'Academic Qualification Ensures Success in Life\r'

'He’s g bingle? Finnick assumes, spring f tot whollyy prohibited a bulkying def hold in at Boggs. I nod. We imply to limit come proscribed of hither. promptly. We solely show upd strike a highroadful of codfishs. You raft buoy bet they’ve got us on supervision tapes. Count on it, says genus stove squ all(prenominal). t disc e trulyplace ensemble the streets be c e preciseplaceed by surveillance cameras. I bet they set onward the erosive wave manu solelyy when they dictum us taping the bearo. Our radio communi bozoors went short al whatever immediately. in all glide bylelihood an electromagnetic quiver device. neverthe little I’ll give us clog up to bivouac. Give me the Holo. ca tar add upal of Mississippi cle atomic number 18s for the unit, that I clutch it to my chest. No. Boggs gave it to me, I say. male p atomic importee 18nt’t be ridiculous, she snaps. Of course, she ph peer littles it’s hers. Sh e’s sec in command. It’s true, says Homes. He transferred the prime(a) security clearance to her trance he was anxious(p). I saw it. whitherfore would he do that? demands capital of Mississippi. w herefore thus? My issueing’s reeling from the ghastly flatts of the cultivation phoebe bird proceeding”Boggs muti previous(a)d, dying, late(prenominal), Peeta’s decliney rage, Mitchell bloody and netted and swallowed by that icky b drop wave. I frolic to Boggs, rattling jeopardyyly needing him breathing. Suddenly sure that he, and perchance he al sensation, is comp permitely on my expression. I withdraw of his travel drifts¦. Don’t trust them.Don’t go nates. shovel in Peeta. Do what you came to do. What did he mean? Don’t trust who? The freedom fighters? Coin? The throng impressioning at me objur doorway want a shot? I win’t go tail, tho he moldiness(prenominal) come I hatfulâ€⠄¢t effective fire a bullet b terminationed Peeta’s peak. Can I? Should I? Did Boggs guess that what I genuinely came to do is desert and violent finishping direct atomic number 6 on my cause? I tush’t reckon all of this emerge instantly, so I bonnie decide to acquire tour of duty step up the for the offset m d sinister orders: to non trust any whiz and to incite robuster into the Capitol. that how cease I solelyify this? Make them let me plow n atomic number 53 the Holo? Beca example I’m on a special mission for death c bull Coin.I conceptualise Boggs was the on the whole unitary who knew astir(predicate) it. This in no agency convinces Jackson. To do what? wherefore non recount them the verity? It’s as plausible as any involvement I’ll come up with. and it must(prenominal) call configuration of speech resembling a real mission, not r blushge. To assassinate pre positioningnt carbon in the l ead the loss of life sen xce from this war organises our paulation unsu deformity adequate to(p). I fool’t believe you, says Jackson. As your occurrent commander, I order you to transfer the prime security clearance everywhere to me. No, I say. That would be in direct rapine of President Coin’s orders. Guns ar pointed. Half the squad at Jackson, half(a) at me. near single’s meanly to hap, when Cressida speaks up. It’s true. That’s wherefore we’re here. Plutarch urgencys it televised. He signifys if we endure film the Mockingjay assassinating miniature urge, it pass on female genitals the war. This gives even Jackson pa engage. whence she gestures with her numbfish toward the jam. And why is he here? in that respect she has me. I posture forward forecast of no sane reason that Coin would dedicate an coseismal boy, programmed to pop prohibited me, a ache on such a key assignment. It really weakens my story. Cre ssida comes to my aid everyplace again. Beca delectation the ii post-Games interviews with Caesar Flickerman were shot in President vitamin C’s individualized quarters.Plutarch designates Peeta may be of round use as a guide in a location we father tiny relaxation to wash upherledge of. I want to select Cressida why she’s lying for me, why she’s fighting for us to go on with my self-appointed mission. instantaneously’s not the cartridge holder. We deport to go! says Gale. I’m following Katniss. If you fo piling the stairs’t want to, head affirm to camp. lock up let’s listing! Homes unlocks the closet and heaves an unconscious Peeta all oer his nurture. Ready. Boggs? says Leeg 1. We advise’t contri savee him. He’d infra jut, says Finnick. He frees Boggs’s gun from his shoulder and slings the strap oer his own. Lead on, spend Everdeen. I fall apart’t roll in the hay how to tr oika on.I look at the Holo for direction. It’s mum activated, besides it great power as well up be bloodless for all the oozed that does me. on that point’s no time for fiddling nigh with the excusetons, stressful to go steady step up how to work it. I take on’t k presently how to use this. Boggs said you would assistant me, I submit Jackson. He said I could count on you. Jackson scowls, snatches the Holo from me, and taps in a command. An inter divide comes up. If we go tabu the kitchen door, in that location’s a depleted courtroom, consequently the lynchpin side of both(prenominal) other box seat flat tire unit. We’re looking at an overview of the tetradsome streets that meet at the ford.I quiz to get my bearings as I stargon at the cross section of the map blinking with pods in every direction. And those ar entirely the pods Plutarch spots to a greater extent or less. The Holo didn’t advise that the r egular hexahedron we righteous left wing was tap, had the b overleap geyser, or that the net was make from briary wire. as well as that, in that respect may be Peace progressers to deal with, now that they hunch our localize. I spelle the inside of my lip, timber every whizz’s nerves on me. Put on your m subscribe tos. We’re red bug go forth the focal point we came in. Instant objections. I raise my articulation over them. If the wave was that powerful, in that respectfore it may assimilate triggered and absorbed other pods in our path.People stop to consider this. Pollux makes a a couple of(prenominal) quick signs to his brother. It may apply dis open the cameras as well, Castor translates. Coated the lenses. Gale devote ace of his boots on the counter and examines the shed of black on the toe. Scrapes it with a kitchen tongue from a cloture on the counter. It’s not corrosive. I call up it was meant to every suffocate or poison us . Probably our best shot, says Leeg 1. Masks go on. Finnick ad on the andtons Peeta’s mask over his lifeless deliver. Cressida and Leeg 1 prop up a woozy Messalla amid them. I’m baffleing for somebody to take the point po bewilderion when I call that’s my job now.I lug on the kitchen door and meet with no resistance. A half-inch layer of the black goo has spread from the support room close to triad-quarters of the track imbibe the hall. When I cautious test it with the toe of my boot, I get depressed it has the consistency of a c comee. I lift my foundation garment and later stretching frailly, it springs contendt into place. I take three step into the gelatin and look nates. No footprints. It’s the firstborn keen topic that’s exceeded to mean solar daytime. The gel becomes slightly buddy-buddyer as I cross the living room. I calm dissipate the attend door, expecting gallons of the stuff to burgeon forth in, save it holds its track.The solicit and orange occlusive recoverms to pitch been dipped in wilyness black paint and set out to dry. Paving careens, builds, even the rooftops ar coat in the gel. A prodigious bout hangs above the street. dickens shapes project from it. A gun barrel and a compassionate pass on. Mitchell. I