Hunger Games 03-Mockingjay

by Suzanne Collins

  “But he was already in love with you,” says Cressida.

  “I guess so.” I allow myself a small smile.

  “How are you doing with the separation?” she asks.

  “Not well. I know at any moment Snow could kill him. Especially since he warned Thirteen about the bombing. It’s a terrible thing to live with,” I say. “But because of what they’re putting him through, I don’t have any reservations anymore. About doing whatever it takes to destroy the Capitol. I’m finally free.” I turn my gaze skyward and watch the flight of a hawk across the sky. “President Snow once admitted to me that the Capitol was fragile. At the time, I didn’t know what he meant. It was hard to see clearly because I was so afraid. Now I’m not. The Capitol’s fragile because it depends on the districts for everything. Food, energy, even the Peacekeepers that police us. If we declare our freedom, the Capitol collapses. President Snow, thanks to you, I’m officially declaring mine today.”

  I’ve been sufficient, if not dazzling. Everyone loves the bread story. But it’s my message to President Snow that gets the wheels spinning in Plutarch’s brain. He hastily calls Finnick and Haymitch over and they have a brief but intense conversation that I can see Haymitch isn’t happy with. Plutarch seems to win—Finnick’s pale but nodding his head by the end of it.

  As Finnick moves to take my seat before the camera, Haymitch tells him, “You don’t have to do this.”

  “Yes, I do. If it will help her.” Finnick balls up his rope in his hand. “I’m ready.”

  I don’t know what to expect. A love story about Annie? An account of the abuses in District 4? But Finnick Odair takes a completely different tack.

  “President Snow used to…sell me…my body, that is,” Finnick begins in a flat, removed tone. “I wasn’t the only one. If a victor is considered desirable, the president gives them as a reward or allows people to buy them for an exorbitant amount of money. If you refuse, he kills someone you love. So you do it.”

  That explains it, then. Finnick’s parade of lovers in the Capitol. They were never real lovers. Just people like our old Head Peacekeeper, Cray, who bought desperate girls to devour and discard because he could. I want to interrupt the taping and beg Finnick’s forgiveness for every false thought I’ve ever had about him. But we have a job to do, and I sense Finnick’s role will be far more effective than mine.

  “I wasn’t the only one, but I was the most popular,” he says. “And perhaps the most defenseless, because the people I loved were so defenseless. To make themselves feel better, my patrons would make presents of money or jewelry, but I found a much more valuable form of payment.”

  Secrets, I think. That’s what Finnick told me his lovers paid him in, only I thought the whole arrangement was by his choice.

  “Secrets,” he says, echoing my thoughts. “And this is where you’re going to want to stay tuned, President Snow, because so very many of them were about you. But let’s begin with some of the others.”

  Finnick begins to weave a tapestry so rich in detail that you can’t doubt its authenticity. Tales of strange sexual appetites, betrayals of the heart, bottomless greed, and bloody power plays. Drunken secrets whispered over damp pillow-cases in the dead of night. Finnick was someone bought and sold. A district slave. A handsome one, certainly, but in reality, harmless. Who would he tell? And who would believe him if he did? But some secrets are too delicious not to share. I don’t know the people Finnick names—all seem to be prominent Capitol citizens—but I know, from listening to the chatter of my prep team, the attention the most mild slip in judgment can draw. If a bad haircut can lead to hours of gossip, what will charges of incest, back-stabbing, blackmail, and arson produce? Even as the waves of shock and recrimination roll over the Capitol, the people there will be waiting, as I am now, to hear about the president.

  “And now, on to our good President Coriolanus Snow,” says Finnick. “Such a young man when he rose to power. Such a clever one to keep it. How, you must ask yourself, did he do it? One word. That’s all you really need to know. Poison.” Finnick goes back to Snow’s political ascension, which I know nothing of, and works his way up to the present, pointing out case after case of the mysterious deaths of Snow’s adversaries or, even worse, his allies who had the potential to become threats. People dropping dead at a feast or slowly, inexplicably declining into shadows over a period of months. Blamed on bad shellfish, elusive viruses, or an overlooked weakness in the aorta. Snow drinking from the poisoned cup himself to deflect suspicion. But antidotes don’t always work. They say that’s why he wears the roses that reek of perfume. They say it’s to cover the scent of blood from the mouth sores that will never heal. They say, they say, they say…Snow has a list and no one knows who will be next.

