I don't own the Hunger Games. Sucks to be me.


Everybody is looking at me. I've just made one of the biggest decisions in my life in a split second; I should be worried right now. I am worried right now. I don't want to be the Mockingjay, but I have no other choice. How else can I fight back? I'm not one to hide behind the scenes, pressing buttons and giving out strategic orders. My decisions are made in the spur of the moment; my actions have consequences that I am always willing to face. Somehow, I cope. I'm no Gamemaker.

I know that this is a choice I should feel confident over, and it's not. I feel like I've just signed my soul over to the devil, and Coin isn't particularly helping with that image. Her lips are curved in a small, satisfied smile. A thought flies through my brain, a tiny flicker of a doubt: did she deliberately leave Twelve alone for this very purpose?

I push all doubts aside. I am no longer in a position to doubt the path that I have chosen, it has been set in stone for quite some time now. Judging by the expression on Gale's face right now, the majority of people have been expecting me to become the Mockingjay for a while now. Thirteen, the entire army of rebels, has simply been waiting for me to step up and accept my fate.

Despite the fact that I'm worried, scared even – it feels good. Surely if becoming their Mockingjay has managed to extract some sort of emotion from Coin – a smile – I'm already winning. It's not as though I'll be in this alone, either. If my instincts are right and the rebels have been living in anticipation of this development since my rescue from the games, they'll have plans for what to do with me. I have given myself over to the cause of the rebels, the anti-capitol movement. Unfortunately, it doesn't look as though I'm going to be able to be breaking the rules for much longer.

I'm sure I'll find a way around it.

The screens flicker back to the scenes they had depicted before; my heart gives a pang of grief as I see Cinna. He's still alive. Suddenly, I realise that I could have done so much for him already. "I want Cinna," I say firmly, looking Coin in the eye. Behind me, Gale rolls his eyes and Peeta smiles for the first time since we saw the bombing. For one split second, I turn to Gale and give him a look that means business. I'm not happy with him. I might have told Coin I'll be her team mascot, but that doesn't mean I've forgotten what he kept from me. His face falls; he knows that I know. I hope he feels guilty. He should do.

Maybe I should have done my bargaining before I told her I'd do it. Her face is back to the emotionless canvas it was before, save for a slight scowl. "Rescuing Cinna would put a lot of people at risk, Katniss," she says darkly. I know what she's implying – the lives of the rebels are worth the same as his. Cinna would want to die for the cause. I know that, but I'm not about to let him become some kind of martyr purely because it's something he wants.

"The rebellion needs somebody like Cinna. Somebody who is able to make two kids from district Twelve look as though they could survive through anything, several times." Somebody that can show Panem that the girl on fire hasn't gone out." I couldn't have put it better myself. Once again, Peeta steps forward, saving me with his remarkable ability to weave his words into anything he wants. They should have picked him as their Mockingjay, not me. No, my conscience whispers at me again. Peeta would never have agreed to be a mascot for a war.

I step in line with him, and we radiate power. Peeta is steady, reasonable, righteous. I am reckless, deadly, motivated. We truly make a formidable team. If only Gale would put his jealousy aside and join us. Coin seems to be tossing Peeta's words around in her head, her lips are pursed in the way that my Mother's used to if something didn't quite go to plan with one of the new treatments she had come up with. I can tell that we're winning.

"I need Cinna," I say simply. "He'll calm me down, make me see straight. I can't be your Mockingjay without that." Instead of being fearless, looking Coin in the eye, I choose to use my age, my small frame to my advantage. After all, I am only seventeen. I am not even an adult. I am a victim of the Capitol, somebody who should have been thrown into therapy rather than battle. Coin knows this, and when she looks away I am almost certain that we have won.

"I'll see what I can do." With that, we are dismissed. I leave with Peeta, exiting in the way that we entered. A team, joined by the hand. Two messed up teenagers fuelled by hope. It's wrong of me, to do this in front of Gale, but he deserves it. I know Peeta would never have kept Twelve's destruction from me. When I leave the elevator to return to my room, the identity sensor stops me, asks for my wrist. Annoyed, I place my hand in the hole it offers me, expecting more scans. Instead, my schedule is removed by a series of jets and strange chemicals I don't recognise the smell of, only to be replaced with another. Peeta is given the same treatment.

Gale, on the other hand, has no change in schedule. He is to report to the Weapon's area, where he tells me Beetee is working on a few things. They're looking at how snares could be made with wires, electrified much like the fence outside of Twelve under Thread's rule. For a moment, I'm happy for him, that he's managed to put his skills to use. I very nearly offer my own opinion to him; tell him to make sure that there is nothing like the tell-tale buzz that used to alert the two of us to the danger. Then I remember, and I glare daggers at him.

Peeta and I, however, have been directed to go to a completely different area of Thirteen. It seems like I'm almost being given a tour of the place today, the amount of travelling I'm doing. I almost suggest that we walk and take the stairs which, if it weren't for the rigid rules that Thirteen runs by – would be rotting from disuse. Then I remember Peeta's prosthetic leg. He might not complain about it, but I know him well enough to tell that it doesn't quite work as well as his natural one. He'll never be able to keep up with me – but then again I don't think he would have been able to in the first place. Instead, we decide to walk part of the way. Peeta is slow, in more than one way. He makes the right choices and thinks them through slowly and calmly, whereas I am rash and leading a life filled with the wrong choices.

