CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE - DEAL WITH THE DEVIL

"You lied to me, Miss Everdeen," said Thread icily. "Tsk, tsk, tsk."

His expression was that of a madman; smile huge, eyes unblinking. Katniss tried to speak, but no words came out. She would have felt much safer if she had her bow, but she'd left it on the balcony. And there was no way she'd be able to take on twenty Peacekeepers, anyway.

"Inspector Thread," said Peeta. "Hello."

Thread looked surprised that Peeta was addressing him.

"Hello!" he said. "Such manners!"

It was incredible how quiet it was when he stopped talking. Nobody moved. Chaff seemed to be drifting in and out of consciousness.

"I have to admit," said Thread finally, "I had a few moments of doubt. But you came after all."

Katniss blinked.

"You knew we would come here?"

Thread laughed.

"Of course, you silly girl," he said. "Do you really think I would leave an entire facility so lightly attended? Does that really make sense to you? No, Miss Everdeen, I was hoping you would take the chance I gave you, and you did."

"I just wanted to find out what happened," said Katniss.

Thread sighed, and his smile faded.

"Fine, play dumb," he said. "You and your group tried to remove a high-ranking terrorist to prevent his spilling of rebel secrets."

"What?"

"Oh yes," said Thread, his smile back. "We've picked up your helpers, starting with Mr. Beetee Latier. They're—"

"No, not that!" cried Katniss. "You have no evidence that we're part of any terrorist group!"

"I believe your reasons for being here are quite plain."

"Well you believe wrong," said Katniss. Something else dawned on her then. "Did you know Seeder was working for Snow?"

"I know everything that goes on around here," Thread said.

"Well see-that part was news to me," said Katniss.

Thread rolled his eyes and turned to the Peacekeepers.

"I don't have time for this. Arrest them."

Three Peacekeepers stepped forward from the crowd.

"Wait!" cried Peeta. "Don't arrest Katniss. She can bring you the real killer!"

The Peacekeepers paused and looked at Thread, unsure.

"What are you stopping for?" he snapped, his sudden flare of anger surprising. "He's lying, of course!"

"No, I'm not," said Peeta. He was smiling now, even as he held his hands up in surrender. "And you know it. Snow doesn't think it was us, does he?"

The air seemed to crackle with electricity. The Peacekeepers looked at Thread warily.

"The President has delegated the investigation of these matters to myself," said Thread icily.

Peeta's smile grew wider. Katniss kept looking from him to Thread to the Peacekeepers, unsure of what would happen.

"So?" said Peeta, and he even managed a laugh. Sometimes his ability to lie was unnerving. "Snow's kept the closest eye on Katniss—and he hasn't ordered you to arrest her before, has he?"

"How do you think it's going to look when you bring in the wrong person again," said Katniss, trying to imitate Peeta's breeziness. Somehow she didn't think she sounded as convincing.

"All because you wouldn't listen," said Peeta.

Thread's smug grin vanished. He seemed to be arguing with himself. Shaking his head, he said:

"Give it up. You've been caught red-handed. Both of you are under arrest."

The Peacekeepers moved towards them again. Peeta gestured for them to wait with such authority and sureness that they paused. It was enough for him to get in another sentence.

"We haven't been caught doing anything," said Peeta calmly. "You're the one who made all the assumptions."

Thread was purple in the face.

"This. Is. Nonsense. I told you, arrest them!"

"It wasn't them, Romulus," said a gruff voice behind Katniss. "They just wanted information."

Katniss whirled around. Chaff looked dazed and only half-conscious.

"Well, unfortunately for them," hissed Thread, "The information I have says otherwise—"

"I confess!" barked Chaff. "Is that good enough for you? I confess."

Now even Peeta lost his composure and turned to look at Chaff, horrified. The room was silent.

"All right then," said Thread, after a while. His expression had returned to the smugness of before. "Please take Mr. Etheridge to the execution chamber. Normally we would wait, and gather a big crowd, but the President would like to get the whole ordeal over with as soon as—"

"No!" said Katniss, as a Peacekeeper shoved her aside and went to loosen the chains. She couldn't let Chaff go down for them. Enough District Eleven blood had been spilled for her already. "Didn't you hear what Peeta said? I can bring you the real killer—it's not Chaff!"

Thread looked at her like she was a piece of gum on the bottom of his shoe.

