. Finnick grasps my hand, to give me an anchor, and I try to hang on.

Peeta begins to speak in a frustrated tone about the need for the cease-fire. He highlights the damage done to key infrastructure in various districts, and as he speaks, parts of the map light up, showing images of the destruction. A broken dam in 7. A derailed train with a pool of toxic waste spilling from the tank cars. A granary collapsing after a fire. All of these he attributes to rebel action.

Bam! Without warning, I’m suddenly on television, standing in the rubble of the bakery.

Plutarch jumps to his feet. «He did it! Beetee broke in!»

The room’s buzzing with reaction when Peeta’s back, distracted. He has seen me on the monitor. He tries to pick up his speech by moving on to the bombing of a water purification plant, when a clip of Finnick talking about Rue replaces him. And then the whole thing breaks down into a broadcast battle, as the Capitol tech masters try to fend off Beetee’s attack. But they are unprepared, and Beetee, apparently anticipating he would not hold on to control, has an arsenal of five- to ten-second clips to work with. We watch the official presentation deteriorate as it’s peppered with choice shots from the propos.

Plutarch’s in spasms of delight and most everybody is cheering Beetee on, but Finnick remains still and speechless beside me. I meet Haymitch’s eyes from across the room and see my own dread mirrored back. The recognition that with every cheer, Peeta slips even farther from our grasp.

The Capitol seal’s back up, accompanied by a flat audio tone. This lasts about twenty seconds before Snow and Peeta return. The set is in turmoil. We’re hearing frantic exchanges from their booth. Snow plows forward, saying that clearly the rebels are now attempting to disrupt the dissemination of information they find incriminating, but both truth and justice will reign. The full broadcast will resume when security has been reinstated. He asks Peeta if, given tonight’s demonstration, he has any parting thoughts for Katniss Everdeen.

At the mention of my name, Peeta’s face contorts in effort. «Katniss… how do you think this will end?

What will be left? No one is safe. Not in the Capitol. Not in the districts. And you… in Thirteen…» He inhales sharply, as if fighting for air; his eyes look insane. «Dead by morning!»

Off camera, Snow orders, «End it!» Beetee throws the whole thing into chaos by flashing a still shot of me standing in front of the hospital at three-second intervals. But between the images, we are privy to the real-life action being played out on the set. Peeta’s attempt to continue speaking. The camera knocked down to record the white tiled floor. The scuffle of boots. The impact of the blow that’s inseparable from Peeta’s cry of pain.

And his blood as it splatters the tiles.