Mocking Jay

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
no choice, the people begin to push out into the square, choking but defiantly waving their guns. My eyes dart
around the rooftops that ring the square. Every one of them has been fortified with rebel-manned machine gun
nests. Moonlight glints off oiled barrels.
A young man staggers out from the station, one hand pressed against a bloody cloth at his cheek, the other
dragging a gun. When he trips and falls to his face, I see the scorch marks down the back of his shirt, the red
flesh beneath. And suddenly, he's just another burn victim from a mine accident.
My feet fly down the steps and I take off running for him. "Stop!" I yell at the rebels. "Hold your fire!" The
words echo around the square and beyond as the mike amplifies my voice. "Stop!" I'm nearing the young man,
reaching down to help him, when he drags himself up to his knees and trains his gun on my head.
I instinctively back up a few steps, raise my bow over my head to show my intention was harmless. Now
that he has both hands on his gun, I notice the ragged hole in his cheek where something--falling stone maybe--
punctured the flesh. He smells of burning things, hair and meat and fuel. His eyes are crazed with pain and fear.
"Freeze," Haymitch's voice whispers in my ear. I follow his order, realizing that this is what all of District 2,
all of Panem maybe, must be seeing at the moment. The Mockingjay at the mercy of a man with nothing to lose.
His garbled speech is barely comprehensible. "Give me one reason I shouldn't shoot you."
The rest of the world recedes. There's only me looking into the wretched eyes of the man from the Nut who
asks for one reason. Surely I should be able to come up with thousands. But the words that make it to my lips are
"I can't."
Logically, the next thing that should happen is the man pulling the trigger. But he's perplexed, trying to make
sense of my words. I experience my own confusion as I realize what I've said is entirely true, and the noble
impulse that carried me across the square is replaced by despair. "I can't. That's the problem, isn't it?" I lower my
bow. "We blew up your mine. You burned my district to the ground. We've got every reason to kill each other. So
do it. Make the Capitol happy. I'm done killing their slaves for them." I drop my bow on the ground and give it a
nudge with my boot. It slides across the stone and comes to rest at his knees.
"I'm not their slave," the man mutters.
"I am," I say. "That's why I killed Cato...and he killed Thresh...and he killed Clove...and she tried to kill me. It
just goes around and around, and who wins? Not us. Not the districts. Always the Capitol. But I'm tired of being a
piece in their Games."
Peeta. On the rooftop the night before our first Hunger Games. He understood it all before we'd even set
foot in the arena. I hope he's watching now, that he remembers that night as it happened, and maybe forgives me
when I die.
"Keep talking. Tell them about watching the mountain go down," Haymitch insists.
"When I saw that mountain fall tonight, I thought...they've done it again. Got me to kill you--the people in the
districts. But why did I do it? District Twelve and District Two have no fight except the one the Capitol gave us."
The young man blinks at me uncomprehendingly. I sink on my knees before him, my voice low and urgent. "And
why are you fighting with the rebels on the rooftops? With Lyme, who was your victor? With people who were
your neighbors, maybe even your family?"
"I don't know," says the man. But he doesn't take his gun off me.
I rise and turn slowly in a circle, addressing the machine guns. "And you up there? I come from a mining
town. Since when do miners condemn other miners to that kind of death, and then stand by to kill whoever
manages to crawl from the rubble?"
"Who is the enemy?" whispers Haymitch.
"These people"--I indicate the wounded bodies on the square--"are not your enemy!" I whip back around to
the train station. "The rebels are not your enemy! We all have one enemy, and it's the Capitol! This is our chance
to put an end to their power, but we need every district person to do it!"