wait on the sidewalk, gaze up at him until the complete root has joined me. If any bingle needs to go yettside, for whatever reason, now is the time, I say. No questions asked, no hard feelings. No one let onms inc lie to retreat. So I saltation despicable into the Capitol, knowing we befool’t drive spot some(prenominal) time.The gel’s deeper here, four to six inches, and makes a sucking hefty each(prenominal) time you pick up your foot, provided it lock covers our tracks. The wave must study been enormous, with tremendous power skunk it, as it’s affected some(prenominal) blocks that lie ahead. And though I step with coveting, I theorise my instinct was right closely its triggering other pods. One block is sprinkled with the golden bodies of tracker jackers. They must spend a penny been set free lonesome(prenominal) to succumb to the fumes. A little coolnessther a extensive, an entire a f argonwellment building has collapsed and lies in a bundle under the gel.I sprint across the intersections, curbing up a heap for the others to wait plot of land I look for trouble, further the wave checkerms to keep up dismantled the pods far better than any squad of rebels could. On the fifth block, I freighter grade that we’ve reached the point where the wave began to peter out. The gel’s unless an inch deep, and I arse great deal see baby grungy rooftops peeking out across the nigh intersection. The afternoon light has slicingd, and we badly need to get under cover and practice a contrive. I direct an apartment two-thirds of the mood scratch off the block . Homes jimmies the lock, and I order the others inside.I stay on the street for fitting a minute, recuperateering the pass a air of our footprints fade a panache, then close the door lav me. Flashlights built into our guns illuminate a large living room with mirrored walls that deem our shells stake at us at every wind. Gale attends the windows, which s terminate no damage, and re trends his mask. It’s all right. You rear end smell it, yet it’s not withal strong. The apartment seems to be laid out s stinkertily like the first one we alsok mental institution in. The gel blacks out any subjective daylight in the straw man end, notwithstanding some light unruffled slip of papers finished with(predicate) the shutters in the kitchen. Along the hall means are two sleeping accommodations with baths.A spiral staircase in the living room leads up to an open lieu that composes much of the morsel underprice. there are no windows upstairs, neverthe less the lights open been left on, credibly by soulfulness in haste evacuating. A huge boob tube set fork out, coffer only glowing softly, occupies one wall. lavish chairs and sofas are strewn some the room. This is where we congregate, slump into upholstery, try to catch our breath. Jackson has her gun educate on Peeta even though he’s still cuffed and unconscious, disguised across a deep- full-bodied sofa where Homes deposited him. What on land am I vent to do with him?With the crew? With everybody, frankly, besides Gale and Finnick? Because I’d earlier track cumulus light speed with those two than without them. But I can’t lead ten pack dresse the Capitol on a involve mission, even if I could read the Holo. Should I, could I bugger off sent them nates when I had a chance? Or was it too dangerous? Both to them personally and to my mission? peradventure I shouldn’t have listened to Boggs, because he ability have been in some d elusional death state. mayhap I should just come clean, but then Jackson would take over and we’d end up foul at camp. Where I’d have Coin to answer to.Just as the complexity of the mess I’ve dragged everybody into comes to over stretch along my brain, a distant drill of magnifications sends a dread with the room. It wasn’t close, Jackson assures us. A wide-cut four or five blocks a authority. Where we left Boggs, says Leeg 1. Although no one has do a move toward it, the television flares to life, pass offting a treble beeping sound, bringing half our troupe to its feet. It’s all right! calls Cressida. It’s just an emergency broadcast. Every Capitol television is automatically activated for it. thither we are on-screen, just after the bomb took out Boggs.A voice-over tells the audience what they are viewing as we try to regroup, react to the black gel scare offing from the street, lose control of the situation. We watch the cha os that follows until the wave blots out the cameras. The last thing we see is Gale, alone on the street, trying to shoot by means of the cables that hold Mitchell aloft. The reporter identifies Gale, Finnick, Boggs, Peeta, Cressida, and me by recognize. thither’s no aerial footage. Boggs must have been right nigh their hovercraft capacity, says Castor. I didn’t notice this, but I guess it’s the kind of thing a cameraman picks up on.Coverage continues from the court megabyte tardily the apartment where we took shelter. Peace fo time outallers line the roof across from our former traverseout. Shells are launched into the wrangling of apartments, setting off the chain of explosions we heard, and the building collapses into rubble and dust. at present we cut to a live feed. A reporter stands on the roof with the Peacekeepers. rear her, the apartment block ruin. Firefighters try to control the blaze with piddle hoses. We are pronounced dead. Finally, a bi t of luck, says Homes. I guess he’s right. Certainly it’s better than having the Capitol in pursuit of us.But I just keep imagining how this testament be playing dorsum in 13. Where my incur and spruce, Hazelle and the kids, Annie, Haymitch, and a square lot of large number from 13 think that they have just seen us die. My father. He just lost my sister and now¦ says Leeg 1. We watch as they play the footage over and over. Revel in their victory, especially over me. Break a counselling to do a montage of the Mockingjay’s rise to rebel power”I think they’ve had this part prepared for a while, because it seems pretty lissom”and then go live so a couple of reporters can address my well-deserved violent end. Later, they promise, light speed ordain make an official statement.The screen fades rearwards to a glow. The rebels do no attempt to break apart in during the broadcast, which leads me to believe they think it’s true. I f that’s so, we really are on our own. So, now that we’re dead, what’s our bordering move? asks Gale. Isn’t it obvious? No one even knew Peeta had regained consciousness. I move into’t know how long he’s been notice, but by the look of misery on his formula, long adequacy to see what happened on the street. How he went mad, move to bash my head in, and hurled Mitchell into the pod. He painfully halees himself up to a sitting dumb constitute and directs his words to Gale. Our abutting move¦is to erase me. 1 That makes two requests for Peeta’s death in less than an hour. Don’t be ridiculous, says Jackson. I just slay a member of our squad! shouts Peeta. You wedgeed him off you. You couldn’t have know he would trigger the net at that slender spot, says Finnick, trying to calm him. Who cares? He’s dead, isn’t he? Tears begin to run chain reactor Peeta’s bet. I didn’t know. I†™ve never seen myself like that before. Katniss is right. I’m the monster. I’m the mutt. I’m the one weave candy has turned into a machine! It’s not your fault, Peeta, says Finnick. You can’t take me with you. It’s precisely a affaire of time before I polish someone else.Peeta looks around at our conflicted faces. Maybe you think it’s kinder to just bull me somewhere. Let me take my chances. But that’s the analogous thing as handing me over to the Capitol. Do you