Mockingjay (The Hunger Games, #3)

by Suzanne Collins

“Want a sugar cube?”

Add their names to the list of things I can never stop owing him for.

It’s impossible to be the Mockingjay. Impossible to complete even this one sentence. Because now I know that everything I say will be directly taken out on Peeta. Result in his torture. But not his death, no, nothing so merciful as that. Snow will ensure that his life is much worse than death.

He’s not joking. This is a man who spent his adult life at the bottom of a bottle, trying to anesthetize himself against the Capitol’s crimes. 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?

“President Snow used to . . . sell me . . . my body, that is,”

“I wasn’t the only one. If a victor is considered desirable, the president gives them as a reward or allows people to buy them for an exorbitant amount of money. If you refuse, he kills someone you love. So you do it.”

“And now, on to our good President Coriolanus Snow,”

“Such a young man when he rose to power. Such a clever one to keep it. How, you must ask yourself, did he do it? One word. That’s all you really need to know. Poison.”

People dropping dead at a feast or slowly, inexplicably declining into shadows over a period of months. Blamed on bad shellfish, elusive viruses, or an overlooked weakness in the aorta. Snow drinking from the poisoned cup himself to deflect suspicion. But antidotes don’t always work. They say that’s why he wears the roses that reek of perfume. They say it’s to cover the scent of blood from the mouth sores that will never heal. They say, they say, they say . . . Snow has a list and no one knows who will be next.

Poison. The perfect weapon for a snake.

I’m left with Haymitch in the rubble, wondering if Finnick’s fate would have one day been mine. Why not? Snow could have gotten a really good price for the girl on fire.

“No. My mother and younger brother. My girl. They were all dead two weeks after I was crowned victor. Because of that stunt I pulled with the force field,”

“Snow had no one to use a...

“Oh, no. I was the example. The person to hold up to the young Finnicks and Johannas and Cashmeres. Of what could happen...

“But he knew he had no leverage ...

“Until Peeta and I ca...

The Mockingjay will not lose her voice.

My guess is that fearful events are the hardest to root out. They’re the ones we naturally remember the best, after all.”

Not only does he hate me and want to kill me, he no longer believes I’m human. It was less painful being strangled.

It’s only now that he’s been corrupted that I can fully appreciate the real Peeta. Even more than I would’ve if he’d died. The kindness, the steadiness, the warmth that had an unexpected heat behind it. Outside of Prim, my mother, and Gale, how many people in the world love me unconditionally? I think in my case, the answer may now be none. Sometimes when I’m alone, I take the pearl from where it lives in my pocket and try to remember the boy with the bread, the strong arms that warded off nightmares on the train, the kisses in the arena. To make myself put a name to the thing I’ve lost. But what’s the use? It’s gone. He’s gone. Whatever existed between us is gone. All that’s left is my promise to kill Snow. I tell myself this ten times a day.

I didn’t tell him his presence would make it even more difficult for me to mourn Peeta.

I’ll never compete with that. No matter how much pain I’m in.” He spins the feather between his thumb and forefinger. “I don’t stand a chance if he doesn’t get better. You’ll never be able to let him go. You’ll always feel wrong about being with me.”

Gale’s touch and taste and heat remind me that at least my body’s still alive, and for the moment it’s a welcome feeling. I empty my mind and let the sensations run through my flesh, happy to lose myself.

“I know he was desperate. That makes people do all kinds of crazy things.”

This is one of his death traps.

We both know I’m not above killing children, but I’m not wasteful. I take life for very specific reasons. And there was no reason for me to destroy a pen full of Capitol children. None at all.”

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. But I wasn’t watching Coin. I was watching you, Mockingjay. And you were watching me. I’m afraid we have both been played for fools.”

“Oh, my dear Miss Everdeen. I thought we had agreed not to lie to each other.”

sacrifices its children’s lives to settle its differences. You can spin it any way you like. Snow thought the Hunger Games were an efficient means of control. Coin thought the parachutes would expedite the war. But in the end, who does it benefit? No one. The truth is, it benefits no one to live in a world where these things happen.

“But collective thinking is usually short-lived. We’re fickle, stupid beings with poor memories and a great gift for self-destruction.

“Don’t be a stranger.”

“I don’t think being the mayor of Twelve put the odds in his favor,”

That what I need to survive is not Gale’s fire, kindled with rage and hatred. I have plenty of fire myself. What I need is the dandelion in the spring. The bright yellow that means rebirth instead of destruction. The promise that life can go on, no matter how bad our losses. That it can be good again. And only Peeta can give me that. So after, when he whispers, “You love me. Real or not real?” I tell him, “Real.”

But there are much worse games to play.