numbers are even fewer. Our conditions more tenuous. Is this really what we want to do? Kill ourselves off completely? In the hopes that—what? Some decent species will inherit the smoking remains of the earth?»
«I don’t really…I’m not sure I’m following…» says Caesar.
«We can’t fight one another, Caesar,» Peeta explains. «There won’t be enough of us left to keep going. If everybody doesn’t lay down their weapons—and I mean, as invery soon —it’s all over, anyway.»
«So…you’re calling for a cease-fire?» Caesar asks.
«Yes. I’m calling for a cease-fire,» says Peeta tiredly. «Now why don’t we ask the guards to take me back to my quarters so I can build another hundred card houses?»
Caesar turns to the camera. «All right. I think that wraps it up. So back to our regularly scheduled programming.»
Music plays them out, and then there’s a woman reading a list of expected shortages in the Capitol—fresh fruit, solar batteries, soap. I watch her with uncharacteristic absorption, because I know everyone will be waiting for my reaction to the interview. But there’s no way I can process it all so quickly—the joy of seeing Peeta alive and unharmed, his defense of my innocence in collaborating with the rebels, and his undeniable complicity with the Capitol now that he’s called for a cease-fire. Oh, he made it sound as if he were condemning both sides in the war. But at this point, with only minor victories for the rebels, a cease-fire could only result in a return to our previous status. Or worse.
Behind me, I can hear the accusations against Peeta building. The wordstraitor ,liar , andenemy bounce off the walls. Since I can neither join in the rebels’ outrage nor counter it, I decide the best thing to do is clear out. As I reach the door, Coin’s voice rises above the others. «You have not been dismissed, Soldier Everdeen.»
One of Coin’s men lays a hand on my arm. It’s not an aggressive move, really, but after the arena, I react defensively to any unfamiliar touch. I jerk my arm free and take off running down the halls. Behind me, there’s the sound of a scuffle, but I don’t stop. My mind does a quick inventory of my odd little hiding places, and I wind up in the supply closet, curled up against a crate of chalk.
«You’re alive,» I whisper, pressing my palms against my cheeks, feeling the smile that’s so wide it must look like a grimace. Peeta’s alive. And a traitor. But at the moment, I don’t care. Not what he says, or who he says it for, only that he is still capable of speech.
After a while, the door opens and someone slips in. Gale slides down beside me, his nose trickling blood.
«What happened?» I ask.
«I got in Boggs’s way,» he answers with a shrug. I use my sleeve to wipe his nose. «Watch it!»
I try to be gentler. Patting, not wiping. «Which one is he?»
«Oh, you know. Coin’s right-hand lackey. The one who tried to stop you.» He pushes my hand away.
«Quit! You’ll bleed me to death.»
The trickle has turned to a steady stream. I give up on the first-aid attempts. «You fought with Boggs?»
«No, just blocked the doorway when he tried to follow you. His elbow caught me in the nose,» says Gale.
«They’ll probably punish you,» I say.
«Already have.» He holds up his wrist. I stare at it uncomprehendingly. «Coin took back my communicuff.»
I bite my lip, trying to remain serious. But it seems so ridiculous. «I’m sorry, Soldier Gale Hawthorne.»
«Don’t be, Soldier Katniss Everdeen.» He grins. «I felt like a jerk walking around with it anyway.» We both start laughing. «I think it was quite a demotion.»
This is one of the few good things about 13. Getting Gale back. With the pressure of the Capitol’s arranged marriage between Peeta and me gone, we’ve managed to regain our friendship. He doesn’t push it any further— try to kiss me or talk about love. Either I’ve been too sick, or he’s willing to give me space, or he knows it’s just too cruel with Peeta in the hands of the Capitol. Whatever the case, I’ve got someone to tell my secrets to again.
«Who are these people?» I say.
«They’re us. If we’d had nukes instead of a few lumps of coal,» he answers.
«I like to think Twelve wouldn’t have abandoned the rest of the rebels back in the Dark Days,» I say.
«We might have. If it was that, surrender, or start a nuclear war,» says Gale. «In a way, it’s remarkable they survived at all.»
Maybe it’s because I still have the ashes of my own district on my shoes, but for the first time, I give the people of 13 something I have withheld from them: credit. For staying alive against all odds. Their early years must have been terrible, huddled in the chambers beneath the ground after their city was bombed to dust. Population decimated, no possible ally to turn to for aid. Over the past seventy-five years, they’ve learned to be self-sufficient, turned their citizens into an army, and built a new society with no help from anyone. They would be even more powerful if that pox epidemic hadn’t flattened their birthrate and made them so desperate for a new gene pool and breeders. Maybe they are militaristic, overly programmed, and somewhat lacking in a sense of humor. They’re here. And willing to take on the Capitol.
«Still, it took them long enough to show up,» I say.
«It wasn’t simple. They had to build up a rebel base in the Capitol, get some sort of underground organized in the districts,» he says. «Then they needed someone to set the whole thing in motion. They needed you.»
«They needed Peeta, too, but they seem to have forgotten that,» I say.
Gale’s expression darkens. «Peeta might have done a lot of damage tonight. Most of the rebels will dismiss what he said immediately, of course. But there are districts where the resistance is shakier. The cease-fire’s clearly President Snow’s idea. But it seems so reasonable coming out of Peeta’s mouth.»
I’m afraid of Gale’s answer, but I ask anyway. «Why do you think he said it?»
«He might have been tortured. Or persuaded. My guess is he made some kind of deal to protect you. He’d put forth the idea of the cease-fire if Snow let him present you as a confused pregnant girl who had no idea what was going on when she was taken prisoner by the rebels. This way, if the districts lose, there’s still a chance of leniency for you. If you play it right.» I must still look perplexed because Gale delivers the next line very slowly. «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. His idea is to have me lie low, remain safe and imprisoned, while the war plays out. Then neither side will really have cause to kill me. And Peeta? If the rebels win, it will be disastrous for him. If the Capitol wins, who knows? Maybe we’ll both be allowed to live—if I play it right—to watch the Games go on….
Images flash through my mind: the spear piercing Rue’s body in the arena, Gale hanging senseless from the whipping post, the corpse-littered wasteland of my home. And for what? For what? As my blood turns hot, I remember other things. My first glimpse of an uprising in District 8. The victors locked hand in hand the night before the Quarter Quell. And how it was no accident, my shooting that arrow into the force field in the arena. How badly I wanted it to lodge deep in the heart of my enemy.
I spring up, upsetting a box of a hundred pencils, sending them scattering around the floor.
«What is it?» Gale asks.
«There can’t be a cease-fire.» I lean down, fumbling as I shove the sticks of dark gray graphite back into the box. «We can’t go back.»
«I know.» Gale sweeps up a handful of pencils and taps them on the floor into perfect alignment.
«Whatever reason Peeta had for saying those things, he’s wrong.» The stupid sticks won’t go in the box and I snap several in my frustration.
«I know. Give it here. You’re breaking them to bits.» He pulls the box from my hands and refills it with swift, concise motions.
«He doesn’t know what they did to Twelve. If he could’ve seen what was on the ground» — I start.
«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?»
It turns out the question that’s been eating away at me has only ever had one possible answer. But it took Peeta’s ploy for me to recognize it.
