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We found our mother clenching the rope that had been hastily strung to keep the crowd back. In retrospect, I guess I should have known there was a problem right then. Because why were we looking for her, when the reverse should have been true?
I’m tired of being a piece in their Games.”
instead of a stab of sorrow, I merely feel emptiness. A hollow of dead brush where flowers used to bloom.
“But that kind of thinking . . . you could turn it into an argument for killing anyone at any time.
“That’s one of the few things I won’t have to pretend,
“Are you going to miss the chance to let Snow see you dancing?”
As surely as the embroidery stitches in Annie’s gown were done by Cinna’s hand, the frosted flowers on the cake were done by Peeta’s.
“He says he’d like to see you.”
“Katniss. I remember about the bread.”
“I must have loved you a lot.”
“Well, you’re a piece of work, aren’t you?”
All those months of taking it for granted that Peeta thought I was wonderful are over. Finally, he can see me for who I really am. Violent. Distrustful. Manipulative. Deadly. And I hate him for it.
He never lets go of Annie’s hand. Not when they walk, not when they eat. I doubt he ever plans to.
“Let the Seventy-sixth Hunger Games begin!”
“This time Snow will be a player, too.”
“Why do you think I’m going, anyway, brainless?”
“Next time we see each other, we’ll be free of him,”
the boy with the bread.
So what I need to do is steal Boggs’s activated Holo and clear out before he notices. I think it would be easier to steal his teeth.
if Coin sent Peeta here, she’s decided something else as well. That I’m of more use to her dead than alive.
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?”
“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.”
And you always double-knot your shoelaces.”
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
“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.”
“Stay with me.” His pupils contract to pinpoints, dilate again rapidly, and then return to something resembling normalcy. “Always,” he murmurs.
To believe them dead is to accept I killed them.
“I think . . . you still have no idea. The effect you can have.”
“No one knows what to do with you, girlie.”
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.
“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
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“Katniss will pick whoever she thinks she can’t survive without.”
Closing my eyes doesn’t help. Fire burns brighter in the darkness.
I have learned the hard way how deadly these beauties can be.
Who knows, after all, when her own power might fade?
The first bomb killed the victims. The second, the rescuers. Remembering Gale’s words. “Beetee and I have been following the same rule book President Snow used when he hijacked Peeta.”
After all, it was Thirteen that started the rebellion that led to the Dark Days, and then abandoned the rest of the districts when the tide turned against it.
I refuse for this to be true. Some things even I can’t survive. I utter my first words since my sister’s death. “I don’t believe you.” Snow shakes his head in mock disappointment. “Oh, my dear Miss Everdeen. I thought we had agreed not to lie to each other.”
“Was it your bomb?” “I don’t know. Neither does Beetee,” he says. “Does it matter? You’ll always be thinking about it.”
I will never be able to separate that moment from Gale.
“What has been proposed is that in lieu of eliminating the entire Capitol population, we have a final, symbolic Hunger Games, using the children directly related to those who held the most power.”
“We hold another Hunger Games using Capitol children,” says Coin.
We have to stop viewing one another as enemies.
Nothing has changed. Nothing will ever change now.
It’s as if he’s speaking the words again. “Oh, my dear Miss Everdeen. I thought we had agreed not to lie to each other.” He’s right. We did. The point of my arrow shifts upward. I release the string. And President Coin collapses over the side of the balcony and plunges to the ground. Dead.
Sorry excuses for hunters and friends. Both of us.
They can fatten me up. They can give me a full body polish, dress me up, and make me beautiful again. They can design dream weapons that come to life in my hands, but they will never again brainwash me into the necessity of using them.
Because something is significantly wrong with a creature that sacrifices its children’s lives to settle its differences.
The truth is, it benefits no one to live in a world where these things happen.
collective thinking is usually short-lived. We’re fickle, stupid beings with poor memories and a great gift for self-destruction.
