Mockingjay (The Hunger Games, #3)

by Suzanne Collins

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

can’t believe you let him out of your sight that night,” says Haymitch. I nod. That’s it. “I play it over and over in my head. What I could have done to keep him by my side without breaking the alliance. But nothing comes to me.”

I do feel sick. Heartsick.

Peeta’s right. They do fall silent when I sing. Just as they did for my father.

“Because I’m in pain,” he says. “That’s the only way I get your attention.” He picks up the box. “Don’t worry, Katniss. It’ll pass.” He leaves before I can answer.

“That I knew I’d misjudged you. That you do love him. I’m not saying in what way. Maybe you don’t know yourself. But anyone paying attention could see how much you care about him,”

Several sets of arms would embrace me. But in the end, the only person I truly want to comfort me is Haymitch, because he loves Peeta, too.

The sixteen-year-old boy who won the second Quarter Quell must have had people he loved — family, friends, a sweetheart maybe — that he fought to get back to. Where are they now? How is it that until Peeta and I were thrust upon him, there was no one at all in his life? What did Snow do to them?

“She crept up on me.”

There’s a chance that the old Peeta, the one who loves you, is still inside. Trying to get back to you. Don’t give up on him.”

I look at my little sister and think how she has inherited the best qualities our family has to offer: my mother’s healing hands, my father’s level head, and my fight. There’s something else there as well, something entirely her own. An ability to look into the confusing mess of life and see things for what they are.

The kindness, the steadiness, the warmth that had an unexpected heat behind it.

“Take Peeta. Take me. Or even Finnick. I was starting to worry he had his eye on you, but he seems back on track now.” “You don’t know Finnick if you think he’d love me,” I say.

My father. He seems to be everywhere today.

But I’m tired of being a piece in their Games.” Peeta. On the rooftop the night before our first Hunger Games. He understood it all before we’d even set foot in the arena.

Never was I supposed to hear the words He says he’d like to see you. But now that I have, there’s no way to refuse.

“I must have loved you a lot.”

“You did.”

“Everyone says I did. Everyone says that’s why Snow had you tortured. To break me.”

those months of taking it for granted that Peeta thought I was wonderful are over.

The way it can make people kinder, funnier, more optimistic, and remind them it’s not a mistake to go on living. It’s better than any medicine.

“It’s the way he hates you. It’s so . . . familiar. I used to feel like that,” he admits. “When I’d watch you kissing him on the screen. Only I knew I wasn’t being entirely fair. He can’t see that.”

“I think . . . you still have no idea. The effect you can have.”

“I wake up ten times a night anyway.” “To make sure Katniss is still here?” asks Peeta. “Something like that,” Gale admits.

“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.”

“Katniss will pick whoever she thinks she can’t survive without.”

“Let me go!”

“I can’t,”

Haymitch drinks until the liquor runs out, and then raises geese until the next train arrives.