Mockingjay

Maybe this realization on my part is all Snow needs. Thinking that Peeta was in his possession and being tortured for rebel information was bad. But thinking that he’s being tortured specifically to incapacitate me is unendurable. And it’s under the weight of this revelation that I truly begin to break.

After Crazy Cat, we’re directed to bed. The power’s been coming and going; sometimes the lamps burn at full brightness, other times we squint at one another in the brownouts. At bedtime they turn the lamps to near darkness and activate safety lights in each space. Prim, who’s decided the walls will hold up, snuggles with Buttercup on the lower bunk. My mother’s on the upper. I offer to take a bunk, but they make me keep to the floor mattress since I flail around so much when I’m sleeping.

I’m not flailing now, as my muscles are rigid with the tension of holding myself together. The pain over my heart returns, and from it I imagine tiny fissures spreading out into my body. Through my torso, down my arms and legs, over my face, leaving it crisscrossed with cracks. One good jolt of a bunker missile and I could shatter into strange, razor-sharp shards.

When the restless, wiggling majority has settled into sleep, I carefully extricate myself from my blanket and tiptoe through the cavern until I find Fi

«This is what they’re doing to you with A

«Well, they didn’t arrest her because they thought she’d be a wealth of rebel information,» he says.

«They know I’d never have risked telling her anything like that. For her own protection.»

«Oh, Fi

«No, I’m sorry. That I didn’t warn you somehow,» he tells me.

Suddenly, a memory surfaces. I’m strapped to my bed, mad with rage and grief after the rescue. Fi

«You did warn me, though. On the hovercraft. Only when you said they’d use Peeta against me, I thought you meant like bait. To lure me into the Capitol somehow,» I say.

«I shouldn’t have said even that. It was too late for it to be of any help to you. Since I hadn’t warned you before the Quarter Quell, I should’ve shut up about how Snow operates.» Fi

I think back to the arena. How I sobbed when Fi

«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.

Anyone? On Snow’s visit before the Victory Tour, he challenged me to erase any doubts of my love for Peeta. «Convince me,» Snow said. It seems, under that hot pink sky with Peeta’s life in limbo, I finally did. And in doing so, I gave him the weapon he needed to break me.

Fi

Fi

Well, he must know. I take a deep breath, forcing myself back into one piece.

«The more you can distract yourself, the better,» he says. «First thing tomorrow, we’ll get you your own rope. Until then, take mine.»

I spend the rest of the night on my mattress obsessively making knots, holding them up for Buttercup’s inspection. If one looks suspicious, he swipes it out of the air and bites it a few times to make sure it’s dead. By morning, my fingers are sore, but I’m still holding on.

With twenty-four hours of quiet behind us, Coin finally a

Before I’m halfway there, Boggs appears and pulls me from the line. He signals for Gale and Fi

Boggs ushers us into a room virtually identical to Command. Coin, Plutarch, Haymitch, Cressida, and everybody else around the table looks exhausted. Someone has finally broken out the coffee—although I’m sure it’s viewed only as an emergency stimulant—and Plutarch has both hands wrapped tightly around his cup as if at any moment it might be taken away.

There’s no small talk. «We need all four of you suited up and aboveground,» says the president. «You have two hours to get footage showing the damage from the bombing, establish that Thirteen’s military unit remains not only functional but dominant, and, most important, that the Mockingjay is still alive. Any questions?»

«Can we have a coffee?» asks Fi

Steaming cups are handed out. I stare distastefully at the shiny black liquid, never having been much of a fan of the stuff, but thinking it might help me stay on my feet. Fi

As I turn to go suit up as the Mockingjay, I catch Gale watching me and Fi

In my new Remake Room in Special Defense, my prep team slaps me into my Mockingjay suit, arranges my hair, and applies minimal makeup before my coffee’s even cooled. In ten minutes, the cast and crew of the next propos are making the circuitous trek to the outside. I slurp my coffee as we travel, finding that the cream and sugar greatly enhance its flavor. As I knock back the dregs that have settled to the bottom of the cup, I feel a slight buzz start to run through my veins.

After climbing a final ladder, Boggs hits a lever that opens a trapdoor. Fresh air rushes in. I take big gulps and for the first time allow myself to feel how much I hated the bunker. We emerge into the woods, and my hands run through the leaves overhead. Some are just starting to turn. «What day is it?» I ask no one in particular. Boggs tells me September begins next week.