Catching Fire (39 page)

It's working. I can hear them coming. Two of them. Crashing through the jungle. My knees start to give out and I sink down next to Beetee, resting my weight on my heels. My bow and arrow lift into position. If I can take them out, will Peeta survive the rest?

Enobaria and Finnick reach the lightning tree. They can't see me, sitting above them on the slope, my skin camouflaged in ointment. I home in on Enobaria's neck. With any luck, when I kill her, Finnick will duck behind the tree for cover just as the lightning bolt strikes. And it will be any second. There's only a faint insect click here and there. I can kill them now. I can kill them both.

Another cannon.

“Katniss!” Peeta's voice howls for me. But this time I don't answer. Beetee still breathes faintly beside me. He and I will soon die. Finnick and Enobaria will die. Peeta is alive. Two cannons have sounded. Brutus, Johanna, Chaff. Two of them are already dead. That will leave Peeta with only one tribute to kill. And that is the very best I can do. One enemy.

Enemy. Enemy. The word is tugging at a recent memory. Pulling it into the present. The look on Haymitch's face. “Katniss, when you're in the arena ...” The scowl, the misgiving. “What?” I hear my own voice tighten as I bristle at some unspoken accusation. “You just remember who the enemy is,” Haymitch says. “That's all.”

Haymitch's last words of advice to me. Why would I need reminding? I have always known who the enemy is. Who starves and tortures and kills us in the arena. Who will soon kill everyone I love.

My bow drops as his meaning registers. Yes, I know who the enemy is. And it's not Enobaria.

I finally see Beetee's knife with clear eyes. My shaking hands slide the wire from the hilt, wind it around the arrow just above the feathers, and secure it with a knot picked up in training.

I rise, turning to the force field, fully revealing myself but no longer caring. Only caring about where I should direct my tip, where Beetee would have driven the knife if he'd been able to choose. My bow tilts up at the wavering square, the flaw, the ... what did he call it that day? The chink in the armor. I let the arrow fly, see it hit its mark and vanish, pulling the thread of gold behind it.

My hair stands on end and the lightning strikes the tree.

A flash of white runs up the wire, and for just a moment, the dome bursts into a dazzling blue light. I'm thrown backward to the ground, body useless, paralyzed, eyes frozen wide, as feathery bits of matter rain down on me. I can't reach Peeta. I can't even reach my pearl. My eyes strain to capture one last image of beauty to take with me.

Right before the explosions begin, I find a star.

Everything seems to erupt at once. The earth explodes into showers of dirt and plant matter. Trees burst into flames. Even the sky fills with brightly colored blossoms of light. I can't think why the sky's being bombed until I realize the Gamemakers are shooting off fireworks up there, while the real destruction occurs on the ground. Just in case it's not enough fun watching the obliteration of the arena and the remaining tributes. Or perhaps to illuminate our gory ends.

Will they let anyone survive? Will there be a victor of the Seventy-fifth Hunger Games? Maybe not. After all, what is this Quarter Quell but ... what was it President Snow read from the card?

“... a reminder to the rebels that even the strongest among them cannot overcome the power of the Capitol...”

Not even the strongest of the strong will triumph. Perhaps they never intended to have a victor in these Games at all. Or perhaps my final act of rebellion forced their hand.

I'm sorry, Peeta, I think. I'm sorry I couldn't save you. Save him? More likely I stole his last chance at life, condemned him, by destroying the force field. Maybe, if we had all played by the rules, they might have let him live.

The hovercraft materializes above me without warning. If it was quiet, and a mockingjay perched close at hand, I would have heard the jungle go silent and then the bird's call that precedes the appearance of the Capitol's aircraft. But my ears could never make out anything so delicate in this bombardment.

The claw drops from the underside until it's directly overhead. The metal talons slide under me. I want to scream, run, smash my way out of it but I'm frozen, helpless to do anything but fervently hope I'll die before I reach the shadowy figures awaiting me above. They have not spared my life to crown me victor but to make my death as slow and public as possible.

