Mocking Jay

I want to ask Cressida why she's lying for me, why she's fighting for us to go on with my self-appointed
mission. Now's not the time.
"We have to go!" says Gale. "I'm following Katniss. If you don't want to, head back to camp. But let's move!"
Homes unlocks the closet and heaves an unconscious Peeta over his shoulder. "Ready."
"Boggs?" says Leeg 1.
"We can't take him. He'd understand," says Finnick. He frees Boggs's gun from his shoulder and slings the
strap over his own. "Lead on, Soldier Everdeen."
I don't know how to lead on. I look at the Holo for direction. It's still activated, but it might as well be dead for
all the good that does me. There's no time for fiddling around with the buttons, trying to figure out how to work it.
"I don't know how to use this. Boggs said you would help me," I tell Jackson. "He said I could count on you."
Jackson scowls, snatches the Holo from me, and taps in a command. An intersection comes up. "If we go
out the kitchen door, there's a small courtyard, then the back side of another corner apartment unit. We're looking
at an overview of the four streets that meet at the intersection."
I try to get my bearings as I stare at the cross section of the map blinking with pods in every direction. And
those are only the pods Plutarch knows about. The Holo didn't indicate that the block we just left was mined, had
the black geyser, or that the net was made from barbed wire. Besides that, there may be Peacekeepers to deal
with, now that they know our position. I bite the inside of my lip, feeling everyone's eyes on me. "Put on your
masks. We're going out the way we came in."
Instant objections. I raise my voice over them. "If the wave was that powerful, then it may have triggered and
absorbed other pods in our path."
People stop to consider this. Pollux makes a few quick signs to his brother. "It may have disabled the
cameras as well," Castor translates. "Coated the lenses."
Gale props one of his boots on the counter and examines the splatter of black on the toe. Scrapes it with a
kitchen knife from a block on the counter. "It's not corrosive. I think it was meant to either suffocate or poison us."
"Probably our best shot," says Leeg 1.
Masks go on. Finnick adjusts Peeta's mask over his lifeless face. Cressida and Leeg 1 prop up a woozy
Messalla between them.
I'm waiting for someone to take the point position when I remember that's my job now. I push on the kitchen
door and meet with no resistance. A half-inch layer of the black goo has spread from the living room about threequarters
of the way down the hall. When I gingerly test it with the toe of my boot, I find it has the consistency of a
gel. I lift my foot and after stretching slightly, it springs back into place. I take three steps into the gel and look
back. No footprints. It's the first good thing that's happened today. The gel becomes slightly thicker as I cross the
living room. I ease open the front door, expecting gallons of the stuff to pour in, but it holds its form.
The pink and orange block seems to have been dipped in glossy black paint and set out to dry. Paving
stones, buildings, even the rooftops are coated in the gel. A large teardrop hangs above the street. Two shapes
project from it. A gun barrel and a human hand. Mitchell. I wait on the sidewalk, staring up at him until the entire
group has joined me.
"If anyone needs to go back, for whatever reason, now is the time," I say. "No questions asked, no hard
feelings." No one seems inclined to retreat. So I start moving into the Capitol, knowing we don't have much time.
The gel's deeper here, four to six inches, and makes a sucking sound each time you pick up your foot, but it still
covers our tracks.
The wave must have been enormous, with tremendous power behind it, as it's affected several blocks that
lie ahead. And though I tread with care, I think my instinct was right about its triggering other pods. One block is
sprinkled with the golden bodies of tracker jackers. They must have been set free only to succumb to the fumes.
A little farther along, an entire apartment building has collapsed and lies in a mound under the gel. I sprint across
the intersections, holding up a hand for the others to wait while I look for trouble, but the wave seems to have
dismantled the pods far better than any squad of rebels could.
On the fifth block, I can tell that we've reached the point where the wave began to peter out. The gel's only
an inch deep, and I can see baby blue rooftops peeking out across the next intersection. The afternoon light has
faded, and we badly need to get under cover and form a plan. I choose an apartment two-thirds of the way down
the block. Homes jimmies the lock, and I order the others inside. I stay on the street for just a minute, watching
the last of our footprints fade away, then close the door behind me.
Flashlights built into our guns illuminate a large living room with mirrored walls that throw our faces back at
us at every turn. Gale checks the windows, which show no damage, and removes his mask. "It's all right. You can