Mocking Jay

Jackson shakes her head and makes a note. "Midnight to four. You're on with me."
The dinner whistle sounds, and Gale and I line up at the canteen. "Do you want me to kill him?" he asks
bluntly.
"That'll get us both sent back for sure," I say. But even though I'm furious, the brutality of the offer rattles me.
"I can deal with him."
"You mean until you take off? You and your paper map and possibly a Holo if you can get your hands on it?"
So Gale has not missed my preparations. I hope they haven't been so obvious to the others. None of them know
my mind like he does, though. "You're not planning on leaving me behind, are you?" he asks.
Up until this point, I was. But having my hunting partner to watch my back doesn't sound like a bad idea.
"As your fellow soldier, I have to strongly recommend you stay with your squad. But I can't stop you from coming,
can I?"
He grins. "No. Not unless you want me to alert the rest of the army."
Squad 451 and the television crew collect dinner from the canteen and gather in a tense circle to eat. At
first I think that Peeta is the cause of the unease, but by the end of the meal, I realize more than a few unfriendly
looks have been directed my way. This is a quick turnaround, since I'm pretty sure when Peeta appeared the
whole team was concerned about how dangerous he might be, especially to me. But it's not until I get a phone
call through to Haymitch that I understand.
"What are you trying to do? Provoke him into an attack?" he asks me.
"Of course not. I just want him to leave me alone," I say.
"Well, he can't. Not after what the Capitol put him through," says Haymitch. "Look, Coin may have sent him
there hoping he'd kill you, but Peeta doesn't know that. He doesn't understand what's happened to him. So you
can't blame him--"
"I don't!" I say.
"You do! You're punishing him over and over for things that are out of his control. Now, I'm not saying you
shouldn't have a fully loaded weapon next to you round the clock. But I think it's time you flipped this little scenario
around in your head. If you'd been taken by the Capitol, and hijacked, and then tried to kill Peeta, is this the way
he would be treating you?" demands Haymitch.
I fall silent. It isn't. It isn't how he would be treating me at all. He would be trying to get me back at any cost.
Not shutting me out, abandoning me, greeting me with hostility at every turn.
"You and me, we made a deal to try and save him. Remember?" Haymitch says. When I don't respond, he
disconnects after a curt "Try and remember."
The autumn day turns from brisk to cold. Most of the squad hunker down in their sleeping bags. Some
sleep under the open sky, close to the heater in the center of our camp, while others retreat to their tents. Leeg 1
has finally broken down over her sister's death, and her muffled sobs reach us through the canvas. I huddle in my
tent, thinking over Haymitch's words. Realizing with shame that my fixation with assassinating Snow has allowed
me to ignore a much more difficult problem. Trying to rescue Peeta from the shadowy world the hijacking has
stranded him in. I don't know how to find him, let alone lead him out. I can't even conceive of a plan. It makes the
task of crossing a loaded arena, locating Snow, and putting a bullet through his head look like child's play.
At midnight, I crawl out of my tent and position myself on a camp stool near the heater to take my watch
with Jackson. Boggs told Peeta to sleep out in full view where the rest of us could keep an eye on him. He isn't
sleeping, though. Instead, he sits with his bag pulled up to his chest, clumsily trying to make knots in a short
length of rope. I know it well. It's the one Finnick lent me that night in the bunker. Seeing it in his hands, it's like
Finnick's echoing what Haymitch just said, that I've cast off Peeta. Now might be a good time to begin to remedy
that. If I could think of something to say. But I can't. So I don't. I just let the sounds of soldiers' breathing fill the
night.
After about an hour, Peeta speaks up. "These last couple of years must have been exhausting for you.
Trying to decide whether to kill me or not. Back and forth. Back and forth."
That seems grossly unfair, and my first impulse is to say something cutting. But I revisit my conversation
with Haymitch and try to take the first tentative step in Peeta's direction. "I never wanted to kill you. Except when I
thought you were helping the Careers kill me. After that, I always thought of you as...an ally." That's a good safe
word. Empty of any emotional obligation, but nonthreatening.
"Ally." Peeta says the word slowly, tasting it. "Friend. Lover. Victor. Enemy. Fiancee. Target. Mutt. Neighbor.
Hunter. Tribute. Ally. I'll add it to the list of words I use to try to figure you out." He weaves the rope in and out of his
fingers. "The problem is, I can't tell what's real anymore, and what's made up."