main entrance of the mine. We found our mother clenching the rope that had been hastily strung to keep the crowd back. In retrospect, I guess I should have known there was a problem right then. Because why were we looking for her, when the reverse should have been true?
The elevators were screeching, burning up and down their cables as they vomited smoke-blackened miners into the light of day. With each group came cries of relief, relatives diving under the rope to lead off their husbands, wives, children, parents, siblings. We stood in the freezing air as the afternoon turned overcast, a light snow dusted the earth. The elevators moved more slowly now and disgorged fewer beings. I knelt on the ground and pressed my hands into the cinders, wanting so badly to pull my father free. If there’s a more helpless feeling than trying to reach someone you love who’s trapped underground, I don’t know it. The wounded. The bodies. The waiting through the night. Blankets put around your shoulders by strangers. A mug of something hot that you don’t drink. And then finally, at dawn, the grieved expression on the face of the mine captain that could only mean one thing.
What did we just do?
„Katniss! Are you there?“ Haymitch is probably making plans to have me fitted for a head shackle at this very moment.
I drop my hands. „Yes.“
„Get inside. Just in case the Capitol tries to retaliate with what’s left of its air force,“ he instructs.
„Yes,“ I repeat. Everyone on the roof, except for the soldiers manning the machine guns, begin to make their way inside. As I descend the stairs, I can’t help brushing my fingers along the unblemished white marble walls. So cold and beautiful. Even in the Capitol, there’s nothing to match the magnificence of this old building. But there is no give to the surface—only my flesh yields, my warmth taken. Stone conquers people every time.
I sit at the base of one of the gigantic pillars in the great entrance hall. Through the doors I can see the white expanse of marble that leads to the steps on the square. I remember how sick I was the day Peeta and I accepted congratulations there for winning the Games. Worn down by the Victory Tour, failing in my attempt to calm the districts, facing the memories of Clove and Cato, particularly Cato’s gruesome, slow death by mutts.
Boggs crouches down beside me, his skin pale in the shadows. „We didn’t bomb the train tunnel, you know. Some of them will probably get out.“
„And then we’ll shoot them when they show their faces?“ I ask.
„Only if we have to,“ he answers.
„We could send in trains ourselves. Help evacuate the wounded,“ I say.
„No. It was decided to leave the tunnel in their hands. That way they can use all the tracks to bring people out,“ says Boggs. „Besides, it will give us time to get the rest of our soldiers to the square.“
A few hours ago, the square was a no-man’s-land, the front line of the fight between the rebels and the Peacekeepers. When Coin gave approval for Gale’s plan, the rebels launched a heated attack and drove the Capitol forces back several blocks so that we would control the train station in the event that the Nut fell. Well, it’s fallen. The reality has sunk in. Any survivors will escape to the square. I can hear the gunfire starting again, as the Peacekeepers are no doubt trying to fight their way in to rescue their comrades. Our own soldiers are being brought in to counter this.
„You’re cold,“ says Boggs. „I’ll see if I can find a blanket.“ He goes before I can protest. I don’t want a blanket, even if the marble continues to leech my body heat.
„Katniss,“ says Haymitch in my ear.
„Still here,“ I answer.
„Interesting turn of events with Peeta this afternoon. Thought you’d want to know,“ he says. Interesting isn’t good. It isn’t better. But I don’t really have any choice but to listen. „We showed him that clip of you singing ‘The Hanging Tree.’ It was never aired, so the Capitol couldn’t use it when he was being hijacked. He says he recognized the song.“
For a moment, my heart skips a beat. Then I realize it’s just more tracker jacker serum confusion. „He couldn’t, Haymitch. He never heard me sing that song.“
„Not you. Your father. He heard him singing it one day when he came to trade at the bakery. Peeta was small, probably six or seven, but he remembered it because he was specially listening to see if the birds stopped singing,“ says Haymitch. „Guess they did.“
Six or seven. That would have been before my mother banned the song. Maybe even right around the time I was learning it. „Was I there, too?“
„Don’t think so. No mention of you anyway. But it’s the first connection to you that hasn’t triggered some mental meltdown,“ says Haymitch. „It’s something, at least, Katniss.“
My father. He seems to be everywhere today. Dying in the mine. Singing his way into Peeta’s muddled consciousness. Flickering in the look Boggs gives me as he protectively wraps the blanket around my shoulders. I miss him so badly it hurts.
The gunfire’s really picking up outside. Gale hurries by with a group of rebels, eagerly headed for the battle. I don’t petition to join the fighters, not that they would let me. I have no stomach for it anyway, no heat in my blood. I wish Peeta was here—the old Peeta—because he would be able to articulate why it is so wrong to be exchanging fire when people, any people, are trying to claw their way out of the mountain. Or is my own history making me too sensitive? Aren’t we at war? Isn’t this just another way to kill our enemies?
Night falls quickly. Huge, bright spotlights are turned on, illuminating the square. Every bulb must be burning at full wattage inside the train station as well. Even from my position across the square, I can see clearly through the plate-glass front of the long, narrow building. It would be impossible to miss the arrival of a train, or even a single person. But hours pass and no one comes. With each minute, it becomes harder to imagine that anyone survived the assault on the Nut.
It’s well after midnight when Cressida comes to attach a special microphone to my costume. „What’s this for?“ I ask.
Haymitch’s voice comes on to explain. „I know you’re not going to like this, but we need you to make a speech.“
„A speech?“ I say, immediately feeling queasy.
„I’ll feed it to you, line by line,“ he assures me. „You’ll just have to repeat what I say. Look, there’s no sign of life from that mountain. We’ve won, but the fighting’s continuing. So we thought if you went out on the steps of the Justice Building and laid it out—told everybody that the Nut’s defeated, that the Capitol’s presence in District Two is finished—you might be able to get the rest of their forces to surrender.“
I peer at the darkness beyond the square. „I can’t even see their forces.“
„That’s what the mike’s for,“ he says. „You’ll be broadcast, both your voice through their emergency audio system, and your image wherever people have access to a screen.“
I know there are a couple of huge screens here on the square. I saw them on the Victory Tour. It might work, if I were good at this sort of thing. Which I’m not. They tried to feed me lines in those early experiments with the propos, too, and it was a flop.
„You could save a lot of lives, Katniss,“ Haymitch says finally.
„All right. I’ll give it a try,“ I tell him.
It’s strange standing outside at the top of the stairs, fully costumed, brightly lit, but with no visible audience to deliver my speech to. Like I’m doing a show for the moon.
„Let’s make this quick,“ says Haymitch. „You’re too exposed.“
My television crew, positioned out in the square with special cameras, indicates that they’re ready. I tell Haymitch to go ahead, then click on my mike and listen carefully to him dictate the first line of the speech. A huge image of me lights up one of the screens over the square as I begin. „People of District Two, this is Katniss Everdeen speaking to you from the steps of your Justice Building, where—“
The pair of trains comes screeching into the train station side by side. As the doors slide open, people tumble out in a cloud of smoke they’ve brought from the Nut. They must have had at least an inkling of what would await them at the square, because you can see them trying to act evasively. Most of them flatten on the floor, and a spray of bullets inside the station takes out the lights. They’ve come armed, as Gale predicted, but they’ve come wounded as well. The moans can be heard in the otherwise silent night air.
Someone kills the lights on the stairs, leaving me in the protection of shadow. A flame blooms inside the station—one of the trains must actually be on fire—and a thick, black smoke billows against the windows. Left with
