I feel like I'm in a daze as they lead me offstage. I barely notice when Caesar clasps my hand in his and looks me seriously in the eye, saying, "Take care of yourself, Peeta." My eyes glance over Mr. Syke as he watches me from the shadows, a slight smile on his face. All I can think of is what I said, what she will think when she hears it, if she thinks I have betrayed her.
Because this is what she stands for now, isn't it? She's the Mockingjay. She is the face of the rebellion. And here I am, telling her to stop, acting like I'm against her. And my measly attempts at keeping her safe, at trying to make it seem like she doesn't know what she's doing, they aren't helping anything. President Snow isn't an idiot. Neither is Mr. Syke, or anyone else that I'm struggling to convince.
I don't even feel relieved when I'm taken back to my room rather than to Dr. Hanshaw's office. Once the door closes behind me, I wander over to the bed and sit on the edge, staring unseeingly at the floor, the pain in my shoulder and my burns hidden behind my roiling thoughts.
Will she ever forgive me for this?
Days pass, and nothing happens. I wonder if there are fights breaking out, if the Capitol people are too busy trying to control the rebellion to worry about me. No one brings me any news. I sit in my room, with nothing to do but wait.
Finally, about midmorning—I have lost all sense of what day it is—the door to my room unlocks and one Peacekeeper walks in. He looks tired and strained; perhaps this means that the rebels are stirring up trouble after all. They are short-staffed enough that they can only send me one escort.
"Time to go," he says to me. I stare at him without moving. He waits for a few seconds, until it becomes clear that I have no intention of obeying. His face hardens.
The Peacekeeper strides toward me, and I glimpse the gun in his belt. He grabs me by the arm, the one that Hanshaw stretched, and I grit my teeth against a hiss of pain. "Didn't you hear me?" he says roughly, constricting his fingers so that a sharp twinge of pain grips my shoulder. "I said it's time to go."
I look at his hand for a second, clutching my arm, and then I look up and meet his eyes. "Get out," I say.
He looks like I've caught him off guard. I've never put up a fight before when they've come to take me away. But now, is there really any point in trying to preserve my own life? Even if I go down under the thumb of the Capitol, I will go down with my head high. That is a promise to myself.
"Excuse me?" His voice is dangerous.
"Didn't you hear me?" I say as calmly as I can, echoing his words from before. "I said get out."
He clenches his jaw angrily. "You have an appointment with Dr. Hanshaw," he growls. "If you don't cooperate, I will be forced to take violent measures to get you where you need to be."
There's that word again. People always want me to cooperate here. And what has it earned me so far? Pain, torture, and forcing me to betray the people that I love.
I don't take my eyes off his. I challenge him with my silence.
He loses patience. "Get up," he snarls, and he yanks me to my feet.
I seize my chance.
I twist out of his grip, ignoring the spasm of pain the movement causes for my shoulder, and I lunge for the gun at his belt. He yells in shock as I shove him as hard as I can, elbowing him in the side. He stumbles, off balance, and I get a grip on the weapon and point it at him, breathing hard.
He looks at me like I'm a foreign species. "What are you doing?" he splutters, eyes on the gun.
"Put your hands where I can see them," I say.
Slowly, as if he can't quite believe this is happening, he raises his hands into the air.
We stand like that for I don't know how long, me pointing the gun at him, him waiting for me to make my next move.
After a while, he cracks a small smile.
"Are you really going to shoot me, Peeta?" he rasps. "Is that your master plan? You going to shoot me and run?"
"I've been through two Hunger Games," I answer calmly. "Don't think I'm afraid to kill you." But my fingers hover over the trigger, and I can't seem to make them do what I want.
His smile slips. "What do you want from me?"
I haven't actually thought about that. My mind starts to work. Do I want him to get me out of here? He'll never do it. He'll sound the alarm the first chance he gets, or jump on me to wrestle my weapon away. I'm not exactly in top physical condition right now; I can't fend him off. I could always shoot him now and make a break for it, but the noise would bring everyone in the building running.
"Take me to Hanshaw," I hear myself say, and a look of surprise flickers across his face.
"That's where I've been trying to get you all along." A rusty laugh escapes him, though it sounds unsteady, and he keeps looking at the gun. He knows I'll fire if he makes a wrong move. "No need to point guns to go there."
"I'm going to kill him," I say coldly, and his eyes widen.
"I can't let you do that."
"I don't really think you have a choice." I think of Katniss, what she might do in this situation. Would she fire this gun right now and go find Hanshaw by herself?
Katniss isn't the one trapped in here, a voice whispers in my head. This is your choice.
"Take me or I shoot," I say.