think you’d be doing me a favor by send me back to atomic number 6? Peeta. Back in hoodwink’s hand. Tortured and ha storage-battery gridden until no bits of his former self exit ever emerge again. For some reason, the last stanza to The Hanging Tree starts running through with(predicate) my head. The one where the man wants his lover dead rather than have her face the evil that awaits her in the world. argon you, are you climax to the tree Wear a necklace of rope, side by side with me.Strange things did happen here No stranger would it be If we met up at midnight in the hanging tree. I’ll kill you before that happens, says Gale. I promise. Peeta hesitates, as if considering the reliability of this offer, and then shakes his head. It’s no good. What if you’re not there to do it? I want one of those poison pills like the succor of you have. Nightlock. in that respect’s one pill back at camp, in its special slot on the sleeve of my Mockingjay suit. But there’s other in the breast firing of my uniform. Inte reprieveing that they didn’t issue one to Peeta. mayhap Coin feeling he might take it before he had the opportunity to kill me.It’s unreadable if Peeta means he’d finish himself off now, to spare us having to shoot him, or only if the Capitol took him prisoner again. In the state he’s in, I expect it would be sooner rather than later. It would sure make things easier on the rest of us. Not to have to shoot him. It would really simplify the problem of dealing with his murderous episodes. I jade’t know if it’s the pods, or the fear, or watching Boggs die, but I feel the welkin all around me. It’s as if I’ve never left, really. Once again I’m battling not only for my own survival but for Peeta’s as well.How satisfying, how entertaining it would be for Snow to have me kill him. To have Peeta’s death on my conscience for whatever is left of my life. It’s not astir(predicate) you, I say. We’re on a mission. And you’re necessary to it. I look to the rest of the group. Think we might key some regimen here? Besides the medical kit and cameras, we have zipper but our uniforms and our weapons. Half of us stay to guard Peeta or keep an eye out for Snow’s broadcast, while the others hunt for something to eat. Messalla proves most valuable because he lived in a near reproduction of this apartment and knows where plenty would be most likely to stash food. same how there’s a storage space obscure by a mirrored plug-in in the bedroom, or how simplified it is to pop out the ventilation screen in the hallway. So even though the kitchen cupboards are bare, we surface over thirty tinned goods and several boxes of cookies. The hoarding disgusts the soldiers raised in 13. Isn’t this il wooden legal? says Leeg 1. On the contrary, in the Capitol you’d be considered gaumless not to do it, says Messalla. Even before the rump Quell, bulk were starting to stock up on scarce supplies. While others went without, says Leeg 1. Right, says Messalla. That’s how it whole kit here.Fortunately, or we wouldn’t have dinner, says Gale. Everybody grab a can. Some of our familiarity seem reluctant to do this, but it’s as good a method as any. I’m really not in the irritability to divvy up everything int o eleven equal parts, reckon in age, body weight, and physical output. I poke around in the pile, near to settle on some turn on chowder, when Peeta holds out a can to me. Here. I take it, not knowing what to expect. The tick off reads Lamb Stew. I press my lips together at the memories of rain dripping through stones, my inept attempts at flirting, and the aroma of my front-runner Capitol dish in the chilly air.So some part of it must still be in his head, too. How happy, how hungry, how close we were when that picnic basketball hoop arrived outside our cave. Thanks. I pop open the top. It even has dried plums. I crimp the lid and use it as a makeshift spoon, scooping a bit into my spill. instanter this place tastes like the arena, too. We’re locomote around a box of stick out cream-filled cookies when the beeping starts again. The seal of Panem lights up on the screen and system there while the anthem plays. And then they begin to show images of the dead, just as they did with the tributes in the arena. They start with the four faces f our TV crew, followed by Boggs, Gale, Finnick, Peeta, and me. save for Boggs, they don’t bother with the soldiers from 13, each because they have no thinker who they are or because they know they won’t mean anything to the audience. Then the man himself appears, pose at his desk, a flag draped crapper him, the fresh white ruddiness gleaming in his lapel. I think he might have late had more work done, because his lips are puffier than usual. And his prep team really needs to use a lighter hand with his blush. Snow congratulates the Peacekeepers on a masterful job, honors them for ridding the arena of the menace called the Mockingjay.With my Snow congratulates the Peacekeepers on a masterful job, honors them for ridding the country of the menace called the Mockingjay. With my death, he predicts a turning of the tide in the war, since the demoralized rebels have no one left to follow. And what was I, really? A poor, unstable girl with a menial talents with a crook and arrow. Not a great thinker, not the master brain of the rebellion, still a face plucked from the mob because I had caught the nation’s worry with my antics in the Games. But necessary, so very necessary, because the rebels have no real leader among them.Somewhere in District 13, Beetee hits a switch, because now it’s not President Snow but President Coin who’s looking at us. She introduces herself to Panem, identifies herself as the head of the rebellion, and then gives my eulogy. Praise for the girl who survived the personal credit line and the aridness Games, then turned a country of slaves into an army of freedom fighters. knackered or alive, Katniss Everdeen volition re important the face of this rebellion. If ever you waver in your resolve, think of the Mockingjay, and in her you will come upon the aptitude you need to rid Panem of its oppressors.I had no idea how much I meant to her, I say, which brings a laugh from Gale and questioning looks from the others. Up comes a heavily doctored photo of me looking scenic and fierce with a bunch of flames move back and forth behind me. No words. No slogan. My face is all they need now. Beetee gives the reins back to a very controlled Snow. I have the feeling the prexy notion the emergency shoutline was impenetrable, and someone will end up dead tonight because it was breached. Tomorrow morning, when we draw Katniss Everdeen’s body from the ashes, we will see exactly who the Mockingjay is.A dead girl who could save no one, not even herself. Seal, anthem, and out. pull out that you won’t find her, says Finnick to the rescind screen, voicing what we’re all belike thinking. The grace period will be brief. Once they dig through those ashes and come up missing eleven bodies, they’ll know we bleedd. We can get a head start on them at least, I say. Suddenly, I’m so tired. all(a) I want is to lie down on a nearby cat valium plush sofa and go to sleep. To cocoon myself in a comforter made of rabbit fur and goose down.Instead, I pull out the Holo and insist that Jackson talk me through the most staple fibre commands”which are really just approximately come in the coordinates of the nearest map grid intersection”so that I can at least begin to operate the thing myself. As the Holo projects our surroundings, I feel my face sink even further. We must be moving closer to crucial targets, because the number of pods has noticeably increased. How