Mockingjay

19

I’ve never really seen Boggs angry before. Not when I’ve disobeyed his orders or puked on him, not even when Gale broke his nose. But he’s angry when he returns from his phone call with the president. The first thing he does is instruct Soldier Jackson, his second in command, to set up a two-person, round-the-clock guard on Peeta. Then he takes me on a walk, weaving through the sprawling tent encampment until our squad is far behind us.

«He’ll try and kill me anyway,» I say. «Especially here. Where there are so many bad memories to set him off.»

«I’ll keep him contained, Katniss,» says Boggs.

«Why does Coin want me dead now?» I ask.

«She denies she does,» he answers.

«But we know it’s true,» I say. «And you must at least have a theory.»

Boggs gives me a long, hard look before he answers. «Here’s as much as I know. The president doesn’t like you. She never did. It was Peeta she wanted rescued from the arena, but no one else agreed. It made matters worse when you forced her to give the other victors immunity. But even that could be overlooked in view of how well you’ve performed.»

«Then what is it?» I insist.

«Sometime in the near future, this war will be resolved. A new leader will be chosen,» says Boggs.

I roll my eyes. «Boggs, no one thinks I’m going to be the leader.»

«No. They don’t,» he agrees. «But you’ll throw support to someone. Would it be President Coin? Or someone else?»

«I don’t know. I’ve never thought about it,» I say.

«If your immediate answer isn’t Coin, then you’re a threat. You’re the face of the rebellion. You may have more influence than any other single person,» says Boggs. «Outwardly, the most you’ve ever done is tolerated her.»

«So she’ll kill me to shut me up.» The minute I say the words, I know they’re true.

«She doesn’t need you as a rallying point now. As she said, your primary objective, to unite the districts, has succeeded,» Boggs reminds me. «These current propos could be done without you. There’s only one last thing you could do to add fire to the rebellion.»

«Die,» I say quietly.

«Yes. Give us a martyr to fight for,» says Boggs. «But that’s not going to happen under my watch, Soldier Everdeen. I’m planning for you to have a long life.»

«Why?» This kind of thinking will only bring him trouble. «You don’t owe me anything.»

«Because you’ve earned it,» he says. «Now get back to your squad.»

I know I should feel appreciative of Boggs sticking his neck out for me, but really I’m just frustrated. I mean, how can I steal his Holo and desert now? Betraying him was complicated enough without this whole new layer of debt. I already owe him for saving my life.

Seeing the cause of my current dilemma calmly pitching his tent back at our site makes me furious.

«What time is my watch?» I ask Jackson.

She squints at me in doubt, or maybe she’s just trying to get my face in focus. «I didn’t put you in the rotation.»

«Why not?» I ask.

«I’m not sure you could really shoot Peeta, if it came to it,» she says.

I speak up so the whole squad can hear me clearly. «I wouldn’t be shooting Peeta. He’s gone. Johanna’s right. It’d be just like shooting another of the Capitol’s mutts.» It feels good to say something horrible about him, out loud, in public, after all the humiliation I’ve felt since his return.

«Well, that sort of comment isn’t recommending you either,» says Jackson.

«Put her in the rotation,» I hear Boggs say behind me.

Jackson shakes her head and makes a note. «Midnight to four. You’re on with me.»

The dinner whistle sounds, and Gale and I line up at the canteen. «Do you want me to kill him?» he asks bluntly.

«That’ll get us both sent back for sure,» I say. But even though I’m furious, the brutality of the offer rattles me. «I can deal with him.»

«You mean until you take off? You and your paper map and possibly a Holo if you can get your hands on it?» So Gale has not missed my preparations. I hope they haven’t been so obvious to the others. None of them know my mind like he does, though. «You’re not planning on leaving me behind, are you?» he asks.

Up until this point, I was. But having my hunting partner to watch my back doesn’t sound like a bad idea. «As your fellow soldier, I have to strongly recommend you stay with your squad. But I can’t stop you from coming, can I?»

He grins. «No. Not unless you want me to alert the rest of the army.»

Squad 451 and the television crew collect dinner from the canteen and gather in a tense circle to eat. At first I think that Peeta is the cause of the unease, but by the end of the meal, I realize more than a few unfriendly looks have been directed my way. This is a quick turnaround, since I’m pretty sure when Peeta appeared the whole team was concerned about how dangerous he might be, especially to me. But it’s not until I get a phone call through to Haymitch that I understand.

«What are you trying to do? Provoke him into an attack?» he asks me.

«Of course not. I just want him to leave me alone,» I say.

«Well, he can’t. Not after what the Capitol put him through,» says Haymitch. «Look, Coin may have sent him there hoping he’d kill you, but Peeta doesn’t know that. He doesn’t understand what’s happened to him. So you can’t blame him—»

«I don’t!» I say.

«You do! You’re punishing him over and over for things that are out of his control. Now, I’m not saying you shouldn’t have a fully loaded weapon next to you round the clock. But I think it’s time you flipped this little scenario around in your head. If you’d been taken by the Capitol, and hijacked, and then tried to kill Peeta, is this the way he would be treating you?» demands Haymitch.

I fall silent. It isn’t. It isn’t how he would be treating me at all. He would be trying to get me back at any cost. Not shutting me out, abandoning me, greeting me with hostility at every turn.

«You and me, we made a deal to try and save him. Remember?» Haymitch says. When I don’t respond, he disconnects after a curt «Try and remember.»

The autumn day turns from brisk to cold. Most of the squad hunker down in their sleeping bags. Some sleep under the open sky, close to the heater in the center of our camp, while others retreat to their tents. Leeg 1 has finally broken down over her sister’s death, and her muffled sobs reach us through the canvas. I huddle in my tent, thinking over Haymitch’s words. Realizing with shame that my fixation with assassinating Snow has allowed me to ignore a much more difficult problem. Trying to rescue Peeta from the shadowy world the hijacking has stranded him in. I don’t know how to find him, let alone lead him out. I can’t even conceive of a plan. It makes the task of crossing a loaded arena, locating Snow, and putting a bullet through his head look like child’s play.

At midnight, I crawl out of my tent and position myself on a camp stool near the heater to take my watch with Jackson. Boggs told Peeta to sleep out in full view where the rest of us could keep an eye on him. He isn’t sleeping, though. Instead, he sits with his bag pulled up to his chest, clumsily trying to make knots in a short length of rope. I know it well. It’s the one Finnick lent me that night in the bunker. Seeing it in his hands, it’s like Finnick’s echoing what Haymitch just said, that I’ve cast off Peeta. Now might be a good time to begin to remedy that. If I could think of something to say. But I can’t. So I don’t. I just let the sounds of soldiers’ breathing fill the night.

After about an hour, Peeta speaks up. «These last couple of years must have been exhausting for you. Trying to decide whether to kill me or not. Back and forth. Back and forth.»

That seems grossly unfair, and my first impulse is to say something cutting. But I revisit my conversation with Haymitch and try to take the first tentative step in Peeta’s direction. «I never wanted to kill you. Except when I thought you were helping the Careers kill me. After that, I always thought of you as… an ally.» That’s a good safe word. Empty of any emotional obligation, but nonthreatening.

«Ally.» Peeta says the word slowly, tasting it. «Friend. Lover. Victor. Enemy. Fiancée. Target. Mutt. Neighbor. Hunter. Tribute. Ally. I’ll add it to the list of words I use to try to figure you out.» He weaves the rope in and out of his fingers. «The problem is, I can’t tell what’s real anymore, and what’s made up.»

The cessation of rhythmic breathing suggests that either people have woken or have never really been asleep at all. I suspect the latter.

Finnick’s voice rises from a bundle in the shadows. «Then you should ask, Peeta. That’s what Annie does.»

«Ask who?» Peeta says. «Who can I trust?»

«Well, us for starters. We’re your squad,» says Jackson.

«You’re my guards,» he points out.

«That, too,» she says. «But you saved a lot of lives in Thirteen. It’s not the kind of thing we forget.»

In the quiet that follows, I try to imagine not being able to tell illusion from reality. Not knowing if Prim or my mother loved me. If Snow was my enemy. If the person across the heater saved or sacrificed me.

With very little effort, my life rapidly morphs into a nightmare. I suddenly want to tell Peeta everything about who he is, and who I am, and how we ended up here. But I don’t know how to start. Worthless.

I’m worthless.

At a few minutes before four, Peeta turns to me again. «Your favorite color… it’s green?»

«That’s right.» Then I think of something to add. «And yours is orange.»

«Orange?» He seems unconvinced.

«Not bright orange. But soft. Like the sunset,» I say. «At least, that’s what you told me once.»

«Oh.» He closes his eyes briefly, maybe trying to conjure up that sunset, then nods his head. «Thank you.»

But more words tumble out. «You’re a painter. You’re a baker. You like to sleep with the windows open. You never take sugar in your tea. And you always double-knot your shoelaces.»

Then I dive into my tent before I do something stupid like cry.

In the morning, Gale, Finnick, and I go out to shoot some glass off the buildings for the camera crew. When we get back to camp, Peeta’s sitting in a circle with the soldiers from 13, who are armed but talking openly with him. Jackson has devised a game called «Real or Not Real» to help Peeta. He mentions something he thinks happened, and they tell him if it’s true or imagined, usually followed by a brief explanation.

«Most of the people from Twelve were killed in the fire.»

«Real. Less than nine hundred of you made it to Thirteen alive.»

«The fire was my fault.»

«Not real. President Snow destroyed Twelve the way he did Thirteen, to send a message to the rebels.»

This seems like a good idea until I realize that I’ll be the only one who can confirm or deny most of what weighs on him. Jackson breaks us up into watches. She matches up Finnick, Gale, and me each with a soldier from 13. This way Peeta will always have access to someone who knows him more personally. It’s not a steady conversation. Peeta spends a long time considering even small pieces of information, like where people bought their soap back home. Gale fills him in on a lot of stuff about 12; Finnick is the expert on both of Peeta’s Games, as he was a mentor in the first and a tribute in the second. But since Peeta’s greatest confusion centers around me—and not everything can be explained simply—our exchanges are painful and loaded, even though we touch on only the most superficial of details. The color of my dress in 7. My preference for cheese buns. The name of our math teacher when we were little. Reconstructing his memory of me is excruciating. Perhaps it isn’t even possible after what Snow did to him. But it does feel right to help him try.

The next afternoon, we’re notified that the whole squad is needed to stage a fairly complicated propo. Peeta’s been right about one thing: Coin and Plutarch are unhappy with the quality of footage they’re getting from the Star Squad. Very dull. Very uninspiring. The obvious response is that they never let us do anything but playact with our guns. However, this is not about defending ourselves, it’s about coming up with a usable product. So today, a special block has been set aside for filming. It even has a couple of active pods on it. One unleashes a spray of gunfire. The other nets the invader and traps them for either interrogation or execution, depending on the captors’ preference. But it’s still an unimportant residential block with nothing of strategic consequence.

The television crew means to provide a sense of heightened jeopardy by releasing smoke bombs and adding gunfire sound effects. We suit up in heavy protective gear, even the crew, as if we’re heading into the heart of battle. Those of us with specialty weapons are allowed to take them along with our guns. Boggs gives Peeta back his gun, too, although he makes sure to tell him in a loud voice that it’s only loaded with blanks.

Peeta just shrugs. «I’m not much of a shot anyway.» He seems preoccupied with watching Pollux, to the point where it’s getting a little worrisome, when he finally puzzles it out and begins to speak with agitation. «You’re an Avox, aren’t you? I can tell by the way you swallow. There were two Avoxes with me in prison. Darius and Lavinia, but the guards mostly called them the redheads. They’d been our servants in the Training Center, so they arrested them, too. I watched them being tortured to death. She was lucky. They used too much voltage and her heart stopped right off. It took days to finish him off. Beating, cutting off parts. They kept asking him questions, but he couldn’t speak, he just made these horrible animal sounds. They didn’t want information, you know? They wanted me to see it.»

Peeta looks around at our stunned faces, as if waiting for a reply. When none is forthcoming, he asks, «Real or not real?» The lack of response upsets him more. «Real or not real?!» he demands.

«Real,» says Boggs. «At least, to the best of my knowledge… real.»

Peeta sags. «I thought so. There was nothing… shiny about it.» He wanders away from the group, muttering something about fingers and toes.

I move to Gale, press my forehead into the body armor where his chest should be, feel his arm tighten around me. We finally know the name of the girl who we watched the Capitol abduct from the woods of 12, the fate of the Peacekeeper friend who tried to keep Gale alive. This is no time to call up happy moments of remembrance. They lost their lives because of me. I add them to my personal list of kills that began in the arena and now includes thousands. When I look up, I see it has taken Gale differently. His expression says that there are not enough mountains to crush, enough cities to destroy. It promises death.

With Peeta’s grisly account fresh in our minds, we crunch through the streets of broken glass until we reach our target, the block we are to take. It is a real, if small, goal to accomplish. We gather around Boggs to examine the Holo projection of the street. The gunfire pod is positioned about a third of the way down, just above an apartment awning. We should be able to trigger it with bullets. The net pod is at the far end, almost the next corner. This will require someone to set off the body sensor mechanism. Everyone volunteers except Peeta, who doesn’t seem to know quite what’s going on. I don’t get picked. I get sent to Messalla, who dabs some makeup on my face for the anticipated close-ups.

The squad positions itself under Boggs’s direction, and then we have to wait for Cressida to get the cameramen in place as well. They’re both to our left, with Castor toward the front and Pollux bringing up the rear so they’ll be sure not to record each other. Messalla sets off a couple of smoke charges for atmosphere. Since this is both a mission and a shoot, I’m about to ask who’s in charge, my commander or my director, when Cressida calls, «Action!»

We slowly proceed down the hazy street, just like one of our exercises in the Block. Everyone has at least one section of windows to blow out, but Gale’s assigned the real target. When he hits the pod, we take cover—ducking into doorways or flattening onto the pretty, light orange and pink paving stones—as a hail of bullets sweeps back and forth over our heads. After a while, Boggs orders us forward.

Cressida stops us before we can rise, since she needs some close-up shots. We take turns reenacting our responses. Falling to the ground, grimacing, diving into alcoves. We know it’s supposed to be serious business, but the whole thing feels a little ridiculous. Especially when it turns out that I’m not the worst actor in the squad. Not by a long shot. We’re all laughing so hard at Mitchell’s attempt to project his idea of desperation, which involves teeth grinding and nostrils flaring, that Boggs has to reprimand us.

«Pull it together, Four-Five-One,» he says firmly. But you can see him suppressing a smile as he’s double-checking the next pod. Positioning the Holo to find the best light in the smoky air. Still facing us as his left foot steps back onto the orange paving stone. Triggering the bomb that blows off his legs.

20

It’s as if in an instant, a painted window shatters, revealing the ugly world behind it. Laughter changes to screams, blood stains pastel stones, real smoke darkens the special effect stuff made for television.

A second explosion seems to split the air and leaves my ears ringing. But I can’t make out where it came from.

I reach Boggs first, try to make sense of the torn flesh, missing limbs, to find something to stem the red flow from his body. Homes pushes me aside, wrenching open a first-aid kit. Boggs clutches my wrist. His face, gray with dying and ash, seems to be receding. But his next words are an order. «The Holo.»

The Holo. I scramble around, digging through chunks of tile slick with blood, shuddering when I encounter bits of warm flesh. Find it rammed into a stairwell with one of Boggs’s boots. Retrieve it, wiping it clean with bare hands as I return it to my commander.

Homes has the stump of Boggs’s left thigh cupped by some sort of compression bandage, but it’s already soaked through. He’s trying to tourniquet the other above the existing knee. The rest of the squad has gathered in a protective formation around the crew and us. Finnick’s attempting to revive Messalla, who was thrown into a wall by the explosion. Jackson’s barking into a field communicator, trying unsuccessfully to alert the camp to send medics, but I know it’s too late. As a child, watching my mother work, I learned that once a pool of blood has reached a certain size, there’s no going back.

I kneel beside Boggs, prepared to repeat the role I played with Rue, with the morphling from 6, giving him someone to hold on to as he’s released from life. But Boggs has both hands working the Holo. He’s typing in a command, pressing his thumb to the screen for print recognition, speaking a string of letters and numbers in response to a prompt. A green shaft of light bursts out of the Holo and illuminates his face. He says, «Unfit for command. Transfer of prime security clearance to Squad Four-Five-One Soldier Katniss Everdeen.» It’s all he can do to turn the Holo toward my face. «Say your name.»

«Katniss Everdeen,» I say into the green shaft. Suddenly, it has me trapped in its light. I can’t move or even blink as images flicker rapidly before me. Scanning me? Recording me? Blinding me? It vanishes, and I shake my head to clear it. «What did you do?»

«Prepare to retreat!» Jackson hollers.

Finnick’s yelling something back, gesturing to the end of the block where we entered. Black, oily matter spouts like a geyser from the street, billowing between the buildings, creating an impenetrable wall of darkness. It seems to be neither liquid nor gas, mechanical nor natural. Surely it’s lethal. There’s no heading back the way we came.

Deafening gunfire as Gale and Leeg 1 begin to blast a path across the stones toward the far end of the block. I don’t know what they’re doing until another bomb, ten yards away, detonates, opening a hole in the street. Then I realize this is a rudimentary attempt at minesweeping. Homes and I latch on to Boggs and begin to drag him after Gale. Agony takes over and he’s crying out in pain and I want to stop, to find a better way, but the blackness is rising above the buildings, swelling, rolling at us like a wave.

I’m yanked backward, lose my grip on Boggs, slam into the stones. Peeta looks down at me, gone, mad, flashing back into the land of the hijacked, his gun raised over me, descending to crush my skull. I roll, hear the butt slam into the street, catch the tumble of bodies out of the corner of my eye as Mitchell tackles Peeta and pins him to the ground. But Peeta, always so powerful and now fueled by tracker jacker insanity, gets his feet under Mitchell’s belly and launches him farther down the block.

There’s a loud snap of a trap as the pod triggers. Four cables, attached to tracks on the buildings, break through the stones, dragging up the net that encases Mitchell. It makes no sense—how instantly bloodied he is—until we see the barbs sticking from the wire that encases him. I know it immediately. It decorated the top of the fence around 12. As I call to him not to move, I gag on the smell of the blackness, thick, tarlike. The wave has crested and begun to fall.

Gale and Leeg 1 shoot through the front door lock of the corner building, then begin to fire at the cables holding Mitchell’s net. Others are restraining Peeta now. I lunge back to Boggs, and Homes and I drag him inside the apartment, through someone’s pink and white velvet living room, down a hallway hung with family photos, onto the marble floor of a kitchen, where we collapse. Castor and Pollux carry in a writhing Peeta between them. Somehow Jackson gets cuffs on him, but it only makes him wilder and they’re forced to lock him in a closet.

In the living room, the front door slams, people shout. Then footsteps pound down the hall as the black wave roars past the building. From the kitchen, we can hear the windows groan, shatter. The noxious tar smell permeates the air. Finnick carries in Messalla. Leeg 1 and Cressida stumble into the room after them, coughing.

«Gale!» I shriek.

He’s there, slamming the kitchen door shut behind him, choking out one word. «Fumes!» Castor and Pollux grab towels, aprons to stuff in the cracks as Gale retches into a bright yellow sink. «Mitchell?» asks Homes. Leeg 1 just shakes her head.

