Mocking Jay

the apartment, through someone's pink and white velvet living room, down a hallway hung with family photos,
onto the marble floor of a kitchen, where we collapse. Castor and Pollux carry in a writhing Peeta between them.
Somehow Jackson gets cuffs on him, but it only makes him wilder and they're forced to lock him in a closet.
In the living room, the front door slams, people shout. Then footsteps pound down the hall as the black
wave roars past the building. From the kitchen, we can hear the windows groan, shatter. The noxious tar smell
permeates the air. Finnick carries in Messalla. Leeg 1 and Cressida stumble into the room after them, coughing.
"Gale!" I shriek.
He's there, slamming the kitchen door shut behind him, choking out one word. "Fumes!" Castor and Pollux
grab towels, aprons to stuff in the cracks as Gale retches into a bright yellow sink.
"Mitchell?" asks Homes. Leeg 1 just shakes her head.
Boggs forces the Holo into my hand. His lips are moving, but I can't make out what he's saying. I lean my
ear down to his mouth to catch his harsh whisper. "Don't trust them. Don't go back. Kill Peeta. Do what you came
to do."
I draw back so I can see his face. "What? Boggs? Boggs?" His eyes are still open, but dead. Pressed in
my hand, glued to it by his blood, is the Holo.
Peeta's feet slamming into the closet door break up the ragged breathing of the others. But even as we
listen, his energy seems to ebb. The kicks diminish to an irregular drumming. Then nothing. I wonder if he, too, is
dead.
"He's gone?" Finnick asks, looking down at Boggs. I nod. "We need to get out of here. Now. We just set off
a streetful of pods. You can bet they've got us on surveillance tapes."
"Count on it," says Castor. "All the streets are covered by surveillance cameras. I bet they set off the black
wave manually when they saw us taping the propo."
"Our radio communicators went dead almost immediately. Probably an electromagnetic pulse device. But
I'll get us back to camp. Give me the Holo." Jackson reaches for the unit, but I clutch it to my chest.
"No. Boggs gave it to me," I say.
"Don't be ridiculous," she snaps. Of course, she thinks it's hers. She's second in command.
"It's true," says Homes. "He transferred the prime security clearance to her while he was dying. I saw it."
"Why would he do that?" demands Jackson.
Why indeed? My head's reeling from the ghastly events of the last five minutes--Boggs mutilated, dying,
dead, Peeta's homicidal rage, Mitchell bloody and netted and swallowed by that foul black wave. I turn to Boggs,
very badly needing him alive. Suddenly sure that he, and maybe he alone, is completely on my side. I think of his
last orders....
"Don't trust them. Don't go back. Kill Peeta. Do what you came to do."
What did he mean? Don't trust who? The rebels? Coin? The people looking at me right now? I won't go
back, but he must know I can't just fire a bullet through Peeta's head. Can I? Should I? Did Boggs guess that
what I really came to do is desert and kill Snow on my own?
I can't work all of this out now, so I just decide to carry out the first two orders: to not trust anyone and to
move deeper into the Capitol. But how can I justify this? Make them let me keep the Holo?
"Because I'm on a special mission for President Coin. I think Boggs was the only one who knew about it."
This in no way convinces Jackson. "To do what?"
Why not tell them the truth? It's as plausible as anything I'll come up with. But it must seem like a real
mission, not revenge. "To assassinate President Snow before the loss of life from this war makes our population
unsustainable."
"I don't believe you," says Jackson. "As your current commander, I order you to transfer the prime security
clearance over to me."
"No," I say. "That would be in direct violation of President Coin's orders."
Guns are pointed. Half the squad at Jackson, half at me. Someone's about to die, when Cressida speaks
up. "It's true. That's why we're here. Plutarch wants it televised. He thinks if we can film the Mockingjay
assassinating Snow, it will end the war."
This gives even Jackson pause. Then she gestures with her gun toward the closet. "And why is he here?"
There she has me. I can think of no sane reason that Coin would send an unstable boy, programmed to kill
me, along on such a key assignment. It really weakens my story. Cressida comes to my aid again. "Because the
two post-Games interviews with Caesar Flickerman were shot in President Snow's personal quarters. Plutarch
thinks Peeta may be of some use as a guide in a location we have little knowledge of."