(5/6) MOCKINGJAY PART III "THE ASSASIN" : READ IT ONLINE - LEELO EN INGLÉS ONLINE♥

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PART III

"THE ASSASSIN"

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."

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. Fiancee. 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 doublechecking

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,

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 threequarters

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.

Are you, are you

Coming to the tree

Wear a necklace of rope, side by side with me.

Strange things did happen here

No stranger would it be

If we met up at midnight in the hanging tree.

"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

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 allconsuming

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."

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