"If you execute Chaff, the rebels are only going to do something else," added Peeta. "To embarrass you—and Snow. How will the President feel about you then?"

For a fraction of a second, Thread looked worried. Then he recovered himself and narrowed his eyes at both of them. The Peacekeepers had undone half of Chaff's chains. The prisoner himself was shivering, though it was not cold.

"Very well," said Thread, his voice cold. "I will postpone the execution, with a condition."

The Peacekeepers backed away again.

"Let's hear it," said Katniss.

Thread took a step towards her.

"You are aware—you must be, that you have just confessed to knowledge of the crime. If you can provide the real killer, with proof, within three days, Chaff Etheridge will be pardoned."

Katniss's stomach tightened. Something was wrong.

"But," said Thread. "If the two of you cannot provide us with the perpetrator, it will be treated as treasonous obstruction: an offense punishable in the country of Panem-" the icy smile stretched anew across his sallow face "-by death. Believe me," he added. "I'm looking forward to what you come up with."

As they were escorted out of the room and back to the Tribute Center, Peeta leaned over and whispered in Katniss's ear.

"Have you got any ideas?"

"None."

Katniss's arrow missed the target by a mile.

The Gymnasium was empty except for Katniss and Gloss; she kept willing him to leave her there, alone, albeit unsuccessfully.

Bender, the guarding Peacekeeper, glanced up at Katniss from his desk across the room and muttered something. She couldn't hear what he said, but she was sure it was about her horrible aim and being glad he wouldn't have to change the target faces. Katniss thought about making a snide comment about talking to yourself, but she thought better of it.

Gloss, meanwhile, seemed completely at ease. He threw knives under his leg, around his back and from all other strange, acrobatic positions. He hadn't missed the bull's-eye yet today. Katniss thought about saying something snide to him as well, but could think of nothing, and his throwing was actually quite impressive.

Annoyed, Katniss took one more shot (hit the target high on the left corner. Better than nothing, but definitely not great) before slinking out to put her bow away.

She found Peeta in the café, writing in a notebook. She sank heavily into the chair opposite him and sighed.

"What's up?" he asked, looking up from the notebook.

It had been over twenty-four hours since Thread had put his deal on the table, and Katniss was no closer to finding a solution. She and Peeta had stayed up late last night, poring over the little they'd gathered, trying to figure out how and if Chaff's revelation about Seeder cleared anything else up. On the contrary, it had only made things murkier.

"Maybe we've been wrong the whole time," Peeta had said after a few hours of pacing. His face showed desperation, not epiphany. "Maybe Seeder wasn't an accident?"

"I thought of that too," said Katniss. But they couldn't figure out how anyone could have predicted which cup to poison. At the same time, if it wasn't about Seeder, if it wasn't about cup passing, the motive got a bit cloudier. Who would want Katniss dead, besides the Capitol? Surely Seeder would have been in on that plan. She shivered as she thought of Seeder at the fika, when she'd whispered in her ear about bravery, trying to ingratiate herself.

Katniss breathed heavily and slipped a few inches down her chair. It was enough of an answer for him.

"We should go talk to Prim today," said Peeta. "Maybe she'll cheer you up?"

"The only way she could cheer me up is if she managed to figure this thing out for me."

Peeta nodded and turned his attention back down to his notebook.

"What are you writing?" she asked.

"It's nothing. Just rewriting everything I know about everyone here. Hoping it gets my thoughts moving, or something."

"Oh."

Both of them were well aware of the urgency of the situation, but there was little they could do. The threat of death couldn't motivate them where there was nothing to be learned. Besides, the answer was probably already in front of them; they just hadn't been able to put it together yet.

"Who are you doing now?" said Katniss, her gaze sliding around the room. It was empty apart from the two of them.

"Enobaria. Wanna see?"

"Sure."

Peeta passed the notebook across the table. Katniss perused the page for a moment before setting the book down. There wasn't really anything new in there.

"This is like word for word what we have on the computer upstairs," she said. "'Hostile to Cressida, no known rebel or Capitol ties. District Two. Hunger Games tapes.'"

Peeta smiled humorlessly.

"Never said it was productive."

"Who else have you done?" asked Katniss. Maybe looking at everything again would jog her own memory.

"I did Blight first," he said. "Go back a few pages."

She flipped through the book.

"Gotcha. 'found Katniss/Cressida on tenth floor.' But that's it on him, too."

"I don't really see him doing it, though," said Peeta.

