Mockingjay

 3. Await further instructions.

I sit cross-legged on the floor to await. A steady flow of people begins to fill the room, claiming spaces, collecting supplies. It won’t take long until the place is full up. I wonder if my mother and Prim are going to stay the night at wherever the hospital patients have been taken. But, no, I don’t think so. They were on the list here. I’m starting to get anxious, when my mother appears. I look behind her into a sea of strangers. «Where’s Prim?» I ask.

«Isn’t she here?» she replies. «She was supposed to come straight down from the hospital. She left ten minutes before I did. Where is she? Where could she have gone?»

I squeeze my lids shut tight for a moment, to track her as I would prey on a hunt. See her react to the sirens, rush to help the patients, nod as they gesture for her to descend to the bunker, and then hesitate with her on the stairs. Torn for a moment. But why?

My eyes fly open. «The cat! She went back for him!»

«Oh, no,» my mother says. We both know I’m right. We’re pushing against the incoming tide, trying to get out of the bunker. Up ahead, I can see them preparing to shut the thick metal doors. Slowly rotating the metal wheels on either side inward. Somehow I know that once they have been sealed, nothing in the world will convince the soldiers to open them. Perhaps it will even be beyond their control. I’m indiscriminately shoving people aside as I shout for them to wait. The space between the doors shrinks to a yard, a foot; there are only a few inches left when I jam my hand through the crack.

«Open it! Let me out!» I cry.

Consternation shows on the soldiers’ faces as they reverse the wheels a bit. Not enough to let me pass, but enough to avoid crushing my fingers. I take the opportunity to wedge my shoulder into the opening.

«Prim!» I holler up the stairs. My mother pleads with the guards as I try to wriggle my way out. «Prim!»

Then I hear it. The faint sound of footsteps on the stairs. «We’re coming!» I hear my sister call.

«Hold the door!» That was Gale.

«They’re coming!» I tell the guards, and they slide the doors open about a foot. But I don’t dare move—afraid they’ll lock us all out—until Prim appears, her cheeks flushed with ru

«What were you thinking?» I give Prim an angry shake and then hug her, squashing Buttercup between us.

Prim’s explanation is already on her lips. «I couldn’t leave him behind, Katniss. Not twice. You should have seen him pacing the room and howling. He’d come back to protect us.»

«Okay. Okay.» I take a few breaths to calm myself, step back, and lift Buttercup by the scruff of the neck. «I should’ve drowned you when I had the chance.» His ears flatten and he raises a paw. I hiss before he gets a chance, which seems to a

«Oh, Katniss, don’t tease him,» she says, folding him back in her arms. «He’s already so upset.»

The idea that I’ve wounded the brute’s tiny cat feelings just invites further taunting. But Prim’s genuinely distressed for him. So instead, I visualize Buttercup’s fur lining a pair of gloves, an image that has helped me deal with him over the years. «Okay, sorry. We’re under the bigE on the wall. Better get him settled in before he loses it.» Prim hurries off, and I find myself face-to-face with Gale. He’s holding the box of medical supplies from our kitchen in 12. Site of our last conversation, kiss, fallout, whatever. My game bag’s slung across his shoulder.

«If Peeta’s right, these didn’t stand a chance,» he says.

Peeta. Blood like raindrops on the window. Like wet mud on boots.

«Thanks for…everything.» I take our stuff. «What were you doing up in our rooms?»

«Just double-checking,» he says. «We’re in Forty-Seven if you need me.»

Practically everyone withdrew to their spaces when the doors shut, so I get to cross to our new home with at least five hundred people watching me. I try to appear extra calm to make up for my frantic crashing through the crowd. Like that’s fooling anyone. So much for setting an example. Oh, who cares? They all think I’m nuts anyway. One man, who I think I knocked to the floor, catches my eye and rubs his elbow resentfully. I almost hiss at him, too.

Prim has Buttercup installed on the lower bunk, draped in a blanket so that only his face pokes out. This is how he likes to be when there’s thunder, the one thing that actually frightens him. My mother puts her box carefully in the cube. I crouch, my back supported by the wall, to check what Gale managed to rescue in my hunting bag. The plant book, the hunting jacket, my parents’ wedding photo, and the personal contents of my drawer. My mockingjay pin now lives with Ci

The faint sound of the sirens cuts off sharply. Coin’s voice comes over the district audio system, thanking us all for an exemplary evacuation of the upper levels. She stresses that this is not a drill, as Peeta Mellark, the District 12 victor, has possibly made a televised reference to an attack on 13 tonight.

That’s when the first bomb hits. There’s an initial sense of impact followed by an explosion that resonates in my i

I reach for Prim in the twilight, clamp my hand on her leg, and pull myself over to her. Her voice remains steady as she croons to Buttercup. «It’s all right, baby, it’s all right. We’ll be okay down here.»

My mother wraps her arms around us. I allow myself to feel young for a moment and rest my head on her shoulder. «That was nothing like the bombs in Eight,» I say.

«Probably a bunker missile,» says Prim, keeping her voice soothing for the cat’s sake. «We learned about them during the orientation for new citizens. They’re designed to penetrate deep in the ground before they go off. Because there’s no point in bombing Thirteen on the surface anymore.»

«Nuclear?» I ask, feeling a chill run through me.

«Not necessarily,» says Prim. «Some just have a lot of explosives in them. But…it could be either kind, I guess.»

The gloom makes it hard to see the heavy metal doors at the end of the bunker. Would they be any protection against a nuclear attack? And even if they were one hundred percent effective at sealing out the radiation, which is really unlikely, would we ever be able to leave this place? The thought of spending whatever remains of my life in this stone vault horrifies me. I want to run madly for the door and demand to be released into whatever lies above. It’s pointless. They would never let me out, and I might start some kind of stampede.

«We’re so far down, I’m sure we’re safe,» says my mother wanly. Is she thinking of my father’s being blown to nothingness in the mines? «It was a close call, though. Thank goodness Peeta had the wherewithal to warn us.»