The Hunger Games Trilogy

by Suzanne Collins

Gale’s voice is so full of pain I can’t help struggling to reach it. “It’s not him, Katniss! It’s a mutt!” Finnick shouts at me. “Come on!” He moves me along, half dragging, half carrying me, until I can process what he said. He’s right, it’s just another jabberjay. I can’t help Gale by chasing it down. But that doesn’t change the fact that it is Gale’s voice, and somewhere, sometime, someone has made him sound like this.

Then the birds begin to arrive. One by one. Perching in the surrounding branches. And a carefully orchestrated chorus of horror begins to spill out of their mouths.

I give up and curl up beside Finnick, trying to block out the excruciating sounds of Prim, Gale, my mother, Madge, Rory, Vick, even Posy, helpless little Posy. . . .

“Of course Peeta’s right. The whole country adores Katniss’s little sister. If they really killed her like this, they’d probably have an uprising on their hands,” says Johanna flatly. “Don’t want that, do they?” She throws back her head and shouts, “Whole country in rebellion? Wouldn’t want anything like that!”

“They can’t hurt me. I’m not like the rest of you. There’s no one left I love,” Johanna says, and frees her hand with an impatient shake.

So that’s who Finnick loves, I think. Not his string of fancy lovers in the Capitol. But a poor, mad girl back home.

“Because I don’t want you forgetting how different our circumstances are. If you die, and I live, there’s no life for me at all back in District Twelve. You’re my whole life,” he says. “I would never be happy again.” I start to object but he puts a finger to my lips. “It’s different for you. I’m not saying it wouldn’t be hard. But there are other people who’d make your life worth living.”

It’s not solid, as I had thought, but a locket. And within the locket are photos. On the right side, my mother and Prim, laughing. And on the left, Gale. Actually smiling.

PEETA 😭😭😭

Peeta’s intention is clear. That Gale really is my family, or will be one day, if I live. That I’ll marry him. So Peeta’s giving me his life and Gale at the same time. To let me know I shouldn’t ever have doubts about it. Everything. That’s what Peeta wants me to take from him.

I wait for him to mention the baby, to play to the cameras, but he doesn’t. And that’s how I know that none of this is part of the Games. That he is telling me the truth about what he feels.

I realize only one person will be damaged beyond repair if Peeta dies. Me. “I do,” I say. “I need you.”

Instead of satisfying me, the kisses have the opposite effect, of making my need greater. I thought I was something of an expert on hunger, but this is an entirely new kind.

He puts the chain with the locket around my neck, then rests his hand over the spot where our baby would be. “You’re going to make a great mother, you know,” he says. He kisses me one last time and goes back to Finnick.

kms

There’s nothing patronizing in his voice, and yet I can’t help thinking he reminds me of a schoolteacher about to ease children into a lesson. Perhaps it’s the age difference, or simply that Beetee is probably about a million times smarter than the rest of us.

Peeta rinses the pearl off in the water and hands it to me. “For you.” I hold it out on my palm and examine its iridescent surface in the sunlight. Yes, I will keep it. For the few remaining hours of my life I will keep it close. This last gift from Peeta. The only one I can really accept. Perhaps it will give me strength in the final moments.

look coolly into the blue eyes of the person who is now my greatest opponent, the person who would keep me alive at his own expense. And I promise myself I will defeat his plan.

I have the pearl, though, secured in a parachute with the spile and the medicine at my waist. I hope it makes it back to District 12. Surely my mother and Prim will know to return it to Peeta before they bury my body.

Peeta. My dying wish. My promise. To keep him alive.

Why would I need reminding? I have always known who the enemy is. Who starves and tortures and kills us in the arena. Who will soon kill everyone I love. My bow drops as his meaning registers. Yes, I know who the enemy is. And it’s not Enobaria.

Possibly I can bleed to death before they can revive me after all. In my mind, I whisper a thank-you to Johanna Mason for the excellent wound she inflicted as I black out.

“Peeta . . .” I whisper. I so wanted to protect him. Am still resolved to. Since I have failed to keep him safe in life, I must find him, kill him now before the Capitol gets to choose the agonizing means of his death.

It’s an awful lot to take in, this elaborate plan in which I was a piece, just as I was meant to be a piece in the Hunger Games. Used without consent, without knowledge. At least in the Hunger Games, I knew I was being played with. My supposed friends have been a lot more secretive.