Boggs forces the Holo into my hand. His lips are moving, but I can’t make out what he’s saying. I lean my ear down to his mouth to catch his harsh whisper. «Don’t trust them. Don’t go back. Kill Peeta. Do what you came to do.»

I draw back so I can see his face. «What? Boggs? Boggs?» His eyes are still open, but dead. Pressed in my hand, glued to it by his blood, is the Holo.

Peeta’s feet slamming into the closet door break up the ragged breathing of the others. But even as we listen, his energy seems to ebb. The kicks diminish to an irregular drumming. Then nothing. I wonder if he, too, is dead.

«He’s gone?» Finnick asks, looking down at Boggs. I nod. «We need to get out of here. Now. We just set off a streetful of pods. You can bet they’ve got us on surveillance tapes.»

«Count on it,» says Castor. «All the streets are covered by surveillance cameras. I bet they set off the black wave manually when they saw us taping the propo.»

«Our radio communicators went dead almost immediately. Probably an electromagnetic pulse device. But I’ll get us back to camp. Give me the Holo.» Jackson reaches for the unit, but I clutch it to my chest.

«No. Boggs gave it to me,» I say.

«Don’t be ridiculous,» she snaps. Of course, she thinks it’s hers. She’s second in command.

«It’s true,» says Homes. «He transferred the prime security clearance to her while he was dying. I saw it.»

«Why would he do that?» demands Jackson.

Why indeed? My head’s reeling from the ghastly events of the last five minutes—Boggs mutilated, dying, dead, Peeta’s homicidal rage, Mitchell bloody and netted and swallowed by that foul black wave. I turn to Boggs, very badly needing him alive. Suddenly sure that he, and maybe he alone, is completely on my side. I think of his last orders…

«Don’t trust them. Don’t go back. Kill Peeta. Do what you came to do.»

What did he mean? Don’t trust who? The rebels? Coin? The people looking at me right now? I won’t go back, but he must know I can’t just fire a bullet through Peeta’s head. Can I? Should I? Did Boggs guess that what I really came to do is desert and kill Snow on my own?

I can’t work all of this out now, so I just decide to carry out the first two orders: to not trust anyone and to move deeper into the Capitol. But how can I justify this? Make them let me keep the Holo?

«Because I’m on a special mission for President Coin. I think Boggs was the only one who knew about it.»

This in no way convinces Jackson. «To do what?»

Why not tell them the truth? It’s as plausible as anything I’ll come up with. But it must seem like a real mission, not revenge. «To assassinate President Snow before the loss of life from this war makes our population unsustainable.»

«I don’t believe you,» says Jackson. «As your current commander, I order you to transfer the prime security clearance over to me.»

«No,» I say. «That would be in direct violation of President Coin’s orders.»

Guns are pointed. Half the squad at Jackson, half at me. Someone’s about to die, when Cressida speaks up. «It’s true. That’s why we’re here. Plutarch wants it televised. He thinks if we can film the Mockingjay assassinating Snow, it will end the war.»

This gives even Jackson pause. Then she gestures with her gun toward the closet. «And why is he here?»

There she has me. I can think of no sane reason that Coin would send an unstable boy, programmed to kill me, along on such a key assignment. It really weakens my story. Cressida comes to my aid again. «Because the two post-Games interviews with Caesar Flickerman were shot in President Snow’s personal quarters. Plutarch thinks Peeta may be of some use as a guide in a location we have little knowledge of.»

I want to ask Cressida why she’s lying for me, why she’s fighting for us to go on with my self-appointed mission. Now’s not the time.

«We have to go!» says Gale. «I’m following Katniss. If you don’t want to, head back to camp. But let’s move!»

Homes unlocks the closet and heaves an unconscious Peeta over his shoulder. «Ready.»

«Boggs?» says Leeg 1.

«We can’t take him. He’d understand,» says Finnick. He frees Boggs’s gun from his shoulder and slings the strap over his own. «Lead on, Soldier Everdeen.»

I don’t know how to lead on. I look at the Holo for direction. It’s still activated, but it might as well be dead for all the good that does me. There’s no time for fiddling around with the buttons, trying to figure out how to work it. «I don’t know how to use this. Boggs said you would help me,» I tell Jackson. «He said I could count on you.»

Jackson scowls, snatches the Holo from me, and taps in a command. An intersection comes up. «If we go out the kitchen door, there’s a small courtyard, then the back side of another corner apartment unit. We’re looking at an overview of the four streets that meet at the intersection.»

I try to get my bearings as I stare at the cross section of the map blinking with pods in every direction. And those are only the pods Plutarch knows about. The Holo didn’t indicate that the block we just left was mined, had the black geyser, or that the net was made from barbed wire. Besides that, there may be Peacekeepers to deal with, now that they know our position. I bite the inside of my lip, feeling everyone’s eyes on me. «Put on your masks. We’re going out the way we came in.»

Instant objections. I raise my voice over them. «If the wave was that powerful, then it may have triggered and absorbed other pods in our path.»

People stop to consider this. Pollux makes a few quick signs to his brother. «It may have disabled the cameras as well,» Castor translates. «Coated the lenses.»

Gale props one of his boots on the counter and examines the splatter of black on the toe. Scrapes it with a kitchen knife from a block on the counter. «It’s not corrosive. I think it was meant to either suffocate or poison us.»

«Probably our best shot,» says Leeg 1.

Masks go on. Finnick adjusts Peeta’s mask over his lifeless face. Cressida and Leeg 1 prop up a woozy Messalla between them.

I’m waiting for someone to take the point position when I remember that’s my job now. I push on the kitchen door and meet with no resistance. A half-inch layer of the black goo has spread from the living room about three-quarters of the way down the hall. When I gingerly test it with the toe of my boot, I find it has the consistency of a gel. I lift my foot and after stretching slightly, it springs back into place. I take three steps into the gel and look back. No footprints. It’s the first good thing that’s happened today. The gel becomes slightly thicker as I cross the living room. I ease open the front door, expecting gallons of the stuff to pour in, but it holds its form.

The pink and orange block seems to have been dipped in glossy black paint and set out to dry. Paving stones, buildings, even the rooftops are coated in the gel. A large teardrop hangs above the street. Two shapes project from it. A gun barrel and a human hand. Mitchell. I wait on the sidewalk, staring up at him until the entire group has joined me.

«If anyone needs to go back, for whatever reason, now is the time,» I say. «No questions asked, no hard feelings.» No one seems inclined to retreat. So I start moving into the Capitol, knowing we don’t have much time. The gel’s deeper here, four to six inches, and makes a sucking sound each time you pick up your foot, but it still covers our tracks.

The wave must have been enormous, with tremendous power behind it, as it’s affected several blocks that lie ahead. And though I tread with care, I think my instinct was right about its triggering other pods. One block is sprinkled with the golden bodies of tracker jackers. They must have been set free only to succumb to the fumes. A little farther along, an entire apartment building has collapsed and lies in a mound under the gel. I sprint across the intersections, holding up a hand for the others to wait while I look for trouble, but the wave seems to have dismantled the pods far better than any squad of rebels could.

On the fifth block, I can tell that we’ve reached the point where the wave began to peter out. The gel’s only an inch deep, and I can see baby blue rooftops peeking out across the next intersection. The afternoon light has faded, and we badly need to get under cover and form a plan. I choose an apartment two-thirds of the way down the block. Homes jimmies the lock, and I order the others inside. I stay on the street for just a minute, watching the last of our footprints fade away, then close the door behind me.

Flashlights built into our guns illuminate a large living room with mirrored walls that throw our faces back at us at every turn. Gale checks the windows, which show no damage, and removes his mask. «It’s all right. You can smell it, but it’s not too strong.»

The apartment seems to be laid out exactly like the first one we took refuge in. The gel blacks out any natural daylight in the front, but some light still slips through the shutters in the kitchen. Along the hallway are two bedrooms with baths. A spiral staircase in the living room leads up to an open space that composes much of the second floor. There are no windows upstairs, but the lights have been left on, probably by someone hastily evacuating. A huge television screen, blank but glowing softly, occupies one wall. Plush chairs and sofas are strewn around the room. This is where we congregate, slump into upholstery, try to catch our breath.

Jackson has her gun trained on Peeta even though he’s still cuffed and unconscious, draped across a deep-blue sofa where Homes deposited him. What on earth am I going to do with him? With the crew? With everybody, frankly, besides Gale and Finnick? Because I’d rather track down Snow with those two than without them. But I can’t lead ten people through the Capitol on a pretend mission, even if I could read the Holo. Should I, could I have sent them back when I had a chance? Or was it too dangerous? Both to them personally and to my mission? Maybe I shouldn’t have listened to Boggs, because he might have been in some delusional death state. Maybe I should just come clean, but then Jackson would take over and we’d end up back at camp. Where I’d have Coin to answer to.

Just as the complexity of the mess I’ve dragged everybody into begins to overload my brain, a distant chain of explosions sends a tremor through the room.

«It wasn’t close,» Jackson assures us. «A good four or five blocks away.»

«Where we left Boggs,» says Leeg 1.

Although no one has made a move toward it, the television flares to life, emitting a high-pitched beeping sound, bringing half our party to its feet.

«It’s all right!» calls Cressida. «It’s just an emergency broadcast. Every Capitol television is automatically activated for it.»

There we are on-screen, just after the bomb took out Boggs. A voice-over tells the audience what they are viewing as we try to regroup, react to the black gel shooting from the street, lose control of the situation. We watch the chaos that follows until the wave blots out the cameras. The last thing we see is Gale, alone on the street, trying to shoot through the cables that hold Mitchell aloft.

The reporter identifies Gale, Finnick, Boggs, Peeta, Cressida, and me by name.

«There’s no aerial footage. Boggs must have been right about their hovercraft capacity,» says Castor. I didn’t notice this, but I guess it’s the kind of thing a cameraman picks up on.

Coverage continues from the courtyard behind the apartment where we took shelter. Peacekeepers line the roof across from our former hideout. Shells are launched into the row of apartments, setting off the chain of explosions we heard, and the building collapses into rubble and dust.

Now we cut to a live feed. A reporter stands on the roof with the Peacekeepers. Behind her, the apartment block burns. Firefighters try to control the blaze with water hoses. We are pronounced dead.

«Finally, a bit of luck,» says Homes.

I guess he’s right. Certainly it’s better than having the Capitol in pursuit of us. But I just keep imagining how this will be playing back in 13. Where my mother and Prim, Hazelle and the kids, Annie, Haymitch, and a whole lot of people from 13 think that they have just seen us die.

«My father. He just lost my sister and now…» says Leeg 1.

We watch as they play the footage over and over. Revel in their victory, especially over me. Break away to do a montage of the Mockingjay’s rise to rebel power—I think they’ve had this part prepared for a while, because it seems pretty polished—and then go live so a couple of reporters can discuss my well-deserved violent end. Later, they promise, Snow will make an official statement. The screen fades back to a glow.

The rebels made no attempt to break in during the broadcast, which leads me to believe they think it’s true. If that’s so, we really are on our own.

«So, now that we’re dead, what’s our next move?» asks Gale.

«Isn’t it obvious?» No one even knew Peeta had regained consciousness. I don’t know how long he’s been watching, but by the look of misery on his face, long enough to see what happened on the street. How he went mad, tried to bash my head in, and hurled Mitchell into the pod. He painfully pushes himself up to a sitting position and directs his words to Gale.

«Our next move… is to kill me.»

21

That makes two requests for Peeta’s death in less than an hour.

«Don’t be ridiculous,» says Jackson.

«I just murdered a member of our squad!» shouts Peeta.

«You pushed him off you. You couldn’t have known he would trigger the net at that exact spot,» says Finnick, trying to calm him.

«Who cares? He’s dead, isn’t he?» Tears begin to run down Peeta’s face. «I didn’t know. I’ve never seen myself like that before. Katniss is right. I’m the monster. I’m the mutt. I’m the one Snow has turned into a weapon!»

«It’s not your fault, Peeta,» says Finnick.

«You can’t take me with you. It’s only a matter of time before I kill someone else.» Peeta looks around at our conflicted faces. «Maybe you think it’s kinder to just dump me somewhere. Let me take my chances. But that’s the same thing as handing me over to the Capitol. Do you think you’d be doing me a favor by sending me back to Snow?»

Peeta. Back in Snow’s hands. Tortured and tormented until no bits of his former self will ever emerge again.

For some reason, the last stanza to «The Hanging Tree» starts running through my head. The one where the man wants his lover dead rather than have her face the evil that awaits her in the world.

«I’ll kill you before that happens,» says Gale. «I promise.»

Peeta hesitates, as if considering the reliability of this offer, and then shakes his head. «It’s no good. What if you’re not there to do it? I want one of those poison pills like the rest of you have.»

Nightlock. There’s one pill back at camp, in its special slot on the sleeve of my Mockingjay suit. But there’s another in the breast pocket of my uniform. Interesting that they didn’t issue one to Peeta. Perhaps Coin thought he might take it before he had the opportunity to kill me. It’s unclear if Peeta means he’d finish himself off now, to spare us having to murder him, or only if the Capitol took him prisoner again. In the state he’s in, I expect it would be sooner rather than later. It would certainly make things easier on the rest of us. Not to have to shoot him. It would certainly simplify the problem of dealing with his homicidal episodes.

I don’t know if it’s the pods, or the fear, or watching Boggs die, but I feel the arena all around me. It’s as if I’ve never left, really. Once again I’m battling not only for my own survival but for Peeta’s as well. How satisfying, how entertaining it would be for Snow to have me kill him. To have Peeta’s death on my conscience for whatever is left of my life.

«It’s not about you,» I say. «We’re on a mission. And you’re necessary to it.» I look to the rest of the group. «Think we might find some food here?»

Besides the medical kit and cameras, we have nothing but our uniforms and our weapons.

Half of us stay to guard Peeta or keep an eye out for Snow’s broadcast, while the others hunt for something to eat. Messalla proves most valuable because he lived in a near replica of this apartment and knows where people would be most likely to stash food. Like how there’s a storage space concealed by a mirrored panel in the bedroom, or how easy it is to pop out the ventilation screen in the hallway. So even though the kitchen cupboards are bare, we find over thirty canned goods and several boxes of cookies.

The hoarding disgusts the soldiers raised in 13. «Isn’t this illegal?» says Leeg 1.

«On the contrary, in the Capitol you’d be considered stupid not to do it,» says Messalla. «Even before the Quarter Quell, people were starting to stock up on scarce supplies.»

«While others went without,» says Leeg 1.

«Right,» says Messalla. «That’s how it works here.»

«Fortunately, or we wouldn’t have dinner,» says Gale. «Everybody grab a can.»

Some of our company seem reluctant to do this, but it’s as good a method as any. I’m really not in the mood to divvy up everything into eleven equal parts, factoring in age, body weight, and physical output. I poke around in the pile, about to settle on some cod chowder, when Peeta holds out a can to me. «Here.»

I take it, not knowing what to expect. The label reads Lamb Stew.

I press my lips together at the memories of rain dripping through stones, my inept attempts at flirting, and the aroma of my favorite Capitol dish in the chilly air. So some part of it must still be in his head, too. How happy, how hungry, how close we were when that picnic basket arrived outside our cave. «Thanks.» I pop open the top. «It even has dried plums.» I bend the lid and use it as a makeshift spoon, scooping a bit into my mouth. Now this place tastes like the arena, too.

We’re passing around a box of fancy cream-filled cookies when the beeping starts again. The seal of Panem lights up on the screen and remains there while the anthem plays. And then they begin to show images of the dead, just as they did with the tributes in the arena. They start with the four faces of our TV crew, followed by Boggs, Gale, Finnick, Peeta, and me. Except for Boggs, they don’t bother with the soldiers from 13, either because they have no idea who they are or because they know they won’t mean anything to the audience. Then the man himself appears, seated at his desk, a flag draped behind him, the fresh white rose gleaming in his lapel. I think he might have recently had more work done, because his lips are puffier than usual. And his prep team really needs to use a lighter hand with his blush.

Snow congratulates the Peacekeepers on a masterful job, honors them for ridding the country of the menace called the Mockingjay. With my death, he predicts a turning of the tide in the war, since the demoralized rebels have no one left to follow. And what was I, really? A poor, unstable girl with a small talent with a bow and arrow. Not a great thinker, not the mastermind of the rebellion, merely a face plucked from the rabble because I had caught the nation’s attention with my antics in the Games. But necessary, so very necessary, because the rebels have no real leader among them.

Somewhere in District 13, Beetee hits a switch, because now it’s not President Snow but President Coin who’s looking at us. She introduces herself to Panem, identifies herself as the head of the rebellion, and then gives my eulogy. Praise for the girl who survived the Seam and the Hunger Games, then turned a country of slaves into an army of freedom fighters. «Dead or alive, Katniss Everdeen will remain the face of this rebellion. If ever you waver in your resolve, think of the Mockingjay, and in her you will find the strength you need to rid Panem of its oppressors.»

«I had no idea how much I meant to her,» I say, which brings a laugh from Gale and questioning looks from the others.

Up comes a heavily doctored photo of me looking beautiful and fierce with a bunch of flames flickering behind me. No words. No slogan. My face is all they need now.

Beetee gives the reins back to a very controlled Snow. I have the feeling the president thought the emergency channel was impenetrable, and someone will end up dead tonight because it was breached. «Tomorrow morning, when we pull Katniss Everdeen’s body from the ashes, we will see exactly who the Mockingjay is. A dead girl who could save no one, not even herself.» Seal, anthem, and out.

«Except that you won’t find her,» says Finnick to the empty screen, voicing what we’re all probably thinking. The grace period will be brief. Once they dig through those ashes and come up missing eleven bodies, they’ll know we escaped.

«We can get a head start on them at least,» I say. Suddenly, I’m so tired. All I want is to lie down on a nearby green plush sofa and go to sleep. To cocoon myself in a comforter made of rabbit fur and goose down. Instead, I pull out the Holo and insist that Jackson talk me through the most basic commands—which are really about entering the coordinates of the nearest map grid intersection—so that I can at least begin to operate the thing myself. As the Holo projects our surroundings, I feel my heart sink even further. We must be moving closer to crucial targets, because the number of pods has noticeably increased. How can we possibly move forward into this bouquet of blinking lights without detection? We can’t. And if we can’t, we are trapped like birds in a net. I decide it’s best not to adopt some sort of superior attitude when I’m with these people. Especially when my eyes keep drifting to that green sofa. So I say, «Any ideas?»

«Why don’t we start by ruling out possibilities,» says Finnick. «The street is not a possibility.»

«The rooftops are just as bad as the street,» says Leeg 1.

«We still might have a chance to withdraw, go back the way we came,» says Homes. «But that would mean a failed mission.»

A pang of guilt hits me since I’ve fabricated said mission. «It was never intended for all of us to go forward. You just had the misfortune to be with me.»

«Well, that’s a moot point. We’re with you now,» says Jackson. «So, we can’t stay put. We can’t move up. We can’t move laterally. I think that just leaves one option.»

«Underground,» says Gale.

Underground. Which I hate. Like mines and tunnels and 13. Underground, where I dread dying, which is stupid because even if I die aboveground, the next thing they’ll do is bury me underground anyway.

The Holo can show subterranean as well as street-level pods. I see that when we go underground the clean, dependable lines of the street plan are interlaced with a twisting, turning mess of tunnels. The pods look less numerous, though.

