Mocking Jay

enough already. I accept that I'm probably the most qualified for the job, grit my teeth, and put in a row of jagged
sutures. It's not pretty but it's functional. I smear it with medicine and wrap it up. Give him some painkillers. "You
can rest now. It's safe here," I tell him. He goes out like a light.
While Cressida and Pollux make fur nests for each of us, I attend to Peeta's wrists. Gently rinsing away the
blood, putting on an antiseptic, and bandaging them beneath the cuffs. "You've got to keep them clean,
otherwise the infection could spread and--"
"I know what blood poisoning is, Katniss," says Peeta. "Even if my mother isn't a healer."
I'm jolted back in time, to another wound, another set of bandages. "You said that same thing to me in the
first Hunger Games. Real or not real?"
"Real," he says. "And you risked your life getting the medicine that saved me?"
"Real." I shrug. "You were the reason I was alive to do it."
"Was I?" The comment throws him into confusion. Some shiny memory must be fighting for his attention,
because his body tenses and his newly bandaged wrists strain against the metal cuffs. Then all the energy saps
from his body. "I'm so tired, Katniss."
"Go to sleep," I say. He won't until I've rearranged his handcuffs and shackled him to one of the stair
supports. It can't be comfortable, lying there with his arms above his head. But in a few minutes, he drifts off, too.
Cressida and Pollux have made beds for us, arranged our food and medical supplies, and now ask what I
want to do about setting up a guard. I look at Gale's pallor, Peeta's restraints. Pollux hasn't slept for days, and
Cressida and I only napped for a few hours. If a troop of Peacekeepers were to come through that door, we'd be
trapped like rats. We are completely at the mercy of a decrepit tiger-woman with what I can only hope is an allconsuming
passion for Snow's death.
"I don't honestly think there's any point in setting up a guard. Let's just try to get some sleep," I say. They
nod numbly, and we all burrow into our pelts. The fire inside me has flickered out, and with it my strength. I
surrender to the soft, musty fur and oblivion.
I have only one dream I remember. A long and wearying thing in which I'm trying to get to District 12. The
home I'm seeking is intact, the people alive. Effie Trinket, conspicuous in a bright pink wig and tailored outfit,
travels with me. I keep trying to ditch her in places, but she inexplicably reappears at my side, insisting that as
my escort she's responsible for my staying on schedule. Only the schedule is constantly shifting, derailed by our
lack of a stamp from an official or delayed when Effie breaks one of her high heels. We camp for days on a
bench in a gray station in District 7, awaiting a train that never comes. When I wake, somehow I feel even more
drained by this than my usual nighttime forays into blood and terror.
Cressida, the only person awake, tells me it's late afternoon. I eat a can of beef stew and wash it down with
a lot of water. Then I lean against the cellar wall, retracing the events of the last day. Moving death by death.
Counting them up on my fingers. One, two--Mitchell and Boggs lost on the block. Three--Messalla melted by the
pod. Four, five--Leeg 1 and Jackson sacrificing themselves at the Meat Grinder. Six, seven, eight--Castor,
Homes, and Finnick being decapitated by the rose-scented lizard mutts. Eight dead in twenty-four hours. I know
it happened, and yet it doesn't seem real. Surely, Castor is asleep under that pile of furs, Finnick will come
bounding down the steps in a minute, Boggs will tell me his plan for our escape.
To believe them dead is to accept I killed them. Okay, maybe not Mitchell and Boggs--they died on an
actual assignment. But the others lost their lives defending me on a mission I fabricated. My plot to assassinate
Snow seems so stupid now. So stupid as I sit shivering here in this cellar, tallying up our losses, fingering the
tassels on the silver knee-high boots I stole from the woman's home. Oh, yeah--I forgot about that. I killed her, too.
I'm taking out unarmed citizens now.
I think it's time I give myself up.
When everyone finally awakens, I confess. How I lied about the mission, how I jeopardized everyone in
pursuit of revenge. There's a long silence after I finish. Then Gale says, "Katniss, we all knew you were lying
about Coin sending you to assassinate Snow."
"You knew, maybe. The soldiers from Thirteen didn't," I reply.
"Do you really think Jackson believed you had orders from Coin?" Cressida asks. "Of course she didn't.
But she trusted Boggs, and he'd clearly wanted you to go on."
"I never even told Boggs what I planned to do," I say.
"You told everyone in Command!" Gale says. "It was one of your conditions for being the Mockingjay. 'I kill
Snow.'"