Mocking Jay

shoot him. My presence seems to worry the guards. They're discussing calling Haymitch, when a woman speaks
up behind me. "Let her go in."
I know the voice but can't immediately place it. Not Seam, not 13, definitely not Capitol. I turn my head and
find myself face-to-face with Paylor, the commander from 8. She looks even more beat up than she did at the
hospital, but who doesn't?
"On my authority," says Paylor. "She has a right to anything behind that door." These are her soldiers, not
Coin's. They drop their weapons without question and let me pass.
At the end of a short hallway, I push apart the glass doors and step inside. By now the smell's so strong that
it begins to flatten out, as if there's no more my nose can absorb. The damp, mild air feels good on my hot skin.
And the roses are glorious. Row after row of sumptuous blooms, in lush pink, sunset orange, and even pale blue.
I wander through the aisles of carefully pruned plants, looking but not touching, because I have learned the hard
way how deadly these beauties can be. I know when I find it, crowning the top of a slender bush. A magnificent
white bud just beginning to open. I pull my left sleeve over my hand so that my skin won't actually have to touch it,
take up a pair of pruning shears, and have just positioned them on the stem when he speaks.
"That's a nice one."
My hand jerks, the shears snap shut, severing the stem.
"The colors are lovely, of course, but nothing says perfection like white."
I still can't see him, but his voice seems to rise up from an adjacent bed of red roses. Delicately pinching
the stem of the bud through the fabric of my sleeve, I move slowly around the corner and find him sitting on a
stool against the wall. He's as well groomed and finely dressed as ever, but weighted down with manacles, ankle
shackles, tracking devices. In the bright light, his skin's a pale, sickly green. He holds a white handkerchief
spotted with fresh blood. Even in his deteriorated state, his snake eyes shine bright and cold. "I was hoping
you'd find your way to my quarters."
His quarters. I have trespassed into his home, the way he slithered into mine last year, hissing threats with
his bloody, rosy breath. This greenhouse is one of his rooms, perhaps his favorite; perhaps in better times he
tended the plants himself. But now it's part of his prison. That's why the guards halted me. And that's why Paylor
let me in.
I'd supposed he would be secured in the deepest dungeon that the Capitol had to offer, not cradled in the
lap of luxury. Yet Coin left him here. To set a precedent, I guess. So that if in the future she ever fell from grace, it
would be understood that presidents--even the most despicable--get special treatment. Who knows, after all,
when her own power might fade?
"There are so many things we should discuss, but I have a feeling your visit will be brief. So, first things
first." He begins to cough, and when he removes the handkerchief from his mouth, it's redder. "I wanted to tell you
how very sorry I am about your sister."
Even in my deadened, drugged condition, this sends a stab of pain through me. Reminding me that there
are no limits to his cruelty. And how he will go to his grave trying to destroy me.
"So wasteful, so unnecessary. Anyone could see the game was over by that point. In fact, I was just about to
issue an official surrender when they released those parachutes." His eyes are glued on me, unblinking, so as
not to miss a second of my reaction. But what he's said makes no sense. When they released the parachutes?
"Well, you really didn't think I gave the order, did you? Forget the obvious fact that if I'd had a working hovercraft
at my disposal, I'd have been using it to make an escape. But that aside, what purpose could it have served?
We both know I'm not above killing children, but I'm not wasteful. I take life for very specific reasons. And there
was no reason for me to destroy a pen full of Capitol children. None at all."
I wonder if the next fit of coughing is staged so that I can have time to absorb his words. He's lying. Of
course, he's lying. But there's something struggling to free itself from the lie as well.
"However, I must concede it was a masterful move on Coin's part. The idea that I was bombing our own
helpless children instantly snapped whatever frail allegiance my people still felt to me. There was no real
resistance after that. Did you know it aired live? You can see Plutarch's hand there. And in the parachutes. Well,
it's that sort of thinking that you look for in a Head Gamemaker, isn't it?" Snow dabs the corners of his mouth. "I'm
sure he wasn't gunning for your sister, but these things happen."
I'm not with Snow now. I'm in Special Weaponry back in 13 with Gale and Beetee. Looking at the designs
based on Gale's traps. That played on human sympathies. The first bomb killed the victims. The second, the
rescuers. Remembering Gale's words.