Two doors down, a vertical tube connects our row of apartments to the tunnels. To reach the tube apartment, we will need to squeeze through a maintenance shaft that runs the length of the building. We can enter the shaft through the back of a closet space on the upper floor.

«Okay, then. Let’s make it look like we’ve never been here,» I say. We erase all signs of our stay. Send the empty cans down a trash chute, pocket the full ones for later, flip sofa cushions smeared with blood, wipe traces of gel from the tiles. There’s no fixing the latch on the front door, but we lock a second bolt, which will at least keep the door from swinging open on contact.

Finally, there’s only Peeta to contend with. He plants himself on the blue sofa, refusing to budge. «I’m not going. I’ll either disclose your position or hurt someone else.»

«Snow’s people will find you,» says Finnick.

«Then leave me a pill. I’ll only take it if I have to,» says Peeta.

«That’s not an option. Come along,» says Jackson.

«Or you’ll what? Shoot me?» asks Peeta.

«We’ll knock you out and drag you with us,» says Homes. «Which will both slow us down and endanger us.»

«Stop being noble! I don’t care if I die!» He turns to me, pleading now. «Katniss, please. Don’t you see, I want to be out of this?»

The trouble is, I do see. Why can’t I just let him go? Slip him a pill, pull the trigger? Is it because I care too much about Peeta or too much about letting Snow win? Have I turned him into a piece in my private Games? That’s despicable, but I’m not sure it’s beneath me. If it’s true, it would be kindest to kill Peeta here and now. But for better or worse, I am not motivated by kindness. «We’re wasting time. Are you coming voluntarily or do we knock you out?»

Peeta buries his face in his hands for a few moments, then rises to join us.

«Should we free his hands?» asks Leeg 1.

«No!» Peeta growls at her, drawing his cuffs in close to his body.

«No,» I echo. «But I want the key.» Jackson passes it over without a word. I slip it into my pants pocket, where it clicks against the pearl.

When Homes pries open the small metal door to the maintenance shaft, we encounter another problem. There’s no way the insect shells will be able to fit through the narrow passage. Castor and Pollux remove them and detach emergency backup cameras. Each is the size of a shoe box and probably works about as well. Messalla can’t think of anywhere better to hide the bulky shells, so we end up dumping them in the closet. Leaving such an easy trail to follow frustrates me, but what else can we do?

Even going single file, holding our packs and gear out to the side, it’s a tight fit. We sidestep our way past the first apartment, and break into the second. In this apartment, one of the bedrooms has a door marked utility instead of a bathroom. Behind the door is the room with the entrance to the tube.

Messalla frowns at the wide circular cover, for a moment returning to his own fussy world. «It’s why no one ever wants the center unit. Workmen coming and going whenever and no second bath. But the rent’s considerably cheaper.» Then he notices Finnick’s amused expression and adds, «Never mind.»

The tube cover’s simple to unlatch. A wide ladder with rubber treads on the steps allows for a swift, easy descent into the bowels of the city. We gather at the foot of the ladder, waiting for our eyes to adjust to the dim strips of lights, breathing in the mixture of chemicals, mildew, and sewage.

Pollux, pale and sweaty, reaches out and latches on to Castor’s wrist. Like he might fall over if there isn’t someone to steady him.

«My brother worked down here after he became an Avox,» says Castor. Of course. Who else would they get to maintain these dank, evil-smelling passages mined with pods? «Took five years before we were able to buy his way up to ground level. Didn’t see the sun once.»

Under better conditions, on a day with fewer horrors and more rest, someone would surely know what to say. Instead we all stand there for a long time trying to formulate a response.

Finally, Peeta turns to Pollux. «Well, then you just became our most valuable asset.» Castor laughs and Pollux manages a smile.

We’re halfway down the first tunnel when I realize what was so remarkable about the exchange. Peeta sounded like his old self, the one who could always think of the right thing to say when nobody else could. Ironic, encouraging, a little funny, but not at anyone’s expense. I glance back at him as he trudges along under his guards, Gale and Jackson, his eyes fixed on the ground, his shoulders hunched forward. So dispirited. But for a moment, he was really here.

Peeta called it right. Pollux turns out to be worth ten Holos. There is a simple network of wide tunnels that directly corresponds to the main street plan above, underlying the major avenues and cross streets. It’s called the Transfer, since small trucks use it to deliver goods around the city. During the day, its many pods are deactivated, but at night it’s a minefield. However, hundreds of additional passages, utility shafts, train tracks, and drainage tubes form a multilevel maze. Pollux knows details that would lead to disaster for a newcomer, like which offshoots might require gas masks or have live wires or rats the size of beavers. He alerts us to the gush of water that sweeps through the sewers periodically, anticipates the time the Avoxes will be changing shifts, leads us into damp, obscure pipes to dodge the nearly silent passage of cargo trains. Most important, he has knowledge of the cameras. There aren’t many down in this gloomy, misty place, except in the Transfer. But we keep well out of their way.

Under Pollux’s guidance we make good time—remarkable time, if you compare it to our aboveground travel. After about six hours, fatigue takes over. It’s three in the morning, so I figure we still have a few hours before our bodies are discovered missing, they search through the rubble of the whole block of apartments in case we tried to escape through the shafts, and the hunt begins.

When I suggest we rest, no one objects. Pollux finds a small, warm room humming with machines loaded with levers and dials. He holds up his fingers to indicate we must be gone in four hours. Jackson works out a guard schedule, and, since I’m not on the first shift, I wedge myself in the tight space between Gale and Leeg 1 and go right to sleep.

It seems like only minutes later when Jackson shakes me awake, tells me I’m on watch. It’s six o’clock, and in one hour we must be on our way. Jackson tells me to eat a can of food and keep an eye on Pollux, who’s insisted on being on guard the entire night. «He can’t sleep down here.» I drag myself into a state of relative alertness, eat a can of potato and bean stew, and sit against the wall facing the door. Pollux seems wide awake. He’s probably been reliving those five years of imprisonment all night. I get out the Holo and manage to input our grid coordinates and scan the tunnels. As expected, more pods are registering the closer we move toward the center of the Capitol. For a while, Pollux and I click around on the Holo, seeing what traps lie where. When my head begins to spin, I hand it over to him and lean back against the wall. I look down at the sleeping soldiers, crew, and friends, and I wonder how many of us will ever see the sun again.

When my eyes fall on Peeta, whose head rests right by my feet, I see he’s awake. I wish I could read what’s going on in his mind, that I could go in and untangle the mess of lies. Then I settle for something I can accomplish.

«Have you eaten?» I ask. A slight shake of his head indicates he hasn’t. I open a can of chicken and rice soup and hand it to him, keeping the lid in case he tries to slit his wrists with it or something. He sits up and tilts the can, chugging back the soup without really bothering to chew it. The bottom of the can reflects the lights from the machines, and I remember something that’s been itching at the back of my mind since yesterday. «Peeta, when you asked about what happened to Darius and Lavinia, and Boggs told you it was real, you said you thought so. Because there was nothing shiny about it. What did you mean?»

«Oh. I don’t know exactly how to explain it,» he tells me. «In the beginning, everything was just complete confusion. Now I can sort certain things out. I think there’s a pattern emerging. The memories they altered with the tracker jacker venom have this strange quality about them. Like they’re too intense or the images aren’t stable. You remember what it was like when we were stung?»

«Trees shattered. There were giant colored butterflies. I fell in a pit of orange bubbles.» I think about it. «Shiny orange bubbles.»

«Right. But nothing about Darius or Lavinia was like that. I don’t think they’d given me any venom yet,» he says.

«Well, that’s good, isn’t it?» I ask. «If you can separate the two, then you can figure out what’s true.»

«Yes. And if I could grow wings, I could fly. Only people can’t grow wings,» he says. «Real or not real?»

«Real,» I say. «But people don’t need wings to survive.»

«Mockingjays do.» He finishes the soup and returns the can to me.

In the fluorescent light, the circles under his eyes look like bruises. «There’s still time. You should sleep.» Unresisting, he lies back down, but just stares at the needle on one of the dials as it twitches from side to side. Slowly, as I would with a wounded animal, my hand stretches out and brushes a wave of hair from his forehead. He freezes at my touch, but doesn’t recoil. So I continue to gently smooth back his hair. It’s the first time I have voluntarily touched him since the last arena.

«You’re still trying to protect me. Real or not real,» he whispers.

«Real,» I answer. It seems to require more explanation. «Because that’s what you and I do. Protect each other.» After a minute or so, he drifts off to sleep.

Shortly before seven, Pollux and I move among the others, rousing them. There are the usual yawns and sighs that accompany waking. But my ears are picking up something else, too. Almost like a hissing. Perhaps it’s only steam escaping a pipe or the far-off whoosh of one of the trains…

I hush the group to get a better read on it. There’s a hissing, yes, but it’s not one extended sound. More like multiple exhalations that form words. A single word. Echoing throughout the tunnels. One word. One name. Repeated over and over again.

«Katniss.»

22

The grace period has ended. Perhaps Snow had them digging through the night. As soon as the fire died down, anyway. They found Boggs’s remains, briefly felt reassured, and then, as the hours went by without further trophies, began to suspect. At some point, they realized that they had been tricked. And President Snow can’t tolerate being made to look like a fool. It doesn’t matter whether they tracked us to the second apartment or assumed we went directly underground. They know we are down here now and they’ve unleashed something, a pack of mutts probably, bent on finding me.

«Katniss.» I jump at the proximity of the sound. Look frantically for its source, bow loaded, seeking a target to hit. «Katniss.» Peeta’s lips are barely moving, but there’s no doubt, the name came out of him. Just when I thought he seemed a little better, when I thought he might be inching his way back to me, here is proof of how deep Snow’s poison went. «Katniss.» Peeta’s programmed to respond to the hissing chorus, to join in the hunt. He’s beginning to stir. There’s no choice. I position my arrow to penetrate his brain. He’ll barely feel a thing. Suddenly, he’s sitting up, eyes wide in alarm, short of breath. «Katniss!» He whips his head toward me but doesn’t seem to notice my bow, the waiting arrow. «Katniss! Get out of here!»

I hesitate. His voice is alarmed, but not insane. «Why? What’s making that sound?»

«I don’t know. Only that it has to kill you,» says Peeta. «Run! Get out! Go!»

After my own moment of confusion, I conclude I do not have to shoot him. Relax my bowstring. Take in the anxious faces around me. «Whatever it is, it’s after me. It might be a good time to split up.»

«But we’re your guard,» says Jackson.

«And your crew,» adds Cressida.

«I’m not leaving you,» Gale says.

I look at the crew, armed with nothing but cameras and clipboards. And there’s Finnick with two guns and a trident. I suggest that he give one of his guns to Castor. Eject the blank cartridge from Peeta’s, load it with a real one, and arm Pollux. Since Gale and I have our bows, we hand our guns over to Messalla and Cressida. There’s no time to show them anything but how to point and pull the trigger, but in close quarters, that might be enough. It’s better than being defenseless. Now the only one without a weapon is Peeta, but anyone whispering my name with a bunch of mutts doesn’t need one anyway.

We leave the room free of everything but our scent. There’s no way to erase that at the moment. I’m guessing that’s how the hissing things are tracking us, because we haven’t left much of a physical trail. The mutts’ noses will be abnormally keen, but possibly the time we spent slogging through water in drainpipes will help throw them.

Outside the hum of the room, the hissing becomes more distinct. But it’s also possible to get a better sense of the mutts’ location. They’re behind us, still a fair distance. Snow probably had them released underground near the place where he found Boggs’s body. Theoretically, we should have a good lead on them, although they’re certain to be much faster than we are. My mind wanders to the wolflike creatures in the first arena, the monkeys in the Quarter Quell, the monstrosities I’ve witnessed on television over the years, and I wonder what form these mutts will take. Whatever Snow thinks will scare me the most.

Pollux and I have worked out a plan for the next leg of our journey, and since it heads away from the hissing, I see no reason to alter it. If we move swiftly, maybe we can reach Snow’s mansion before the mutts reach us. But there’s a sloppiness that comes with speed: the poorly placed boot that results in a splash, the accidental clang of a gun against a pipe, even my own commands, issued too loudly for discretion.

We’ve covered about three more blocks via an overflow pipe and a section of neglected train track when the screams begin. Thick, guttural. Bouncing off the tunnel walls.

«Avoxes,» says Peeta immediately. «That’s what Darius sounded like when they tortured him.»

«The mutts must have found them,» says Cressida.

«So they’re not just after Katniss,» says Leeg 1.

«They’ll probably kill anyone. It’s just that they won’t stop until they get to her,» says Gale. After his hours studying with Beetee, he is most likely right.

And here I am again. With people dying because of me. Friends, allies, complete strangers, losing their lives for the Mockingjay. «Let me go on alone. Lead them off. I’ll transfer the Holo to Jackson. The rest of you can finish the mission.»

«No one’s going to agree to that!» says Jackson in exasperation.

«We’re wasting time!» says Finnick.

«Listen,» Peeta whispers.

The screams have stopped, and in their absence my name has rebounded, startling in its proximity. It’s below as well as behind us now. «Katniss.»

I nudge Pollux on the shoulder and we start to run. Trouble is, we had planned to descend to a lower level, but that’s out now. When we come to the steps leading down, Pollux and I are scanning for a possible alternative on the Holo when I start gagging.

«Masks on!» orders Jackson.

There’s no need for masks. Everyone is breathing the same air. I’m the only one losing my stew because I’m the only one reacting to the odor. Drifting up from the stairwell. Cutting through the sewage. Roses. I begin to tremble.

I swerve away from the smell and stumble right out onto the Transfer. Smooth, pastel-colored tiled streets, just like the ones above, but bordered by white brick walls instead of homes. A roadway where delivery vehicles can drive with ease, without the congestion of the Capitol. Empty now, of everything but us. I swing up my bow and blow up the first pod with an explosive arrow, which kills the nest of flesh-eating rats inside. Then I sprint for the next intersection, where I know one false step will cause the ground beneath our feet to disintegrate, feeding us into something labeled Meat Grinder. I shout a warning to the others to stay with me. I plan for us to skirt around the corner and then detonate the Meat Grinder, but another unmarked pod lies in wait.

It happens silently. I would miss it entirely if Finnick didn’t pull me to a stop. «Katniss!»

I whip back around, arrow poised for flight, but what can be done? Two of Gale’s arrows already lie useless beside the wide shaft of golden light that radiates from ceiling to floor. Inside, Messalla is as still as a statue, poised up on the ball of one foot, head tilted back, held captive by the beam. I can’t tell if he’s yelling, although his mouth is stretched wide. We watch, utterly helpless, as the flesh melts off his body like candle wax.

«Can’t help him!» Peeta starts shoving people forward. «Can’t!» Amazingly, he’s the only one still functional enough to get us moving. I don’t know why he’s in control, when he should be flipping out and bashing my brains in, but that could happen any second. At the pressure of his hand against my shoulder, I turn away from the grisly thing that was Messalla; I make my feet go forward, fast, so fast that I can barely skid to a stop before the next intersection.

A spray of gunfire brings down a shower of plaster. I jerk my head from side to side, looking for the pod, before I turn and see the squad of Peacekeepers pounding down the Transfer toward us. With the Meat Grinder pod blocking our way, there’s nothing to do but fire back. They outnumber us two to one, but we’ve still got six original members of the Star Squad, who aren’t trying to run and shoot at the same time.

Fish in a barrel, I think, as blossoms of red stain their white uniforms. Three-quarters of them are down and dead when more begin to pour in from the side of the tunnel, the same one I flung myself through to get away from the smell, from the—

Those aren’t Peacekeepers.

They are white, four-limbed, about the size of a full-grown human, but that’s where the comparisons stop. Naked, with long reptilian tails, arched backs, and heads that jut forward. They swarm over the Peacekeepers, living and dead, clamp on to their necks with their mouths and rip off the helmeted heads. Apparently, having a Capitol pedigree is as useless here as it was in 13. It seems to take only seconds before the Peacekeepers are decapitated. The mutts fall to their bellies and skitter toward us on all fours.

«This way!» I shout, hugging the wall and making a sharp right turn to avoid the pod. When everyone’s joined me, I fire into the intersection, and the Meat Grinder activates. Huge mechanical teeth burst through the street and chew the tile to dust. That should make it impossible for the mutts to follow us, but I don’t know. The wolf and monkey mutts I’ve encountered could leap unbelievably far.

The hissing burns my ears, and the reek of roses makes the walls spin.

I grab Pollux’s arm. «Forget the mission. What’s the quickest way aboveground?»

There’s no time for checking the Holo. We follow Pollux for about ten yards along the Transfer and go through a doorway. I’m aware of tile changing to concrete, of crawling through a tight, stinking pipe onto a ledge about a foot wide. We’re in the main sewer. A yard below, a poisonous brew of human waste, garbage, and chemical runoff bubbles by us. Parts of the surface are on fire, others emit evil-looking clouds of vapor. One look tells you that if you fall in, you’re never coming out. Moving as quickly as we dare on the slippery ledge, we make our way to a narrow bridge and cross it. In an alcove at the far side, Pollux smacks a ladder with his hand and points up the shaft. This is it. Our way out.

A quick glance at our party tells me something’s off. «Wait! Where are Jackson and Leeg One?»

«They stayed at the Grinder to hold the mutts back,» says Homes.

«What?» I’m lunging back for the bridge, willing to leave no one to those monsters, when he yanks me back.

«Don’t waste their lives, Katniss. It’s too late for them. Look!» Homes nods to the pipe, where the mutts are slithering onto the ledge.

«Stand back!» Gale shouts. With his explosive-tipped arrows, he rips the far side of the bridge from its foundation. The rest sinks into the bubbles, just as the mutts reach it.

For the first time, I get a good look at them. A mix of human and lizard and who knows what else. White, tight reptilian skin smeared with gore, clawed hands and feet, their faces a mess of conflicting features. Hissing, shrieking my name now, as their bodies contort in rage. Lashing out with tails and claws, taking huge chunks of one another or their own bodies with wide, lathered mouths, driven mad by their need to destroy me. My scent must be as evocative to them as theirs is to me. More so, because despite its toxicity, the mutts begin to throw themselves into the foul sewer.

Along our bank, everyone opens fire. I choose my arrows without discretion, sending arrowheads, fire, explosives into the mutts’ bodies. They’re mortal, but only just. No natural thing could keep coming with two dozen bullets in it. Yes, we can eventually kill them, only there are so many, an endless supply pouring from the pipe, not even hesitating to take to the sewage.

But it’s not their numbers that make my hands shake so.

No mutt is good. All are meant to damage you. Some take your life, like the monkeys. Others your reason, like the tracker jackers. However, the true atrocities, the most frightening, incorporate a perverse psychological twist designed to terrify the victim. The sight of the wolf mutts with the dead tributes’ eyes. The sound of the jabberjays replicating Prim’s tortured screams. The smell of Snow’s roses mixed with the victims’ blood. Carried across the sewer. Cutting through even this foulness. Making my heart run wild, my skin turn to ice, my lungs unable to suck air. It’s as if Snow’s breathing right in my face, telling me it’s time to die.

The others are shouting at me, but I can’t seem to respond. Strong arms lift me as I blast the head off a mutt whose claws have just grazed my ankle. I’m slammed into the ladder. Hands shoved against the rungs. Ordered to climb. My wooden, puppet limbs obey. Movement slowly brings me back to my senses. I detect one person above me. Pollux. Peeta and Cressida are below. We reach a platform. Switch to a second ladder. Rungs slick with sweat and mildew. At the next platform, my head has cleared and the reality of what’s happened hits me. I begin frantically pulling people up off the ladder. Peeta. Cressida. That’s it.