My worst fears are confirmed when the face that greets me inside the hovercraft belongs to Plutarch Heavensbee, Head Gamemaker. What a mess I have made of his beautiful Games with the clever ticking clock and the field of victors. He will suffer for his failure, probably lose his life, but not before he sees me punished. His hand reaches for me, I think to strike me, but he does something worse. With his thumb and his forefinger, he slides my eyelids shut, sentencing me to the vulnerability of darkness. They can do anything to me now and I will not even see it coming.

My heart pounds so hard the blood begins to stream from beneath my soaked moss bandage. My thoughts grow foggy. Possibly I can bleed to death before they can revive me after all. In my mind, I whisper a thank-you to Johanna Mason for the excellent wound she inflicted as I black out.

When I swim back into semi consciousness, I can feel I'm lying on a padded table. There's the pinching sensation of tubes in my left arm. They are trying to keep me alive because, if I slide quietly, privately into death, it will be a victory. I'm still largely unable to move, open my eyelids, raise my head. But my right arm has regained a little motion. It flops across my body, feeling like a flipper, no, something less animated, like a club. I have no real motor coordination, no proof that I even still have fingers. Yet I manage to swing my arm around until I rip the tubes out. A beeping goes off but I can't stay awake to find out who it will summon.

The next time I surface, my hands are tied down to the table, the tubes back in my arm. I can open my eyes and lift my head slightly, though. I'm in a large room with low ceilings and a silvery light. There are two rows of beds facing each other. I can hear the breathing of what I assume are my fellow victors. Directly across from me I see Beetee with about ten different machines hooked up to him. Just let us die! I scream in my mind. I slam my head back hard on the table and go out again.

When I finally, truly, wake up, the restraints are gone. I raise my hand and find I have fingers that can move at my command again. I push myself to a sitting position and hold on to the padded table until the room settles into focus. My left arm is bandaged but the tubes dangle off stands by the bed.

I'm alone except for Beetee, who still lies in front of me, being sustained by his army of machines. Where are the others, then? Peeta, Finnick, Enobaria, and...and...one more, right? Either Johanna or Chaff or Brutus was still alive when the bombs began. I'm sure they'll want to make an example of us all. But where have they taken them? Moved them from hospital to prison?

“Peeta...” I whisper. I so wanted to protect him. Am still resolved to. Since I have failed to keep him safe in life, I must find him, kill him now before the Capitol gets to choose the agonizing means of his death. I slide my legs off the table and look around for a weapon. There are a few syringes sealed in sterile plastic on a table near Beetee's bed. Perfect. All I'll need is air and a clear shot at one of his veins.

I pause for a moment, consider killing Beetee. But if I do, the monitors will start beeping and I'll be caught before I get to Peeta. I make a silent promise to return and finish him off if I can.

I'm naked except for a thin nightgown, so I slip the syringe under the bandage that covers the wound on my arm. There are no guards at the door. No doubt I'm miles beneath the Training Center or in some Capitol stronghold, and the possibility of my escape is nonexistent. It doesn't matter. I'm not escaping, just finishing a job.

I creep down a narrow hallway to a metal door that stands slightly ajar. Someone is behind it. I take out the syringe and grip it in my hand. Flattening myself against the wall, I listen to the voices inside.

“Communications are down in Seven, Ten, and Twelve. But Eleven has control of transportation now, so there's at least a hope of them getting some food out.”

Plutarch Heavensbee. I think. Although I've only really spoken with him once. A hoarse voice asks a question.

“No, I'm sorry. There's no way I can get you to Four. But I've given special orders for her retrieval if possible. It's the best I can do, Finnick.”

Finnick. My mind struggles to make sense of the conversation, of the fact that it's taking place between Plutarch Heavensbee and Finnick. Is he so near and dear to the Capitol that he'll be excused his crimes? Or did he really have no idea what Beetee intended? He croaks out something else. Something heavy with despair.

