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Since I’ve been home I’ve been trying hard to mend my relationship with my mother. Asking her to do things for me instead of brushing aside any offer of help, as I did for years out of anger. Letting her handle all the money I won. Returning her hugs instead of tolerating them. My time in the arena made me realize how I needed to stop punishing her for something she couldn’t help, specifically the crushing depression she fell into after my father’s death.
Because sometimes things happen to people and they’re not equipped to deal with them. Like me, for instance. Right now.
I wish the tub would expand so I could go swimming, like I used to on hot summer Sundays in the woods with my father. Those days were a special treat. We would leave early in the morning and hike farther into the woods than usual to a small lake he’d found while hunting. I don’t even remember learning to swim, I was so young when he taught me. I just remember diving, turning somersaults, and paddling around. The muddy bottom of the lake beneath my toes. The smell of blossoms and greenery. Floating on my back, as I am now, staring at the blue sky while the chatter of the woods was muted by the
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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 don’t have a talent, unless you count hunting illegally, which they don’t. Or maybe singing, which I wouldn’t do for the Capitol in a million years.
Bam! It’s like someone actually hits me in the chest. No one has, of course, but the pain is so real I take a step back. I squeeze my eyes shut and I don’t see Prim — I see Rue, the twelve-year-old girl from District 11 who was my ally in the arena. She could fly, birdlike, from tree to tree, catching on to the slenderest branches. Rue, who I didn’t save. Who I let die. I picture her lying on the ground with the spear still wedged in her stomach. . . . Who else will I fail to save from the Capitol’s vengeance? Who else will be dead if I don’t satisfy President Snow?
My mother hurries up with something cupped in her hand. “For good luck,” she says. It’s the pin Madge gave me before I left for the Games. A mockingjay flying in a circle of gold. I tried to give it to Rue but she wouldn’t take it. She said the pin was the reason she’d decided to trust me.
we fall into the snow, me on top of him, and that’s where we have our first kiss in months. It’s full of fur and snowflakes and lipstick, but underneath all that, I can feel the steadiness that Peeta brings to everything. And I know I’m not alone.
I could do a lot worse than Peeta. That isn’t really the point, though, is it? One of the few freedoms we have in District 12 is the right to marry who we want or not marry at all. And now even that has been taken away from me.
I wonder if President Snow will insist we have children. If we do, they’ll have to face the reaping each year. And wouldn’t it be something to see the child of not one but two victors chosen for the arena? Victors’ children have been in the ring before. It always causes a lot of excitement and generates talk about how the odds are not in that family’s favor. But it happens too frequently to just be about odds.
Given all the trouble I’ve caused, I’ve probably guaranteed any child of mi...
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In the arena, I’d played that romance angle for all it was worth. There had been times when I didn’t honestly know how I felt about him. I still don’t, really.
“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.”
President Snow is right. A spark could be enough to set them ablaze.
Apparently my mockingjay pin has spawned a new fashion sensation, because several people come up to show me their accessories. My bird has been replicated on belt buckles, embroidered into silk lapels, even tattooed in intimate places. Everyone wants to wear the winner’s token. I can only imagine how nuts that makes President Snow.
A mockingbird is just a songbird. A mockingjay is a creature the Capitol never intended to exist. They hadn’t counted on the highly controlled jabberjay having the brains to adapt to the wild, to pass on its genetic code, to thrive in a new form. They hadn’t anticipated its will to live.
If I had just killed myself with those berries, none of this would’ve happened. Peeta could have come home and lived, and everyone else would have been safe, too.” “Safe to do what?” he says in a gentler tone. “Starve? Work like slaves? Send their kids to the reaping? You haven’t hurt people — you’ve given them an opportunity. They just have to be brave enough to take it.
“Doesn’t sound like much good for any of us,” says Haymitch. Snow begins, thick and wet, making visibility even more difficult. I stumble up the walk to my house behind the others, using my ears more than my eyes to guide me. A golden light colors the snow as the door opens.
After a while, my mother comes in and treats my face. Then she holds my hand, stroking my arm, while Haymitch fills her in on what happened with Gale. “So it’s starting again?” she says. “Like before?” “By the looks of it,” he answers.
At some point, you have to stop running and turn around and face whoever wants you dead. The hard thing is finding the courage to do it.
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. This is the thing to remember when fear threatens to swallow me up. What I am about to do, whatever any of us are forced to endure, it is for them. It’s too late to help Rue, but maybe not too late for those five little faces that looked up at me from the square in District 11. Not too late for Rory and Vick and Posy. Not too late for Prim.
“So we’re all heading off into the great unknown, are we?” he asks me. “No,” I say. “Not anymore.” “Worked through the flaws in that plan, did you, sweetheart?” he asks. “Any new ideas?” “I want to start an uprising,” I say. Haymitch just laughs. It’s not even a mean laugh, which is more troubling. It shows he can’t even take me seriously. “Well, I want a drink. You let me know how that works out for you, though,” he says.
“Haymitch, you don’t think everyone was still in — ” I can’t finish the sentence. “Nah, they’re smarter than that. You’d be, too, if you’d been around longer,” he says. “Well, I better go see how much rubbing alcohol the apothecary can spare.”
I’m determined, for some reason, to get to the lake. Maybe to say good-bye to the place, to my father and the happy times we spent there, because I know I’ll probably never return. Maybe just so I can draw a complete breath again. Part of me doesn’t really care if they catch me, if I can see it one more time.
“Fine. Somebody else can arrange to get the stupid goat knocked up,” I say, which makes them laugh more. And I think, This is why they’ve made it this far, Haymitch and Peeta. Nothing throws them.
