I creep down a narrow hallway to a metal door that stands slightly ajar. Someone is behind it. I take out the syringe and grip it in my hand. Flattening myself against the wall, I listen to the voices inside.
“Communications are down in Seven, Ten, and Twelve. But Eleven has control of transportation now, so there's at least a hope of them getting some food out.”
Plutarch Heavensbee. I think. Although I've only really spoken with him once. A hoarse voice asks a question.
“No, I'm sorry. There's no way I can get you to Four. But I've given special orders for her retrieval if possible. It's the best I can do, Finnick.”
Finnick. My mind struggles to make sense of the conversation, of the fact that it's taking place between Plutarch Heavensbee and Finnick. Is he so near and dear to the Capitol that he'll be excused his crimes? Or did he really have no idea what Beetee intended? He croaks out something else. Something heavy with despair.
“Don't be stupid. That's the worst thing you could do. Get her killed for sure. As long as
Says Haymitch! I bang through the door and stumble into the room. Haymitch, Plutarch, and a very beat-up Finnick sit around a table laid with a meal no one is eating. Daylight streams in the curved windows, and in the distance I see the top of a forest of trees. We are flying.
“Done knocking yourself out, sweetheart?” says Haymitch, the annoyance clear in his voice. But as I careen forward he steps up and catches my wrists, steadying me. He looks at my hand. “So it's you and a syringe against the Capitol? See, this is why no one lets you make the plans.” I stare at him uncomprehendingly. “Drop it.” I feel the pressure increase on my right wrist until my hand is forced to open and I release the syringe. He settles me in a chair next to Finnick.
Plutarch puts a bowl of broth in front of me. A roll. Slips a spoon into my hand. “Eat,” he says in a much kinder voice than Haymitch used.
Haymitch sits directly in front of me. “Katniss, I'm going to explain what happened. I don't want you to ask any questions until I'm through. Do you understand?”
I nod numbly. And this is what he tells me.
There was a plan to break us out of the arena from the moment the Quell was announced. The victor tributes from 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, and 11 had varying degrees of knowledge about it. Plutarch Heavensbee has been, for several years, part of an undercover group aiming to overthrow the Capitol. He made sure the wire was among the weapons. Beetee was in charge of blowing a hole in the force field. The bread we received in the arena was code for the time of the rescue. The district where the bread originated indicated the day. Three. The number of rolls the hour. Twenty-four. The hovercraft belongs to District 13. Bonnie and Twill, the women I met in the woods from 8, were right about its existence and its defense capabilities. We are currently on a very roundabout journey to District 13. Meanwhile, most of the districts in Panem are in full-scale rebellion.
Haymitch stops to see if I am following. Or maybe he is done for the moment.
It's an awful lot to take in, this elaborate plan in which I was a piece, just as I was meant to be a piece in the Hunger Games. Used without consent, without knowledge. At least in the Hunger Games, I knew I was being played with.
My supposed friends have been a lot more secretive.
“You didn't tell me.” My voice is as ragged as Finnick's.
“Neither you nor Peeta were told. We couldn't risk it,” says Plutarch. “I was even worried you might mention my indiscretion with the watch during the Games.” He pulls out his pocket watch and runs his thumb across the crystal, lighting up the mockingjay. “Of course, when I showed you this, I was merely tipping you off about the arena. As a mentor. I thought it might be a first step toward gaining your trust. I never dreamed you'd be a tribute again.”
“I still don't understand why Peeta and I weren't let in on the plan,” I say.
“Because once the force field blew, you'd be the first ones they'd try to capture, and the less you knew, the better,” says Haymitch.
“The first ones? Why?” I say, trying to hang on to the train of thought.
“For the same reason the rest of us agreed to die to keep you alive,” says Finnick.
“No, Johanna tried to kill me,” I say.
“Johanna knocked you out to cut the tracker from your arm and lead Brutus and Enobaria away from you,” says Haymitch.
“What?” My head aches so and I want them to stop talking in circles. “I don't know what you're—”
“We had to save you because you're the mockingjay, Katniss,” says Plutarch. “While you live, the revolution lives.”
The bird, the pin, the song, the berries, the watch, the cracker, the dress that burst into flames. I am the mockingjay.
The one that survived despite the Capitol's plans. The symbol of the rebellion.
It's what I suspected in the woods when I found Bonnie and Twill escaping. Though I never really understood the magnitude. But then, I wasn't meant to understand. I think of Haymitch's sneering at my plans to flee District 12, start my own uprising, even the very notion that District 13 could exist. Subterfuges and deceptions. And if he could do that, behind his mask of sarcasm and drunkenness, so convincingly and for so long, what else has he lied about? I know what else.
“Peeta,” I whisper, my heart sinking.
“The others kept Peeta alive because if he died, we knew there'd be no keeping you in an alliance,” says Haymitch. “And we couldn't risk leaving you unprotected.” His words are matter-of-fact, his expression unchanged, but he can't hide the tinge of gray that colors his face.
“Where is Peeta?” I hiss at him.
“He was picked up by the Capitol along with Johanna and Enobaria,” says Haymitch. And finally he has the decency to drop his gaze.
Technically, I am unarmed. But no one should ever underestimate the harm that fingernails can do, especially if the target is unprepared. I lunge across the table and rake mine down Haymitch's face, causing blood to flow and damage to one eye. Then we are both screaming terrible, terrible things at each other, and Finnick is trying to drag me out, and I know it's all Haymitch can do not to rip me apart, but I'm the mockingjay. I'm the mockingjay and it's too hard keeping me alive as it is.
Other hands help Finnick and I'm back on my table, my body restrained, my wrists tied down, so I slam my head in fury again and again against the table. A needle pokes my arm and my head hurts so badly I stop fighting and simply wail in a horrible, dying-animal way, until my voice gives out.
The drug causes sedation, not sleep, so I am trapped in fuzzy, dully aching misery for what seems like always. They reinsert their tubes and talk to me in soothing voices that never reach me. All I can think of is Peeta, lying on a similar table somewhere, while they try to break him for information he doesn't even have.
“Katniss. Katniss, I'm sorry.” Finnick's voice comes from the bed next to me and slips into my consciousness. Perhaps because we're in the same kind of pain. “I wanted to go back for him and Johanna, but I couldn't move.”
I don't answer. Finnick Odair's good intentions mean less than nothing.
“It's better for him than Johanna. 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,” says Finnick.
“Like bait?” I say to the ceiling. “Like how they'll use Annie for bait, Finnick?”
I can hear him weeping but I don't care. They probably won't even bother to question her, she's so far gone. Gone right off the deep end years ago in her Games. There's a good chance I'm headed in the same direction. Maybe I'm already going crazy and no one has the heart to tell me. I feel crazy enough.
“I wish she was dead,” he says. “I wish they were all dead and we were, too. It would be best.”
Well, there's no good response to that. I can hardly dispute it since I was walking around with a syringe to kill Peeta when I found them. Do I really want him dead? What I want… what I want is to have him back. But I'll never get him back now. Even if the rebel forces could somehow overthrow the Capitol, you can be sure President Snow's last act would be to cut Peeta's throat. No. I will never get him back. So then dead is best.
But will Peeta know that or will he keep fighting? He's so strong and such a good liar. Does he think he has
