Behind me, I can hear the accusations against Peeta building. The wordstraitor ,liar , andenemy bounce off the walls. Since I can neither join in the rebels’ outrage nor counter it, I decide the best thing to do is clear out. As I reach the door, Coin’s voice rises above the others. «You have not been dismissed, Soldier Everdeen.»
One of Coin’s men lays a hand on my arm. It’s not an aggressive move, really, but after the arena, I react defensively to any unfamiliar touch. I jerk my arm free and take off running down the halls. Behind me, there’s the sound of a scuffle, but I don’t stop. My mind does a quick inventory of my odd little hiding places, and I wind up in the supply closet, curled up against a crate of chalk.
«You’re alive,» I whisper, pressing my palms against my cheeks, feeling the smile that’s so wide it must look like a grimace. Peeta’s alive. And a traitor. But at the moment, I don’t care. Not what he says, or who he says it for, only that he is still capable of speech.
After a while, the door opens and someone slips in. Gale slides down beside me, his nose trickling blood.
«What happened?» I ask.
«I got in Boggs’s way,» he answers with a shrug. I use my sleeve to wipe his nose. «Watch it!»
I try to be gentler. Patting, not wiping. «Which one is he?»
«Oh, you know. Coin’s right-hand lackey. The one who tried to stop you.» He pushes my hand away.
«Quit! You’ll bleed me to death.»
The trickle has turned to a steady stream. I give up on the first-aid attempts. «You fought with Boggs?»
«No, just blocked the doorway when he tried to follow you. His elbow caught me in the nose,» says Gale.
«They’ll probably punish you,» I say.
«Already have.» He holds up his wrist. I stare at it uncomprehendingly. «Coin took back my communicuff.»
I bite my lip, trying to remain serious. But it seems so ridiculous. «I’m sorry, Soldier Gale Hawthorne.»
«Don’t be, Soldier Katniss Everdeen.» He grins. «I felt like a jerk walking around with it anyway.» We both start laughing. «I think it was quite a demotion.»
This is one of the few good things about 13. Getting Gale back. With the pressure of the Capitol’s arranged marriage between Peeta and me gone, we’ve managed to regain our friendship. He doesn’t push it any further—try to kiss me or talk about love. Either I’ve been too sick, or he’s willing to give me space, or he knows it’s just too cruel with Peeta in the hands of the Capitol. Whatever the case, I’ve got someone to tell my secrets to again.
«Who are these people?» I say.
«They’re us. If we’d had nukes instead of a few lumps of coal,» he answers.
«I like to think Twelve wouldn’t have abandoned the rest of the rebels back in the Dark Days,» I say.
«We might have. If it was that, surrender, or start a nuclear war,» says Gale. «In a way, it’s remarkable they survived at all.»
Maybe it’s because I still have the ashes of my own district on my shoes, but for the first time, I give the people of 13 something I have withheld from them: credit. For staying alive against all odds. Their early years must have been terrible, huddled in the chambers beneath the ground after their city was bombed to dust. Population decimated, no possible ally to turn to for aid. Over the past seventy-five years, they’ve learned to be self-sufficient, turned their citizens into an army, and built a new society with no help from anyone. They would be even more powerful if that pox epidemic hadn’t flattened their birthrate and made them so desperate for a new gene pool and breeders. Maybe they are militaristic, overly programmed, and somewhat lacking in a sense of humor. They’re here. And willing to take on the Capitol.
«Still, it took them long enough to show up,» I say.
«It wasn’t simple. They had to build up a rebel base in the Capitol, get some sort of underground organized in the districts,» he says. «Then they needed someone to set the whole thing in motion. They needed you.»
«They needed Peeta, too, but they seem to have forgotten that,» I say.
Gale’s expression darkens. «Peeta might have done a lot of damage tonight. Most of the rebels will dismiss what he said immediately, of course. But there are districts where the resistance is shakier. The cease-fire’s clearly President Snow’s idea. But it seems so reasonable coming out of Peeta’s mouth.»
