Who the woman was calling remains a mystery, because after searching the apartment, we find she was alone. Perhaps her cry was meant for a nearby neighbor, or simply was an expression of fear. At any rate, there's no one else to hear her.
This apartment would be a classy place for us to hole up in for a while, but that's a luxury we can't afford. "How long do you think we have before they figure some of us have survived?"
"I think they could be here anytime," Gale answers. "They know we were heading for the streets. Probably the explosion will throw them for a few minutes, then they'll start looking for our exit point."
"We need to move. Let's search her closet for anything of use, and then look for a better place to hide." Finnick says.
I go to the window that overlooks the street, and when I peek through the blinds, I'm not faced with Peacekeepers but with a bundled crowd of people going about their business. During our underground journey, we left the evacuated area far behind and surfaced in a busy section of the Capitol. This crowd offers our only chance of escape. I don't have the Holo, but I have Cressida. She joins me at the window, confirms she knows our location, and gives me the good news that we aren't many blocks from the president's mansion.
One glance at my companions tells me that this is no time for a stealth attack on Snow. Gale's still losing blood from the neck wound, which we even haven't cleaned. Peeta's sitting on a velvet sofa with his teeth clamped on a pillow, either fighting off madness or containing a scream. Pollux weeps against the mantel of an ornate fireplace. The blood from Finnick's wounds have slowed, but as with Gale, they haven't been cleaned. Cressida stands determinedly at my side, but she's so pale her lips are bloodless. I'm running on hate. When the energy ebbs, I'll be worthless.
"Let's check her closets," I say.
In one bedroom, we find hundreds of the woman's outfits, coats, pairs of shoes, a rainbow of wigs, enough makeup to paint a house. In a bedroom across the hall, there's a similar selection for men. Perhaps they belong to her husband. Perhaps to a lover who had the good luck to be out this morning.
I call the other to dress. At the sight of Peeta's bloody wrists, I dig in my pocket for the handcuff key, but he jerks away from me.
"No," he says. "Don't. They help hold me together."
"You might need your hands," says Gale.
"When I feel myself slipping, I dig my wrists into them, and the pain helps me focus," says Peeta. I let them be. Fortunately, it's cold out, so we can conceal most of our uniforms and weapons under flowing coats and cloaks. We hang our boots around our necks by their laces and hide them, pull on silly shoes to replace them. The real challenge, of course, is our faces. Cressida and Pollux run the risk of being recognized by acquaintances, Gale could be familiar from the propos and news, and Peeta, Finnick and I are known by every citizen of Panem. We hastily help one another apply thick layers of makeup, pull on wigs and sunglasses. Cressida wraps scarfs over Peeta's, Finnick's and my mouths and noses.
I can feel the clock ticking away, but I stop just for a few moments to stuff pockets with food and first-aid supplies. "Stay together," I say at the front door. Then we march right into the street. Snow flurries have begun to fall. Agitate people swirl around us, speaking of rebels and hunger and me in their affected Capitol accents. We cross the street, pass a few more apartments. Just as we turn the corner, three dozen Peacekeepers sweep past us. We hop out of their way, as real citizens do, wait until the crowd returns to its normal flow, and keep moving. "Cressida," I whisper. "Can you think of anywhere?"
"I'm trying," she says.
We cover another block, and the sirens begin. Through an apartment window, I see an emergency report and pictures of our faces flashing. They haven't identified who in our party died yet, because I see pictures of Castor and Homes among the photos. Soon every passerby will be as dangerous as a Peacekeeper. "Cressida?"
"There's one place. It's not ideal. But we can try," she says. We follow her a few more blocks and turn through a gate that looks like a private residence. It's some kind of shortcut, though, because after walking through a manicured garden, we come out of another gate onto a small back street that connects that connects two main avenues. There are a few poky stores—one that buys used goods, another sells fake jewelry. Only a couple of people are around, and they pay no attention to us. Cressida begins to babble in a high-pitched voice about fur undergarments, how essential they are during the cold months. "Wait until you see the price! Believe me, it's half what you pay on the avenues!"
We stop before a grimy store front filled with mannequins wearing furry underwear. This place doesn't even look open, but Cressida pushes through the front door, setting off a dissonant chiming. Inside the dim, narrow shop lined with racks of merchandise, the smell of pelts fills my nose. Business must be slow, since we're the only customers. Cressida heads straight for the hunched figure sitting in the back. I follow, trailing my fingers through the soft garments as we go.
Behind the counters sits the strangest person I have ever seen. She's an example of surgical enhance-ment gone wrong, for surely not even in the Capitol could they find this face attractive. The skin has been pulled back tightly and tattooed with black and gold stripes. The nose has been flattened until it barely exists. I've seen cat whiskers on people in the Capitol, but none so long. The result is a grotesque semi-feline mask, which now squints at us distrustfully.
Cressida takes off her wig, revealing her vines. "Tigris," she says. "We need help."