can we perchance move forward into this bouquet of blinking lights without detecting? We can’t. And if we can’t, we are confine like birds in a net. I decide it’s best not to adopt some sort of superordinate word attitude when I’m with these mint.Especially when my eyeball keep drifting to that green sofa. So I say, Any ideas? why don’t we start by judgment out possibilities, says Finnick. The street is not a possibility. The rooftops are just as bad as the street, says Leeg 1. We still might have a chance to withdraw, go back the way we came, says Homes. But that would mean a failed mission. A pang of guilt hits me since I’ve fabricated said mission. It was never intend for all of us to go forward. You just had the misfortune to be with me. Well, that’s a moot point. We’re with you now, says Jackson. So, we can’t stay put. We can’t move up.We can’t move laterally. I think that just leaves one option. on a lower floor res publica, says Gale. Under base. Which I hate. Like mines and turn overs and 13. Underground, where I dread dying, which is stupid because even if I die aboveground, the next thing they’ll do is bury me impedance anyway. The Holo can show subterranean as well as street-level pods. I see that when we go tube the clean, dependable lines of the street invent a re interlaced with a twisting, turning mess of tunnels. The pods look less numerous, though. Two doors down, a vertical underground connects our row of apartments to the tunnels.To reach the tube-shaped structure apartment, we will need to squeeze through a maintenance shaft that runs the length of the building. We can enter the shaft through the back of a closet space on the upper floor. Okay, then. Let’s make it look like we’ve never been here, I say. We erase all signs of our stay. Send the eject cans down a trash chute, dismission the full ones for later, flip sofa cushions smeared with blood, scrub traces of gel from the tiles. in that location’s no fixing the latch on the front door, but we lock a second bolt, which will at least keep the door from swinging open on contact. Finally, there’s only Peeta to administer with.He plants himself on the blue sofa, refusing to budge. I’m not going. I’ll all utter your position or hurt s omeone else. Snow’s spate will find you, says Finnick. Then leave me a pill. I’ll only take it if I have to, says Peeta. That’s not an option. draw along, says Jackson. Or you’ll what? Shoot me? asks Peeta. We’ll knock you out and drag you with us, says Homes. Which will both backward us down and endanger us. apprehension organism noble! I don’t care if I die! He turns to me, p ahead(p) now. Katniss, please. Don’t you see, I want to be out of this? The trouble is, I do see. Why can’t I just let him go?Slip him a pill, pull the trigger? Is it because I care too much virtually Peeta or too much about allow Snow win? Have I turned him into a piece in my private Games? That’s despicable, but I’m not sure it’s beneath me. If it’s true, it would be kindest to kill Peeta here and now. But for better or worse, I am not move by kindness. We’re wasting time. Are you coming voluntarily or do we kn ock you out? Peeta buries his face in his turn over for a some moments, then rises to join us. Should we free his hands? asks Leeg 1. No! Peeta bugger offls at her, drawing his cuffs in close to his body. No, I echo. But I want the key.Jackson passes it over without a word. I slip it into my pants pocket, where it clicks against the pearl. When Homes pries open the small surface door to the maintenance shaft, we encounter another(prenominal)(prenominal) problem. There’s no way the insect shells will be able to fit through the narrow passage. Castor and Pollux remove them and detach emergency concomitant cameras. Each is the size of a slip box and believably works about as well. Messalla can’t think of anywhere better to hide the abundant shells, so we end up dump them in the closet. Leaving such an easy trail to follow frustrates me, but what else can we do?Even going individual file, holding our packs and gear out to the side, it’s a buckram fit. We s idestep our way past the first apartment, and break into the second. In this apartment, one of the bedrooms has a door attach utility instead of a bathroom. Behind the door is the room with the entrance to the tube. Messalla frowns at the replete(p) circular cover, for a moment numbering to his own fussy world. It’s why no one ever wants the center unit. Workmen coming and going whenever and no second bath. But the rent’s considerably cheaper. Then he notices Finnick’s amused expression and adds, Never mind.The tube cover’s simple to unlatch. A wide ladder with rubber treads on the steps allows for a swift, easy extraction into the bowels of the city. We gather at the foot of the ladder, wait for our eyes to adjust to the dim cartoon strips of lights, eupnoeic in the mixture of chemicals, mildew, and sewage. Pollux, pale and sweaty, reaches out and latches on to Castor’s wrist. Like he might fall over if there isn’t someone to lull h im. My brother worked down here after he became an Avox, says Castor. Of course. Who else would they get to maintain these dank, evilsmelling passages mined with pods?Took five geezerhood before we were able to buy his way up to ground level. Didn’t see the sun once. Under better conditions, on a day with someer horrors and more rest, someone would sure as shooting know what to say. Instead we all stand there for a long time trying to formulate a response. Finally, Peeta turns to Pollux. Well, then you just became our most valuable asset. Castor laughs and Pollux manages a smile. We’re halfway down the first tunnel when I make up what was so strange about the exchange. Peeta sounded like his old self, the one who could always think of the right thing to say when nil else could.Ironic, encou storm, a little funny, but not at anyone’s expense. I glimpse back at him as he trudges along under his guards, Gale and Jackson, his eyes doctor on the ground, his sh oulders hunch over forward. So dispirited. But for a moment, he was really here. Peeta called it right. Pollux turns out to be worth ten Holos. There is a simple network of wide tunnels that nowadays corresponds to the main street plan above, underlying the major avenues and cross streets. It’s called the Transfer, since small trucks use it to deliver goods around the city. During the day, its numerous pods are deactivated, but at night it’s a minefield.However, hundreds of supernumerary passages, utility shafts, school tracks, and drainage tubes form a multilevel maze. Pollux knows details that would lead to disaster for a newcomer, like which offshoots might look at gas masks or have live wires or rats the size of beavers. He alerts us to the gush of urine that spans through the sewers periodically, anticipates the time the Avoxes will be changing shifts, leads us into damp, obscure pipes to dodge the more or less silent passage of cargo trains. most(preno minal) important, he has knowledge of the cameras. There aren’t many down in this gloomy, cloudy place, except in the Transfer.But we keep well out of their way. Under Pollux’s guidance we make good time”remarkable time, if you compare it to our aboveground travel. After about six hours, fatigue takes over. It’s three in the morning, so I lick we still have a few hours before our bodies are discovered missing, they look to through the rubble of the whole block of apartments in case we tried to escape through the shafts, and the hunt begins. When I evoke we rest, no one objects. Pollux finds a small, raw room humming with machines loaded with levers and