I’m afraid of Gale’s answer, but I ask anyway. «Why do you think he said it?»
«He might have been tortured. Or persuaded. My guess is he made some kind of deal to protect you. He’d put forth the idea of the cease-fire if Snow let him present you as a confused pregnant girl who had no idea what was going on when she was taken prisoner by the rebels. This way, if the districts lose, there’s still a chance of leniency for you. If you play it right.» I must still look perplexed because Gale delivers the next line very slowly. «Katniss…he’s still trying to keep you alive.»
To keep me alive?And then I understand. The Games are still on. We have left the arena, but since Peeta and I weren’t killed, his last wish to preserve my life still stands. His idea is to have me lie low, remain safe and imprisoned, while the war plays out. Then neither side will really have cause to kill me. And Peeta? If the rebels win, it will be disastrous for him. If the Capitol wins, who knows? Maybe we’ll both be allowed to live—if I play it right—to watch the Games go on….
Images flash through my mind: the spear piercing Rue’s body in the arena, Gale hanging senseless from the whipping post, the corpse-littered wasteland of my home. And for what? For what? As my blood turns hot, I remember other things. My first glimpse of an uprising in District 8. The victors locked hand in hand the night before the Quarter Quell. And how it was no accident, my shooting that arrow into the force field in the arena. How badly I wanted it to lodge deep in the heart of my enemy.
I spring up, upsetting a box of a hundred pencils, sending them scattering around the floor.
«What is it?» Gale asks.
«There can’t be a cease-fire.» I lean down, fumbling as I shove the sticks of dark gray graphite back into the box. «We can’t go back.»
«I know.» Gale sweeps up a handful of pencils and taps them on the floor into perfect alignment.
«Whatever reason Peeta had for saying those things, he’s wrong.» The stupid sticks won’t go in the box and I snap several in my frustration.
«I know. Give it here. You’re breaking them to bits.» He pulls the box from my hands and refills it with swift, concise motions.
«He doesn’t know what they did to Twelve. If he could’ve seen what was on the ground» — I start.
«Katniss, I’m not arguing. If I could hit a button and kill every living soul working for the Capitol, I would do it. Without hesitation.» He slides the last pencil into the box and flips the lid closed. «The question is, what are you going to do?»
It turns out the question that’s been eating away at me has only ever had one possible answer. But it took Peeta’s ploy for me to recognize it.
What am I going to do?
I take a deep breath. My arms rise slightly—as if recalling the black-and-white wings Cinna gave me—then come to rest at my sides.
«I’m going to be the Mockingjay.»
3
Buttercup’s eyes reflect the faint glow of the safety light over the door as he lies in the crook of Prim’s arm, back on the job, protecting her from the night. She’s snuggled close to my mother. Asleep, they look just as they did the morning of the reaping that landed me in my first Games. I have a bed to myself because I’m recuperating and because no one can sleep with me anyway, what with the nightmares and the thrashing around.
After tossing and turning for hours, I finally accept that it will be a wakeful night. Under Buttercup’s watchful eye, I tiptoe across the cold tiled floor to the dresser.
The middle drawer contains my government-issued clothes. Everyone wears the same gray pants and shirt, the shirt tucked in at the waist. Underneath the clothes, I
keep the few items I had on me when I was lifted from the arena. My mockingjay pin. Peeta’s token, the gold locket with photos of my mother and Prim and Gale inside. A silver parachute that holds a spile for tapping trees, and the pearl Peeta gave me a few hours before I blew out the force field. District 13 confiscated my tube of skin ointment for use in the hospital, and my bow and arrows because only guards have clearance to carry weapons. They’re in safekeeping in the armory.
I feel around for the parachute and slide my fingers inside until they close around the pearl. I sit back on my bed cross-legged and find myself rubbing the smooth iridescent surface of the pearl back and forth against my lips. For some reason, it’s soothing. A cool kiss from the giver himself.
«Katniss?» Prim whispers. She’s awake, peering at me through the darkness. «What’s wrong?»