He looks at me for another long moment, so long that I wonder if he's decided he's going to let me kill him after all, but then he grunts, "Fine."
I go slowly toward him and get up behind him, keeping the gun pointed at his back. He walks ahead of me, keeping his hands out, and we walk out the door.
"Wait," I say sharply, and I glance down the hallway to make sure no one is there to see our situation. But the corridor is deserted, so I prod him with the barrel of the gun, making him jump slightly. He walks again.
I know where Hanshaw's lab is from here. I don't need him to guide me. But I can't leave him alone in my room. He'll run for help first chance he gets. Yet I can't bring myself to shoot him in cold blood either. The very thought of it transports me back to the Games, all of that needless killing, and I can't do it.
So now this Peacekeeper, who has escorted me nearly everywhere and whose name I don't even know, is my guide.
We don't meet anyone on the way to Hanshaw's office, which tells me that there are indeed things that need controlling out in the districts. My stomach clenches as I wonder if Katniss is out there fighting, if she's maybe dead already. Would someone have told me if she were? I doubt it.
But Hanshaw will tell me now, I realize. Even if it means it's his last words spoken on this earth, he will use them to torment me with the news that she's gone.
"Open the door," I tell the Peacekeeper, and now I'm relieved that I brought him, because he has the keys. He unhooks the key ring from his belt, under close watch from me to make sure he doesn't go for a hidden weapon. He jams the key in the door and unlocks it, stepping back to let me go in.
"You first," I say in a hard voice, and he hesitantly walks into the cold, blank room where I have met some of the worst horrors of my life.
Hanshaw is there, fiddling with more of his torture trinkets, as usual. He looks up when we enter, unsurprised to see us. Then his eyes zero in on the gun I'm carrying and narrow.
"Would you look at that," he says, sounding as if he's commenting on something as trivial as the weather. "Actually fighting back for once, are we, Peeta?"
I just stare at him, wondering if he can see all the hatred I feel for him in my face.
That's when the Peacekeeper makes a break for it. His hand darts toward his belt and he removes a little device—he can call for backup through it. I get to him faster, though. I grab his arm, shove him against the wall, and then I hit him over the head with the back of the gun, with more force than was probably necessary.
His head jerks and then he slumps to the ground, unconscious.
I stare down at him, breathing heavily, and then I look up at Hanshaw. And point the gun at him.
And he's still smiling.
"So you've come to kill me," he says, tipping his head to one side and studying me. "I have to say, Peeta, I thought you'd given up long ago."
"You don't deserve to live," I spit at him. "You aren't human."
Hanshaw chuckles. "You would be surprised how many times I've heard that before."
"I doubt that."
"Well then." He spreads his arms and looks at me expectantly. "Go ahead, Peeta. Shoot."
I look at him, confused. Is it really going to be that easy? He's just going to let me kill him?
But no, nothing is ever that easy.
He knows I'll never get away with it. If I kill him now, I'll blow my cover, and every Peacekeeper in the area will swarm here and drag me back to my room, unless they kill me on the spot.
But would it be worth it to take the life of this monster?
"I can tell just what you're thinking, Peeta," he purrs. "Surely you've killed enough in the Games, haven't you? Surely you've seen enough death to be desensitized to it? But it's a little harder than you thought it would be to pull that trigger." He takes a step closer. I tense my arms and aim the gun right at his heart.
"I will feel no regret when I watch you bleed your life out onto this floor." I barely recognize my own voice. There is a burning feeling deep inside of me, and I don't know whether it's from fear or hate or fury, but I know that when the time comes, I'll be able to use that fire to put an end to this man.
If I can even call him a man.
He still smiles at me. How can he smile into his death?
"You think you can kill me and then escape," he says softly. "It's not nearly that simple, Peeta. We are not finished with you, you see. You have a very important job."
"I won't be your weapon," I say. "I won't hurt her. No matter what you do to me, I will never hurt her."
Hanshaw walks closer, pacing toward me casually with his hands behind his back, like he's strolling through town. "You don't know what I can do to you," he says, sounding amused.
His words send a small shiver through me, but I hold the gun steady. I let him walk closer, because what can he do now but stall the inevitable?
He stops with just a foot between himself and the barrel of the gun. He stares at it for a moment, and it infuriates me that he doesn't look at it like it's a threat, like I'm a threat. It means nothing to him.
"Evil things like you can't survive in this world," I tell him.
"You know what they say, Peeta," he says lightly. "Evil thrives in an evil world."
And then his arm shoots out from behind his back, and the syringe plunges into my arm, and I realize my mistake. I pull the trigger, and a deafening bang fills the room, and I hear Hanshaw scream. Then I fold to the ground, unable to withstand whatever he injected into my body, and it all goes black.