Tigris. Deep in my brain, the name rings a bell. She was a fixture—younger, less disturbing version of herself—in the earlier Hunger Games. I can remember. A stylist, I think. I don't remember which district. Not 12. Then she must have had one operation too many and crossed the line into repellence.
So this is where stylist go when they've outlived their use. To sad theme underwear shops where they wait for death. Out of the public eye. I stare at her face, wondering if her parents actually named her Tigris, inspiring her mutilations, or if she chose the style and changed her name to match the stripes.
"Plutarch said you could be trusted," adds Cressida.
Great, she's one of Plutarch's people. So if her first move isn't to turn us into the Capitol, it will be to notify Plutarch, and by extension Coin, of our whereabouts. No, Tigris shop is not ideal, but it's all we have at the moment. If she'll even help us. She peers between the old television on the counter and us, as if trying to place us. To help her, I pull down my scarf, remove my wig, and step closer that the light from the screen falls on my face.
Tigris gives a low growl, like Buttercup when he greets me. She slinks off her stool and disappears behind a rack of fur-lined leggings. There's a sound of sliding, and then her hand emerges and waves us forward. Cressida looks at me, as if to ask Are you sure? But what choice do we have? Returning to the streets under these conditions guarantees our capture and death. I push around the furs and find that Tigris has slid back a panel at the base of the wall. Behind it seems to be the top of a steep stone stairway. She gesture for me to enter. Everything about this situation screams trap. I have a moment of panic and find myself turning to Tigris, searching those tawny eyes. Why is she doing this? She's no Cinna, someone willing to sacrifice herself for others. This woman was the embodiment of the Capitol's shallowness. She was one of the stars of the Hunger Games until…until she wasn't. So is that it, then? Bitterness? Hatred? Revenge? Actually, I'm confused by the idea. A need for revenge can burn long and hot. Especially if every glance in the mirror reinforces it.
"Did Snow ban you from the Games?" I ask. She just stares back at me. Somewhere her tiger tail flicks with displeasure. "Because I'm going to kill him." Her face spreads into what I take for a smile. Reassured that this isn't complete madness, I crawl through the space.
About halfway down the steps, my face runs into a hanging chain and I pull it, illuminating the hideout with a flickering fluorescent bulb. It's a small cellar with no doors or windows. Shallow and wide. Probably just a strip between two real basements. A place whose existence could go unnoticed unless you had a very keen eye for dimensions. It's cold and dank, with piles of pelts that I'm guessing haven't seen the light of day in years. Unless Tigris gives us up, I don't believe anyone will find us here. By the time I reach the concrete floor, my companions are on the steps. The panel slides back. I hear the underwear rack being adjust on squeaky wheels. Tigris padding back to her stool. We have been swallowed up by the store.
Just in time, too, because Gale looks on the verge of collapse. We make bed of pelts, strip off layers of his weapons and Finnick helps him onto his back. At the end of the cellar there's a faucet about a foot from the floor with a drain under it. I turn the tap, and after much sputter and a lot of rust, clear water begins to flow. Finnick grabs a bucket and rinses it out, and then fills it halfway. Finnick grabs some first-aid, finds a corner and cleans his wounds while the rest of us tend to Gale. We clean Gale's neck and I realize that bandages won't be enough. He's going to need a few stitches. There's a needle and sterile thread in the first-aid supplies, but what we lack is a healer. It crosses my mind to enlist Tigris. As a stylist, she must know how to work a needle. But that would leave no one manning the shop.
"May I?" Finnick asks, rejoining the group.
I turn to see that Finnick was wearing only his uniform top and his underwear, but he had stellar stitch work in his thigh.
"Be my guest." I said moving out of the way. "When did you become so handy with a needle and thread?"
"Just thought it would be a useful skill to have. I took a bad cut after I won my games, and I wanted to patch it myself. I had a lot of help from the district doctor, who coached me through it." Finnick said, sitting down to stitch Gale's neck.
Finnick put a single row of stitches in Gale's neck, and the tied it off. I smear it with medicine and wrap it up. Give him some pain killer. "You can rest now. It's safe here," I tell him. He's goes out like a light.
While Cressida and Pollux make nests for each of us, Finnick puts medicine on his wounds, wraps them up, and put his pant back on, and I attend to Peeta's wrist. Gently rinsing away the blood, putting on antiseptic, and bandaging them beneath the cuffs. "You've got to keep them clean, otherwise the infection could spread—"
"I know what blood poisoning is, Katniss," says Peeta. "Even if my mother isn't a healer."
I'm jolted back in time, to another wound, another set of bandages. "You said that same thing to me in the first Hunger Games. Real or not real?"
"Real," he says. "And you risked you're life to get me the medicine that saved me?"
"Real." I shrug. "You were the reason I was alive to do it."
"Was I?" The comment throws him into confusion. Some shiny memory must be fighting for his attention, because his body is tense and his newly bandaged wrists strain against the metal cuffs. Then all of the energy saps from his body. "I'm so tired Katniss."