«Nothing. Just a bad dream. Go back to sleep.» It’s automatic. Shutting Prim and my mother out of things to shield them.
Careful not to rouse my mother, Prim eases herself from the bed, scoops up Buttercup, and sits beside me. She touches the hand that has curled around the pearl. «You’re cold.» Taking a spare blanket from the foot of the bed, she wraps it around all three of us, enveloping me in her warmth and Buttercup’s furry heat as well. «You could tell me, you know. I’m good at keeping secrets. Even from Mother.»
She’s really gone, then. The little girl with the back of her shirt sticking out like a duck tail, the one who needed help reaching the dishes, and who begged to see the frosted cakes in the bakery window. Time and tragedy have forced her to grow too quickly, at least for my taste, into a young woman who stitches bleeding wounds and knows our mother can hear only so much.
«Tomorrow morning, I’m going to agree to be the Mockingjay,» I tell her.
«Because you want to or because you feel forced into it?» she asks.
I laugh a little. «Both, I guess. No, I want to. I have to, if it will help the rebels defeat Snow.» I squeeze the pearl more tightly in my fist. «It’s just…Peeta. I’m afraid if we do win, the rebels will execute him as a traitor.»
Prim thinks this over. «Katniss, I don’t think you understand how important you are to the cause. Important people usually get what they want. If you want to keep Peeta safe from the rebels, you can.»
I guess I’m important. They went to a lot of trouble to rescue me. They took me to 12. «You mean…I could demand that they give Peeta immunity? And they’d have to agree to it?»
«I think you could demand almost anything and they’d have to agree to it.» Prim wrinkles her brow. «Only how do you know they’ll keep their word?»
I remember all of the lies Haymitch told Peeta and me to get us to do what he wanted. What’s to keep the rebels from reneging on the deal? A verbal promise behind closed doors, even a statement written on paper—these could easily evaporate after the war. Their existence or validity denied. Any witnesses in Command will be worthless. In fact, they’d probably be the ones writing out Peeta’s death warrant. I’ll need a much larger pool of witnesses. I’ll need everyone I can get.
«It will have to be public,» I say. Buttercup gives a flick of his tail that I take as agreement. «I’ll make Coin announce it in front of the entire population of Thirteen.»
Prim smiles. «Oh, that’s good. It’s not a guarantee, but it will be much harder for them to back out of their promise.»
I feel the kind of relief that follows an actual solution. «I should wake you up more often, little duck.»
«I wish you would,» says Prim. She gives me a kiss. «Try and sleep now, all right?» And I do.
In the morning, I see that 7:00—Breakfast is directly followed by 7:30—Command , which is fine since I may as well start the ball rolling. At the dining hall, I flash my schedule, which includes some kind of ID number, in front of a sensor. As I slide my tray along the metal shelf before the vats of food, I see breakfast is its usual dependable self—a bowl of hot grain, a cup of milk, and a small scoop of fruit or vegetables. Today, mashed turnips. All of it comes from 13’s underground farms. I sit at the table assigned to the Everdeens and the Hawthornes and some other refugees, and shovel my food down, wishing for seconds, but there are never seconds here. They have nutrition down to a science. You leave with enough calories to take you to the next meal, no more, no less. Serving size is based on your age, height, body type, health, and amount of physical labor required by your schedule. The people from 12 are already getting slightly larger portions than the natives of 13 in an effort to bring us up to weight. I guess bony soldiers tire too quickly. It’s working, though. In just a month, we’re starting to look healthier, particularly the kids.
Gale sets his tray beside me and I try not to stare at his turnips too pathetically, because I really want more, and he’s already too quick to slip me his food. Even though I turn my attention to neatly folding my napkin, a spoonful of turnips slops into my bowl.
«You’ve got to stop that,» I say. But since I’m already scooping up the stuff, it’s not too convincing.