“Don't be stupid. That's the worst thing you could do. Get her killed for sure. As long as you're alive, they'll keep her alive for bait,” says Haymitch.

Says Haymitch! I bang through the door and stumble into the room. Haymitch, Plutarch, and a very beat-up Finnick sit around a table laid with a meal no one is eating. Daylight streams in the curved windows, and in the distance I see the top of a forest of trees. We are flying.

“Done knocking yourself out, sweetheart?” says Haymitch, the annoyance clear in his voice. But as I careen forward he steps up and catches my wrists, steadying me. He looks at my hand. “So it's you and a syringe against the Capitol? See, this is why no one lets you make the plans.” I stare at him uncomprehendingly. “Drop it.” I feel the pressure increase on my right wrist until my hand is forced to open and I release the syringe. He settles me in a chair next to Finnick.

Plutarch puts a bowl of broth in front of me. A roll. Slips a spoon into my hand. “Eat,” he says in a much kinder voice than Haymitch used.

Haymitch sits directly in front of me. “Katniss, I'm going to explain what happened. I don't want you to ask any questions until I'm through. Do you understand?”

I nod numbly. And this is what he tells me.

There was a plan to break us out of the arena from the moment the Quell was announced. The victor tributes from 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, and 11 had varying degrees of knowledge about it. Plutarch Heavensbee has been, for several years, part of an undercover group aiming to overthrow the Capitol. He made sure the wire was among the weapons. Beetee was in charge of blowing a hole in the force field. The bread we received in the arena was code for the time of the rescue. The district where the bread originated indicated the day. Three. The number of rolls the hour. Twenty-four. The hovercraft belongs to District 13. Bonnie and Twill, the women I met in the woods from 8, were right about its existence and its defense capabilities. We are currently on a very roundabout journey to District 13. Meanwhile, most of the districts in Panem are in full-scale rebellion.

Haymitch stops to see if I am following. Or maybe he is done for the moment.

It's an awful lot to take in, this elaborate plan in which I was a piece, just as I was meant to be a piece in the Hunger Games. Used without consent, without knowledge. At least in the Hunger Games, I knew I was being played with.

My supposed friends have been a lot more secretive.

“You didn't tell me.” My voice is as ragged as Finnick's.

“Neither you nor Peeta were told. We couldn't risk it,” says Plutarch. “I was even worried you might mention my indiscretion with the watch during the Games.” He pulls out his pocket watch and runs his thumb across the crystal, lighting up the mockingjay. “Of course, when I showed you this, I was merely tipping you off about the arena. As a mentor. I thought it might be a first step toward gaining your trust. I never dreamed you'd be a tribute again.”

“I still don't understand why Peeta and I weren't let in on the plan,” I say.

“Because once the force field blew, you'd be the first ones they'd try to capture, and the less you knew, the better,” says Haymitch.

“The first ones? Why?” I say, trying to hang on to the train of thought.

“For the same reason the rest of us agreed to die to keep you alive,” says Finnick.

“No, Johanna tried to kill me,” I say.

“Johanna knocked you out to cut the tracker from your arm and lead Brutus and Enobaria away from you,” says Haymitch.

“What?” My head aches so and I want them to stop talking in circles. “I don't know what you're—”

“We had to save you because you're the mockingjay, Katniss,” says Plutarch. “While you live, the revolution lives.”

The bird, the pin, the song, the berries, the watch, the cracker, the dress that burst into flames. I am the mockingjay.

The one that survived despite the Capitol's plans. The symbol of the rebellion.

It's what I suspected in the woods when I found Bonnie and Twill escaping. Though I never really understood the magnitude. But then, I wasn't meant to understand. I think of Haymitch's sneering at my plans to flee District 12, start my own uprising, even the very notion that District 13 could exist. Subterfuges and deceptions. And if he could do that, behind his mask of sarcasm and drunkenness, so convincingly and for so long, what else has he lied about? I know what else.