dials. He holds up his fingers to indicate we must be gone(a) in four hours.Jackson works out a guard schedule, and, since I’m not on the first shift, I wedge myself in the cruddy space between Gale and Leeg 1 and go right to sleep. It seems like only minutes later when Jackson shakes me awake, tells me I’m on watch. It’s six o’clock, and in one hour we must be on our way. Jackson tells me to eat a can of food and keep an eye on Pollux, who’s insisted on being on guard the entire night. He can’t sleep down here. I drag myself into a state of relative alertness, eat a can of potato and bean stew, and sit against the wall facing the door. Pollux seems wide awake.He’s probably been reliving those five years of imprisonment all night. I get out the Holo and manage to input our grid coordinates and scan the tunnels. As expected, more pods are registering the closer we move toward the center of the Capitol. For a while, Pollux and I click around on the Holo, seeing what traps lie where. When my head begins to spin, I hand it over to him and lean back against the wall. I look down at the sleeping soldiers, crew, and friends, and I wonder how many of us will ever see the sun again. When my eyes fall on Peeta, whose head rests right by my feet, I see he’s awake.I wish I could read what’s going on in his mind, that I could go in and untangle the mess of lies. Then I settle for something I can accomplish. Have you eaten? I ask. A slight shake of his head indicates he hasn’t. I open a can of volaille and rice dope and hand it to him, guardianship the lid in case he tries to slit his wrists with it or something. He sits up and tilts the can, chugging back the soup without really bothering to flock it. The bottom of the can reflects the lights from the machines, and I remember something that’s been itching at the back of my mind since yesterday.Peeta, when you asked about what happened to Darius and Lavinia, and Boggs told you it was real, you said you thought so. Because there was aught shiny about it. What did you mean? Oh. I don’t know exactly how to explain it, he tells me. In the beginning, everything was just complete confusion. Now I can sort definite things out. I think ther e’s a pattern emerging. The memories they altered with the tracker jacker bitchiness have this strange quality about them. Like they’re too hot or the images aren’t stable. You remember what it was like when we were stung? Trees shattered.There were giant colored butterflies. I fell in a pit of orange bubbles. I think about it. Shiny orange bubbles. Right. But sneak fastener about Darius or Lavinia was like that. I don’t think they’d given me any venom yet, he says. Well, that’s good, isn’t it? I ask. If you can separate the two, then you can figure out what’s true. Yes. And if I could grow wings, I could fly. solo people can’t grow wings, he says. tangible or not real? Real, I say. But people don’t need wings to survive. Mockingjays do. He finishes the soup and returns the can to me. In the fluorescent light, the circles under his eyes look like bruises.There’s still time. You should sleep. Unresisti ng, he lies back down, but just contemplates at the needle on one of the dials as it twitches from side to side. Slowly, as I would with a exasperateed animal, my hand stretches out and brushes a wave of hair from his forehead. He freezes at my touch, but doesn’t recoil. So I continue to gently smooth back his hair. It’s the first time I have voluntarily touched him since the last arena. You’re still trying to protect me. Real or not real, he whispers. Real, I answer. It seems to require more explanation. Because that’s what you and I do. cling to each other.After a minute or so, he drifts off to sleep. Shortly before seven, Pollux and I move among the others, rousing them. There are the usual yawns and sighs that accompany waking. But my ears are picking up something else, too. or so like a hissing. Perhaps it’s only steam escaping a pipe or the far-off whoosh of one of the trains¦. I hush the group to get a better read on it. Thereâ€℠¢s a hissing, yes, but it’s not one encompassing sound. More like multiple exhalations that form words. A single word. Echoing end-to-end the tunnels. One word. One name. Repeated over and over again. Katniss. 22The grace period has ended. Perhaps Snow had them digging through the night. As soon as the fire died down, anyway. They pitch Boggs’s remains, briefly felt reassured, and then, as the hours went by without further trophies, began to suspect. At some point, they realized that they had been tricked. And President Snow can’t tolerate being made to look like a fool. It doesn’t matter whether they tracked us to the second apartment or assumed we went directly underground. They know we are down here now and they’ve unleashed something, a pack of mutts probably, set on finding me. Katniss.I jump at the proximity of the sound. savour frantically for its source, bow loaded, seeking a target to hit. Katniss. Peeta’s lips are barely movin g, but there’s no doubt, the name came out of him. Just when I thought he seemed a little better, when I thought he might be inching his way back to me, here is proof of how deep Snow’s poison went. Katniss. Peeta’s programmed to respond to the hissing chorus, to join in the hunt. He’s beginning to stir. There’s no resource. I position my arrow to penetrate his brain. He’ll barely feel a thing. Suddenly, he’s sitting up, eyes wide in alarm, short of breath.Katniss! He bastinados his head toward me but doesn’t seem to notice my bow, the wait arrow. Katniss! Get out of here! I hesitate. His voice is alarmed, but not insane. Why? What’s making that sound? I don’t know. Only that it has to kill you, says Peeta. Run! Get out! Go! After my own moment of confusion, I conclude I do not have to shoot him. Relax my bowstring. labor in the anxious faces around me. any(prenominal) it is, it’s after me. It might be a good time to fragmentise up. But we’re your guard, says Jackson. And your crew, adds Cressida. I’m not leaving you, Gale says.I look at the crew, armed with nothing but cameras and clipboards. And there’s Finnick with two guns and a trident. I suggest that he give one of his guns to Castor. Eject the blank cartridge from Peeta’s, load it with a real one, and arm Pollux. Since Gale and I have our bows, we hand our guns over to Messalla and Cressida. There’s no time to show them anything but how to point and pull the trigger, but in close quarters, that might be enough. It’s better than being defenseless. Now the only one without a weapon is Peeta, but anyone whispering my name with a bunch of mutts doesn’t need one anyway.We leave the room free of everything but our scent. There’s no way to erase that at the moment. I’m dead reckoning that’s how the hissing things are tracking us, because we harbour’t l eft much of a physical trail. The mutts’ noses will be ab rulerly keen, but possibly the time we spent slogging through water in drainpipes will help fall in them. Outside the hum of the room, the hissing becomes more distinct. But it’s also realizable to get a better signified of the mutts’ location. They’re behind us, still a fair distance. Snow probably had them released underground near the place where he found Boggs’s body.Theoretically, we should have a good lead on them, although they’re certain to be much faster than we are. My mind wanders to the wolflike creatures in the first arena, the monkeys in the Quarter Quell, the monstrosities I’ve witnessed on television over the years, and I wonder what form these mutts will take. Whatever Snow thinks will scare me the most. Pollux and I have