Mockingjay (The Hunger Games, #3)

by Suzanne Collins

But the truth is, I don’t trust the rebels or Plutarch or Coin.

No one mentions Peeta.

“I think his actual words were ‘I couldn’t face it without a bottle,’

have not sung “The Hanging Tree” out loud for ten years, because it’s forbidden,

They do fall silent when I sing. Just as they did for my father.

So, of course, every word was immediately, irrevocably branded into my brain.

In the final stanza, it’s clear that that’s what he’s waiting for. His lover, with her rope necklace, hanging dead next to him in the tree.

Didn’t I want to kill Peeta with that syringe to save him from the Capitol?

“There’s no one left to hear you.”

“Maybe I’ll be like that man in ‘The Hanging Tree.’ Still waiting for an answer.”

smile. “I knew you’d kiss me.” “How?” I say. Because I didn’t know myself. “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.

No one is safe. Not in the Capitol. Not in the districts. And you . . . in Thirteen . . .” He inhales sharply, as if fighting for air; his eyes look insane. “Dead by morning!”

Questions and demands ring out as they try to decipher Peeta’s words. “And you . . . in Thirteen . . . dead by morning!” Yet no one is asking about the messenger whose blood has been replaced by static.

“It’s not some big mystery! The boy’s telling us we’re about to be attacked. Here. In Thirteen.”

“Yes! Perfect. One is always much braver with an audience,” he says. “Look at the courage Peeta just displayed!”

We’re all going to die, I think.

The wherewithal. A general term that somehow includes everything that was needed for him to sound the alarm. The knowledge, the opportunity, the courage.

“If he does, he won’t have anyone left you want. He won’t have any way to hurt you.”

“They can’t hurt me. I’m not like the rest of you. There’s no one left I love.”

“Whatever it takes to break you.”

as we wait to be released from our prison of safety. What will break me into a million pieces so that I am beyond repair, beyond usefulness?

This strategy is very old news to Finnick. It’s what broke him.

“They know I’d never have risked telling her anything like that. For her own protection.”

“They’ll figure out he doesn’t know anything pretty fast. And they won’t kill him if they think they can use him against you.”

takes ten times as long to put yourself back together as it does to fall apart.”

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

Peeta and I performed our post-victory interview. Flowers not meant for one, but for a pair of lovers.

Designed to unhinge me.

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.

“She’s figured out how Snow’s using Peeta,” says Finnick.

Because, beyond the military disadvantage losing a Mockingjay entails, I am broken.

“It’s okay. It’ll be okay, sweetheart.”

“All I can think of is — what he’s going to do to Peeta — because I’m the Mockingjay!”

“Did you see? How weird he acted? What are they — doing to him?”

“It’s my ...

“You know who else, Katniss. You know who stepped up first.”

Gale.

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?

“Don’t you see, Katniss, this will decide things. One way or the other. By the end of the day, they’ll either be dead or with us. It’s . . . it’s more than we could hope for!”

you refuse, he kills someone you love.

“And this is where you’re going to want to stay tuned, President Snow, because so very many of them were about you. But let’s begin with some of the others.”

“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.”

“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,” he answers. “Snow had no one to use against me.”

The person to hold up to the young Finnicks and Johannas and Cashmeres. Of what could happen to a victor who caused problems,”

“But he knew he had no leverage against me.”

Johanna Mason. Who actually knew rebel secrets. At least the one about me. And this is how she has paid for it.

lips are just forming his name when his fingers lock around my throat.

For someone to make Peeta forget he loves me . . . no one could do that.

think Peeta might get somewhat better. But . . . I don’t think he’ll ever be the

We’ve no idea what happened to Effie Trinket.