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 <strong>Mocking</strong>jay 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!"
The cameras are tight on me as I reach out my hands to the man, to the wounded, to the reluctant rebels across Panem. "Please! Join us!" My words hang in the air. I look to the screen, hoping to see them recording some wave of reconciliation going through the crowd. Instead I watch myself get shot on television.
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MOCKINGJAY SUZANNE COLLINS SCHOLAST
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CONTENTS COVER DEDICATION PART I "T
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PART I "THE ASHES"
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this firestorm of retribution. That
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Of course, I hate the Capitol, but
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2 Are there Capitol hoverplanes spe
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give me in the hospital, dulling th
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too cruel with Peeta in the hands o
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3 Buttercup's eyes reflect the fain
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skull against my shoe. The scent of
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transmits all the programming. He t
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In the hospital, I find my mother,
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too short for even him to fashion i
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"It'll be fine," says Plutarch with
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"That doesn't seem very fair to the
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6 The shock of hearing Haymitch's v
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explosive. Center, regular. You sho
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7 The hovercraft makes a quick, spi
- Page 49 and 50: water from Boggs. "You did great,"
- Page 51: "All right, that's it," Paylor says
- Page 54 and 55: As the room fills, I brace myself f
- Page 56 and 57: for a witness, but I'm going to hav
- Page 59 and 60: 9 I stop trying to sleep after my f
- Page 61 and 62: especially Castor and Pollux in the
- Page 63 and 64: sigh and lean back against the trun
- Page 65: ecognition that with every cheer, P
- Page 69 and 70: 10 The scream begins in my lower ba
- Page 71 and 72: starting to get anxious, when my mo
- Page 73: up for. I realize I've never even b
- Page 76 and 77: "Well, they didn't arrest her becau
- Page 78 and 79: catch my breath. After days in the
- Page 81 and 82: 12 Today I might lose both of them.
- Page 83 and 84: shock me. They seem to have far mor
- Page 86 and 87: 13 The cold collar chafes my neck a
- Page 88 and 89: I look at my little sister and thin
- Page 90: "Yes," she whispers. "Twelve burned
- Page 93 and 94: he'd died. The kindness, the steadi
- Page 95: variations of this plan have alread
- Page 98 and 99: once they'd been set in motion. The
- Page 103 and 104: 16 "Always." In the twilight of mor
- Page 105 and 106: "Yes. And as long as that kept roll
- Page 107: me after all I've been through." "Y
- Page 110 and 111: "Well, I'll tell you, Soldier Everd
- Page 112 and 113: Annie cautiously looks across Johan
- Page 115 and 116: 18 I throw myself into training wit
- Page 117 and 118: Finnick and I gravitate toward each
- Page 119: This area has been secured for over
- Page 123 and 124: 19 I've never really seen Boggs ang
- Page 125 and 126: The cessation of rhythmic breathing
- Page 128 and 129: 20 It's as if in an instant, a pain
- Page 130 and 131: I want to ask Cressida why she's ly
- Page 133 and 134: 21 That makes two requests for Peet
- Page 135 and 136: keep drifting to that green sofa. S
- Page 137: the tracker jacker venom have this
- Page 140 and 141: And here I am again. With people dy
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- Page 145 and 146: of people are around, and they pay
- Page 147 and 148: Those seem like two disconnected th
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24 A chill runs through me. Am I re
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knife. And I'll have Katniss," says
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I'm torn between making a beeline f
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25 Real or not real? I am on fire.
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shoot him. My presence seems to wor
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26 Out in the hall, I find Paylor s
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It's quite a stretch. Effie Trinket
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Center but the narrow terrace in fr
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turkey. I must have been on a fairl
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"You're back," I say. "Dr. Aurelius
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EPILOGUE They play in the Meadow. T
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR SUZANNE COLLINS is
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