  Poison. The perfect weapon for a snake.

  Since my opinion of the Capitol and its noble president are already so low, I can’t say Finnick’s allegations shock me. They seem to have far more effect on the displaced Capitol rebels like my crew and Fulvia—even Plutarch occasionally reacts in surprise, maybe wondering how a specific tidbit passed him by. When Finnick finishes, they just keep the cameras rolling until finally he has to be the one to say “Cut.”

  The crew hurries inside to edit the material, and Plutarch leads Finnick off for a chat, probably to see if he has any more stories. I’m left with Haymitch in the rubble, wondering if Finnick’s fate would have one day been mine. Why not? Snow could have gotten a really good price for the girl on fire.

  “Is that what happened to you?” I ask Haymitch.

  “No. My mother and younger brother. My girl. They were all dead two weeks after I was crowned victor. Because of that stunt I pulled with the force field,” he answers. “Snow had no one to use against me.”

  “I’m surprised he didn’t just kill you,” I say.

  “Oh, no. I was the example. The person to hold up to the young Finnicks and Johannas and Cashmeres. Of what could happen to a victor who caused problems,” says Haymitch. “But he knew he had no leverage against me.”

  “Until Peeta and I came along,” I say softly. I don’t even get a shrug in return.

  With our job done, there’s nothing left for Finnick and me to do but wait. We try to fill the dragging minutes in Special Defense. Tie knots. Push our lunch around our bowls. Blow things up on the shooting range. Because of the danger of detection, no communication comes from the rescue team. At 15:00, the designated hour, we stand tense and silent in the back of a room full of screens and computers and watch Beetee and his team try to dominate the airwaves. His usual fidgety distraction is replaced with a determination I have never seen. Most of my interview doesn’t make the cut, just enough to show I am alive and still defiant. It is Finnick’s salacious and gory account of the Capitol that takes the day. Is Beetee’s skill improving? Or are his counterparts in the Capitol a little too fascinated to want to tune Finnick out? For the next sixty minutes, the Capitol feed alternates between the standard afternoon newscast, Finnick, and attempts to black it all out. But the rebel techno team manages to override even the latter and, in a real coup, keeps control for almost the entire attack on Snow.

  “Let it go!” says Beetee, throwing up his hands, relinquishing the broadcast back to the Capitol. He mops his face with a cloth. “If they’re not out of there by now, they’re all dead.” He spins in his chair to see Finnick and me reacting to his words. “It was a good plan, though. Did Plutarch show it to you?”

  Of course not. Beetee takes us to another room and shows us how the team, with the help of rebel insiders, will attempt—has attempted—to free the victors from an underground prison. It seems to have involved knockout gas distributed by the ventilation system, a power failure, the detonation of a bomb in a government building several miles from the prison, and now the disruption of the broadcast. Beetee’s glad we find the plan hard to follow, because then our enemies will, too.

  “Like your electricity trap in the arena?” I ask.

  “Exactl
y. And see how well that worked out?” says Beetee.

  Well…not really, I think.

  Finnick and I try to station ourselves in Command, where surely first word of the rescue will come, but we are barred because serious war business is being carried out. We refuse to leave Special Defense and end up waiting in the hummingbird room for news.

  Making knots. Making knots. No word. Making knots. Tick-tock. This is a clock. Do not think of Gale. Do not think of Peeta. Making knots. We do not want dinner. Fingers raw and bleeding. Finnick finally gives up and assumes the hunched position he took in the arena when the jabberjays attacked. I perfect my miniature noose. The words of “The Hanging Tree” replay in my head. Gale and Peeta. Peeta and Gale.

  “Did you love Annie right away, Finnick?” I ask.

  “No.” A long time passes before he adds, “She crept up on me.”