Katniss put her head down on the table and groaned. It was cool against her forehead.

"That's the problem," she said. "I don't see anyone doing it."

The door swung open and Johanna slouched in. When she saw Katniss, she turned around. She was angry about Katniss losing the ax. And getting them caught, probably. Katniss had no idea what kind of stakes there were for Johanna, Finnick, or Beetee, but none of them had said a word to her all of yesterday or today.

"Come on," said Peeta, and she heard him get to his feet. "It's almost time for the free hour."

Outside, heavy clouds hung low in the sky. It was going to rain soon. Katniss wondered if she'd ever get to see those District Twelve storms again, the ones where it would rain so hard you couldn't see and when it cleared up everything smelled all clean, like it'd been through the Capitol laundry.

The pink building loomed over them, threatening now, and Katniss wondered what other horrors were hiding in there. In reality, she probably didn't have time to be calling Prim instead of focusing her attention on the murders. But she was going to do it anyway.

Inside, Katniss paid the receptionist, who stared openly at her as if she was an exhibit at a zoo. Go ahead and stare, thought Katniss, I won't be back again.

Peeta slid off towards a corner of the room, muttering about calling his father. It was likely, after all, that they would never see each other again. Still, Katniss would have liked Peeta with her to talk in soothing words to Prim, to assure her that they'd both be home soon. His voice wouldn't crack when he lied.

She took her seat and told the telescreen in front of her to call her sister. The screen stayed on the working screen for a long time, so long that Katniss began to worry that she wouldn't pick up.

At last, Prim's purple bedroom appeared on the screen, and Katniss relaxed. Her sister was in bed with her eyes closed. Katniss watched her silently, not wanting to disturb.

Only a moment later, Prim stirred and opened her eyes. She brought her hands to her face, rubbed her eyes, and let out a huge yawn.

"Hi," said Katniss. Prim started.

"Oh! Hey, you scared me," she said, giving Katniss a wan smile. She was pale and her eyes looked swollen.

"You okay?" said Katniss. "Why are you sleeping in the middle of the day?"

"I was up late last night," Prim said, sitting up and drawing her blanket around herself. "I had to help mom with some herb sorting. The delivery was late and all messed up. Plus I think I might be coming down with something." She sneezed powerfully.

Katniss felt such a strong urge to hug her sister she thought she might cry. The purple walls, her sister's messy hair and puffy face, it was all too much. Katniss should be home, sliding Prim food under the door and pretending to be terrified of catching her cold.

"Are you okay?" Prim asked. "You look like you're going to puke or something."

"Yeah. I'm f-fine."

"Is something wrong?" Prim said. She was sounding alarmed now. "What's going on? Is Peeta okay?"

Katniss let out a single, short chuckle. "Yeah, he's fine. He's just talking to his dad now."

Prim was still frowning.

"Why don't you tell me why you're really stuck there?" she asked after a moment. Katniss wasn't even surprised, really. Sometimes it felt like Prim was the older sister.

"I—I don't know how much I can tell you," said Katniss. "But—well—someone died."

"The lady from Eleven."

"Yeah," said Katniss, surprised. "Seeder. How do you know about that?"

"Saw it on the news," said Prim, drawing the blanket tighter around herself. "That Miss Seeder died and she was a great Victor and how we'll all miss her a ton."

Katniss blinked. Of course, Panem had to know something. She decided a few more details couldn't really hurt.

"That's not it though," she said quickly, before she changed her mind. "There were two more, a cameragirl named Cressida and... another girl I knew. Her name was Lavinia."

Prim nodded but showed no sign of surprise.

"What happened to them?" she asked matter-of-factly.

Katniss hesitated before she spoke, but Prim's eyes were focused and unyielding.

"We don't really know," she said. "I saw both of them though, just before."

"Did they say anything weird?" asked Prim, frowning.

"Well, Lavinia couldn't talk, and Cressida..."

Katniss thought back to the last time she'd seen Cressida. In the elevator

"You can't miss it, the only other door is a janitorial closet. Every day. 1:00 to 3:00"

But was that really the last time she'd seen Cressida? She couldn't remember anything else, but those few words stuck to her. Another thing, too.

"A little before she died—not just, but a few days before," said Katniss, more for herself than for Prim. "Cressida flashed this weird symbol at me. A Mockingjay, like the pin Madge gave me."

