Mocking Jay

ought in to counter this.
"You're cold," says Boggs. "I'll see if I can find a blanket." He goes before I can protest. I don't want a
blanket, even if the marble continues to leech my body heat.
"Katniss," says Haymitch in my ear.
"Still here," I answer.
"Interesting turn of events with Peeta this afternoon. Thought you'd want to know," he says. Interesting isn't
good. It isn't better. But I don't really have any choice but to listen. "We showed him that clip of you singing 'The
Hanging Tree.' It was never aired, so the Capitol couldn't use it when he was being hijacked. He says he
recognized the song."
For a moment, my heart skips a beat. Then I realize it's just more tracker jacker serum confusion. "He
couldn't, Haymitch. He never heard me sing that song."
"Not you. Your father. He heard him singing it one day when he came to trade at the bakery. Peeta was
small, probably six or seven, but he remembered it because he was specially listening to see if the birds
stopped singing," says Haymitch. "Guess they did."
Six or seven. That would have been before my mother banned the song. Maybe even right around the time I
was learning it. "Was I there, too?"
"Don't think so. No mention of you anyway. But it's the first connection to you that hasn't triggered some
mental meltdown," says Haymitch. "It's something, at least, Katniss."
My father. He seems to be everywhere today. Dying in the mine. Singing his way into Peeta's muddled
consciousness. Flickering in the look Boggs gives me as he protectively wraps the blanket around my shoulders.
I miss him so badly it hurts.
The gunfire's really picking up outside. Gale hurries by with a group of rebels, eagerly headed for the battle.
I don't petition to join the fighters, not that they would let me. I have no stomach for it anyway, no heat in my blood.
I wish Peeta was here--the old Peeta--because he would be able to articulate why it is so wrong to be
exchanging fire when people, any people, are trying to claw their way out of the mountain. Or is my own history
making me too sensitive? Aren't we at war? Isn't this just another way to kill our enemies?
Night falls quickly. Huge, bright spotlights are turned on, illuminating the square. Every bulb must be burning
at full wattage inside the train station as well. Even from my position across the square, I can see clearly through
the plate-glass front of the long, narrow building. It would be impossible to miss the arrival of a train, or even a
single person. But hours pass and no one comes. With each minute, it becomes harder to imagine that anyone
survived the assault on the Nut.
It's well after midnight when Cressida comes to attach a special microphone to my costume. "What's this
for?" I ask.
Haymitch's voice comes on to explain. "I know you're not going to like this, but we need you to make a
speech."
"A speech?" I say, immediately feeling queasy.
"I'll feed it to you, line by line," he assures me. "You'll just have to repeat what I say. Look, there's no sign of
life from that mountain. We've won, but the fighting's continuing. So we thought if you went out on the steps of the
Justice Building and laid it out--told everybody that the Nut's defeated, that the Capitol's presence in District Two
is finished--you might be able to get the rest of their forces to surrender."
I peer at the darkness beyond the square. "I can't even see their forces."
"That's what the mike's for," he says. "You'll be broadcast, both your voice through their emergency audio
system, and your image wherever people have access to a screen."
I know there are a couple of huge screens here on the square. I saw them on the Victory Tour. It might work,
if I were good at this sort of thing. Which I'm not. They tried to feed me lines in those early experiments with the
propos, too, and it was a flop.
"You could save a lot of lives, Katniss," Haymitch says finally.
"All right. I'll give it a try," I tell him.
It's strange standing outside at the top of the stairs, fully costumed, brightly lit, but with no visible audience
to deliver my speech to. Like I'm doing a show for the moon.
"Let's make this quick," says Haymitch. "You're too exposed."
My television crew, positioned out in the square with special cameras, indicates that they're ready. I tell
Haymitch to go ahead, then click on my mike and listen carefully to him dictate the first line of the speech. A huge
image of me lights up one of the screens over the square as I begin. "People of District Two, this is Katniss