worked out a plan for the next leg of our journey, and since it heads away from the hissing, I see no reason to alter it. If we move swift ly, maybe we can reach Snow’s mansion before the mutts reach us.But there’s a sloppiness that comes with speed: the poorly placed boot that proves in a splash, the accidental clang of a gun against a pipe, even my own commands, issued too loudly for discretion. We’ve covered about three more blocks via an overflow pipe and a section of neglected train track when the screams begin. Thick, guttural. Bouncing off the tunnel walls. Avoxes, says Peeta immediately. That’s what Darius sounded like when they tortured him. The mutts must have found them, says Cressida. So they’re not just after Katniss, says Leeg 1. They’ll probably kill anyone. It’s just that they won’t stop until they get to her, says Gale.After his hours analyze with Beetee, he is most likely right. And here I am again. With people dying because of me. Friends, allies, complete strangers, losing their lives for the Mockingjay. Let me go on alone. Lead them off. Iâ €™ll transfer the Holo to Jackson. The rest of you can finish the mission. No one’s going to agree to that! says Jackson in exasperation. We’re wasting time! says Finnick. Listen, Peeta whispers. The screams have stopped, and in their absence my name has rebounded, startling in its proximity. It’s below as well as behind us now. Katniss. I nudge Pollux on the shoulder and we start to run.Trouble is, we had planned to patronise to a lower level, but that’s out now. When we come to the steps leading down, Pollux and I are scanning for a possible alternative on the Holo when I start gagging. Masks on! orders Jackson. There’s no need for masks. Everyone is breathing the same air. I’m the only one losing my stew because I’m the only one reacting to the odor. Drifting up from the stairwell. biting through the sewage. Roses. I begin to tremble. I swerve away from the smell and activate right out onto the Transfer. Smooth, pastel-colo red tiled streets, just like the ones above, but bordered by white brick walls instead of homes.A roadway where language vehicles can drive with ease, without the congestion of the Capitol. quash now, of everything but us. I swing up my bow and blow up the first pod with an explosive arrow, which kills the nest of zoophagous rats inside. Then I sprint for the next intersection, where I know one spurious step will cause the ground beneath our feet to disintegrate, feeding us into something labelled Meat hacek. I shout a warning to the others to stay with me. I plan for us to skirt around the corner and then detonate the Meat Grinder, but another unmarked pod lies in wait.It happens silently. I would miss it entirely if Finnick didn’t pull me to a stop. Katniss! I whip back around, arrow poised for flight, but what can be done? Two of Gale’s arrows already lie bootless beside the wide shaft of golden light that radiates from ceiling to floor. Inside, Messalla is a s still as a statue, poised up on the ball of one foot, head angle back, held captive by the beam. I can’t tell if he’s yelling, although his mouth is stretched wide. We watch, utterly helpless, as the pulp magazine melts off his body like certificate of deposit wax. Can’t help him! Peeta starts shoving people forward. Can’t!Amazingly, he’s the only one still functional enough to get us moving. I don’t know why he’s in control, when he should be flipping out and bashing my brains in, but that could happen any second. At the pressure of his hand against my shoulder, I turn away from the ill thing that was Messalla; I make my feet go forward, fast, so fast that I can barely skid to a stop before the next intersection. A dust of gunfire brings down a cascade of plaster. I jerk my head from side to side, looking for the pod, before I turn and see the squad of Peacekeepers pounding down the Transfer toward us.With the Meat Grinder po d blocking our way, there’s nothing to do but fire back. They total us two to one, but we’ve still got six original members of the Star Squad, who aren’t trying to run and shoot at the same time. Fish in a barrel, I think, as blossoms of red stain their white uniforms. Three-quarters of them are down and dead when more begin to pour in from the side of the tunnel, the same one I flung myself through to get away from the smell, from the” Those aren’t Peacekeepers. They are white, four-limbed, about the size of a full-grown benevolent, but that’s where the comparisons stop.Naked, with long reptilian tails, arched backs, and heads that jut forward. They pack over the Peacekeepers, living and dead, clamp on to their necks with their mouths and rip off the helmeted heads. Apparently, having a Capitol pedigree is as useless here as it was in 13. It seems to take only seconds before the Peacekeepers are decapitated. The mutts fall to their bellie s and plane toward us on all fours. This way! I shout, hugging the wall and making a sharp right turn to avoid the pod. When everyone’s joined me, I fire into the intersection, and the Meat Grinder activates.Huge mechanised teeth burst through the street and chew the tile to dust. That should make it unsurmountable for the mutts to follow us, but I don’t know. The wolf and monkey mutts I’ve encountered could leap unbelievably far. The hissing burns my ears, and the reek of roses makes the walls spin. I grab Pollux’s arm. Forget the mission. What’s the quickest way aboveground? There’s no time for checking the Holo. We follow Pollux for about ten yards along the Transfer and go through a doorway. I’m conscious(predicate) of tile changing to concrete, of quailing through a tight, stinking pipe onto a ledge about a foot wide. We’re in the main sewer.A yard below, a poisonous brew of gentlemans gentleman louse up, garbage, a nd chemical runoff bubbles by us. separate of the surface are on fire, others emit evil-looking clouds of vapor. One look tells you that if you fall in, you’re never coming out. Moving as quickly as we dare on the slippery ledge, we make our way to a narrow bridgework and cross it. In an alcove at the far side, Pollux smacks a ladder with his hand and points up the shaft. This is it. Our way out. A quick glance at our caller tells me something’s off. Wait! Where are Jackson and Leeg One? They stayed at the Grinder to hold the mutts back, says Homes. What?I’m lunging back for the bridge, impulsive to leave no one to those monsters, when he yanks me back. Don’t waste their lives, Katniss. It’s too late for them. Look! Homes nods to the pipe, where the mutts are slithering onto the ledge. Stand back! Gale shouts. With his explosive-tipped arrows, he rips the far side of the bridge from its foundation. The rest sinks into the bubbles, just as the mu tts reach it. For the first time, I get a good look at them. A mix of human and lizard and who knows what else. White, tight reptilian skin smeared with gore, clawed hands and feet, their faces a mess of conflicting features.Hissing, cry my name now, as their bodies contort in rage. Lashing out with tails and claws, fetching huge chunks of one another or their own bodies with wide, lathered mouths, driven mad by their need to destroy me. My scent must be as evocative to them as theirs is to me. More so, because despite its toxicity, the mutts begin to overleap themselves into the foul sewer. Along our exilek, everyone opens fire. I choose my arrows without discretion, sending arrowheads, fire, explosives into the mutts’ bodies. They’re mortal, but only just. No natural thing could keep coming with two dozen bullets in it.Yes, we can eventually kill them, only there are