Mockingjay (The Hunger Games, #3)

by Suzanne Collins

I’m still not entirely convinced that I was hallucinating the night the floor of my hospital room transformed into a carpet of writhing snakes.

Some walks you have to take alone.

His calculating assistant, Fulvia Cardew.

the mad girl from his district who’s the only person on earth he loves.

And it takes too much energy to stay angry with someone who cries so much.

They would play dead in exchange for being left alone.

“I’m going to be the Mockingjay.”

I feel around for the parachute and slide my fingers inside until they close around the pearl. I sit back on my bed cross-legged and find myself rubbing the smooth iridescent surface of the pearl back and forth against my lips. For some reason, it’s soothing. A cool kiss from the giver himself.

“No, I want you to rethink it and come up with the right opinion,”

Thinking like your prey . . . that’s where you find their vulnerabilities,”

Finnick, who’s been wandering around the set for a few hours, comes up behind me and says with a hint of his old humor, “They’ll either want to kill you, kiss you, or be you.”

Finally, the intercom crackles and Haymitch’s acerbic laugh fills the studio. He contains himself just long enough to say, “And that, my friends, is how a revolution dies.”

For a second, I’m afraid he’s dying. I have to remind myself that I don’t care.

Gale does look striking in the uniform, I guess. But the question just embarrasses us both, given our history. I’m trying to think of a witty comeback, when Boggs says brusquely, “Well, don’t expect us to be too impressed. We just saw Finnick Odair in his underwear.” I decide to go ahead and like Boggs.

A twenty-year commitment to the Peacekeepers, no marriage, no children allowed. Some buy into it for the honor of the thing, others take it on as an alternative to punishment. For instance, join the Peacekeepers and your debts are forgiven.

Frankly, our ancestors don’t seem much to brag about. I mean, look at the state they left us in, with the wars and the broken planet. Clearly, they didn’t care about what would happen to the people who came after them. But this republic idea sounds like an improvement over our current government.

This is where they plan on filming me? I turn to Boggs. “This won’t work,” I say. “I won’t be good here.” He must see the panic in my eyes, because he stops a moment and places his hands on my shoulders. “You will. Just let them see you. That will do more for them than any doctor in the world could.”

“Fire is catching!” I am shouting now, determined that he will not miss a word. “And if we burn, you burn with us!”

Music draws mockingjays like blossoms do bees,

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

Poison. The perfect weapon for a snake.

“Not until all the districts are secure. Good news is, the fighting’s almost over in all of them but Two. It’s a tough nut to crack, though.”

After we stretch — which hurts — there’s a couple of hours of strengthening exercises — which hurt — and a five-mile run — which kills.

There’s no going back. So we might as well get on with things.”

“Let the Seventy-sixth Hunger Games begin!”

Behind a counter sits the strangest person I’ve ever seen. She’s an extreme example of surgical enhancement gone wrong, for surely not even in the Capitol could they find this face attractive. The skin has been pulled back tightly and tattooed with black and gold stripes. The nose has been flattened until it barely exists. I’ve seen cat whiskers on people in the Capitol before, but none so long. The result is a grotesque, semi-feline mask, which now squints at us distrustfully. Cressida takes off her wig, revealing her vines. “Tigris,” she says. “We need help.” Tigris. Deep in my brain, the name rings a bell. She was a fixture — a younger, less disturbing version of herself — in the earliest Hunger Games I can remember. A stylist, I think. I don’t remember for which district. Not 12. Then she must have had one operation too many and crossed the line into repellence.

I have a moment of panic and find myself turning to Tigris, searching those tawny eyes. Why is she doing this? She’s no Cinna, someone willing to sacrifice herself for others. This woman was the embodiment of Capitol shallowness. She was one of the stars of the Hunger Games until . . . until she wasn’t. So is that it, then? Bitterness? Hatred? Revenge? Actually, I’m comforted by the idea. A need for revenge can burn long and hot. Especially if every glance in a mirror reinforces it.

I can’t believe how normal they’ve made me look on the outside when inwardly I’m such a wasteland.

“I vote no with Peeta,” she says. “So would Finnick if he were here.” “But he isn’t, because Snow’s mutts killed him,” Johanna reminds her.

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.

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.

“You love me. Real or not real?” I tell him, “Real.”