My name is Katniss Everdeen. I am 19 years old. I have survived the capitol's Hunger Games twice, and assassinated the president of my own rebellion. I have sacrificed everything about myself in the pursuit for the Republic of Panem. I reside in the victor's village of what remains of district 12. Months later, and there truly are much worse games to play.
Prologue
"Katniss?" Peeta whispers.
My eyes flutter open, and I see him peering over me quietly. He has me in his arms, and it no longer pains me to feel everything I can for him. He's been with me at night a lot lately. Nightmares are no stranger to he and I, and all along we are the only ones to have an understanding of what it is that makes us keel over in tight grips every night, what makes us suffer more than any amount of tracker jacker venom could. Only when something else occupies my mind do the nightmares escape me for just a night.
"No nightmares," he says, a line I heard only on the way to the Capitol for the last Quarter Quell.
"You?" I ask.
"They're not the same ones I used to have about losing you anymore," Peeta replies effortlessly.
My mind distinctly flashes back to two nights ago and how I answered "real" when Peeta had inquired about my love for him for the last time. My dandelion in the sun had worried for the last time, had endured the pain of another for the last time. But troubles cannot be taken away, the past never altered.
It's early morning, not too long past dawn. Sleep has evaded me for months now, my body waking me in search for signs of danger-a habit I picked up after my first Games. I am never able to sleep through the night. What little rest Peeta and I get comes I bits and pieces. It didn't take us long to realize that we could possibly never be truly safe again, not even in our own minds. A long sigh given, I get myself out of bed and Peeta volunteers to go down and see if Greasy Sae left anything for breakfast.
I get dressed and prop myself in front of the mirror, taking a long look. You would think after all this time, I would be used to what I see. But I'm not. There's always some part of me that wishes none of it were real. Always some part that has the tiniest bit of hope that none of it was— that it was all tracker jacker-induced hallucinations. That I'm still at home, 16 years old; that Prim was never called at the reaping for the 74th Hunger Games. But she was, and I volunteered. Hard to admit, but had it not been for this event, I would never have repaid my debt to the boy with the bread, the boy who did nothing but kept me alive, and more. But Prim is still gone, another life within the many that were cost for my being kept alive. My eyes scale down the scar on my left arm that Johanna Mason had created what seems like ages ago. And then I see Finnick.
I see him running behind me. He's far behind. Too far. He's screaming, and shouts for me to help him. I want to turn around, to go after him, but someone's pulling me forward. I am frozen in thought when the muttation rips his head from his shoulders. I have no time to scream, when one of them lands on my back and pushes me to the ground. I can feel its breath on my neck. "KATNISS!" it hisses. I shut my eyes as hard as I possibly can, but it's no use.
"NO!" I wail. "Please!"
"Katniss! It's okay, I'm here, it's just me!" I hear what sounds like a mutated human utter.
"Leave me alone! Get off of me! You already have everything you want!" I can already feel myself losing control of the mutt, wondering why I'm trying to reason with it when it knows no such thing, when it starts to stroke my hair and whisper "Katniss" into my ear.
"Katniss, you're okay. Shh…"
A second later, I realize I am no longer at the scene where my comrades died. I am in my room, cowering on the floor, my hands guarding my head, my body in a locked iron grip. I feel Peeta holding me, his arms wrapped around me in a protective lock, soothing me with his gentle voice.
Whenever this happens there are no tears to be wiped. I'm almost always stunned and unable to move for the moment until someone, usually Peeta, breaks me free of the terror. I begin to remember a slight memory of the arena during the Quarter Quell when Finnick and I were trapped inside the reigns of the jabberjays and we were forced to the ground in order to shield ourselves from the horrifying cries of our loved ones.
Slowly I come to my senses again. Whoever finds me like this usually has to hold me for a while before I'm able to stand up properly. Even Haymitch had to do it once, before I left the Capitol after Coin's assassination. But no one can replace Peeta's gentle touch. After what feels like hours, I get up and go downstairs to get my father's hunting jacket.
Peeta hesitates. "Katni—"
"I can still hunt" is all I say, and I stumble out the door.