What have I done? What have I abandoned the others to? I’m scrambling back down the ladder when one of my boots kicks someone.

«Climb!» Gale barks at me. I’m back up, hauling him in, peering into the gloom for more. «No.» Gale turns my face to him and shakes his head. Uniform shredded. Gaping wound in the side of his neck.

There’s a human cry from below. «Someone’s still alive,» I plead.

«No, Katniss. They’re not coming,» says Gale. «Only the mutts are.»

Unable to accept it, I shine the light from Cressida’s gun down the shaft. Far below, I can just make out Finnick, struggling to hang on as three mutts tear at him. As one yanks back his head to take the death bite, something bizarre happens. It’s as if I’m Finnick, watching images of my life flash by. The mast of a boat, a silver parachute, Mags laughing, a pink sky, Beetee’s trident, Annie in her wedding dress, waves breaking over rocks. Then it’s over.

I slide the Holo from my belt and choke out «nightlock, nightlock, nightlock.» Release it. Hunch against the wall with the others as the explosion rocks the platform and bits of mutt and human flesh shoot out of the pipe and shower us.

There’s a clank as Pollux slams a cover over the pipe and locks it in place. Pollux, Gale, Cressida, Peeta, and me. We’re all that’s left. Later, the human feelings will come. Now I’m conscious only of an animal need to keep the remnants of our band alive. «We can’t stop here.»

Someone comes up with a bandage. We tie it around Gale’s neck. Get him to his feet. Only one figure stays huddled against the wall. «Peeta,» I say. There’s no response. Has he blacked out? I crouch in front of him, pulling his cuffed hands from his face. «Peeta?» His eyes are like black pools, the pupils dilated so that the blue irises have all but vanished. The muscles in his wrists are hard as metal.

«Leave me,» he whispers. «I can’t hang on.»

«Yes. You can!» I tell him.

Peeta shakes his head. «I’m losing it. I’ll go mad. Like them.»

Like the mutts. Like a rabid beast bent on ripping my throat out. And here, finally here in this place, in these circumstances, I will really have to kill him. And Snow will win. Hot, bitter hatred courses through me. Snow has won too much already today.

It’s a long shot, it’s suicide maybe, but I do the only thing I can think of. I lean in and kiss Peeta full on the mouth. His whole body starts shuddering, but I keep my lips pressed to his until I have to come up for air. My hands slide up his wrists to clasp his. «Don’t let him take you from me.»

Peeta’s panting hard as he fights the nightmares raging in his head. «No. I don’t want to…»

I clench his hands to the point of pain. «Stay with me.»

His pupils contract to pinpoints, dilate again rapidly, and then return to something resembling normalcy. «Always,» he murmurs.

I help Peeta up and address Pollux. «How far to the street?» He indicates it’s just above us. I climb the last ladder and push open the lid to someone’s utility room. I’m rising to my feet when a woman throws open the door. She wears a bright turquoise silk robe embroidered with exotic birds. Her magenta hair’s fluffed up like a cloud and decorated with gilded butterflies. Grease from the half-eaten sausage she’s holding smears her lipstick. The expression on her face says she recognizes me. She opens her mouth to call for help.

Without hesitation, I shoot her through the heart.

23

Who the woman was calling to remains a mystery, because after searching the apartment, we find she was alone. Perhaps her cry was meant for a nearby neighbor, or was simply an expression of fear. At any rate, there’s no one else to hear her.

This apartment would be a classy place to hole up in for a while, but that’s a luxury we can’t afford. «How long do you think we have before they figure out some of us could’ve survived?» I ask.

«I think they could be here anytime,» Gale answers. «They knew we were heading for the streets. Probably the explosion will throw them for a few minutes, then they’ll start looking for our exit point.»

I go to a window that overlooks the street, and when I peek through the blinds, I’m not faced with Peacekeepers but with a bundled crowd of people going about their business. During our underground journey, we have left the evacuated zones far behind and surfaced in a busy section of the Capitol. This crowd offers our only chance of escape. I don’t have a Holo, but I have Cressida. She joins me at the window, confirms she knows our location, and gives me the good news that we aren’t many blocks from the president’s mansion.

One glance at my companions tells me this is no time for a stealth attack on Snow. Gale’s still losing blood from the neck wound, which we haven’t even cleaned. Peeta’s sitting on a velvet sofa with his teeth clamped down on a pillow, either fighting off madness or containing a scream. Pollux weeps against the mantel of an ornate fireplace. Cressida stands determinedly at my side, but she’s so pale her lips are bloodless. I’m running on hate. When the energy for that ebbs, I’ll be worthless.

«Let’s check her closets,» I say.

In one bedroom we find hundreds of the woman’s outfits, coats, pairs of shoes, a rainbow of wigs, enough makeup to paint a house. In a bedroom across the hall, there’s a similar selection for men. Perhaps they belong to her husband. Perhaps to a lover who had the good luck to be out this morning. I call the others to dress. At the sight of Peeta’s bloody wrists, I dig in my pocket for the handcuff key, but he jerks away from me.

«No,» he says. «Don’t. They help hold me together.»

«You might need your hands,» says Gale.

«When I feel myself slipping, I dig my wrists into them, and the pain helps me focus,» says Peeta. I let them be.

Fortunately, it’s cold out, so we can conceal most of our uniforms and weapons under flowing coats and cloaks. We hang our boots around our necks by their laces and hide them, pull on silly shoes to replace them. The real challenge, of course, is our faces. Cressida and Pollux run the risk of being recognized by acquaintances, Gale could be familiar from the propos and news, and Peeta and I are known by every citizen of Panem. We hastily help one another apply thick layers of makeup, pull on wigs and sunglasses. Cressida wraps scarves over Peeta’s and my mouths and noses.

I can feel the clock ticking away, but stop for just a few moments to stuff pockets with food and first-aid supplies. «Stay together,» I say at the front door. Then we march right into the street. Snow flurries have begun to fall. Agitated people swirl around us, speaking of rebels and hunger and me in their affected Capitol accents. We cross the street, pass a few more apartments. Just as we turn the corner, three dozen Peacekeepers sweep past us. We hop out of their way, as the real citizens do, wait until the crowd returns to its normal flow, and keep moving. «Cressida,» I whisper. «Can you think of anywhere?»

«I’m trying,» she says.

We cover another block, and the sirens begin. Through an apartment window, I see an emergency report and pictures of our faces flashing. They haven’t identified who in our party died yet, because I see Castor and Finnick among the photos. Soon every passerby will be as dangerous as a Peacekeeper. «Cressida?»

«There’s one place. It’s not ideal. But we can try it,» she says. We follow her a few more blocks and turn through a gate into what looks like a private residence. It’s some kind of shortcut, though, because after walking through a manicured garden, we come out of another gate onto a small back street that connects two main avenues. There are a few poky stores—one that buys used goods, another that sells fake jewelry. Only a couple of people are around, and they pay no attention to us. Cressida begins to babble in a high-pitched voice about fur undergarments, how essential they are during the cold months. «Wait until you see the prices! Believe me, it’s half what you pay on the avenues!»

We stop before a grimy storefront filled with mannequins in furry underwear. The place doesn’t even look open, but Cressida pushes through the front door, setting off a dissonant chiming. Inside the dim, narrow shop lined with racks of merchandise, the smell of pelts fills my nose. Business must be slow, since we’re the only customers. Cressida heads straight for a hunched figure sitting in the back. I follow, trailing my fingers through the soft garments as we go.

Behind a counter sits the strangest person I’ve ever seen. She’s an extreme example of surgical enhancement gone wrong, for surely not even in the Capitol could they find this face attractive. The skin has been pulled back tightly and tattooed with black and gold stripes. The nose has been flattened until it barely exists. I’ve seen cat whiskers on people in the Capitol before, but none so long. The result is a grotesque, semi-feline mask, which now squints at us distrustfully.

Cressida takes off her wig, revealing her vines. «Tigris,» she says. «We need help.»

Tigris. Deep in my brain, the name rings a bell. She was a fixture—a younger, less disturbing version of herself—in the earliest Hunger Games I can remember. A stylist, I think. I don’t remember for which district. Not 12. Then she must have had one operation too many and crossed the line into repellence.

So this is where stylists go when they’ve outlived their use. To sad theme underwear shops where they wait for death. Out of the public eye.

I stare at her face, wondering if her parents actually named her Tigris, inspiring her mutilation, or if she chose the style and changed her name to match her stripes.

«Plutarch said you could be trusted,» adds Cressida.

Great, she’s one of Plutarch’s people. So if her first move isn’t to turn us in to the Capitol, it will be to notify Plutarch, and by extension Coin, of our whereabouts. No, Tigris’s shop is not ideal, but it’s all we have at the moment. If she’ll even help us. She’s peering between an old television on her counter and us, as if trying to place us. To help her, I pull down my scarf, remove my wig, and step closer so that the light of the screen falls on my face.

Tigris gives a low growl, not unlike one Buttercup might greet me with. She slinks down off her stool and disappears behind a rack of fur-lined leggings. There’s a sound of sliding, and then her hand emerges and waves us forward. Cressida looks at me, as if to ask Are you sure? But what choice do we have? Returning to the streets under these conditions guarantees our capture or death. I push around the furs and find Tigris has slid back a panel at the base of the wall. Behind it seems to be the top of a steep stone stairway. She gestures for me to enter.

Everything about the situation screams Trap. I have a moment of panic and find myself turning to Tigris, searching those tawny eyes. Why is she doing this? She’s no Cinna, someone willing to sacrifice herself for others. This woman was the embodiment of Capitol shallowness. She was one of the stars of the Hunger Games until… until she wasn’t. So is that it, then? Bitterness? Hatred? Revenge? Actually, I’m comforted by the idea. A need for revenge can burn long and hot. Especially if every glance in a mirror reinforces it.

«Did Snow ban you from the Games?» I ask. She just stares back at me. Somewhere her tiger tail flicks with displeasure. «Because I’m going to kill him, you know.» Her mouth spreads into what I take for a smile. Reassured that this isn’t complete madness, I crawl through the space.

About halfway down the steps, my face runs into a hanging chain and I pull it, illuminating the hideout with a flickering fluorescent bulb. It’s a small cellar with no doors or windows. Shallow and wide. Probably just a strip between two real basements. A place whose existence could go unnoticed unless you had a very keen eye for dimensions. It’s cold and dank, with piles of pelts that I’m guessing haven’t seen the light of day in years. Unless Tigris gives us up, I don’t believe anyone will find us here. By the time I reach the concrete floor, my companions are on the steps. The panel slides back in place. I hear the underwear rack being adjusted on squeaky wheels. Tigris padding back to her stool. We have been swallowed up by her store.

Just in time, too, because Gale looks on the verge of collapse. We make a bed of pelts, strip off his layers of weapons, and help him onto his back. At the end of the cellar, there’s a faucet about a foot from the floor with a drain under it. I turn the tap and, after much sputtering and a lot of rust, clear water begins to flow. We clean Gale’s neck wound and I realize bandages won’t be enough. He’s going to need a few stitches. There’s a needle and sterile thread in the first-aid supplies, but what we lack is a healer. It crosses my mind to enlist Tigris. As a stylist, she must know how to work a needle. But that would leave no one manning the shop, and she’s doing enough already. I accept that I’m probably the most qualified for the job, grit my teeth, and put in a row of jagged sutures. It’s not pretty but it’s functional. I smear it with medicine and wrap it up. Give him some painkillers. «You can rest now. It’s safe here,» I tell him. He goes out like a light.

While Cressida and Pollux make fur nests for each of us, I attend to Peeta’s wrists. Gently rinsing away the blood, putting on an antiseptic, and bandaging them beneath the cuffs. «You’ve got to keep them clean, otherwise the infection could spread and—»

«I know what blood poisoning is, Katniss,» says Peeta. «Even if my mother isn’t a healer.»

I’m jolted back in time, to another wound, another set of bandages. «You said that same thing to me in the first Hunger Games. Real or not real?»

«Real,» he says. «And you risked your life getting the medicine that saved me?»

«Real.» I shrug. «You were the reason I was alive to do it.»

«Was I?» The comment throws him into confusion. Some shiny memory must be fighting for his attention, because his body tenses and his newly bandaged wrists strain against the metal cuffs. Then all the energy saps from his body. «I’m so tired, Katniss.»

«Go to sleep,» I say. He won’t until I’ve rearranged his handcuffs and shackled him to one of the stair supports. It can’t be comfortable, lying there with his arms above his head. But in a few minutes, he drifts off, too.

Cressida and Pollux have made beds for us, arranged our food and medical supplies, and now ask what I want to do about setting up a guard. I look at Gale’s pallor, Peeta’s restraints. Pollux hasn’t slept for days, and Cressida and I only napped for a few hours. If a troop of Peacekeepers were to come through that door, we’d be trapped like rats. We are completely at the mercy of a decrepit tiger-woman with what I can only hope is an all-consuming passion for Snow’s death.

«I don’t honestly think there’s any point in setting up a guard. Let’s just try to get some sleep,» I say. They nod numbly, and we all burrow into our pelts. The fire inside me has flickered out, and with it my strength. I surrender to the soft, musty fur and oblivion.

I have only one dream I remember. A long and wearying thing in which I’m trying to get to District 12. The home I’m seeking is intact, the people alive. Effie Trinket, conspicuous in a bright pink wig and tailored outfit, travels with me. I keep trying to ditch her in places, but she inexplicably reappears at my side, insisting that as my escort she’s responsible for my staying on schedule. Only the schedule is constantly shifting, derailed by our lack of a stamp from an official or delayed when Effie breaks one of her high heels. We camp for days on a bench in a gray station in District 7, awaiting a train that never comes. When I wake, somehow I feel even more drained by this than my usual nighttime forays into blood and terror.

Cressida, the only person awake, tells me it’s late afternoon. I eat a can of beef stew and wash it down with a lot of water. Then I lean against the cellar wall, retracing the events of the last day. Moving death by death. Counting them up on my fingers. One, two—Mitchell and Boggs lost on the block. Three—Messalla melted by the pod. Four, five—Leeg 1 and Jackson sacrificing themselves at the Meat Grinder. Six, seven, eight—Castor, Homes, and Finnick being decapitated by the rose-scented lizard mutts. Eight dead in twenty-four hours. I know it happened, and yet it doesn’t seem real. Surely, Castor is asleep under that pile of furs, Finnick will come bounding down the steps in a minute, Boggs will tell me his plan for our escape.

To believe them dead is to accept I killed them. Okay, maybe not Mitchell and Boggs—they died on an actual assignment. But the others lost their lives defending me on a mission I fabricated. My plot to assassinate Snow seems so stupid now. So stupid as I sit shivering here in this cellar, tallying up our losses, fingering the tassels on the silver knee-high boots I stole from the woman’s home. Oh, yeah—I forgot about that. I killed her, too. I’m taking out unarmed citizens now.

I think it’s time I give myself up.

When everyone finally awakens, I confess. How I lied about the mission, how I jeopardized everyone in pursuit of revenge. There’s a long silence after I finish. Then Gale says, «Katniss, we all knew you were lying about Coin sending you to assassinate Snow.»

«You knew, maybe. The soldiers from Thirteen didn’t,» I reply.

«Do you really think Jackson believed you had orders from Coin?» Cressida asks. «Of course she didn’t. But she trusted Boggs, and he’d clearly wanted you to go on.»

«I never even told Boggs what I planned to do,» I say.

«You told everyone in Command!» Gale says. «It was one of your conditions for being the Mockingjay. ‘I kill Snow.’»

Those seem like two disconnected things. Negotiating with Coin for the privilege of executing Snow after the war and this unauthorized flight through the Capitol. «But not like this,» I say. «It’s been a complete disaster.»

«I think it would be considered a highly successful mission,» says Gale. «We’ve infiltrated the enemy camp, showing that the Capitol’s defenses can be breached. We’ve managed to get footage of ourselves all over the Capitol’s news. We’ve thrown the whole city into chaos trying to find us.»

«Trust me, Plutarch’s thrilled,» Cressida adds.

«That’s because Plutarch doesn’t care who dies,» I say. «Not as long as his Games are a success.»

Cressida and Gale go round and round trying to convince me. Pollux nods at their words to back them up. Only Peeta doesn’t offer an opinion.

«What do you think, Peeta?» I finally ask him.

«I think… you still have no idea. The effect you can have.» He slides his cuffs up the support and pushes himself to a sitting position. «None of the people we lost were idiots. They knew what they were doing. They followed you because they believed you really could kill Snow.»

I don’t know why his voice reaches me when no one else’s can. But if he’s right, and I think he is, I owe the others a debt that can only be repaid in one way. I pull my paper map from a pocket in my uniform and spread it out on the floor with new resolve. «Where are we, Cressida?»

Tigris’s shop sits about five blocks from the City Circle and Snow’s mansion. We’re in easy walking distance through a zone in which the pods are deactivated for the residents’ safety. We have disguises that, perhaps with some embellishments from Tigris’s furry stock, could get us safely there. But then what? The mansion’s sure to be heavily guarded, under round-the-clock camera surveillance, and laced with pods that could become live at the flick of a switch.

«What we need is to get him out in the open,» Gale says to me. «Then one of us could pick him off.»

«Does he ever appear in public anymore?» asks Peeta.

«I don’t think so,» says Cressida. «At least in all the recent speeches I’ve seen, he’s been in the mansion. Even before the rebels got here. I imagine he became more vigilant after Finnick aired his crimes.»

That’s right. It’s not just the Tigrises of the Capitol who hate Snow now, but a web of people who know what he did to their friends and families. It would have to be something bordering on miraculous to lure him out. Something like…

«I bet he’d come out for me,» I say. «If I were captured. He’d want that as public as possible. He’d want my execution on his front steps.» I let this sink in. «Then Gale could shoot him from the audience.»

«No.» Peeta shakes his head. «There are too many alternative endings to that plan. Snow might decide to keep you and torture information out of you. Or have you executed publicly without being present. Or kill you inside the mansion and display your body out front.»

«Gale?» I say.

«It seems like an extreme solution to jump to immediately,» he says. «Maybe if all else fails. Let’s keep thinking.»

In the quiet that follows, we hear Tigris’s soft footfall overhead. It must be closing time. She’s locking up, fastening the shutters maybe. A few minutes later, the panel at the top of the stairs slides open.

«Come up,» says a gravelly voice. «I have some food for you.» It’s the first time she’s talked since we arrived. Whether it’s natural or from years of practice, I don’t know, but there’s something in her manner of speaking that suggests a cat’s purr.

As we climb the stairs, Cressida asks, «Did you contact Plutarch, Tigris?»

«No way to.» Tigris shrugs. «He’ll figure out you’re in a safe house. Don’t worry.»

Worry? I feel immensely relieved by the news that I won’t be given—and have to ignore—direct orders from 13. Or make up some viable defense for the decisions I’ve made over the last couple of days.

In the shop, the counter holds some stale hunks of bread, a wedge of moldy cheese, and half a bottle of mustard. It reminds me that not everyone in the Capitol has full stomachs these days. I feel obliged to tell Tigris about our remaining food supplies, but she waves my objections away. «I eat next to nothing,» she says. «And then, only raw meat.» This seems a little too in character, but I don’t question it. I just scrape the mold off the cheese and divide up the food among the rest of us.