The walk gives me time to think. A distant part of me tries to imagine that I am back in the woods, on a hunting trip, tending the stairs. But there are more pressing matters at hand, terrible weights I have on my shoulders. I shouldn't be allowed to think to myself, I am filled with doubt and terror. "What if she doesn't save him?" I blurt, fully aware that I hadn't got a concrete answer out of Coin. Cinna was the only friend I had when I started the games, before I truly trusted Peeta. It feels as though I am the only friend he has now, I am the only person that has the power to save him. "I didn't do enough," I shake my head, almost disgusted with myself. "I should've made her promise."

We've been walking apart for a while, heading towards another elevator that will lead us to the right place. "She'll do it," Peeta says confidently, casually looping his arm around me and giving me a comforting squeeze. It's so normal that I almost wish I hadn't let our relationship get to this point. I'm not entirely sure if I want this or not, if it's right, if it's wrong. In another world, I'm sure Peeta and I would have been the happiest couple alive. In a world without the Capitol, without the complication of Gale's jealousy, I would be more than happily to walk anywhere with his arm around my waist. Without my scarring childhood, I would feel free to love him. Then again, if it hadn't been for the bread, I don't think I would have ever trusted him. If he hadn't given me those loaves, it wouldn't have been wrong to kill him in the arena instead of holding out those berries, because he had already saved my life several times over.

Despite this, it still feels a little too close for comfort and I shrink away, feeling the loss of warmth as he removes his arm. He would never let his pain show across his face, but I can feel the rejection radiating off of him. I look away, trying to push the guilt as far away as possible. Surely I have enough on my plate right about now, even without the added drama if a love triangle. There I was, under the impression that staying single was a safe route, one that would keep me out of the dramatic troubles girls my age have. Apparently, it just over complicates things even more. As I said, I'm plagued with the consequences of my choices.

We walk in silence and it suits me, gives me time to really think over the fact that I've just pledged myself to the anti-Capitol movement. So I can't help but feel a little annoyed when Peeta breaks the silence, but I try to keep that to myself. "Why did you do it?" The words seem to tumble out of his mouth in a blur, something I would normally expect from myself, or maybe Gale. Maybe he had been doing some thinking of his own as we wandered the corridors.

We reach the elevator and press the button, stopping and facing each other. "I couldn't sit in the sidelines anymore, Peeta. Coin was right. There are so many people left that need saving from the Capitol." I don't know what I'm expecting in his reaction - pride, maybe? Acceptance, at least. Instead, he just looks a little bit sad.

"You couldn't have let me have another week of thinking you were safe?" He smiles, trying to make it come out as a joke, but even I can tell that it's so much more than that. Wordlessly, I step into the elevator and immediately pinch my eyes shut in the hope that the memories will keep to themselves for once. Naturally, they come back more vivid than ever, loud and bright and real. Cinna being dragged away. The first arena. The second. Being taken away from my family after the reaping.

I am a terrible person. I can't help it. I grab Peeta, take him completely by surprise and lock him in an embrace. I know he would never complain, but that it is completely and utterly immoral to be treating him like this. It's not fair. But it works. The memories fade away into the background as he calms me, just as the nightmares do each morning. The elevator doors open and for a moment we stand there, locked in our embrace until the happy, wistful sighs from overzealous Capitol rebels flood us.

I step away from him and into the room, my cheeks already burning. The place itself is a stark contrast to the TV Room I was in just ten, fifteen minutes beforehand. In fact, it's not unlike the room in which my prep team accosted me several times before the games. The thought sends a shiver down my spine - not at the idea of the games, but rather at the fact that it seems I am going to be attacked today. Instead of mutts, my enemies will come in the form of brutal wax strips, heated eyelash curlers and pots of powders and colours of all sorts. Perhaps I should have expected this, after agreeing to be the Mockingjay.

I am going back on the big screen.

The urge to groan when my prep team bounce into the room almost overcomes me. The appear happy as ever despite looking a little less plump than usual... Who would've thought it? My gossiping, over emotional prep team, Capitol rebels? Venia is beside herself when she sees me, a huge grin spreading across her face as she bounds towards me. For a moment, I think she's handcuffed, and then I realise she's just hiding something from me. Please don't be wax strips, please don't be wax strips.

Instead, she hands me a leather bound, expensive looking book. "We were waiting for you," she says simply, indicating that I should open it.

When I do, my eyes open wide with shock and wonder. The first heavy page is decorated with the most exquisitely detailed sketch of me. Except this woman is not me - she is headstrong, fearless, indestructible, and more importantly kitted out in a devastatingly formidable suit and holding a long, slender black bow. Something this beautiful could only be the work of one person - Cinna. In his neat, italic handwriting at the bottom, he has written five simple words.

I'm still betting on you.


A/N - I hope you liked it. Please review!