  I search my heart, but at the moment the only person I can feel creeping up on me is Snow.

  It must be midnight, it must be tomorrow when Haymitch pushes open the door. “They’re back. We’re wanted in the hospital.” My mouth opens with a flood of questions that he cuts off with “That’s all I know.”

  I want to run, but Finnick’s acting so strange, as if he’s lost the ability to move, so I take his hand and lead him like a small child. Through Special Defense, into the elevator that goes this way and that, and on to the hospital wing. The place is in an uproar, with doctors shouting orders and the wounded being wheeled through the halls in their beds.

  We’re sideswiped by a gurney bearing an unconscious, emaciated young woman with a shaved head. Her flesh shows bruises and oozing scabs. Johanna Mason. Who actually knew rebel secrets. At least the one about me. And this is how she has paid for it.

  Through a doorway, I catch a glimpse of Gale, stripped to the waist, perspiration streaming down his face as a doctor removes something from under his shoulder blade with a long pair of tweezers. Wounded, but alive. I call his name, start toward him until a nurse pushes me back and shuts me out.

  “Finnick!” Something between a shriek and a cry of joy. A lovely if somewhat bedraggled young woman—dark tangled hair, sea green eyes—runs toward us in nothing but a sheet. “Finnick!” And suddenly, it’s as if there’s no one in the world but these two, crashing through space to reach each other. They collide, enfold, lose their balance, and slam against a wall, where they stay. Clinging into one being. Indivisible.

  A pang of jealousy hits me. Not for either Finnick or Annie but for their certainty. No one seeing them could doubt their love.

  Boggs, looking a little worse for wear but uninjured, finds Haymitch and me. “We got them all out. Except Enobaria. But since she’s from Two, we doubt she’s being held anyway. Peeta’s at the end of the hall. The effects of the gas are just wearing off. You should be there when he wakes.”

  Peeta.

  Alive and well—maybe not well but alive and here. Away from Snow. Safe. Here. With me. In a minute I can touch him. See his smile. Hear his laugh.

  Haymitch’s grinning at me. “Come on, then,” he says.

  I’m light-headed with giddiness. What will I say? Oh, who cares what I say? Peeta will be ecstatic no matter what I do. He’ll probably be kissing me anyway. I wonder if it will feel like those last kisses on the beach in the arena, the ones I haven’t dared let myself consider until this moment.

  Peeta’s awake already, sitting on the side of the bed, looking bewildered as a trio of doctors reassure him, flash lights in his eyes, check his pulse. I’m disappointed that mine was not the first face he saw when he woke, but he sees it now. His features register disbelief and something more intense that I can’t quite place. Desire? Desperation? Surely both, for he sweeps the doctors aside, leaps to his feet, and moves toward me. I run to meet him, my arms extended to embrace him. His hands are reaching for me, too, to caress my face, I think.

  My lips are just forming his name when his fingers lock around my throat.

  13

  The cold collar chafes my neck and makes the shivering even harder to control. At least I am no longer in the claustrophobic tube, while the machines click and whir around me, listening to a disembodied voice telling me to hold still while I try to convince myself I can still breathe. Even now, when I’ve been assured there will be no permanent damage, I hunger for air.

  The medical team’s main concerns—damage to my spinal cord, airway, veins, and arteries—have been allayed. Bruising, hoarseness, the sore larynx, this strange little cough—not to be worried about. It will all be fine. The Mockingjay will not lose her voice. Where, I want to ask, is the doctor who determines if I am losing my mind? Only I’m not supposed to talk right now. I can’t even thank Boggs when he comes to check on me. To look me over and tell me he’s seen a lot worse injuries among the soldiers when they teach choke holds in training.

  It was Boggs who knocked out Peeta with one blow before any permanent damage could be done. I know Haymitch would have come to my defense if he hadn’t been utterly unprepared. To catch both Haymitch and myself off guard is a rare thing. But we have been so consumed with saving Peeta, so tortured by having him in the Capitol’s hands, that the elation at having him back blinded us. If I’d had a private reunion with Peeta, he would have killed me. Now that he’s deranged.