While we eat, we watch the latest Capitol news coverage. The government has the rebel survivors narrowed down to the five of us. Huge bounties are offered for information leading to our capture. They emphasize how dangerous we are. Show us exchanging gunfire with the Peacekeepers, although not the mutts ripping off their heads. Do a tragic tribute to the woman lying where we left her, with my arrow still in her heart. Someone has redone her makeup for the cameras.

The rebels let the Capitol broadcast run on uninterrupted. «Have the rebels made a statement today?» I ask Tigris. She shakes her head. «I doubt Coin knows what to do with me now that I’m still alive.»

Tigris gives a throaty cackle. «No one knows what to do with you, girlie.» Then she makes me take a pair of the fur leggings even though I can’t pay her for them. It’s the kind of gift you have to accept. And anyway, it’s cold in that cellar.

Downstairs after supper, we continue to rack our brains for a plan. Nothing good comes up, but we do agree that we can no longer go out as a group of five and that we should try to infiltrate the president’s mansion before I turn myself into bait. I consent to that second point to avoid further argument. If I do decide to give myself up, it won’t require anyone else’s permission or participation.

We change bandages, handcuff Peeta back to his support, and settle down to sleep. A few hours later, I slip back into consciousness and become aware of a quiet conversation. Peeta and Gale. I can’t stop myself from eavesdropping.

«Thanks for the water,» Peeta says.

«No problem,» Gale replies. «I wake up ten times a night anyway.»

«To make sure Katniss is still here?» asks Peeta.

«Something like that,» Gale admits.

There’s a long pause before Peeta speaks again. «That was funny, what Tigris said. About no one knowing what to do with her.»

«Well, we never have,» Gale says.

They both laugh. It’s so strange to hear them talking like this. Almost like friends. Which they’re not. Never have been. Although they’re not exactly enemies.

«She loves you, you know,» says Peeta. «She as good as told me after they whipped you.»

«Don’t believe it,» Gale answers. «The way she kissed you in the Quarter Quell… well, she never kissed me like that.»

«It was just part of the show,» Peeta tells him, although there’s an edge of doubt in his voice.

«No, you won her over. Gave up everything for her. Maybe that’s the only way to convince her you love her.» There’s a long pause. «I should have volunteered to take your place in the first Games. Protected her then.»

«You couldn’t,» says Peeta. «She’d never have forgiven you. You had to take care of her family. They matter more to her than her life.»

«Well, it won’t be an issue much longer. I think it’s unlikely all three of us will be alive at the end of the war. And if we are, I guess it’s Katniss’s problem. Who to choose.» Gale yawns. «We should get some sleep.»

«Yeah.» I hear Peeta’s handcuffs slide down the support as he settles in. «I wonder how she’ll make up her mind.»

«Oh, that I do know.» I can just catch Gale’s last words through the layer of fur. «Katniss will pick whoever she thinks she can’t survive without.»

24

A chill runs through me. Am I really that cold and calculating? Gale didn’t say, «Katniss will pick whoever it will break her heart to give up,» or even «whoever she can’t live without.» Those would have implied I was motivated by a kind of passion. But my best friend predicts I will choose the person who I think I «can’t survive without.» There’s not the least indication that love, or desire, or even compatibility will sway me. I’ll just conduct an unfeeling assessment of what my potential mates can offer me. As if in the end, it will be the question of whether a baker or a hunter will extend my longevity the most. It’s a horrible thing for Gale to say, for Peeta not to refute. Especially when every emotion I have has been taken and exploited by the Capitol or the rebels. At the moment, the choice would be simple. I can survive just fine without either of them.

In the morning, I have no time or energy to nurse wounded feelings. During a predawn breakfast of liver pâté and fig cookies, we gather around Tigris’s television for one of Beetee’s break-ins. There’s been a new development in the war. Apparently inspired by the black wave, some enterprising rebel commander came up with the idea of confiscating people’s abandoned automobiles and sending them unmanned down the streets. The cars don’t trigger every pod, but they certainly get the majority. At around four in the morning, the rebels began carving three separate paths—simply referred to as the A, B, and C lines—to the Capitol’s heart. As a result, they’ve secured block after block with very few casualties.

«This can’t last,» says Gale. «In fact I’m surprised they’ve kept it going so long. The Capitol will adjust by deactivating specific pods and then manually triggering them when their targets come in range.» Almost within minutes of his prediction, we see this very thing happen on-screen. A squad sends a car down a block, setting off four pods. All seems well. Three scouts follow and make it safely to the end of the street. But when a group of twenty rebel soldiers follow them, they’re blown to bits by a row of potted rosebushes in front of a flower shop.

«I bet it’s killing Plutarch not to be in the control room on this one,» says Peeta.

Beetee gives the broadcast back to the Capitol, where a grim-faced reporter announces the blocks that civilians are to evacuate. Between her update and the previous story, I am able to mark my paper map to show the relative positions of the opposing armies.

I hear scuffling out on the street, move to the windows, and peek out a crack in the shutters. In the early morning light, I see a bizarre spectacle. Refugees from the now occupied blocks are streaming toward the Capitol’s center. The most panicked are wearing nothing but nightgowns and slippers, while the more prepared are heavily bundled in layers of clothes. They carry everything from lapdogs to jewelry boxes to potted plants. One man in a fluffy robe holds only an overripe banana. Confused, sleepy children stumble along after their parents, most either too stunned or too baffled to cry. Bits of them flash by my line of vision. A pair of wide brown eyes. An arm clutching a favorite doll. A pair of bare feet, bluish in the cold, catching on the uneven paving stones of the alley. Seeing them reminds me of the children of 12 who died fleeing the firebombs. I leave the window.

Tigris offers to be our spy for the day since she’s the only one of us without a bounty on her head. After securing us downstairs, she goes out into the Capitol to pick up any helpful information.

Down in the cellar I pace back and forth, driving the others crazy. Something tells me that not taking advantage of the flood of refugees is a mistake. What better cover could we have? On the other hand, every displaced person milling about on the streets means another pair of eyes looking for the five rebels on the loose. Then again, what do we gain by staying here? All we’re really doing is depleting our small cache of food and waiting for… what? The rebels to take the Capitol? It could be weeks before that happens, and I’m not so sure what I’d do if they did. Not run out and greet them. Coin would have me whisked back to 13 before I could say «nightlock, nightlock, nightlock.» I did not come all this way, and lose all those people, to turn myself over to that woman. I kill Snow. Besides, there would be an awful lot of things I couldn’t easily explain about the last few days. Several of which, if they came to light, would probably blow my deal for the victors’ immunity right out of the water. And forget about me, I’ve got a feeling some of the others are going to need it. Like Peeta. Who, no matter how you spin it, can be seen on tape tossing Mitchell into that net pod. I can imagine what Coin’s war tribunal will do with that.

By late afternoon, we’re beginning to get uneasy about Tigris’s long absence. Talk turns to the possibilities that she has been apprehended and arrested, turned us in voluntarily, or simply been injured in the wave of refugees. But around six o’clock we hear her return. There’s some shuffling around upstairs, then she opens the panel. The wonderful smell of frying meat fills the air. Tigris has prepared us a hash of chopped ham and potatoes. It’s the first hot food we’ve had in days, and as I wait for her to fill my plate, I’m in danger of actually drooling.

As I chew, I try to pay attention to Tigris telling us how she acquired it, but the main thing I absorb is that fur underwear is a valuable trading item at the moment. Especially for people who left their homes underdressed. Many are still out on the street, trying to find shelter for the night. Those who live in the choice apartments of the inner city have not flung open their doors to house the displaced. On the contrary, most of them bolted their locks, drew their shutters, and pretended to be out. Now the City Circle’s packed with refugees, and the Peacekeepers are going door to door, breaking into places if they have to, to assign houseguests.

On the television, we watch a terse Head Peacekeeper lay out specific rules regarding how many people per square foot each resident will be expected to take in. He reminds the citizens of the Capitol that temperatures will drop well below freezing tonight and warns them that their president expects them to be not only willing but enthusiastic hosts in this time of crisis. Then they show some very staged-looking shots of concerned citizens welcoming grateful refugees into their homes. The Head Peacekeeper says the president himself has ordered part of his mansion readied to receive citizens tomorrow. He adds that shopkeepers should also be prepared to lend their floor space if requested.

«Tigris, that could be you,» says Peeta. I realize he’s right. That even this narrow hallway of a shop could be appropriated as the numbers swell. Then we’ll be truly trapped in the cellar, in constant danger of discovery. How many days do we have? One? Maybe two?

The Head Peacekeeper comes back with more instructions for the population. It seems that this evening there was an unfortunate incident where a crowd beat to death a young man who resembled Peeta. Henceforth, all rebel sightings are to be reported immediately to authorities, who will deal with the identification and arrest of the suspect. They show a photo of the victim. Apart from some obviously bleached curls, he looks about as much like Peeta as I do.

«People have gone wild,» Cressida murmurs.

We watch a brief rebel update in which we learn that several more blocks have been taken today. I make note of the intersections on my map and study it. «Line C is only four blocks from here,» I announce. Somehow that fills me with more anxiety than the idea of Peacekeepers looking for housing. I become very helpful. «Let me wash the dishes.»

«I’ll give you a hand.» Gale collects the plates.

I feel Peeta’s eyes follow us out of the room. In the cramped kitchen at the back of Tigris’s shop, I fill the sink with hot water and suds. «Do you think it’s true?» I ask. «That Snow will let refugees into the mansion?»

«I think he has to now, at least for the cameras,» says Gale.

«I’m leaving in the morning,» I say.

«I’m going with you,» Gale says. «What should we do with the others?»

«Pollux and Cressida could be useful. They’re good guides,» I say. Pollux and Cressida aren’t actually the problem. «But Peeta’s too…»

«Unpredictable,» finishes Gale. «Do you think he’d still let us leave him behind?»

«We can make the argument that he’ll endanger us,» I say. «He might stay here, if we’re convincing.»

Peeta’s fairly rational about our suggestion. He readily agrees that his company could put the other four of us at risk. I’m thinking this may all work out, that he can just sit out the war in Tigris’s cellar, when he announces he’s going out on his own.

«To do what?» asks Cressida.

«I’m not sure exactly. The one thing that I might still be useful at is causing a diversion. You saw what happened to that man who looked like me,» he says.

«What if you… lose control?» I say.

«You mean… go mutt? Well, if I feel that coming on, I’ll try to get back here,» he assures me.

«And if Snow gets you again?» asks Gale. «You don’t even have a gun.»

«I’ll just have to take my chances,» says Peeta. «Like the rest of you.» The two exchange a long look, and then Gale reaches into his breast pocket. He places his nightlock tablet in Peeta’s hand. Peeta lets it lie on his open palm, neither rejecting nor accepting it. «What about you?»

«Don’t worry. Beetee showed me how to detonate my explosive arrows by hand. If that fails, I’ve got my knife. And I’ll have Katniss,» says Gale with a smile. «She won’t give them the satisfaction of taking me alive.»

The thought of Peacekeepers dragging Gale away starts the tune playing in my head again…

«Take it, Peeta,» I say in a strained voice. I reach out and close his fingers over the pill. «No one will be there to help you.»

We spend a fitful night, woken by one another’s nightmares, minds buzzing with the next day’s plans. I’m relieved when five o’clock rolls around and we can begin whatever this day holds for us. We eat a mishmash of our remaining food—canned peaches, crackers, and snails—leaving one can of salmon for Tigris as meager thanks for all she’s done. The gesture seems to touch her in some way. Her face contorts in an odd expression and she flies into action. She spends the next hour remaking the five of us. She redresses us so regular clothes hide our uniforms before we even don our coats and cloaks. Covers our military boots with some sort of furry slippers. Secures our wigs with pins. Cleans off the garish remains of the paint we so hastily applied to our faces and makes us up again. Drapes our outerwear to conceal our weapons. Then gives us handbags and bundles of knickknacks to carry. In the end, we look exactly like the refugees fleeing the rebels.

«Never underestimate the power of a brilliant stylist,» says Peeta. It’s hard to tell, but I think Tigris might actually blush under her stripes.

There are no helpful updates on the television, but the alley seems as thick with refugees as the previous morning. Our plan is to slip into the crowd in three groups. First Cressida and Pollux, who will act as guides while keeping a safe lead on us. Then Gale and myself, who intend to position ourselves among the refugees assigned to the mansion today. Then Peeta, who will trail behind us, ready to create a disturbance as needed.

Tigris watches through the shutters for the right moment, unbolts the door, and nods to Cressida and Pollux. «Take care,» Cressida says, and they are gone.

We’ll be following in a minute. I get out the key, unlock Peeta’s cuffs, and stuff them in my pocket. He rubs his wrists. Flexes them. I feel a kind of desperation rising up in me. It’s like I’m back in the Quarter Quell, with Beetee giving Johanna and me that coil of wire.

«Listen,» I say. «Don’t do anything foolish.»

«No. It’s last-resort stuff. Completely,» he says.

I wrap my arms around his neck, feel his arms hesitate before they embrace me. Not as steady as they once were, but still warm and strong. A thousand moments surge through me. All the times these arms were my only refuge from the world. Perhaps not fully appreciated then, but so sweet in my memory, and now gone forever. «All right, then.» I release him.

«It’s time,» says Tigris. I kiss her cheek, fasten my red hooded cloak, pull my scarf up over my nose, and follow Gale out into the frigid air.

Sharp, icy snowflakes bite my exposed skin. The rising sun’s trying to break through the gloom without much success. There’s enough light to see the bundled forms closest to you and little more. Perfect conditions, really, except that I can’t locate Cressida and Pollux. Gale and I drop our heads and shuffle along with the refugees. I can hear what I missed peeking through the shutters yesterday. Crying, moaning, labored breathing. And, not too far away, gunfire.

«Where are we going, Uncle?» a shivering little boy asks a man weighed down with a small safe.

«To the president’s mansion. They’ll assign us a new place to live,» puffs the man.

We turn off the alley and spill out onto one of the main avenues. «Stay to the right!» a voice orders, and I see the Peacekeepers interspersed throughout the crowd, directing the flow of human traffic. Scared faces peer out of the plate-glass windows of the shops, which are already becoming overrun with refugees. At this rate, Tigris may have new houseguests by lunch. It was good for everybody that we got out when we did.

It’s brighter now, even with the snow picking up. I catch sight of Cressida and Pollux about thirty yards ahead of us, plodding along with the crowd. I crane my head around to see if I can locate Peeta. I can’t, but I’ve caught the eye of an inquisitive-looking little girl in a lemon yellow coat. I nudge Gale and slow my pace ever so slightly, to allow a wall of people to form between us.

«We might need to split up,» I say under my breath. «There’s a girl—»

Gunfire rips through the crowd, and several people near me slump to the ground. Screams pierce the air as a second round mows down another group behind us. Gale and I drop to the street, scuttle the ten yards to the shops, and take cover behind a display of spike-heeled boots outside a shoe seller’s.

A row of feathery footwear blocks Gale’s view. «Who is it? Can you see?» he asks me. What I can see, between alternating pairs of lavender and mint green leather boots, is a street full of bodies. The little girl who was watching me kneels beside a motionless woman, screeching and trying to rouse her. Another wave of bullets slices across the chest of her yellow coat, staining it with red, knocking the girl onto her back. For a moment, looking at her tiny crumpled form, I lose my ability to form words. Gale prods me with his elbow. «Katniss?»

«They’re shooting from the roof above us,» I tell Gale. I watch a few more rounds, see the white uniforms dropping into the snowy streets. «Trying to take out the Peacekeepers, but they’re not exactly crack shots. It must be the rebels.» I don’t feel a rush of joy, although theoretically my allies have broken through. I am transfixed by that lemon yellow coat.

«If we start shooting, that’s it,» Gale says. «The whole world will know it’s us.»

It’s true. We’re armed only with our fabulous bows. To release an arrow would be like announcing to both sides that we’re here.

«No,» I say forcefully. «We’ve got to get to Snow.»

«Then we better start moving before the whole block goes up,» says Gale. Hugging the wall, we continue along the street. Only the wall is mostly shopwindows. A pattern of sweaty palms and gaping faces presses against the glass. I yank my scarf up higher over my cheekbones as we dart between outdoor displays. Behind a rack of framed photos of Snow, we encounter a wounded Peacekeeper propped against a strip of brick wall. He asks us for help. Gale knees him in the side of the head and takes his gun. At the intersection, he shoots a second Peacekeeper and we both have firearms.

«So who are we supposed to be now?» I ask.

«Desperate citizens of the Capitol,» says Gale. «The Peacekeepers will think we’re on their side, and hopefully the rebels have more interesting targets.»

I’m mulling over the wisdom of this latest role as we sprint across the intersection, but by the time we reach the next block, it no longer matters who we are. Who anyone is. Because no one is looking at faces. The rebels are here, all right. Pouring onto the avenue, taking cover in doorways, behind vehicles, guns blazing, hoarse voices shouting commands as they prepare to meet an army of Peacekeepers marching toward us. Caught in the cross fire are the refugees, unarmed, disoriented, many wounded.

A pod’s activated ahead of us, releasing a gush of steam that parboils everyone in its path, leaving the victims intestine-pink and very dead. After that, what little sense of order there was unravels. As the remaining curlicues of steam intertwine with the snow, visibility extends just to the end of my barrel. Peacekeeper, rebel, citizen, who knows? Everything that moves is a target. People shoot reflexively, and I’m no exception. Heart pounding, adrenaline burning through me, everyone is my enemy. Except Gale. My hunting partner, the one person who has my back. There’s nothing to do but move forward, killing whoever comes into our path. Screaming people, bleeding people, dead people everywhere. As we reach the next corner, the entire block ahead of us lights up with a rich purple glow. We backpedal, hunker down in a stairwell, and squint into the light. Something’s happening to those illuminated by it. They’re assaulted by… what? A sound? A wave? A laser? Weapons fall from their hands, fingers clutch their faces, as blood sprays from all visible orifices—eyes, noses, mouths, ears. In less than a minute, everyone’s dead and the glow vanishes. I grit my teeth and run, leaping over the bodies, feet slipping in the gore. The wind whips the snow into blinding swirls but doesn’t block out the sound of another wave of boots headed our way.

«Get down!» I hiss at Gale. We drop where we are. My face lands in a still-warm pool of someone’s blood, but I play dead, remain motionless as the boots march over us. Some avoid the bodies. Others grind into my hand, my back, kick my head in passing. As the boots recede, I open my eyes and nod to Gale.

On the next block, we encounter more terrified refugees, but few soldiers. Just when it seems we might have caught a break, there’s a cracking sound, like an egg hitting the side of a bowl but magnified a thousand times. We stop, look around for the pod. There’s nothing. Then I feel the tips of my boots beginning to tilt ever so slightly. «Run!» I cry to Gale. There’s no time to explain, but in a few seconds the nature of the pod becomes clear to everyone. A seam has opened up down the center of the block. The two sides of the tiled street are folding down like flaps, slowly emptying the people into whatever lies beneath.

I’m torn between making a beeline for the next intersection and trying to get to the doors that line the street and break my way into a building. As a result, I end up moving at a slight diagonal. As the flap continues to drop, I find my feet scrambling, harder and harder, to find purchase on the slippery tiles. It’s like running along the side of an icy hill that gets steeper at every step. Both of my destinations—the intersection and the buildings—are a few feet away when I feel the flap going. There’s nothing to do but use my last seconds of connection to the tiles to push off for the intersection. As my hands latch on to the side, I realize the flaps have swung straight down. My feet dangle in the air, no foothold anywhere. From fifty feet below, a vile stench hits my nose, like rotted corpses in the summer heat. Black forms crawl around in the shadows, silencing whoever survives the fall.