I break into a fast pace, heading for the once-electric fence. Now, with no Capitol breathing over me, I presume I can go past it as often as I like. Most assume that going hunting and killing animals would bring back too much of the pain that derives from my own memory. But it does just the opposite. Before any of this ever happened, before I ever set foot in the Capitol, hunting was the only place I could feel secure. Despite it being illegal, it was the time that I could be myself more than anywhere or anything else. It was calming to hunt with Gale—Gale—every time I think of his name I feel nothing but conflicting emotions. He was there since before any of this began, and he was always there to protect everyone I loved, despite my treatment of him. But he also unintentionally created the trap that blew Prim to pieces, and somehow that disregards everything else. I push these thoughts away. This is my peaceful place, and I will not let anything get in the way of that.
I kick the dirt as I walk, trying not to relive any of the memories that have made me so weak. I retrieve my bow and arrows from the same spot it always was, the same spot it was in when I had gone hunting before the reaping when I volunteered. I walk back and forth, looking for something that might be a good trade. It took months, but the Hub is reconstructed-a piece of District 12 recovered. Fifty yards up, I see something move. I look up, positioned and ready to release an arrow, when the creature starts to sing. A mockingjay. I pause for a second before I lower my bow. I haven't seen one in such a long time. After they destroyed District 12, there wasn't much left, even outside district lines. Rue used to sing to mockingjays as a signal of safety in District 11. Rue. No, stop, don't think about it. I force myself to keep walking. I look around for around an hour, when I hear it. It's a slight whirring noise, louder than a mosquito, and certainly not human. It's coming from behind me. Instinctively, I turn towards the direction of the victor's village.
It's soft at first, but the whirring starts to get louder, until it's more of a helicopter screech. Then I see it. A hovercraft steadily flies, probably right above my home. But it's not a normal hovercraft, the kind that brings me things I need every now and then. After we took the Capitol, all of the machinery was redesigned and marked with a red stripe that goes all the way across the bodies of most vehicles, representing the blood and sacrifice of the many who freed Panem.
But there was no red stripe on this hovercraft, because this was no recently-made hovercraft. This was the same kind of hovercraft that used to transport Peacekeepers from the Capitol. And nothing that came from the Capitol was ever good. What's it doing over there? No one lives there except Haymitch and—Haymitch and Peeta.
I break into a run as fast as I possibly can towards the victor's village. Didn't we get them all? I think to myself. There is no way this hovercraft was sent by President Paylor. The trees seem to multiply in front of me, but I keep running. Are they trying to take Peeta? Haymitch?Me? No, I would not let them do this again. I'm know I'm getting closer to the fence, so I take out my bow and arrow, out of breath but still jogging. It wouldn't be of much help, I know, but I raise the bow and position it, ready to take down anyone in my way. I make a sharp turn around a tree when SLAM! My body collides with Peeta's. He grabs me before I can fall, and holds me for just a second—I can tell he's out of breath—and he pulls me back and looks at me.
"I didn't know if you were-" I start to burst out.
"Katniss, I'm fine. Look, we don't have much time," he says in a hurry. "I don't know who they are, but they're looking for us. They went directly over our homes. In a second, they'll realize we're not there and come here because I think they may have seen me running towards the fence."
"And Haymitch?" I ask, pleadingly.
"I don't know, Katniss, I tried to find him before I came here, but I couldn't."
"Let's go! We can run before they—"
"Katniss, we won't make it. That thing flies 300 miles an hour. Look, I won't let anything happen to you, all right? No one will hurt you as long as I can help it."
"It's not me I'm worried about!" I cry, thinking of everyone I've ever allowed harm to come to in the past.
Peeta has no time to respond before the trees around us start to blow violently from the wind coming from the hovercraft. The same terror I've never grown used to feeling is expressed across my face. I can tell that Peeta, despite the fact that he's still trying to protect me, is experiencing the same thing. Amidst all the chaos, I realize something. What's happening to us now is the same thing Gale and I had witnessed while hunting so long ago when we saw a girl and boy running from the Capitol's hovercraft. A spear was thrown into the boy's body. The girl was taken aboard the hovercraft and deported to the Capitol, where her tongue was cut off and she became a slave. The girl, whose name we discovered to be Lavinia, was an Avox—a traitor to the Capitol.
I have no time to finish my thoughts before the hovercraft is above us and a metal arm is sent down to pull us inside.