  No, not deranged, I remind myself. Hijacked. That’s the word I heard pass between Plutarch and Haymitch as I was wheeled past them in the hallway. Hijacked. I don’t know what it means.

  Prim, who appeared moments after the attack and has stayed as close to me as possible ever since, spreads another blanket over me. “I think they’ll take the collar off soon, Katniss. You won’t be so cold then.” My mother, who’s been assisting in a complicated surgery, has still not been informed of Peeta’s assault. Prim takes one of my hands, which is clutched in a fist, and massages it until it opens and blood begins to flow through my fingers again. She’s starting on the second fist when the doctors show up, remove the collar, and give me a shot of something for pain and swelling. I lie, as instructed, with my head still, not aggravating the injuries to my neck.

  Plutarch, Haymitch, and Beetee have been waiting in the hall for the doctors to give them clearance to see me. I don’t know if they’ve told Gale, but since he’s not here, I assume they haven’t. Plutarch ushers the doctors out and tries to order Prim to go as well, but she says, “No. If you force me to leave, I’ll go directly to surgery and tell my mother everything that’s happened. And I warn you, she doesn’t think much of a Gamemaker calling the shots on Katniss’s life. Especially when you’ve taken such poor care of her.”

  Plutarch looks offended, but Haymitch chuckles. “I’d let it go, Plutarch,” he says. Prim stays.

  “So, Katniss, Peeta’s condition has come as a shock to all of us,” says Plutarch. “We couldn’t help but notice his deterioration in the last two interviews. Obviously, he’d been abused, and we put his psychological state down to that. Now we believe something more was going on. That the Capitol has been subjecting him to a rather uncommon technique known as hijacking. Beetee?”

  “I’m sorry,” Beetee says, “but I can’t tell you all the specifics of it, Katniss. The Capitol’s very secretive about this form of torture, and I believe the results are inconsistent. This we do know. It’s a type of fear conditioning. The term hijack comes from an old English word that means ‘to capture,’ or even better, ‘seize.’ We believe it was chosen because the technique involves the use of tracker jacker venom, and the jack suggested hijack. You were stung in your first Hunger Games, so unlike most of us, you have firsthand knowledge of the effects of the venom.”

  Terror. Hallucinations. Nightmarish visions of losing those I love. Because the venom targets the part of the brain that houses fear.

  “I’m sure you remember how frightening it was. Did you also suffer mental confusion in the aftermath?” asks Beetee. “A sense of being unable to judge what was true and what was false? Most people who have been stung and liv
ed to tell about it report something of the kind.”

  Yes. That encounter with Peeta. Even after I was clearheaded, I wasn’t sure if he had saved my life by taking on Cato or if I’d imagined it.

  “Recall is made more difficult because memories can be changed.” Beetee taps his forehead. “Brought to the forefront of your mind, altered, and saved again in the revised form. Now imagine that I ask you to remember something—either with a verbal suggestion or by making you watch a tape of the event—and while that experience is refreshed, I give you a dose of tracker jacker venom. Not enough to induce a three-day blackout. Just enough to infuse the memory with fear and doubt. And that’s what your brain puts in long-term storage.”

  I start to feel sick. Prim asks the question that’s in my mind. “Is that what they’ve done to Peeta? Taken his memories of Katniss and distorted them so they’re scary?”

  Beetee nods. “So scary that he’d see her as life-threatening. That he might try to kill her. Yes, that’s our current theory.”

  I cover my face with my arms because this isn’t happening. It isn’t possible. For someone to make Peeta forget he loves me…no one could do that.

  “But you can reverse it, right?” asks Prim.

  “Um…very little data on that,” says Plutarch. “None, really. If hijacking rehabilitation has been attempted before, we have no access to those records.”

  “Well, you’re going to try, aren’t you?” Prim persists. “You’re not just going to lock him up in some padded room and leave him to suffer?”

  “Of course, we’ll try, Prim,” says Beetee. “It’s just, we don’t know to what degree we’ll succeed. If any. My guess is that fearful events are the hardest to root out. They’re the ones we naturally remember the best, after all.”