A strangled cry comes from my throat. No one is coming to help me. I’m losing my grip on the icy ledge, when I see I’m only about six feet from the corner of the pod. I inch my hands along the ledge, trying to block out the terrifying sounds from below. When my hands straddle the corner, I swing my right boot up over the side. It catches on something and I painstakingly drag myself up to street level. Panting, trembling, I crawl out and wrap my arm around a lamppost for an anchor, although the ground’s perfectly flat.

«Gale?» I call into the abyss, heedless of being recognized. «Gale?»

«Over here!» I look in bewilderment to my left. The flap held up everything to the very base of the buildings. A dozen or so people made it that far and now hang from whatever provides a handhold. Doorknobs, knockers, mail slots. Three doors down from me, Gale clings to the decorative iron grating around an apartment door. He could easily get inside if it was open. But despite repeated kicks to the door, no one comes to his aid.

«Cover yourself!» I lift my gun. He turns away and I drill the lock until the door flies inward. Gale swings into the doorway, landing in a heap on the floor. For a moment, I experience the elation of his rescue. Then the white-gloved hands clamp down on him.

Gale meets my eyes, mouths something at me I can’t make out. I don’t know what to do. I can’t leave him, but I can’t reach him either. His lips move again. I shake my head to indicate my confusion. At any minute, they’ll realize who they’ve captured. The Peacekeepers are hauling him inside now. «Go!» I hear him yell.

I turn and run away from the pod. All alone now. Gale a prisoner. Cressida and Pollux could be dead ten times over. And Peeta? I haven’t laid eyes on him since we left Tigris’s. I hold on to the idea that he may have gone back. Felt an attack coming and retreated to the cellar while he still had control. Realized there was no need for a diversion when the Capitol has provided so many. No need to be bait and have to take the nightlock—the nightlock! Gale doesn’t have any. And as for all that talk of detonating his arrows by hand, he’ll never get the chance. The first thing the Peacekeepers will do is to strip him of his weapons.

I fall into a doorway, tears stinging my eyes. Shoot me. That’s what he was mouthing. I was supposed to shoot him! That was my job. That was our unspoken promise, all of us, to one another. And I didn’t do it and now the Capitol will kill him or torture him or hijack him or—the cracks begin opening inside me, threatening to break me into pieces. I have only one hope. That the Capitol falls, lays down its arms, and gives up its prisoners before they hurt Gale. But I can’t see that happening while Snow’s alive.

A pair of Peacekeepers runs by, barely glancing at the whimpering Capitol girl huddled in a doorway. I choke down my tears, wipe the existing ones off my face before they can freeze, and pull myself back together. Okay, I’m still an anonymous refugee. Or did the Peacekeepers who caught Gale get a glimpse of me as I fled? I remove my cloak and turn it inside out, letting the black lining show instead of the red exterior. Arrange the hood so it conceals my face. Grasping my gun close to my chest, I survey the block. There’s only a handful of dazed-looking stragglers. I trail close behind a pair of old men who take no notice of me. No one will expect me to be with old men. When we reach the end of the next intersection, they stop and I almost bump into them. It’s the City Circle. Across the wide expanse ringed by grand buildings sits the president’s mansion.

The Circle’s full of people milling around, wailing, or just sitting and letting the snow pile up around them. I fit right in. I begin to weave my way across to the mansion, tripping over abandoned treasures and snow-frosted limbs. About halfway there, I become aware of the concrete barricade. It’s about four feet high and extends in a large rectangle in front of the mansion. You would think it would be empty, but it’s packed with refugees. Maybe this is the group that’s been chosen to be sheltered at the mansion? But as I draw closer, I notice something else. Everyone inside the barricade is a child. Toddlers to teenagers. Scared and frostbitten. Huddled in groups or rocking numbly on the ground. They aren’t being led into the mansion. They’re penned in, guarded on all sides by Peacekeepers. I know immediately it’s not for their protection. If the Capitol wanted to safeguard them, they’d be down in a bunker somewhere. This is for Snow’s protection. The children form his human shield.

There’s a commotion and the crowd surges to the left. I’m caught up by larger bodies, borne sideways, carried off course. I hear shouts of «The rebels! The rebels!» and know they must’ve broken through. The momentum slams me into a flagpole and I cling to it. Using the rope that hangs from the top, I pull myself up out of the crush of bodies. Yes, I can see the rebel army pouring into the Circle, driving the refugees back onto the avenues. I scan the area for the pods that will surely be detonating. But that doesn’t happen. This is what happens:

A hovercraft marked with the Capitol’s seal materializes directly over the barricaded children. Scores of silver parachutes rain down on them. Even in this chaos, the children know what silver parachutes contain. Food. Medicine. Gifts. They eagerly scoop them up, frozen fingers struggling with the strings. The hovercraft vanishes, five seconds pass, and then about twenty parachutes simultaneously explode.

A wail rises from the crowd. The snow’s red and littered with undersized body parts. Many of the children die immediately, but others lie in agony on the ground. Some stagger around mutely, staring at the remaining silver parachutes in their hands, as if they still might have something precious inside. I can tell the Peacekeepers didn’t know this was coming by the way they are yanking away the barricades, making a path to the children. Another flock of white uniforms sweeps into the opening. But these aren’t Peacekeepers. They’re medics. Rebel medics. I’d know the uniforms anywhere. They swarm in among the children, wielding medical kits.

First I get a glimpse of the blond braid down her back. Then, as she yanks off her coat to cover a wailing child, I notice the duck tail formed by her untucked shirt. I have the same reaction I did the day Effie Trinket called her name at the reaping. At least, I must go limp, because I find myself at the base of the flagpole, unable to account for the last few seconds. Then I am pushing through the crowd, just as I did before. Trying to shout her name above the roar. I’m almost there, almost to the barricade, when I think she hears me. Because for just a moment, she catches sight of me, her lips form my name.

And that’s when the rest of the parachutes go off.

25

Real or not real? I am on fire. The balls of flame that erupted from the parachutes shot over the barricades, through the snowy air, and landed in the crowd. I was just turning away when one caught me, ran its tongue up the back of my body, and transformed me into something new. A creature as unquenchable as the sun.

A fire mutt knows only a single sensation: agony. No sight, no sound, no feeling except the unrelenting burning of flesh. Perhaps there are periods of unconsciousness, but what can it matter if I can’t find refuge in them? I am Cinna’s bird, ignited, flying frantically to escape something inescapable. The feathers of flame that grow from my body. Beating my wings only fans the blaze. I consume myself, but to no end.

Finally, my wings begin to falter, I lose height, and gravity pulls me into a foamy sea the color of Finnick’s eyes. I float on my back, which continues to burn beneath the water, but the agony quiets to pain. When I am adrift and unable to navigate, that’s when they come. The dead.

The ones I loved fly as birds in the open sky above me. Soaring, weaving, calling to me to join them. I want so badly to follow them, but the seawater saturates my wings, making it impossible to lift them. The ones I hated have taken to the water, horrible scaled things that tear my salty flesh with needle teeth. Biting again and again. Dragging me beneath the surface.

The small white bird tinged in pink dives down, buries her claws in my chest, and tries to keep me afloat. «No, Katniss! No! You can’t go!»

But the ones I hated are winning, and if she clings to me, she’ll be lost as well. «Prim, let go!» And finally she does.

Deep in the water, I’m deserted by all. There’s only the sound of my breathing, the enormous effort it takes to draw the water in, push it out of my lungs. I want to stop, I try to hold my breath, but the sea forces its way in and out against my will. «Let me die. Let me follow the others,» I beg whatever holds me here. There’s no response.

Trapped for days, years, centuries maybe. Dead, but not allowed to die. Alive, but as good as dead. So alone that anyone, anything no matter how loathsome would be welcome. But when I finally have a visitor, it’s sweet. Morphling. Coursing through my veins, easing the pain, lightening my body so that it rises back toward the air and rests again on the foam.

Foam. I really am floating on foam. I can feel it beneath the tips of my fingers, cradling parts of my naked body. There’s much pain but there’s also something like reality. The sandpaper of my throat. The smell of burn medicine from the first arena. The sound of my mother’s voice. These things frighten me, and I try to return to the deep to make sense of them. But there’s no going back. Gradually, I’m forced to accept who I am. A badly burned girl with no wings. With no fire. And no sister.

In the dazzling white Capitol hospital, the doctors work their magic on me. Draping my rawness in new sheets of skin. Coaxing the cells into thinking they are my own. Manipulating my body parts, bending and stretching the limbs to assure a good fit. I hear over and over again how lucky I am. My eyes were spared. Most of my face was spared. My lungs are responding to treatment. I will be as good as new.

When my tender skin has toughened enough to withstand the pressure of sheets, more visitors arrive. The morphling opens the door to the dead and alive alike. Haymitch, yellow and unsmiling. Cinna, stitching a new wedding dress. Delly, prattling on about the niceness of people. My father sings all four stanzas of «The Hanging Tree» and reminds me that my mother—who sleeps in a chair between shifts—isn’t to know about it.

One day I awake to expectations and know I will not be allowed to live in my dreamland. I must take food by mouth. Move my own muscles. Make my way to the bathroom. A brief appearance by President Coin clinches it.

«Don’t worry,» she says. «I’ve saved him for you.»

The doctors’ puzzlement grows over why I’m unable to speak. Many tests are done, and while there’s damage to my vocal cords, it doesn’t account for it. Finally, Dr. Aurelius, a head doctor, comes up with the theory that I’ve become a mental, rather than physical, Avox. That my silence has been brought on by emotional trauma. Although he’s presented with a hundred proposed remedies, he tells them to leave me alone. So I don’t ask about anyone or anything, but people bring me a steady stream of information. On the war: The Capitol fell the day the parachutes went off, President Coin leads Panem now, and troops have been sent out to put down the small remaining pockets of Capitol resistance. On President Snow: He’s being held prisoner, awaiting trial and most certain execution. On my assassination team: Cressida and Pollux have been sent out into the districts to cover the wreckage of the war. Gale, who took two bullets in an escape attempt, is mopping up Peacekeepers in 2. Peeta’s still in the burn unit. He made it to the City Circle after all. On my family: My mother buries her grief in her work.

Having no work, grief buries me. All that keeps me going is Coin’s promise. That I can kill Snow. And when that’s done, nothing will be left.

Eventually, I’m released from the hospital and given a room in the president’s mansion to share with my mother. She’s almost never there, taking her meals and sleeping at work. It falls to Haymitch to check on me, make sure I’m eating and using my medicines. It’s not an easy job. I take to my old habits from District 13. Wandering unauthorized through the mansion. Into bedrooms and offices, ballrooms and baths. Seeking strange little hiding spaces. A closet of furs. A cabinet in the library. A long-forgotten bathtub in a room of discarded furniture. My places are dim and quiet and impossible to find. I curl up, make myself smaller, try to disappear entirely. Wrapped in silence, I slide my bracelet that reads mentally disoriented around and around my wrist.

My name is Katniss Everdeen. I am seventeen years old. My home is District 12. There is no District 12. I am the Mockingjay. I brought down the Capitol. President Snow hates me. He killed my sister. Now I will kill him. And then the Hunger Games will be over…

Periodically, I find myself back in my room, unsure whether I was driven by a need for morphling or if Haymitch ferreted me out. I eat the food, take the medicine, and am required to bathe. It’s not the water I mind, but the mirror that reflects my naked fire-mutt body. The skin grafts still retain a newborn-baby pinkness. The skin deemed damaged but salvageable looks red, hot, and melted in places. Patches of my former self gleam white and pale. I’m like a bizarre patchwork quilt of skin. Parts of my hair were singed off completely; the rest has been chopped off at odd lengths. Katniss Everdeen, the girl who was on fire. I wouldn’t much care except the sight of my body brings back the memory of the pain. And why I was in pain. And what happened just before the pain started. And how I watched my little sister become a human torch.

Closing my eyes doesn’t help. Fire burns brighter in the darkness.

Dr. Aurelius shows up sometimes. I like him because he doesn’t say stupid things like how I’m totally safe, or that he knows I can’t see it but I’ll be happy again one day, or even that things will be better in Panem now. He just asks if I feel like talking, and when I don’t answer, he falls asleep in his chair. In fact, I think his visits are largely motivated by his need for a nap. The arrangement works for both of us.

The time draws near, although I could not give you exact hours and minutes. President Snow has been tried and found guilty, sentenced to execution. Haymitch tells me, I hear talk of it as I drift past the guards in the hallways. My Mockingjay suit arrives in my room. Also my bow, looking no worse for wear, but no sheath of arrows. Either because they were damaged or more likely because I shouldn’t have weapons. I vaguely wonder if I should be preparing for the event in some way, but nothing comes to mind.

Late one afternoon, after a long period in a cushioned window seat behind a painted screen, I emerge and turn left instead of right. I find myself in a strange part of the mansion, and immediately lose my bearings. Unlike the area where I’m quartered, there seems to be no one around to ask. I like it, though. Wish I’d found it sooner. It’s so quiet, with the thick carpets and heavy tapestries soaking up the sound. Softly lit. Muted colors. Peaceful. Until I smell the roses. I dive behind some curtains, shaking too hard to run, while I await the mutts. Finally, I realize there are no mutts coming. So, what do I smell? Real roses? Could it be that I am near the garden where the evil things grow?

As I creep down the hall, the odor becomes overpowering. Perhaps not as strong as the actual mutts, but purer, because it’s not competing with sewage and explosives. I turn a corner and find myself staring at two surprised guards. Not Peacekeepers, of course. There are no more Peacekeepers. But not the trim, gray-uniformed soldiers from 13 either. These two, a man and a woman, wear the tattered, thrown-together clothes of actual rebels. Still bandaged and gaunt, they are now keeping watch over the doorway to the roses. When I move to enter, their guns form an X in front of me.

«You can’t go in, miss,» says the man.

«Soldier,» the woman corrects him. «You can’t go in, Soldier Everdeen. President’s orders.»

I just stand there patiently waiting for them to lower their guns, for them to understand, without my telling them, that behind those doors is something I need. Just a rose. A single bloom. To place in Snow’s lapel before I shoot him. My presence seems to worry the guards. They’re discussing calling Haymitch, when a woman speaks up behind me. «Let her go in.»

I know the voice but can’t immediately place it. Not Seam, not 13, definitely not Capitol. I turn my head and find myself face-to-face with Paylor, the commander from 8. She looks even more beat up than she did at the hospital, but who doesn’t?

«On my authority,» says Paylor. «She has a right to anything behind that door.» These are her soldiers, not Coin’s. They drop their weapons without question and let me pass.

At the end of a short hallway, I push apart the glass doors and step inside. By now the smell’s so strong that it begins to flatten out, as if there’s no more my nose can absorb. The damp, mild air feels good on my hot skin. And the roses are glorious. Row after row of sumptuous blooms, in lush pink, sunset orange, and even pale blue. I wander through the aisles of carefully pruned plants, looking but not touching, because I have learned the hard way how deadly these beauties can be. I know when I find it, crowning the top of a slender bush. A magnificent white bud just beginning to open. I pull my left sleeve over my hand so that my skin won’t actually have to touch it, take up a pair of pruning shears, and have just positioned them on the stem when he speaks.

«That’s a nice one.»

My hand jerks, the shears snap shut, severing the stem.

«The colors are lovely, of course, but nothing says perfection like white.»

I still can’t see him, but his voice seems to rise up from an adjacent bed of red roses. Delicately pinching the stem of the bud through the fabric of my sleeve, I move slowly around the corner and find him sitting on a stool against the wall. He’s as well groomed and finely dressed as ever, but weighted down with manacles, ankle shackles, tracking devices. In the bright light, his skin’s a pale, sickly green. He holds a white handkerchief spotted with fresh blood. Even in his deteriorated state, his snake eyes shine bright and cold. «I was hoping you’d find your way to my quarters.»

His quarters. I have trespassed into his home, the way he slithered into mine last year, hissing threats with his bloody, rosy breath. This greenhouse is one of his rooms, perhaps his favorite; perhaps in better times he tended the plants himself. But now it’s part of his prison. That’s why the guards halted me. And that’s why Paylor let me in.

I’d supposed he would be secured in the deepest dungeon that the Capitol had to offer, not cradled in the lap of luxury. Yet Coin left him here. To set a precedent, I guess. So that if in the future she ever fell from grace, it would be understood that presidents—even the most despicable—get special treatment. Who knows, after all, when her own power might fade?

«There are so many things we should discuss, but I have a feeling your visit will be brief. So, first things first.» He begins to cough, and when he removes the handkerchief from his mouth, it’s redder. «I wanted to tell you how very sorry I am about your sister.»

Even in my deadened, drugged condition, this sends a stab of pain through me. Reminding me that there are no limits to his cruelty. And how he will go to his grave trying to destroy me.

«So wasteful, so unnecessary. Anyone could see the game was over by that point. In fact, I was just about to issue an official surrender when they released those parachutes.» His eyes are glued on me, unblinking, so as not to miss a second of my reaction. But what he’s said makes no sense. When they released the parachutes? «Well, you really didn’t think I gave the order, did you? Forget the obvious fact that if I’d had a working hovercraft at my disposal, I’d have been using it to make an escape. But that aside, what purpose could it have served? We both know I’m not above killing children, but I’m not wasteful. I take life for very specific reasons. And there was no reason for me to destroy a pen full of Capitol children. None at all.»

I wonder if the next fit of coughing is staged so that I can have time to absorb his words. He’s lying. Of course, he’s lying. But there’s something struggling to free itself from the lie as well.

«However, I must concede it was a masterful move on Coin’s part. The idea that I was bombing our own helpless children instantly snapped whatever frail allegiance my people still felt to me. There was no real resistance after that. Did you know it aired live? You can see Plutarch’s hand there. And in the parachutes. Well, it’s that sort of thinking that you look for in a Head Gamemaker, isn’t it?» Snow dabs the corners of his mouth. «I’m sure he wasn’t gunning for your sister, but these things happen.»

I’m not with Snow now. I’m in Special Weaponry back in 13 with Gale and Beetee. Looking at the designs based on Gale’s traps. That played on human sympathies. The first bomb killed the victims. The second, the rescuers. Remembering Gale’s words.

«Beetee and I have been following the same rule book President Snow used when he hijacked Peeta.»

«My failure,» says Snow, «was being so slow to grasp Coin’s plan. To let the Capitol and districts destroy one another, and then step in to take power with Thirteen barely scratched. Make no mistake, she was intending to take my place right from the beginning. I shouldn’t be surprised. After all, it was Thirteen that started the rebellion that led to the Dark Days, and then abandoned the rest of the districts when the tide turned against it. But I wasn’t watching Coin. I was watching you, Mockingjay. And you were watching me. I’m afraid we have both been played for fools.»

I refuse for this to be true. Some things even I can’t survive. I utter my first words since my sister’s death. «I don’t believe you.»

Snow shakes his head in mock disappointment. «Oh, my dear Miss Everdeen. I thought we had agreed not to lie to each other.»

26

Out in the hall, I find Paylor standing in exactly the same spot. «Did you find what you were looking for?» she asks.