That was the year Haymitch won. . . . “I had a friend who went that year,” says my mother quietly. “Maysilee Donner. Her parents owned the sweetshop. They gave me her songbird after. A canary.” Prim and I exchange a look. It’s the first we’ve ever heard of Maysilee Donner. Maybe because my mother knew we would want to know how she died.
I hear President Snow’s voice in my head. “On the seventy-fifth anniversary, as a reminder to the rebels that even the strongest among them cannot overcome the power of the Capitol, the male and female tributes will be reaped from their existing pool of victors.” Yes, victors are our strongest. They’re the ones who survived the arena and slipped the noose of poverty that strangles the rest of us. They, or should I say we, are the very embodiment of hope where there is no hope. And now twenty-three of us will be killed to show how even that hope was an illusion.
While I was wallowing around on the floor of that cellar, thinking only of myself, he was here, thinking only of me. Shame isn’t a strong enough word for what I feel. “You could live a hundred lifetimes and not deserve him, you know,” Haymitch says.
“It’d be bad for you in the arena, wouldn’t it? Knowing all the others?” I ask. “Oh, I think we can count on it being unbearable wherever I am.” He nods at the bottle. “Can I have that back now?”
“Besides, the Capitol hates me so much, I’m as good as dead now. He still might have a chance. Please, Haymitch. Say you’ll help me.” He frowns at his bottle, weighing my words. “All right,” he says finally.
Haymitch says the last thing President Snow would’ve wanted was to show Peeta and me — especially me — bonding with other victors in potentially rebellious districts. Victors have a special status, and if they appeared to be supporting my defiance of the Capitol, it would’ve been dangerous politically.
Then she catches Haymitch’s name. He barely has time to shoot me an unhappy look before Peeta has volunteered to take his place.
He holds her hand while she dies, and all I can think of is Rue and how I was too late to save her, too.
Haymitch found a way to turn it into a weapon.” “Not just against the other tributes, but the Capitol, too,” I say. “You know they didn’t expect that to happen. It wasn’t meant to be part of the arena. They never planned on anyone using it as a weapon. It made them look stupid that he figured it out. I bet they had a good time trying to spin that one. Bet that’s why I don’t remember seeing it on television. It’s almost as bad as us and the berries!”
“Want a sugar cube?” he says, offering his hand, which is piled high. “They’re supposed to be for the horses, but who cares? They’ve got years to eat sugar, whereas you and I . . . well, if we see something sweet, we better grab it quick.”
“It’s too bad about this Quell thing. You could have made out like a bandit in the Capitol. Jewels, money, anything you wanted.” “I don’t like jewels, and I have more money than I need. What do you spend all yours on, anyway, Finnick?” I say.
“Then how do they pay you for the pleasure of your company?” I ask. “With secrets,” he says softly. He tips his head in so his lips are almost in contact with mine. “What about you, girl on fire? Do you have any secrets worth my time?”
“Well, Wiress and Beetee are smart. They invent things. They could tell by sight that a force field had been put up between us and the Gamemakers. And if we have to have allies, I want them.”
“I know. But maybe Haymitch is right,” I say. “Don’t tell him I said so, but he usually is, where the Games are concerned.”
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.
“So good that Brutus wants you?” I shrug. “But I don’t want Brutus. I want Mags and District Three.” “Of course you do.” Haymitch sighs and orders a bottle of wine. “I’ll tell everybody you’re still making up your mind.”
“I don’t want them as allies. Why did Haymitch want us to get to know them?” I say. “It’ll make it so much harder than last time. Except for Rue maybe. But I guess I never really could’ve killed her, anyway. She was just too much like Prim.” Peeta looks up at me, his brow creased in thought. “Her death was the most despicable, wasn’t it?”
I don’t want Peeta singling himself out as a target for the Gamemakers’ anger. That’s part of my job. To draw fire away from Peeta. But how did he upset them? Because I’d love to do just that and more. To break through the smug veneer of those who use their brains to find amusing ways to kill us. To make them realize that while we’re vulnerable to the Capitol’s cruelties, they are as well.
“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.”
Cinna, I think you better take a bow!” Caesar gestures for Cinna to rise. He does, and makes a small, gracious bow. And suddenly I am so afraid for him. What has he done? Something terribly dangerous. An act of rebellion in itself. And he’s done it for me. I remember his words . . . “Don’t worry. I always channel my emotions into my work. That way I don’t hurt anyone but myself.” . . . and I’m afraid he has hurt himself beyond repair. The significance of my fiery transformation will not be lost on President Snow.
By the time the anthem plays its final strains, all twenty-four of us stand in one unbroken line in what must be the first public show of unity among the districts since the Dark Days. You can see the realization of this as the screens begin to pop into blackness. It’s too late, though. In the confusion they didn’t cut us off in time. Everyone has seen.
“Any last words of advice?” Peeta asks. “Stay alive,” Haymitch says gruffly. That’s almost an old joke with us now.
“Katniss, when you’re in the arena,” he begins. Then he pauses. He’s scowling in a way that makes me sure I’ve already disappointed him. “What?” I ask defensively. “You just remember who the enemy is,” Haymitch tells me. “That’s all. Now go on. Get out of here.”
“Remember, girl on fire,” he says, “I’m still betting on you.” He kisses my forehead and steps back as the glass cylinder slides down around me.
I squint down at my feet and see that my metal plate is surrounded by blue waves that lap up over my boots. Slowly I raise my eyes and take in the water spreading out in every direction. I can only form one clear thought. This is no place for a girl on fire.
