The Hunger Games Trilogy

by Suzanne Collins

In fact, I treat him as if he’s a real snake, the venomous kind. I stand motionless, my eyes locked on him, considering plans of retreat.

I have to wonder if his mouth has been altered to make him more appealing. If so, it was a waste of time and money, because he’s not appealing at all.

“I didn’t mean to start any uprisings,” I tell him. “I believe you. It doesn’t matter. Your stylist turned out to be prophetic in his wardrobe choice. Katniss Everdeen, the girl who was on fire, you have provided a spark that, left unattended, may grow to an inferno that destroys Panem,” he says.

“Peeta. How is the love of your life?” he asks. “Good,” I say. “At what point did he realize the exact degree of your indifference?” he asks, dipping his cookie in his tea.

“By the way, I know about the kiss.”

he’s such a diva

In fact, all three are so readily respectful and nice to my mother that I feel bad about how I go around feeling so superior to them. Who knows who I would be or what I would talk about if I’d been raised in the Capitol? Maybe my biggest regret would be having feathered costumes at my birthday party, too.

I can feel the steadiness that Peeta brings to everything. And I know I’m not alone. As badly as I have hurt him, he won’t expose me in front of the cameras. Won’t condemn me with a halfhearted kiss. He’s still looking out for me. Just as he did in the arena.

As far as I can tell, they never get up before noon unless there’s some sort of national emergency, like my leg hair.

Flavius tilts up my chin and sighs. “It’s a shame Cinna said no alterations on you.” “Yes, we could really make you something special,” says Octavia. “When she’s older,” says Venia almost grimly. “Then he’ll have to let us.”

“Let’s start with something more basic. Isn’t it strange that I know you’d risk your life to save mine . . . but I don’t know what your favorite color is?” he says.

It’s good to feel his fingers entwined with mine again, not for show but in actual friendship. We walk back to the train hand in hand. At the door, I remember.

“What do you think?” he asks. “I hate them,” I say. I can almost smell the blood, the dirt, the unnatural breath of the mutt. “All I do is go around trying to forget the arena and you’ve brought it back to life. How do you remember these things so exactly?” “I see them every night,” he says.

SOB

Cinna comes in with a pretty orange frock patterned with autumn leaves. I think how much Peeta will like the color.

I look at Peeta and he gives me a sad smile. I hear Haymitch’s voice. “You could do a lot worse.” At this moment, it’s impossible to imagine how I could do any better. The gift . . . it is perfect. So when I rise up on tiptoe to kiss him, it doesn’t seem forced at all.

If she had won, Rue would never have let my death go unsung. I remember how I took care in the arena to cover her with flowers, to make sure her loss did not go unnoticed. But that gesture will mean nothing if I don’t support it now.

“But I feel as if I did know Rue, and she’ll always be with me. Everything beautiful brings her to mind. I see her in the yellow flowers that grow in the Meadow by my house. I see her in the mockingjays that sing in the trees. But most of all, I see her in my sister, Prim.” My voice is undependable, but I am almost finished. “Thank you for your children.” I raise my chin to address the crowd. “And thank you all for the bread.”

We would be safe inside the Justice Building by now, if I hadn’t stopped, if I hadn’t left my flowers. Instead, from the deep shade of the verandah, we see the whole thing. A pair of Peacekeepers dragging the old man who whistled to the top of the steps. Forcing him to his knees before the crowd. And putting a bullet through his head.

“I thought since he was determined to protect you, well, between the three of us, we might be able to bring you home.”

He pauses, then whispers, “Maybe we were wrong, Katniss.” “About what?” I ask. “About trying to subdue things in the districts,” he says.

I laugh, remembering him splashing back into the punch bowl. “Yes. And you’ll be pleased to know I’ve never recovered,” says Plutarch. I want to point out that twenty-two dead tributes will never recover from the Games he helped create, either.

“You should wake me,” I say, thinking about how I can interrupt his sleep two or three times on a bad night. About how long it can take to calm me down. “It’s not necessary. My nightmares are usually about losing you,” he says. “I’m okay once I realize you’re here.”

I imagine watching Gale volunteering to save Rory in the reaping, having him torn from my life, becoming some strange girl’s lover to stay alive, and then coming home with her. Living next to her. Promising to marry her. The hatred I feel for him, for the phantom girl, for everything, is so real and immediate that it chokes me. Gale is mine. I am his. Anything else is unthinkable. Why did it take him being whipped within an inch of his life to see it?

barf

I wish that Peeta were here to hold me, until I remember I’m not supposed to wish that anymore. I have chosen Gale and the rebellion, and a future with Peeta is the Capitol’s design, not mine.

Prim . . . Rue . . . aren’t they the very reason I have to try to fight? Because what has been done to them is so wrong, so beyond justification, so evil that there is no choice? Because no one has the right to treat them as they have been treated? Yes.