I hold up the white bud in answer and then stumble past her. I must have made it back to my room, because the next thing I know, I’m filling a glass with water from the bathroom faucet and sticking the rose in it. I sink to my knees on the cold tile and squint at the flower, as the whiteness seems hard to focus on in the stark fluorescent light. My finger catches the inside of my bracelet, twisting it like a tourniquet, hurting my wrist. I’m hoping the pain will help me hang on to reality the way it did for Peeta. I must hang on. I must know the truth about what has happened.

There are two possibilities, although the details associated with them may vary. First, as I’ve believed, that the Capitol sent in that hovercraft, dropped the parachutes, and sacrificed its children’s lives, knowing the recently arrived rebels would go to their aid. There’s evidence to support this. The Capitol’s seal on the hovercraft, the lack of any attempt to blow the enemy out of the sky, and their long history of using children as pawns in their battle against the districts. Then there’s Snow’s account. That a Capitol hovercraft manned by rebels bombed the children to bring a speedy end to the war. But if this was the case, why didn’t the Capitol fire on the enemy? Did the element of surprise throw them? Had they no defenses left? Children are precious to 13, or so it has always seemed. Well, not me, maybe. Once I had outlived my usefulness, I was expendable. Although I think it’s been a long time since I’ve been considered a child in this war. And why would they do it knowing their own medics would likely respond and be taken out by the second blast? They wouldn’t. They couldn’t. Snow’s lying. Manipulating me as he always has. Hoping to turn me against the rebels and possibly destroy them. Yes. Of course.

Then what’s nagging at me? Those double-exploding bombs, for one. It’s not that the Capitol couldn’t have the same weapon, it’s just that I’m sure the rebels did. Gale and Beetee’s brainchild. Then there’s the fact that Snow made no escape attempt, when I know him to be the consummate survivor. It seems hard to believe he didn’t have a retreat somewhere, some bunker stocked with provisions where he could live out the rest of his snaky little life. And finally, there’s his assessment of Coin. What’s irrefutable is that she’s done exactly what he said. Let the Capitol and the districts run one another into the ground and then sauntered in to take power. Even if that was her plan, it doesn’t mean she dropped those parachutes. Victory was already in her grasp. Everything was in her grasp.

Except me.

I recall Boggs’s response when I admitted I hadn’t put much thought into Snow’s successor. «If your immediate answer isn’t Coin, then you’re a threat. You’re the face of the rebellion. You may have more influence than any other single person. Outwardly, the most you’ve ever done is tolerated her.»

Suddenly, I’m thinking of Prim, who was not yet fourteen, not yet old enough to be granted the title of soldier, but somehow working on the front lines. How did such a thing happen? That my sister would have wanted to be there, I have no doubt. That she would be more capable than many older than she is a given. But for all that, someone very high up would have had to approve putting a thirteen-year-old in combat. Did Coin do it, hoping that losing Prim would push me completely over the edge? Or, at least, firmly on her side? I wouldn’t even have had to witness it in person. Numerous cameras would be covering the City Circle. Capturing the moment forever.

No, now I am going crazy, slipping into some state of paranoia. Too many people would know of the mission. Word would get out. Or would it? Who would have to know besides Coin, Plutarch, and a small, loyal or easily disposable crew?

I badly need help working this out, only everyone I trust is dead. Cinna. Boggs. Finnick. Prim. There’s Peeta, but he couldn’t do any more than speculate, and who knows what state his mind’s in, anyway. And that leaves only Gale. He’s far away, but even if he were beside me, could I confide in him? What could I say, how could I phrase it, without implying that it was his bomb that killed Prim? The impossibility of that idea, more than any, is why Snow must be lying.

Ultimately, there’s only one person to turn to who might know what happened and might still be on my side. To broach the subject at all will be a risk. But while I think Haymitch might gamble with my life in the arena, I don’t think he’d rat me out to Coin. Whatever problems we may have with each other, we prefer resolving our differences one-on-one.

I scramble off the tiles, out the door, and across the hall to his room. When there’s no response to my knock, I push inside. Ugh. It’s amazing how quickly he can defile a space. Half-eaten plates of food, shattered liquor bottles, and pieces of broken furniture from a drunken rampage scatter his quarters. He lies, unkempt and unwashed, in a tangle of sheets on the bed, passed out.

«Haymitch,» I say, shaking his leg. Of course, that’s insufficient. But I give it a few more tries before I dump the pitcher of water in his face. He comes to with a gasp, slashing blindly with his knife. Apparently, the end of Snow’s reign didn’t equal the end of his terror.

«Oh. You,» he says. I can tell by his voice that he’s still loaded.

«Haymitch,» I begin.

«Listen to that. The Mockingjay found her voice.» He laughs. «Well, Plutarch’s going to be happy.» He takes a swig from a bottle. «Why am I soaking wet?» I lamely drop the pitcher behind me into a pile of dirty clothes.

«I need your help,» I say.

Haymitch belches, filling the air with white liquor fumes. «What is it, sweetheart? More boy trouble?» I don’t know why, but this hurts me in a way Haymitch rarely can. It must show on my face, because even in his drunken state, he tries to take it back. «Okay, not funny.» I’m already at the door. «Not funny! Come back!» By the thud of his body hitting the floor, I assume he tried to follow me, but there’s no point.

I zigzag through the mansion and disappear into a wardrobe full of silken things. I yank them from hangers until I have a pile and then burrow into it. In the lining of my pocket, I find a stray morphling tablet and swallow it dry, heading off my rising hysteria. It’s not enough to right things, though. I hear Haymitch calling me in the distance, but he won’t find me in his condition. Especially not in this new spot. Swathed in silk, I feel like a caterpillar in a cocoon awaiting metamorphosis. I always supposed that to be a peaceful condition. At first it is. But as I journey into night, I feel more and more trapped, suffocated by the slippery bindings, unable to emerge until I have transformed into something of beauty. I squirm, trying to shed my ruined body and unlock the secret to growing flawless wings. Despite enormous effort, I remain a hideous creature, fired into my current form by the blast from the bombs.

The encounter with Snow opens the door to my old repertoire of nightmares. It’s like being stung by tracker jackers again. A wave of horrifying images with a brief respite I confuse with waking—only to find another wave knocking me back. When the guards finally locate me, I’m sitting on the floor of the wardrobe, tangled in silk, screaming my head off. I fight them at first, until they convince me they’re trying to help, peel away the choking garments, and escort me back to my room. On the way, we pass a window and I see a gray, snowy dawn spreading across the Capitol.

A very hungover Haymitch waits with a handful of pills and a tray of food that neither of us has the stomach for. He makes a feeble attempt to get me to talk again but, seeing it’s pointless, sends me to a bath someone has drawn. The tub’s deep, with three steps to the bottom. I ease down into the warm water and sit, up to my neck in suds, hoping the medicines kick in soon. My eyes focus on the rose that has spread its petals overnight, filling the steamy air with its strong perfume. I rise and reach for a towel to smother it, when there’s a tentative knock and the bathroom door opens, revealing three familiar faces. They try to smile at me, but even Venia can’t conceal her shock at my ravaged mutt body. «Surprise!» Octavia squeaks, and then bursts into tears. I’m puzzling over their reappearance when I realize that this must be it, the day of the execution. They’ve come to prep me for the cameras. Remake me to Beauty Base Zero. No wonder Octavia’s crying. It’s an impossible task.

They can barely touch my patchwork of skin for fear of hurting me, so I rinse and dry off myself. I tell them I hardly notice the pain anymore, but Flavius still winces as he drapes a robe around me. In the bedroom, I find another surprise. Sitting upright in a chair. Polished from her metallic gold wig to her patent leather high heels, gripping a clipboard. Remarkably unchanged except for the vacant look in her eyes.

«Effie,» I say.

«Hello, Katniss.» She stands and kisses me on the cheek as if nothing has occurred since our last meeting, the night before the Quarter Quell. «Well, it looks like we’ve got another big, big, big day ahead of us. So why don’t you start your prep and I’ll just pop over and check on the arrangements.»

«Okay,» I say to her back.

«They say Plutarch and Haymitch had a hard time keeping her alive,» comments Venia under her breath.

«She was imprisoned after your escape, so that helps.»

It’s quite a stretch. Effie Trinket, rebel. But I don’t want Coin killing her, so I make a mental note to present her that way if asked. «I guess it’s good Plutarch kidnapped you three after all.»

«We’re the only prep team still alive. And all the stylists from the Quarter Quell are dead,» says Venia. She doesn’t say who specifically killed them. I’m beginning to wonder if it matters. She gingerly takes one of my scarred hands and holds it out for inspection. «Now, what do you think for the nails? Red or maybe a jet black?»

Flavius performs some beauty miracle on my hair, managing to even out the front while getting some of the longer locks to hide the bald spots in the back. My face, since it was spared from the flames, presents no more than the usual challenges. Once I’m in Cinna’s Mockingjay suit, the only scars visible are on my neck, forearms, and hands. Octavia secures my Mockingjay pin over my heart and we step back to look in the mirror. I can’t believe how normal they’ve made me look on the outside when inwardly I’m such a wasteland.

There’s a tap at the door and Gale steps in. «Can I have a minute?» he asks. In the mirror, I watch my prep team. Unsure of where to go, they bump into one another a few times and then closet themselves in the bathroom. Gale comes up behind me and we examine each other’s reflection. I’m searching for something to hang on to, some sign of the girl and boy who met by chance in the woods five years ago and became inseparable. I’m wondering what would have happened to them if the Hunger Games had not reaped the girl. If she would have fallen in love with the boy, married him even. And sometime in the future, when the brothers and sisters had been raised up, escaped with him into the woods and left 12 behind forever. Would they have been happy, out in the wild, or would the dark, twisted sadness between them have grown up even without the Capitol’s help?

«I brought you this.» Gale holds up a sheath. When I take it, I notice it holds a single, ordinary arrow. «It’s supposed to be symbolic. You firing the last shot of the war.»

«What if I miss?» I say. «Does Coin retrieve it and bring it back to me? Or just shoot Snow through the head herself?»

«You won’t miss.» Gale adjusts the sheath on my shoulder.

We stand there, face-to-face, not meeting each other’s eyes. «You didn’t come see me in the hospital.» He doesn’t answer, so finally I just say it. «Was it your bomb?»

«I don’t know. Neither does Beetee,» he says. «Does it matter? You’ll always be thinking about it.»

He waits for me to deny it; I want to deny it, but it’s true. Even now I can see the flash that ignites her, feel the heat of the flames. And I will never be able to separate that moment from Gale. My silence is my answer.

«That was the one thing I had going for me. Taking care of your family,» he says. «Shoot straight, okay?» He touches my cheek and leaves. I want to call him back and tell him that I was wrong. That I’ll figure out a way to make peace with this. To remember the circumstances under which he created the bomb. Take into account my own inexcusable crimes. Dig up the truth about who dropped the parachutes. Prove it wasn’t the rebels. Forgive him. But since I can’t, I’ll just have to deal with the pain.

Effie comes in to usher me to some kind of meeting. I collect my bow and at the last minute remember the rose, glistening in its glass of water. When I open the door to the bathroom, I find my prep team sitting in a row on the edge of the tub, hunched and defeated. I remember I’m not the only one whose world has been stripped away. «Come on,» I tell them. «We’ve got an audience waiting.»

I’m expecting a production meeting in which Plutarch instructs me where to stand and gives me my cue for shooting Snow. Instead, I find myself sent into a room where six people sit around a table. Peeta, Johanna, Beetee, Haymitch, Annie, and Enobaria. They all wear the gray rebel uniforms from 13. No one looks particularly well. «What’s this?» I say.

«We’re not sure,» Haymitch answers. «It appears to be a gathering of the remaining victors.»

«We’re all that’s left?» I ask.

«The price of celebrity,» says Beetee. «We were targeted from both sides. The Capitol killed the victors they suspected of being rebels. The rebels killed those thought to be allied with the Capitol.»

Johanna scowls at Enobaria. «So what’s she doing here?»

«She is protected under what we call the Mockingjay Deal,» says Coin as she enters behind me. «Wherein Katniss Everdeen agreed to support the rebels in exchange for captured victors’ immunity. Katniss has upheld her side of the bargain, and so shall we.»

Enobaria smiles at Johanna. «Don’t look so smug,» says Johanna. «We’ll kill you anyway.»

«Sit down, please, Katniss,» says Coin, closing the door. I take a seat between Annie and Beetee, carefully placing Snow’s rose on the table. As usual, Coin gets right to the point. «I’ve asked you here to settle a debate. Today we will execute Snow. In the previous weeks, hundreds of his accomplices in the oppression of Panem have been tried and now await their own deaths. However, the suffering in the districts has been so extreme that these measures appear insufficient to the victims. In fact, many are calling for a complete annihilation of those who held Capitol citizenship. However, in the interest of maintaining a sustainable population, we cannot afford this.»

Through the water in the glass, I see a distorted image of one of Peeta’s hands. The burn marks. We are both fire mutts now. My eyes travel up to where the flames licked across his forehead, singeing away his brows but just missing his eyes. Those same blue eyes that used to meet mine and then flit away at school. Just as they do now.

«So, an alternative has been placed on the table. Since my colleagues and I can come to no consensus, it has been agreed that we will let the victors decide. A majority of four will approve the plan. No one may abstain from the vote,» says Coin. «What has been proposed is that in lieu of eliminating the entire Capitol population, we have a final, symbolic Hunger Games, using the children directly related to those who held the most power.»

All seven of us turn to her. «What?» says Johanna.

«We hold another Hunger Games using Capitol children,» says Coin.

«Are you joking?» asks Peeta.

«No. I should also tell you that if we do hold the Games, it will be known it was done with your approval, although the individual breakdown of your votes will be kept secret for your own security,» Coin tells us.

«Was this Plutarch’s idea?» asks Haymitch.

«It was mine,» says Coin. «It seemed to balance the need for vengeance with the least loss of life. You may cast your votes.»

«No!» bursts out Peeta. «I vote no, of course! We can’t have another Hunger Games!»

«Why not?» Johanna retorts. «It seems very fair to me. Snow even has a granddaughter. I vote yes.»

«So do I,» says Enobaria, almost indifferently. «Let them have a taste of their own medicine.»

«This is why we rebelled! Remember?» Peeta looks at the rest of us. «Annie?»

«I vote no with Peeta,» she says. «So would Finnick if he were here.»

«But he isn’t, because Snow’s mutts killed him,» Johanna reminds her.

«No,» says Beetee. «It would set a bad precedent. We have to stop viewing one another as enemies. At this point, unity is essential for our survival. No.»

«We’re down to Katniss and Haymitch,» says Coin.

Was it like this then? Seventy-five years or so ago? Did a group of people sit around and cast their votes on initiating the Hunger Games? Was there dissent? Did someone make a case for mercy that was beaten down by the calls for the deaths of the districts’ children? The scent of Snow’s rose curls up into my nose, down into my throat, squeezing it tight with despair. All those people I loved, dead, and we are discussing the next Hunger Games in an attempt to avoid wasting life. Nothing has changed. Nothing will ever change now.

I weigh my options carefully, think everything through. Keeping my eyes on the rose, I say, «I vote yes… for Prim.»

«Haymitch, it’s up to you,» says Coin.

A furious Peeta hammers Haymitch with the atrocity he could become party to, but I can feel Haymitch watching me. This is the moment, then. When we find out exactly just how alike we are, and how much he truly understands me.

«I’m with the Mockingjay,» he says.

«Excellent. That carries the vote,» says Coin. «Now we really must take our places for the execution.»

As she passes me, I hold up the glass with the rose. «Can you see that Snow’s wearing this? Just over his heart?»

Coin smiles. «Of course. And I’ll make sure he knows about the Games.»

«Thank you,» I say.

People sweep into the room, surround me. The last touch of powder, the instructions from Plutarch as I’m guided to the front doors of the mansion. The City Circle runs over, spills people down the side streets. The others take their places outside. Guards. Officials. Rebel leaders. Victors. I hear the cheers that indicate Coin has appeared on the balcony. Then Effie taps my shoulder, and I step out into the cold winter sunlight. Walk to my position, accompanied by the deafening roar of the crowd. As directed, I turn so they see me in profile, and wait. When they march Snow out the door, the audience goes insane. They secure his hands behind a post, which is unnecessary. He’s not going anywhere. There’s nowhere to go. This is not the roomy stage before the Training Center but the narrow terrace in front of the president’s mansion. No wonder no one bothered to have me practice. He’s ten yards away.

I feel the bow purring in my hand. Reach back and grasp the arrow. Position it, aim at the rose, but watch his face. He coughs and a bloody dribble runs down his chin. His tongue flicks over his puffy lips. I search his eyes for the slightest sign of anything, fear, remorse, anger. But there’s only the same look of amusement that ended our last conversation. It’s as if he’s speaking the words again. «Oh, my dear Miss Everdeen. I thought we had agreed not to lie to each other.»

He’s right. We did.

The point of my arrow shifts upward. I release the string. And President Coin collapses over the side of the balcony and plunges to the ground. Dead.

27

In the stunned reaction that follows, I’m aware of one sound. Snow’s laughter. An awful gurgling cackle accompanied by an eruption of foamy blood when the coughing begins. I see him bend forward, spewing out his life, until the guards block him from my sight.

As the gray uniforms begin to converge on me, I think of what my brief future as the assassin of Panem’s new president holds. The interrogation, probable torture, certain public execution. Having, yet again, to say my final goodbyes to the handful of people who still maintain a hold on my heart. The prospect of facing my mother, who will now be entirely alone in the world, decides it.

«Good night,» I whisper to the bow in my hand and feel it go still. I raise my left arm and twist my neck down to rip off the pill on my sleeve. Instead my teeth sink into flesh. I yank my head back in confusion to find myself looking into Peeta’s eyes, only now they hold my gaze. Blood runs from the teeth marks on the hand he clamped over my nightlock. «Let me go!» I snarl at him, trying to wrest my arm from his grasp.

«I can’t,» he says. As they pull me away from him, I feel the pocket ripped from my sleeve, see the deep violet pill fall to the ground, watch Cinna’s last gift get crunched under a guard’s boot. I transform into a wild animal, kicking, clawing, biting, doing whatever I can to free myself from this web of hands as the crowd pushes in. The guards lift me up above the fray, where I continue to thrash as I’m conveyed over the crush of people. I start screaming for Gale. I can’t find him in the throng, but he will know what I want. A good clean shot to end it all. Only there’s no arrow, no bullet. Is it possible he can’t see me? No. Above us, on the giant screens placed around the City Circle, everyone can watch the whole thing being played out. He sees, he knows, but he doesn’t follow through. Just as I didn’t when he was captured. Sorry excuses for hunters and friends. Both of us.

I’m on my own.

In the mansion, they handcuff and blindfold me. I’m half dragged, half carried down long passages, up and down elevators, and deposited on a carpeted floor. The cuffs are removed and a door slams closed behind me. When I push the blindfold up, I find I’m in my old room at the Training Center. The one where I lived during those last precious days before my first Hunger Games and the Quarter Quell. The bed’s stripped to the mattress, the closet gapes open, showing the emptiness inside, but I’d know this room anywhere.

It’s a struggle to get to my feet and peel off my Mockingjay suit. I’m badly bruised and might have a broken finger or two, but it’s my skin that’s paid most dearly for my struggle with the guards. The new pink stuff has shredded like tissue paper and blood seeps through the laboratory-grown cells. No medics show up, though, and as I’m too far gone to care, I crawl up onto the mattress, expecting to bleed to death.