“We had to save you because you’re the mockingjay, Katniss,” says Plutarch. “While you live, the revolution lives.” The bird, the pin, the song, the berries, the watch, the cracker, the dress that burst into flames. I am the mockingjay. The one that survived despite the Capitol’s plans. The symbol of the rebellion.

I think of Haymitch’s sneering at my plans to flee District 12, start my own uprising, even the very notion that District 13 could exist. Subterfuges and deceptions. And if he could do that, behind his mask of sarcasm and drunkenness, so convincingly and for so long, what else has he lied about? I know what else.

Technically, I am unarmed. But no one should ever underestimate the harm that fingernails can do, especially if the target is unprepared. I lunge across the table and rake mine down Haymitch’s face, causing blood to flow and damage to one eye.

Other hands help Finnick and I’m back on my table, my body restrained, my wrists tied down, so I slam my head in fury again and again against the table. A needle pokes my arm and my head hurts so badly I stop fighting and simply wail in a horrible, dying-animal way, until my voice gives out.

sobbing

All I can think of is Peeta, lying on a similar table somewhere, while they try to break him for information he doesn’t even have.

“I wish she was dead,” he says. “I wish they were all dead and we were, too. It would be best.”

But will Peeta know that or will he keep fighting? He’s so strong and such a good liar. Does he think he has a chance of surviving? Does he even care if he does? He wasn’t planning on it, anyway. He had already signed off on life. Maybe, if he knows I was rescued, he’s even happy. Feels he fulfilled his mission to keep me alive. I think I hate him even more than I do Haymitch.

My death could, in fact, still save him. If it can’t, no matter. It’s enough to die of spite. To punish Haymitch, who, of all the people in this rotting world, has turned Peeta and me into pieces in his Games. I trusted him. I put what was precious in Haymitch’s hands. And he has betrayed me.

“Katniss,” Gale says softly. I recognize that voice. It’s the same one he uses to approach wounded animals before he delivers a deathblow. I instinctively raise my hand to block his words but he catches it and holds on tightly. “Don’t,” I whisper. But Gale is not one to keep secrets from me. “Katniss, there is no District Twelve.”

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

Some were incinerated entirely. But others, probably overcome with smoke, escaped the worst of the flames and now lie reeking in various states of decomposition, carrion for scavengers, blanketed by flies. I killed you, I think as I pass a pile. And you. And you.

Gale had two sets of bows and arrows, one hunting knife, one fishing net, and over eight hundred terrified people to feed. With the help of those who were able-bodied, they managed for three days.

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

squeeze my eyes shut and try to reach for him across the hundreds and hundreds of miles, to send my thoughts into his mind, to let him know he is not alone. But he is. And I can’t help him.

Ashes billow up around me, and I pull the hem of my shirt up over my mouth. It’s not wondering what I breathe in, but who, that threatens to choke me.

They have a whole team of people to make me over, dress me, write my speeches, orchestrate my appearances — as if that doesn’t sound horribly familiar — and all I have to do is play my part.

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

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

MY ANGEL

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

“It costs your life,” says Caesar. “Oh, no. It costs a lot more than your life. To murder innocent people?” says Peeta. “It costs everything you are.” “Everything you are,” repeats Caesar quietly.

Peeta’s alive. And a traitor. But at the moment, I don’t care. Not what he says, or who he says it for, only that he is still capable of speech.

What am I going to do? I take a deep breath. My arms rise slightly — as if recalling the black-and-white wings Cinna gave me — then come to rest at my sides. “I’m going to be the Mockingjay.”

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

My skin itches with the ashes of the dead. I feel the sickening impact of the skull against my shoe. The scent of blood and roses stings my nose. The pencil moves across the page on its own. I open my eyes and see the wobbly letters. I KILL SNOW. If he’s captured, I want the privilege.

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

“You will personally pledge this in front of the entire population of District Thirteen and the remainder of Twelve. Soon. Today. It will be recorded for future generations. You will hold yourself and your government responsible for their safety, or you’ll find yourself another Mockingjay!”

“Just one more thing. I kill Snow.” For the first time ever, I see the hint of a smile on the president’s lips. “When the time comes, I’ll flip you for it.”

On the final page, under a sketch of my mockingjay pin, Cinna’s written, I’m still betting on you.