I really can’t think about kissing when I’ve got a rebellion to incite.

I also become a little fixated on his eyelashes, which ordinarily you don’t notice much because they’re so blond. But up close, in the sunlight slanting in from the window, they’re a light golden color and so long I don’t see how they keep from getting all tangled up when he blinks.

“You could live a hundred lifetimes and not deserve him, you know,” Haymitch says.

I open my mouth, planning to start off with some kind of joke, and burst into tears. So much for being strong.

my angel 😭

One night, as I’m walking Gale back into town, he even admits, “It’d be better if he were easier to hate.” “Tell me about it,” I say. “If I could’ve just hated him in the arena, we all wouldn’t be in this mess now. He’d be dead, and I’d be a happy little victor all by myself.”

“And where would we be, Katniss?” asks Gale.

SHUT UPPP

Things seemed clear in my head and even when I talked before the crowd, but the words never came out of the pen right. Besides, they were meant to go with embraces and kisses and a stroke of Prim’s hair, a caress of Gale’s face, a squeeze of Madge’s hand. They cannot be delivered with a wooden box containing my cold, stiff body.

Warmth radiates from the spot where his lips just touch my neck, slowly spreading through the rest of me. It feels so good, so impossibly good, that I know I will not be the first to let go.

I think I finally know who Haymitch is. And I’m beginning to know who I am. And surely, two people who have caused the Capitol so much trouble can think of a way to get Peeta home alive.

The idea of being strong for someone else having never entered their heads, I find myself in the position of having to console them. Since I’m the person going in to be slaughtered, this is somewhat annoying.

“Because you have a weakness for beautiful things and I don’t,” I say with an air of superiority. “They would lure you into their Capitol ways and you’d be lost entirely.” “Having an eye for beauty isn’t the same thing as a weakness,” Peeta points out. “Except possibly when it comes to you.”

I look up into those blue eyes that no amount of dramatic makeup can make truly deadly and remember how, just a year ago, I was prepared to kill him. Convinced he was trying to kill me. Now everything is reversed.

We star-crossed lovers from District 12, who suffered so much and enjoyed so little the rewards of our victory, do not seek the fans’ favor, grace them with our smiles, or catch their kisses. We are unforgiving. And I love it. Getting to be myself at last.

“They’re playing with you because you’re so . . . you know.” “No, I don’t know,” I say. And I really have no idea what he’s talking about. “It’s like when you wouldn’t look at me naked in the arena even though I was half dead. You’re so . . . pure,” he says finally.

For just one moment our hands meet. I can feel his skin, rough under the buttery sauce from the dish. In the tight, desperate clench of our fingers are all the words we will never be able to say.

Of course it’s Finnick, who seems to have spent his childhood doing nothing but wielding tridents and manipulating ropes into fancy knots for nets, I guess. I watch for a minute while he picks up a length of rope, makes a noose, and then pretends to hang himself for my amusement.

Johanna Mason is naked again and oiling her skin down for a wrestling lesson.

I look up and see Plutarch Heavensbee in the magnificent purple robe with the fur-trimmed collar that designates him as Head Gamemaker.

why didn’t we get to see him wear this

“Johanna’s nicknamed them Nuts and Volts,” he says. “I think she’s Nuts and he’s Volts.” “And so I’m stupid for thinking they might be useful. Because of something Johanna Mason said while she was oiling up her breasts for wrestling,” I retort.

Woof, a really old guy who’s hard of hearing and doesn’t seem to know what’s going on since he keeps trying to stuff poisonous bugs in his mouth.

Great. Now I have to go back and tell Haymitch I want an eighty-year-old and Nuts and Volts for my allies. He’ll love that.

And the more I come to know these people, the worse it is. Because, on the whole, I don’t hate them. And some I like. And a lot of them are so damaged that my natural instinct would be to protect them. But all of them must die if I’m to save Peeta.

“Actually, I painted a picture of Rue,” Peeta says. “How she looked after Katniss had covered her in flowers.” There’s a long pause at the table while everyone absorbs this. “And what exactly were you trying to accomplish?” Haymitch asks in a very measured voice. “I’m not sure. I just wanted to hold them accountable, if only for a moment,” says Peeta. “For killing that little girl.”

“I guess this is a bad time to mention I hung a dummy and painted Seneca Crane’s name on it,” I say. This has the desired effect. After a moment of disbelief, all the disapproval in the room hits me like a ton of bricks. “You . . . hung . . . Seneca Crane?” says Cinna. “Yes. I was showing off my new knot-tying skills, and he somehow ended up at the end of the noose,” I say.

“And, Haymitch?” says Peeta. “We decided we don’t want any other allies in the arena.” “Good. Then I won’t be responsible for you killing off any of my friends with your stupidity,” he says.

If I can make it clear that I’m still defying the Capitol right up to the end, the Capitol will have killed me . . . but not my spirit. What better way to give hope to the rebels?