No such luck. By evening, the blood clots, leaving me stiff and sore and sticky but alive. I limp into the shower and program in the gentlest cycle I can remember, free of any soaps and hair products, and squat under the warm spray, elbows on my knees, head in my hands.

My name is Katniss Everdeen. Why am I not dead? I should be dead. It would be best for everyone if I were dead…

When I step out on the mat, the hot air bakes my damaged skin dry. There’s nothing clean to put on. Not even a towel to wrap around me. Back in the room, I find the Mockingjay suit has disappeared. In its place is a paper robe. A meal has been sent up from the mysterious kitchen with a container of my medications for dessert. I go ahead and eat the food, take the pills, rub the salve on my skin. I need to focus now on the manner of my suicide.

I curl back up on the bloodstained mattress, not cold but feeling so naked with just the paper to cover my tender flesh. Jumping to my death’s not an option—the window glass must be a foot thick. I can make an excellent noose, but there’s nothing to hang myself from. It’s possible I could hoard my pills and then knock myself off with a lethal dose, except that I’m sure I’m being watched round the clock. For all I know, I’m on live television at this very moment while commentators try to analyze what could possibly have motivated me to kill Coin. The surveillance makes almost any suicide attempt impossible. Taking my life is the Capitol’s privilege. Again.

What I can do is give up. I resolve to lie on the bed without eating, drinking, or taking my medications. I could do it, too. Just die. If it weren’t for the morphling withdrawal. Not bit by bit like in the hospital in 13, but cold turkey. I must have been on a fairly large dose because when the craving for it hits, accompanied by tremors, and shooting pains, and unbearable cold, my resolve’s crushed like an eggshell. I’m on my knees, raking the carpet with my fingernails to find those precious pills I flung away in a stronger moment. I revise my suicide plan to slow death by morphling. I will become a yellow-skinned bag of bones, with enormous eyes. I’m a couple of days into the plan, making good progress, when something unexpected happens.

I begin to sing. At the window, in the shower, in my sleep. Hour after hour of ballads, love songs, mountain airs. All the songs my father taught me before he died, for certainly there has been very little music in my life since. What’s amazing is how clearly I remember them. The tunes, the lyrics. My voice, at first rough and breaking on the high notes, warms up into something splendid. A voice that would make the mockingjays fall silent and then tumble over themselves to join in. Days pass, weeks. I watch the snows fall on the ledge outside my window. And in all that time, mine is the only voice I hear.

What are they doing, anyway? What’s the holdup out there? How difficult can it be to arrange the execution of one murderous girl? I continue with my own annihilation. My body’s thinner than it’s ever been and my battle against hunger is so fierce that sometimes the animal part of me gives in to the temptation of buttered bread or roasted meat. But still, I’m winning. For a few days I feel quite unwell and think I may finally be traveling out of this life, when I realize my morphling tablets are shrinking. They are trying to slowly wean me off the stuff. But why? Surely a drugged Mockingjay will be easier to dispose of in front of a crowd. And then a terrible thought hits me: What if they’re not going to kill me? What if they have more plans for me? A new way to remake, train, and use me?

I won’t do it. If I can’t kill myself in this room, I will take the first opportunity outside of it to finish the job. They can fatten me up. They can give me a full body polish, dress me up, and make me beautiful again. They can design dream weapons that come to life in my hands, but they will never again brainwash me into the necessity of using them. I no longer feel any allegiance to these monsters called human beings, despise being one myself. I think that Peeta was onto something about us destroying one another and letting some decent species take over. Because something is significantly wrong with a creature that sacrifices its children’s lives to settle its differences. You can spin it any way you like. Snow thought the Hunger Games were an efficient means of control. Coin thought the parachutes would expedite the war. But in the end, who does it benefit? No one. The truth is, it benefits no one to live in a world where these things happen.

After two days of my lying on my mattress with no attempt to eat, drink, or even take a morphling tablet, the door to my room opens. Someone crosses around the bed into my field of vision. Haymitch. «Your trial’s over,» he says. «Come on. We’re going home.»

Home? What’s he talking about? My home’s gone. And even if it were possible to go to this imaginary place, I am too weak to move. Strangers appear. Rehydrate and feed me. Bathe and clothe me. One lifts me like a rag doll and carries me up to the roof, onto a hovercraft, and fastens me into a seat. Haymitch and Plutarch sit across from me. In a few moments, we’re airborne.

I’ve never seen Plutarch in such a good mood. He’s positively glowing. «You must have a million questions!» When I don’t respond, he answers them anyway.

After I shot Coin, there was pandemonium. When the ruckus died down, they discovered Snow’s body, still tethered to the post. Opinions differ on whether he choked to death while laughing or was crushed by the crowd. No one really cares. An emergency election was thrown together and Paylor was voted in as president. Plutarch was appointed secretary of communications, which means he sets the programming for the airwaves. The first big televised event was my trial, in which he was also a star witness. In my defense, of course. Although most of the credit for my exoneration must be given to Dr. Aurelius, who apparently earned his naps by presenting me as a hopeless, shell-shocked lunatic. One condition for my release is that I’ll continue under his care, although it will have to be by phone because he’d never live in a forsaken place like 12, and I’m confined there until further notice. The truth is, no one quite knows what to do with me now that the war’s over, although if another one should spring up, Plutarch’s sure they could find a role for me. Then Plutarch has a good laugh. It never seems to bother him when no one else appreciates his jokes.

«Are you preparing for another war, Plutarch?» I ask.

«Oh, not now. Now we’re in that sweet period where everyone agrees that our recent horrors should never be repeated,» he says. «But collective thinking is usually short-lived. We’re fickle, stupid beings with poor memories and a great gift for self-destruction. Although who knows? Maybe this will be it, Katniss.»

«What?» I ask.

«The time it sticks. Maybe we are witnessing the evolution of the human race. Think about that.» And then he asks me if I’d like to perform on a new singing program he’s launching in a few weeks. Something upbeat would be good. He’ll send the crew to my house.

We land briefly in District 3 to drop off Plutarch. He’s meeting with Beetee to update the technology on the broadcast system. His parting words to me are «Don’t be a stranger.»

When we’re back among the clouds, I look at Haymitch. «So why are you going back to Twelve?»

«They can’t seem to find a place for me in the Capitol either,» he says.

At first, I don’t question this. But doubts begin to creep in. Haymitch hasn’t assassinated anyone. He could go anywhere. If he’s coming back to 12, it’s because he’s been ordered to. «You have to look after me, don’t you? As my mentor?» He shrugs. Then I realize what it means. «My mother’s not coming back.»

«No,» he says. He pulls an envelope from his jacket pocket and hands it to me. I examine the delicate, perfectly formed writing. «She’s helping to start up a hospital in District Four. She wants you to call as soon as we get in.» My finger traces the graceful swoop of the letters. «You know why she can’t come back.» Yes, I know why. Because between my father and Prim and the ashes, the place is too painful to bear. But apparently not for me. «Do you want to know who else won’t be there?»

«No,» I say. «I want to be surprised.»

Like a good mentor, Haymitch makes me eat a sandwich and then pretends he believes I’m asleep for the rest of the trip. He busies himself going through every compartment on the hovercraft, finding the liquor, and stowing it in his bag. It’s night when we land on the green of the Victor’s Village. Half of the houses have lights in the windows, including Haymitch’s and mine. Not Peeta’s. Someone has built a fire in my kitchen. I sit in the rocker before it, clutching my mother’s letter.

«Well, see you tomorrow,» says Haymitch.

As the clinking of his bag of liquor bottles fades away, I whisper, «I doubt it.»

I am unable to move from the chair. The rest of the house looms cold and empty and dark. I pull an old shawl over my body and watch the flames. I guess I sleep, because the next thing I know, it’s morning and Greasy Sae’s banging around at the stove. She makes me eggs and toast and sits there until I’ve eaten it all. We don’t talk much. Her little granddaughter, the one who lives in her own world, takes a bright blue ball of yarn from my mother’s knitting basket. Greasy Sae tells her to put it back, but I say she can have it. No one in this house can knit anymore. After breakfast, Greasy Sae does the dishes and leaves, but she comes back up at dinnertime to make me eat again. I don’t know if she’s just being neighborly or if she’s on the government’s payroll, but she shows up twice every day. She cooks, I consume. I try to figure out my next move. There’s no obstacle now to taking my life. But I seem to be waiting for something.

Sometimes the phone rings and rings and rings, but I don’t pick it up. Haymitch never visits. Maybe he changed his mind and left, although I suspect he’s just drunk. No one comes but Greasy Sae and her granddaughter. After months of solitary confinement, they seem like a crowd.

«Spring’s in the air today. You ought to get out,» she says. «Go hunting.»

I haven’t left the house. I haven’t even left the kitchen except to go to the small bathroom a few steps off of it. I’m in the same clothes I left the Capitol in. What I do is sit by the fire. Stare at the unopened letters piling up on the mantel. «I don’t have a bow.»

«Check down the hall,» she says.

After she leaves, I consider a trip down the hall. Rule it out. But after several hours, I go anyway, walking in silent sock feet, so as not to awaken the ghosts. In the study, where I had my tea with President Snow, I find a box with my father’s hunting jacket, our plant book, my parents’ wedding photo, the spile Haymitch sent in, and the locket Peeta gave me in the clock arena. The two bows and a sheath of arrows Gale rescued on the night of the firebombing lie on the desk. I put on the hunting jacket and leave the rest of the stuff untouched. I fall asleep on the sofa in the formal living room. A terrible nightmare follows, where I’m lying at the bottom of a deep grave, and every dead person I know by name comes by and throws a shovel full of ashes on me. It’s quite a long dream, considering the list of people, and the deeper I’m buried, the harder it is to breathe. I try to call out, begging them to stop, but the ashes fill my mouth and nose and I can’t make any sound. Still the shovel scrapes on and on and on…

I wake with a start. Pale morning light comes around the edges of the shutters. The scraping of the shovel continues. Still half in the nightmare, I run down the hall, out the front door, and around the side of the house, because now I’m pretty sure I can scream at the dead. When I see him, I pull up short. His face is flushed from digging up the ground under the windows. In a wheelbarrow are five scraggly bushes.

«You’re back,» I say.

«Dr. Aurelius wouldn’t let me leave the Capitol until yesterday,» Peeta says. «By the way, he said to tell you he can’t keep pretending he’s treating you forever. You have to pick up the phone.»

He looks well. Thin and covered with burn scars like me, but his eyes have lost that clouded, tortured look. He’s frowning slightly, though, as he takes me in. I make a halfhearted effort to push my hair out of my eyes and realize it’s matted into clumps. I feel defensive. «What are you doing?»

«I went to the woods this morning and dug these up. For her,» he says. «I thought we could plant them along the side of the house.»

I look at the bushes, the clods of dirt hanging from their roots, and catch my breath as the word rose registers. I’m about to yell vicious things at Peeta when the full name comes to me. Not plain rose but evening primrose. The flower my sister was named for. I give Peeta a nod of assent and hurry back into the house, locking the door behind me. But the evil thing is inside, not out. Trembling with weakness and anxiety, I run up the stairs. My foot catches on the last step and I crash onto the floor. I force myself to rise and enter my room. The smell’s very faint but still laces the air. It’s there. The white rose among the dried flowers in the vase. Shriveled and fragile, but holding on to that unnatural perfection cultivated in Snow’s greenhouse. I grab the vase, stumble down to the kitchen, and throw its contents into the embers. As the flowers flare up, a burst of blue flame envelops the rose and devours it. Fire beats roses again. I smash the vase on the floor for good measure.

Back upstairs, I throw open the bedroom windows to clear out the rest of Snow’s stench. But it still lingers, on my clothes and in my pores. I strip, and flakes of skin the size of playing cards cling to the garments. Avoiding the mirror, I step into the shower and scrub the roses from my hair, my body, my mouth. Bright pink and tingling, I find something clean to wear. It takes half an hour to comb out my hair. Greasy Sae unlocks the front door. While she makes breakfast, I feed the clothes I had shed to the fire. At her suggestion, I pare off my nails with a knife.

Over the eggs, I ask her, «Where did Gale go?»

«District Two. Got some fancy job there. I see him now and again on the television,» she says.

I dig around inside myself, trying to register anger, hatred, longing. I find only relief.

«I’m going hunting today,» I say.

«Well, I wouldn’t mind some fresh game at that,» she answers.

I arm myself with a bow and arrows and head out, intending to exit 12 through the Meadow. Near the square are teams of masked and gloved people with horse-drawn carts. Sifting through what lay under the snow this winter. Gathering remains. A cart’s parked in front of the mayor’s house. I recognize Thom, Gale’s old crewmate, pausing a moment to wipe the sweat from his face with a rag. I remember seeing him in 13, but he must have come back. His greeting gives me the courage to ask, «Did they find anyone in there?»

«Whole family. And the two people who worked for them,» Thom tells me.

Madge. Quiet and kind and brave. The girl who gave me the pin that gave me a name. I swallow hard. Wonder if she’ll be joining the cast of my nightmares tonight. Shoveling the ashes into my mouth. «I thought maybe, since he was the mayor…»

«I don’t think being the mayor of Twelve put the odds in his favor,» says Thom.

I nod and keep moving, careful not to look in the back of the cart. All through the town and the Seam, it’s the same. The reaping of the dead. As I near the ruins of my old house, the road becomes thick with carts. The Meadow’s gone, or at least dramatically altered. A deep pit has been dug, and they’re lining it with bones, a mass grave for my people. I skirt around the hole and enter the woods at my usual place. It doesn’t matter, though. The fence isn’t charged anymore and has been propped up with long branches to keep out the predators. But old habits die hard. I think about going to the lake, but I’m so weak that I barely make it to my meeting place with Gale. I sit on the rock where Cressida filmed us, but it’s too wide without his body beside me. Several times I close my eyes and count to ten, thinking that when I open them, he will have materialized without a sound as he so often did. I have to remind myself that Gale’s in 2 with a fancy job, probably kissing another pair of lips.

It is the old Katniss’s favorite kind of day. Early spring. The woods awakening after the long winter. But the spurt of energy that began with the primroses fades away. By the time I make it back to the fence, I’m so sick and dizzy, Thom has to give me a ride home in the dead people’s cart. Help me to the sofa in the living room, where I watch the dust motes spin in the thin shafts of afternoon light.

My head snaps around at the hiss, but it takes awhile to believe he’s real. How could he have gotten here? I take in the claw marks from some wild animal, the back paw he holds slightly above the ground, the prominent bones in his face. He’s come on foot, then, all the way from 13. Maybe they kicked him out or maybe he just couldn’t stand it there without her, so he came looking.

«It was the waste of a trip. She’s not here,» I tell him. Buttercup hisses again. «She’s not here. You can hiss all you like. You won’t find Prim.» At her name, he perks up. Raises his flattened ears. Begins to meow hopefully. «Get out!» He dodges the pillow I throw at him. «Go away! There’s nothing left for you here!» I start to shake, furious with him. «She’s not coming back! She’s never ever coming back here again!» I grab another pillow and get to my feet to improve my aim. Out of nowhere, the tears begin to pour down my cheeks. «She’s dead.» I clutch my middle to dull the pain. Sink down on my heels, rocking the pillow, crying. «She’s dead, you stupid cat. She’s dead.» A new sound, part crying, part singing, comes out of my body, giving voice to my despair. Buttercup begins to wail as well. No matter what I do, he won’t go. He circles me, just out of reach, as wave after wave of sobs racks my body, until eventually I fall unconscious. But he must understand. He must know that the unthinkable has happened and to survive will require previously unthinkable acts. Because hours later, when I come to in my bed, he’s there in the moonlight. Crouched beside me, yellow eyes alert, guarding me from the night.

In the morning, he sits stoically as I clean the cuts, but digging the thorn from his paw brings on a round of those kitten mews. We both end up crying again, only this time we comfort each other. On the strength of this, I open the letter Haymitch gave me from my mother, dial the phone number, and weep with her as well. Peeta, bearing a warm loaf of bread, shows up with Greasy Sae. She makes us breakfast and I feed all my bacon to Buttercup.

Slowly, with many lost days, I come back to life. I try to follow Dr. Aurelius’s advice, just going through the motions, amazed when one finally has meaning again. I tell him my idea about the book, and a large box of parchment sheets arrives on the next train from the Capitol.

I got the idea from our family’s plant book. The place where we recorded those things you cannot trust to memory. The page begins with the person’s picture. A photo if we can find it. If not, a sketch or painting by Peeta. Then, in my most careful handwriting, come all the details it would be a crime to forget. Lady licking Prim’s cheek. My father’s laugh. Peeta’s father with the cookies. The color of Finnick’s eyes. What Cinna could do with a length of silk. Boggs reprogramming the Holo. Rue poised on her toes, arms slightly extended, like a bird about to take flight. On and on. We seal the pages with salt water and promises to live well to make their deaths count. Haymitch finally joins us, contributing twenty-three years of tributes he was forced to mentor. Additions become smaller. An old memory that surfaces. A late primrose preserved between the pages. Strange bits of happiness, like the photo of Finnick and Annie’s newborn son.

We learn to keep busy again. Peeta bakes. I hunt. Haymitch drinks until the liquor runs out, and then raises geese until the next train arrives. Fortunately, the geese can take pretty good care of themselves. We’re not alone. A few hundred others return because, whatever has happened, this is our home. With the mines closed, they plow the ashes into the earth and plant food. Machines from the Capitol break ground for a new factory where we will make medicines. Although no one seeds it, the Meadow turns green again.

Peeta and I grow back together. There are still moments when he clutches the back of a chair and hangs on until the flashbacks are over. I wake screaming from nightmares of mutts and lost children. But his arms are there to comfort me. And eventually his lips. On the night I feel that thing again, the hunger that overtook me on the beach, I know this would have happened anyway. That what I need to survive is not Gale’s fire, kindled with rage and hatred. I have plenty of fire myself. What I need is the dandelion in the spring. The bright yellow that means rebirth instead of destruction. The promise that life can go on, no matter how bad our losses. That it can be good again. And only Peeta can give me that.

So after, when he whispers, «You love me. Real or not real?»

I tell him, «Real.»

EPILOGUE

They play in the Meadow. The dancing girl with the dark hair and blue eyes. The boy with blond curls and gray eyes, struggling to keep up with her on his chubby toddler legs. It took five, ten, fifteen years for me to agree. But Peeta wanted them so badly. When I first felt her stirring inside of me, I was consumed with a terror that felt as old as life itself. Only the joy of holding her in my arms could tame it. Carrying him was a little easier, but not much.

The questions are just beginning. The arenas have been completely destroyed, the memorials built, there are no more Hunger Games. But they teach about them at school, and the girl knows we played a role in them. The boy will know in a few years. How can I tell them about that world without frightening them to death? My children, who take the words of the song for granted:

Peeta says it will be okay. We have each other. And the book. We can make them understand in a way that will make them braver. But one day I’ll have to explain about my nightmares. Why they came. Why they won’t ever really go away.

I’ll tell them how I survive it. I’ll tell them that on bad mornings, it feels impossible to take pleasure in anything because I’m afraid it could be taken away. That’s when I make a list in my head of every act of goodness I’ve seen someone do. It’s like a game. Repetitive. Even a little tedious after more than twenty years.

But there are much worse games to play.