Mockingjay

«You love me. Real or not real?»
I tell him, «Real.»

Finnick looks at me in disbelief. “I don’t, Katniss! Obviously, I don’t. I drag myself out of nightmares each morning and find there’s no relief in waking.” Something in my expression stops him. “Better not to give in to it. It takes ten times as long to put yourself back together as it does to fall apart.”

«Don’t worry, Katniss. It’ll pass.»

It’s just…Peeta. I’m afraid if we do win, the rebels will execute him as a traitor.”

What am I going to do?

I take a deep breath. My arms rise slightly—as if recalling the black-and-white wings Cinna gave me—then come to rest at my sides.

“I’m going to be the Mockingjay.”

“There can’t be a cease-fire.” I lean down, fumbling as I shove the sticks of dark gray graphite back into the box. “We can’t go back.”

Images flash through my mind: the spear piercing Rue’s body in the arena, Gale hanging senseless from the whipping post, the corpse-littered wasteland of my home. And for what? For what? As my blood turns hot, I remember other things. My first glimpse of an uprising in District 8. The victors locked hand in hand the night before the Quarter Quell. And how it was no accident, my shooting that arrow into the force field in the arena. How badly I wanted it to lodge deep in the heart of my enemy.

He might have been tortured. Or persuaded. My guess is he made some kind of deal to protect you. He’d put forth the idea of the cease-fire if Snow let him present you as a confused pregnant girl who had no idea what was going on when she was taken prisoner by the rebels. This way, if the districts lose, there’s still a chance of leniency for you. If you play it right.” I must still look perplexed because Gale delivers the next line very slowly. “Katniss…he’s still trying to keep you alive.”

“Too busy playing allies with the others. I should have never let them separate us!” Peeta bursts out. “That’s when I lost her.”

My body breaks out in a sweat at the memory. My hand slides down the screen and hangs limply at my side. Peeta doesn’t need a brush to paint images from the Games. He works just as well in words.