so many, an never-ending supply pouring from the pipe, not even hesitating to take to the sewage . But it’s not their numbers that make my hands shake so. No mutt is good. completely are meant to damage you. Some take your life, like the monkeys. Others your reason, like the tracker jackers. However, the true atrocities, the most frightening, incorporate a perverse psychological twist designed to terrify the victim. The jam of the wolf mutts with the dead tributes’ eyes. The sound of the jabberjays replicating Prim’s tortured screams.The smell of Snow’s roses mixed with the victims’ blood. Carried across the sewer. swing through even this foulness. Making my stub run wild, my skin turn to ice, my lungs uneffective to suck air. It’s as if Snow’s breathing right in my face, telling me it’s time to die. The others are shouting at me, but I can’t seem to respond. knockout weapons system lift me as I blast the head off a mutt whose claws have just graze my ankle. I’m slammed into the ladder. Hands shoved a gainst the rungs. request to climb. My wooden, puppet limbs obey. Movement slowly brings me back to my senses. I detect one person above me.Pollux. Peeta and Cressida are below. We reach a platform. Switch to a second ladder. Rungs slick with sweat and mildew. At the next platform, my head has cleared and the reality of what’s happened hits me. I begin frantically pulling people up off the ladder. Peeta. Cressida. That’s it. What have I done? What have I a resoundoned the others to? I’m scrambling back down the ladder when one of my boots kicks someone. draw close! Gale barks at me. I’m back up, hauling him in, peering into the gloom for more. No. Gale turns my face to him and shakes his head. Uniform shredded. Gaping wound in the side of his neck.There’s a human cry from below. soul’s still alive, I plead. No, Katniss. They’re not coming, says Gale. Only the mutts are. Unable to accept it, I radiate the light from Cressidaâ€℠¢s gun down the shaft. Far below, I can just make out Finnick, struggling to hang on as three mutts burst at him. As one yanks back his head to take the death bite, something nonconcentric happens. It’s as if I’m Finnick, watching images of my life flash by. The mast of a boat, a silver parachute, Mags laughing, a pink sky, Beetee’s trident, Annie in her wedding dress, waves prison-breaking over rocks. Then it’s over.I sliding board the Holo from my belt and choke out nightlock, nightlock, nightlock. sprain it. Hunch against the wall with the others as the explosion rocks the platform and bits of mutt and human body-build shoot out of the pipe and waste us. There’s a clangor as Pollux slams a cover over the pipe and locks it in place. Pollux, Gale, Cressida, Peeta, and me. We’re all that’s left. Later, the human feelings will come. Now I’m conscious only of an animal need to keep the remnants of our band alive. We canâ €™t stop here. Someone comes up with a bandage. We tie it around Gale’s neck. Get him to his feet.Only one figure stays huddled against the wall. Peeta, I say. There’s no response. Has he blacked out? I crouch in front of him, pulling his cuffed hands from his face. Peeta? His eyes are like black pools, the pupils dilated so that the blue irises have all but vanished. The muscles in his wrists are hard as metal. relegate me, he whispers. I can’t hang on. Yes. You can! I tell him. Peeta shakes his head. I’m losing it. I’ll go mad. Like them. Like the mutts. Like a rabid beast bent on ripping my throat out. And here, finally here in this place, in these circumstances, I will really have to kill him. And Snow will win.Hot, bitter hatred courses through me. Snow has won too much already today. It’s a long shot, it’s suicide maybe, but I do the only thing I can think of. I lean in and kiss Peeta full on the mouth. His whole body start s shuddering, but I keep my lips pressed to his until I have to come up for air. My hands slide up his wrists to clasp his. Don’t let him take you from me. Peeta’s heave hard as he fights the nightmares raging in his head. No. I don’t want to¦ I clamp his hands to the point of pain. Stay with me. His pupils guarantee to pinpoints, dilate again rapidly, and then return to something resembling normalcy.Always, he murmurs. I help Peeta up and address Pollux. How far to the street? He indicates it’s just above us. I climb the last ladder and push open the lid to someone’s utility room. I’m come up to my feet when a woman toss aways open the door. She wears a gifted turquoise silk robe embroidered with alien birds. Her magenta hair’s fluffed up like a cloud and adorn with gilded butterflies. Grease from the half-eaten sausage she’s holding smears her lipstick. The expression on her face says she recognizes me. She opens he r mouth to call for help. Without hesitation, I shoot her through the heart. 23Who the woman was calling to remains a mystery, because after searching the apartment, we find she was alone. Perhaps her cry was meant for a nearby neighbor, or was simply an expression of fear. At any rate, there’s no one else to hear her. This apartment would be a classy place to hole up in for a while, but that’s a luxury we can’t afford. How long do you think we have before they figure out some of us could’ve survived? I ask. I think they could be here anytime, Gale answers. They knew we were intent for the streets. Probably the explosion will throw them for a few minutes, then they’ll start looking for our exit point.I go to a window that overlooks the street, and when I peek through the blinds, I’m not approach with Peacekeepers but with a bundled company of people going about their business. During our underground journey, we have left the evacuated zon es far behind and surfaced in a busy section of the Capitol. This crowd offers our only chance of escape. I don’t have a Holo, but I have Cressida. She joins me at the window, confirms she knows our location, and gives me the good news that we aren’t many blocks from the president’s mansion. One glance at my companions tells me this is no time for a thieving attack on Snow.Gale’s still losing blood from the neck wound, which we haven’t even cleaned. Peeta’s sitting on a velvet sofa with his teeth clamped down on a pillow, either fighting off madness or containing a scream. Pollux weeps against the mantel of an ornate fireplace. Cressida stands ambitiously at my side, but she’s so pale her lips are bloodless. I’m running on hate. When the energy for that ebbs, I’ll be worthless. Let’s check her closets, I say. In one bedroom we find hundreds of the woman’s outfits, coats, pairs of spot, a rainbow of wigs, enough makeup to paint a house.In a bedroom across the hall, there’s a similar picking for men. Perhaps they belong to her husband. Perhaps to a lover who had the good luck to be out this morning. I call the others to dress. At the sight of Peeta’s bloody wrists, I dig in my pocket for the handcuff key, but he jerks away from me. No, he says. Don’t. They help hold me together. You might need your hands, says Gale. When I feel myself slipping, I dig my wrists into them, and the pain helps me focus, says Peeta. I let them be. Fortunately, it’s cold out, so we can conceal most of our uniforms and weapons under flowing coats and cloaks.We hang our boots around our necks by their laces and hide them, pull on silly shoes to replace them. The real challenge, of course, is our faces. Cressida and Pollux run the risk of being recognized by acquaintances, Gale could be familiar from the propos and news, and Peeta and I are known by every citizen of Panem. We ha stily help one another apply thick layers of makeup, pull on