Mockingjay (The Hunger Games, #3)

by Suzanne Collins

Some walks you have to take alone.

Still, I hate them. But, of course, I hate almost everybody now. Myself more than anyone.

I’m somewhat fascinated by her hair, since it’s so uniform, so without a flaw, a wisp, even a split end.

Yesterday afternoon, as the door was closing behind me, I heard Coin say, “I told you we should have rescued the boy first.” Meaning Peeta. I couldn’t agree more. He

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.

It whispers, I can find you. I can reach you. Perhaps I am watching you now.

They would play dead in exchange for being left alone.

To murder innocent people?” says Peeta. “It costs everything you are.”

“Katniss . . . he’s still trying to keep you alive.” To keep me alive? And then I understand. The Games are still on. We have left the arena, but since Peeta and I weren’t killed, his last wish to preserve my life still stands.

“Katniss, I’m not arguing. If I could hit a button and kill every living soul working for the Capitol, I would do it. Without hesitation.” He slides the last pencil into the box and flips the lid closed. “The question is, what are you going to do?”

My mockingjay pin. Peeta’s token, the gold locket with photos of my mother and Prim and Gale inside. A silver parachute that holds a spile for tapping trees, and the pearl Peeta gave me a few hours before I blew out the force field.

She’s really gone, then. The little girl with the back of her shirt sticking out like a duck tail, the one who needed help reaching the dishes, and who begged to see the frosted cakes in the bakery window.

In some ways, District 13 is even more controlling than the Capitol.

“Katniss,” he says, gripping my hand. Relieved to see a familiar face, I think. “Why are we meeting here?” “I told Coin

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

But I don’t know what to tell him about the aftermath of killing a person. About how they never leave you.

“They’ll either want to kill you, kiss you, or be you.”

“That saves time. So, let’s all be quiet for a minute. I want everyone to think of one incident where Katniss Everdeen genuinely moved you. Not where you were jealous of her hairstyle, or her dress went up in flames or she made a halfway decent shot with an arrow. Not where Peeta was making you like her. I want to hear one moment where she made you feel something real.”

“We’re still in the game.” I try to say this with optimism, but my voice cracks. “Still in. And I’m still your mentor.” Haymitch points his marker at me. “When you’re on the ground, remember I’m airborne.

“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.

Love him

2 became the Capitol’s new center of defense, although it’s publicly presented as the home of the nation’s stone quarries, in the same way that 13 was known for graphite mining. District 2 not only manufactures weaponry, it trains and even supplies Peacekeepers.

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.

Mood girl

“This is Commander Paylor of Eight,” says Boggs. “Commander, Soldier Katniss Everdeen.”

I begin to fully understand the lengths to which people have gone to protect me. What I mean to the rebels. My ongoing struggle against the Capitol, which has so often felt like a solitary journey, has not been undertaken alone. I have had thousands upon thousands of people from the districts at my side. I was their Mockingjay long before I accepted the role.

Power. I have a kind of power I never knew I possessed. Snow knew it, as soon as I held out those berries. Plutarch knew when he rescued me from the arena. And Coin knows now. So much so that she must publicly remind her people that I am not in control.

I shift onto my side and find myself looking directly into Gale’s eyes. For an instant the world recedes and there is just his flushed face, his pulse visible at his temple, his lips slightly parted as he tries to catch his breath.

“I want to tell people that if you think for one second the Capitol will treat us fairly if there’s a cease-fire, you’re deluding yourself. Because you know who they are and what they do.” My hands go out automatically, as if to indicate the whole horror around me. “This is what they do! And we must fight back!”

You can torture us and bomb us and burn our districts to the ground, but do you see that?” One of the cameras follows as I point to the planes burning on the roof of the warehouse across from us. The Capitol seal on a wing glows clearly through the flames. “Fire is catching!” I am shouting now, determined that he will not miss a word. “And if we burn, you burn with us!”

Peeta’s

“There is,” says Peeta. He looks directly into the camera, right into my eyes. “Don’t be a fool, Katniss. Think for yourself. They’ve turned you into a weapon that could be instrumental in the destruction of humanity. If you’ve got any real influence, use it to put the brakes on this thing. Use it to stop the war before it’s too late. Ask yourself, do you really trust the people you’re working with? Do you really know what’s going on? And if you don’t . . . find out.”

“What?” I ask. “We didn’t see Peeta. Only the propo on Eight. Then we turned the set off because the images upset you. Got it?”

Hes still prptecting her

care. I’m sick of people lying to me for my own good. Because really it’s mostly for their own good.

I do feel sick. Heartsick.

But no birds, mockingjay or other. Peeta’s right. They do fall silent when I sing. Just as they did for my father.

Maybe his lover was already sentenced to death and he was trying to make it easier. To let her know he’d be waiting. Or maybe he thought the place he was leaving her was really worse than death.

I guess I walked here, but the next thing I’m conscious of is sitting on the floor in front of the kitchen cabinets of our house in the Victor’s Village. Meticulously lining ceramic jars and glass bottles into a box.

“Because I’m in pain,” he says. “That’s the only way I get your attention.” He picks up the box.

“Katniss . . . how do you think this will end? What will be left? 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!”

I am Avox mute, choking on my grief.

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

“Whatever it takes to break you.”

After your first Games, I thought the whole romance was an act on your part. We all expected you’d continue that strategy. But it wasn’t until Peeta hit the force field and nearly died that I —” Finnick hesitates.

“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,” he says gently.

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

Isnt that the truth

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

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

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. I reach out for him and say something like his name and he’s there, holding me and patting my back. “It’s okay. It’ll be okay, sweetheart.” He sits me on a length of broken marble pillar and keeps an arm around me while I sob.

Today I might lose both of them.

The sixteen-year-old boy who won the second Quarter Quell must have had people he