«Really. It’s probably illegal or something.» They have very strict rules about food. For instance, if you don’t finish something and want to save it for later, you can’t take it from the dining hall. Apparently, in the early days, there was some incident of food hoarding. For a couple of people like Gale and me, who’ve been in charge of our families’ food supply for years, it doesn’t sit well. We know how to be hungry, but not how to be told how to handle what provisions we have. In some ways, District 13 is even more controlling than the Capitol.
«What can they do? They’ve already got my communicuff,» says Gale.
As I scrape my bowl clean, I have an inspiration. «Hey, maybe I should make that a condition of being the Mockingjay.»
«That I can feed you turnips?» he says.
«No, that we can hunt.» That gets his attention. «We’d have to give everything to the kitchen. But still, we could…» I don’t have to finish because he knows. We could be aboveground. Out in the woods. We could be ourselves again.
«Do it,» he says. «Now’s the time. You could ask for the moon and they’d have to find some way to get it.»
He doesn’t know that I’m already asking for the moon by demanding they spare Peeta’s life. Before I can decide whether or not to tell him, a bell signals the end of our eating shift. The thought of facing Coin alone makes me nervous. «What are you scheduled for?»
Gale checks his arm. «Nuclear History class. Where, by the way, your absence has been noted.»
«I have to go to Command. Come with me?» I ask.
«All right. But they might throw me out after yesterday.» As we go to drop off our trays, he says, «You know, you better put Buttercup on your list of demands, too. I don’t think the concept of useless pets is well known here.»
«Oh, they’ll find him a job. Tattoo it on his paw every morning,» I say. But I make a mental note to include him for Prim’s sake.
By the time we get to Command, Coin, Plutarch, and all their people have already assembled. The sight of Gale raises some eyebrows, but no one throws him out. My mental notes have become too jumbled, so I ask for a piece of paper and a pencil right off. My apparent interest in the proceedings—the first I’ve shown since I’ve been here—takes them by surprise. Several looks are exchanged. Probably they had some extra-special lecture planned for me. But instead, Coin personally hands me the supplies, and everyone waits in silence while I sit at the table and scrawl out my list.Buttercup. Hunting. Peeta’s immunity. Announced in public.
This is it. Probably my only chance to bargain.Think. What else do you want? I feel him, standing at my shoulder.Gale , I add to the list. I don’t think I can do this without him.
The headache’s coming on and my thoughts begin to tangle. I shut my eyes and start to recite silently.
My name is Katniss Everdeen. I am seventeen years old. My home is District 12. I was in the Hunger Games. I escaped. The Capitol hates me. Peeta was taken prisoner. He is alive.
He is a traitor but alive. I have to keep him alive….
The list. It still seems too small. I should try to think bigger, beyond our current situation where I am of the utmost importance, to the future where I may be worth nothing. Shouldn’t I be asking for more? For my family? For the remainder of my people? My skin itches with the ashes of the dead. I feel the sickening impact of the skull against my shoe. The scent of blood and roses stings my nose.
The pencil moves across the page on its own. I open my eyes and see the wobbly letters.I KILL SNOW. If he’s captured, I want the privilege.
Plutarch gives a discreet cough. «About done there?» I glance up and notice the clock. I’ve been sitting here for twenty minutes. Finnick isn’t the only one with attention problems.
«Yeah,» I say. My voice sounds hoarse, so I clear my throat. «Yeah, so this is the deal. I’ll be your Mockingjay.»
I wait so they can make their sounds of relief, congratulate, slap one another on the back. Coin stays as impassive as ever, watching me, unimpressed.
«But I have some conditions.» I smooth out the list and begin. «My family gets to keep our cat.» My tiniest request sets off an argument. The Capitol rebels see this as a nonissue—of course, I can keep my pet—while those from 13 spell out what extreme difficulties this presents. Finally it’s worked out that we’ll be moved to the top level, which has the luxury of an eight-inch window aboveground. Buttercup may come and go to do his business. He will be expected to feed himself. If he misses curfew, he will be locked out. If he causes any security problems, he’ll be shot immediately.
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