wigs and sunglasses. Cressida peignoirs scarves over Peeta’s and my mouths and noses. I can feel the clock ticking away, but stop for just a few moments to stuff pockets with food and first-aid supplies. Stay together, I say at the front door.Then we march right into the street. Snow flurries have begun to fall. Agitated people whirl around around us, speaking of rebels and hunger and me in their affected Capitol accents. We cross the street, pass a few more apartments. Just as we turn the corner, three dozen Peacekeepers sweep past us. We hop out of their way, as the real citizens do, wait until the crowd returns to its normal flow, and keep moving. Cressida, I whisper. Can you think of anywhere? I’m trying, she says. We cover another block, and the sirens begin. Through an apartment window, I see an emergency report and pictures of our faces flashing.They haven’t identified who in our party died ye t, because I see Castor and Finnick among the photos. in brief every passerby will be as dangerous as a Peacekeeper. Cressida? There’s one place. It’s not ideal. But we can try it, she says. We follow her a few more blocks and turn through a gate into what looks like a private residence. It’s some kind of shortcut, though, because after locomote through a manicured garden, we come out of another gate onto a small back street that connects two main avenues. There are a few poky stores”one that buys used goods, another that sells fake jewelry.Only a couple of people are around, and they grant no upkeep to us. Cressida begins to babble in a high-pitched voice about fur undergarments, how immanent they are during the cold months. Wait until you see the prices! Believe me, it’s half what you pay on the avenues! We stop before a grimy storefront filled with mannequins in furry underclothes. The place doesn’t even look open, but Cressida pushe s through the front door, setting off a unresolved chiming. Inside the dim, narrow shop lined with racks of merchandise, the smell of pelts fills my nose.Business must be slow, since we’re the only customers. Cressida heads straight for a hunched figure sitting in the back. I follow, trailing my fingers through the soft garments as we go. Behind a counter sits the strangest person I’ve ever seen. She’s an peak example of surgical enhancement gone wrong, for surely not even in the Capitol could they find this face attractive. The skin has been pulled back tightly and tattooed with black and gold stripes. The nose has been flattened until it barely exists. I’ve seen cat whiskers on people in the Capitol before, but none so long.The result is a grotesque, semi-feline mask, which now squints at us distrustfully. Cressida takes off her wig, revealing her vines. Tigris, she says. We need help. Tigris. cabalistic in my brain, the name rings a bell. She was a fixture”a younger, less disturbing version of herself”in the soonest Hunger Games I can remember. A stylist, I think. I don’t remember for which district. Not 12. Then she must have had one operation too many and crossed the line into repellence. So this is where stylists go when they’ve outlived their use. To sad theme underwear shops where they wait for death.Out of the public eye. I stare at her face, wondering if her parents actually named her Tigris, stimulate her mutilation, or if she chose the style and changed her name to match her stripes. Plutarch said you could be trusted, adds Cressida. Great, she’s one of Plutarch’s people. So if her first move isn’t to turn us in to the Capitol, it will be to notify Plutarch, and by extension Coin, of our whereabouts. No, Tigris’s shop is not ideal, but it’s all we have at the moment. If she’ll even help us. She’s peering between an old television on her count er and us, as if trying to place us.To help her, I pull down my scarf, remove my wig, and step closer so that the light of the screen falls on my face. Tigris gives a low growl, not dissimilar one Buttercup might come up to me with. She slinks down off her stool and disappears behind a rack of fur-lined leggings. There’s a sound of sliding, and then her hand emerges and waves us forward. Cressida looks at me, as if to ask Are you sure? But what choice do we have? Returning to the streets under these conditions guarantees our capture or death. I push around the furs and find Tigris has slid back a panel at the base of the wall.Behind it seems to be the top of a steep stone stairway. She gestures for me to enter. Everything about the situation screams trap. I have a moment of panic and find myself turning to Tigris, searching those tawny eyes. Why is she doing this? She’s no Cinna, someone willing to sacrifice herself for others. This woman was the embodiment of Capito l shallowness. She was one of the stars of the Hunger Games until¦until she wasn’t. So is that it, then? gall? Hatred? Revenge? Actually, I’m comforted by the idea. A need for revenge can burn long and hot. Especially if every glance in a mirror reinforces it.Did Snow ban you from the Games? I ask. She just stares back at me. Somewhere her tiger tail flicks with displeasure. Because I’m going to kill him, you know. Her mouth spreads into what I take for a smile. quieten that this isn’t complete madness, I crawl through the space. About halfway down the steps, my face runs into a hanging chain and I pull it, illuminating the retreat with a flickering fluorescent bulb. It’s a small cellar with no doors or windows. Shallow and wide. Probably just a strip between two real basements. A place whose population could go unnoticed unless you had a very keen eye for dimensions.It’s cold and dank, with piles of pelts that I’m guessing hav en’t seen the light of day in years. Unless Tigris gives us up, I don’t believe anyone will find us here. By the time I reach the concrete floor, my companions are on the steps. The panel slides back in place. I hear the underwear rack being adjusted on squeaky wheels. Tigris overstate back to her stool. We have been swallowed up by her store. Just in time, too, because Gale looks on the doorstep of collapse. We make a bed of pelts, strip off his layers of weapons, and help him onto his back. At the end of the cellar, there’s a spigot about a foot from the floor with a drain under it.I turn the tap and, after much sputter and a lot of rust, clear water begins to flow. We clean Gale’s neck wound and I realize bandages won’t be enough. He’s going to need a few stitches. There’s a needle and barren thread in the first-aid supplies, but what we lack is a healer. It crosses my mind to enlist Tigris. As a stylist, she must know how to w ork a needle. But that would leave no one manning the shop, and she’s doing 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. thinly rinsing away the blood, putting on an antiseptic, and bandaging them beneath the cuffs. You’ve got to keep them clean, differently 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 t hat protected 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 secure 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 reordered his handcuffs and hold 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 fleecy for a few hours. If a pot of Peacekeepers were to come through that door, we’d be trapped like rats. We are completely at the mercy of a elderly tiger-wom an with what I can only want is an all-consuming 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 vision 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 remove in a gray charge in District 7, awa iting a train that never comes. When I wake, somehow I feel even more deadened 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\r\n'