She'd crossed the line into absolutely-not-to-be-discussed territory. She could sense it. It couldn't hurt Cressida now, though, so it couldn't matter. It wouldn't be long before nothing could hurt Katniss anymore, either.

"Weird," said Prim, tossing her hair and looking away. It was not a thoughtful look; it was more the one you give if someone's telling you a story you don't care about. Still, upon looking back she made brief, intense eye-contact with her sister. Prim was damn good at this.

"Yeah. I don't know," said Katniss.

"You'll be home when they figure it out though, right?"

That was code for What's going to happen to you?

"Yeah, soon."

Nothing. Don't worry.

Prim narrowed her eyes.

"Any idea how long?"

I don't believe you.

"No," said Katniss, smiling. "No idea. But I miss you."

I love you.

Prim sighed heavily and tightened the blankets again; they'd fallen loose in her conversation. Katniss marveled that her sister was both so old and so young, but the thought came with a pang of sadness. Twelve year olds were supposed to be absorbed in their own pubescent world of self-consciousness, but Katniss's sister had grown to fill the space she herself had left, a space for no child.

"Katniss? Are you listening to me?"

Katniss jerked out of her thoughts.

"Yeah, sorry. Well, no... say again?"

Prim sighed like she was annoyed but Katniss could see the softness beneath it. It was familiar, this softness, but where she'd seen it she couldn't tell.

"I said, Mama's been letting me help her a lot more lately. Been delegating and stuff. And I'm learning to knit, so we can make our own clothes.

"So you're sticking to the knitting thing, huh?"

"Yeah," said Prim, dropping the blanket and getting to her feet. The twelve year old was back again, thank goodness. "I made you a scarf, actually. But it's really ugly and uneven and I'm pretty sure I dropped a stitch or two, so it might fall apart. I'm trying again, though. I'm hoping eventually to get up to sweaters and things."

She crossed the room and disappeared from sight for a moment. She reemerged with a very red, very ugly piece of fabric, holding it up for Katniss to study. Katniss had never even thought about knitting before.

"That's great, Prim," said Katniss. She was trying to be discreet as she wiped away the wetness in her eyes. "It's beautiful."

"No, it isn't," said Prim, laughing. "But it's only my first one."

"I'll wear it anyway," said Katniss. "I'll wear it all year, just to brag that my sister can knit."

"I'd better start working on a new one, then. So you don't make a fool of yourself."

So she would go along with Katniss's charade.

"I love you," said Katniss, "so much."

"Love you too. Do you have to go now?"

Katniss glanced at the clock on the wall. She did not have much more time.

"In a minute," she said. "Tell me more about what's going on at home."

"There's not much going on. Gale's been in a mood lately, though."

"Gale?" said Katniss, and she looked up. With what was possibly the worst timing ever, Peeta was walking over from his telescreen, finished with his call. "He's always in a mood."

"Yeah, but he's been extra quiet. He's out in the woods a lot more, too."

Katniss shook her head, hoping that was the end of it. She would probably never see Gale again, anyway.

Meanwhile, Peeta sat down in the chair beside her. She wanted to talk to Gale, and about Gale, but she couldn't with Peeta there. She'd completely avoided thinking about Peeta's proposition so far, and she didn't care to start.

"Hey, Prim, how's it going?"

"Peeta," Prim said, and Katniss was surprised by the warmth in her voice. "Hi! You're better!"

"I am," he said, nodding politely.

"We were worried," said Prim. "Thought you might have had an... accident."

"Nope! Or... I'm all fine now, at least."

Katniss glanced at the clock again. The three of them chatted for the next few minutes, as quick as they could, to get as much out of it as possible.

When they went to hang up, Katniss was saved from bursting into tears only by the fact that her mind had moved forward. That tiny question about Cressida was floating around in her mind.

"Everything okay?" said Peeta. He held the door for her as they left the shop.

"Yeah, I just... Prim reminded me of something, but I—"

She broke off midsentence, because an idea had suddenly occurred to her. It was crazy, incomplete, farfetched, with lots of moving parts and a requirement of insane luck. She took a moment to go through the theory, make sure it held water, but could think of no reason why it didn't. Her theory made sense.

"Peeta," she breathed. "I think I've just... We've got to get back to the Tribute Center!"

She bolted, not leaving time for Peeta to ask her what she was talking about.

"Why? What's at the Tribute Center?" she heard him call behind her.

"Proof, Peeta. Proof."