"Go to sleep," I say. He won't until I've rearranged his hand cuffs shackled him to one of the stair supports. It' can't be comfortable, lying there with his arms above his head. But in a few minutes, he drifts off, too.
Cressida and Pollux have made beds for us, arranged our food and medical supplies, and now ask what I want to do about setting up a guard. I look at Gale's pallor, Peeta's restraints, and from the looks of it Finnick is ready to pass out himself. Pollux hasn't slept for days, and Cressida and I have only napped for a few hours. If a troop of Peacekeepers were to come through that door, we'd be trapped like rats. We are at the complete mercy of a decrepit tiger-woman with what I can only hope is an all-consuming passion for Snow's death.
"I honestly don't think there's any point in setting up a guard. Let's just try to get some sleep," I say. They nod numbly, and burrow into the nest they made. I head over to talk to Finnick.
"So how did you escape?" I asked.
"Well before we left base camp, I commandeered a grenade from the supplies. And just before I started climbing, it was just Homes, Castor and myself. Homes noticed the grenade, and took it from me, telling me to start climbing. Castor fire of a few rounds before he was overtaken. I made it to the last ladder when the grenade detonated. I've never been so happy, sad, and terrified in my whole life." Finnick said.
"Terrified because there was a real possibility that you could have died while you were climbing the ladder. Sad that Castor and Homes had to stay behind so you could escape. And finally happy because you got away from those abominations. Does that sum it all up?" I asked.
"Uh…Yeah. If it's all the same to you I'm going to pass out now, and pray that I don't have nightmares while I'm sleeping." Finnick said.
"That makes two of us. I'd offer you sugar, but I left it back at base camp." I quipped.
"That's rude, but thanks for the offer." Finnick said, with a smile as he drifted off to sleep.
"You're welcome," I said, and then went and burrowed into my own nest. The fire inside me has flickered out, and with it my strength. I surrender to the soft, musty fur of oblivion.
I only have one dream I remember, a long and wearying thing in which I'm trying to get to District 12. The home I'm seeking is intact, the people alive. Effie Trinket, conspicuous in her bright pink wig and tailored outfit, travels with me. I keep trying to ditch her in places, but she inextricably reappears at my side, insisting that as my escort she's responsible for staying on schedule. Only our schedule is constantly shifting, derailed by our lack of a stamp from an official or delayed when Effie breaks one of her high heels. We camp for days on a bench in a gray station in 7, awaiting a train that never comes. When I wake, somehow I feel more drained by this than my usual nightmare forays into blood and terror.
Cressida, the only person awake, tells me its late afternoon. I eat a can of beef stew and wash it down with lots of water. Then I lean against the cellar wall, retracing the events of the last day. Before I could list the first casualty, I hear Finnick say. "Don't do that."
"Do what?" I asked.
"Trying to recall the events since we left camp. Remember the dead, and their sacrifice, but there's no need to take on any more unneeded stress than what's necessary." Finnick said.
"Come on Finnick." I said.
"You think it would have been easier if you had went alone with just me and Gale." Finnick asked.
"It would be better than lying about some secret mission to assassinate Snow, and having them die for a lie." I said.
"It wouldn't have exactly been a lie Katniss, and we would have known that it was a lie." Gale said, joining the conversation.
"You would've known, but the soldiers from Thirteen didn't." I said.
"Even if that were the case, do you really think Jackson believed you had orders from Coin?" Cressida asks. "Of course she wouldn't. But she trusted Boggs, and he would've wanted you to go on."
"I never even told Boggs what I planned to do," I say. "And it was you that came up with the filming of Snow's assassination, Cressida."
"We'll get to that later, but you told everyone in Command!" Gale says. "It was one of your conditions for being the Mockingjay. 'I kill Snow.'"
Those seem like two disconnected things. Negotiating with Coin to assassinate Snow and this unauthorized flight through the Capitol. Realistically, I should take Finnick's words to heart. I did tell the truth from the get go. I never lied about the transfer of the Holo, and I didn't lie about Peeta's assign-ment to the squad. But maybe I needed to hear this. Why? I don't know. Yet, at least. "But not like this," I continue. "It's been a complete disaster."
"I think it would be considered a highly successful mission," says Gale. "We've infiltrated the enemy camp, showing that the enemy's defenses can be breached. We've managed to get footage of ourselves all over the Capitol news. We've thrown the whole city into chaos trying to find us."
"I've seen a lot of nasty mutts before, but those things in the sewers were the worst I've have ever seen to date. And we survived them." Finnick said.
"Trust me, Plutarch's thrilled," Cressida says.
"That's because Plutarch doesn't care who lives or dies," I say. "As long as his Games are a success."
Finnick, Cressida and Gale go round and round trying to convince me. Pollux nods at their words to back them up. Only Peeta doesn't offer an opinion.
"What do you think Peeta?" I finally ask him.
"I think…You still have no idea. The effect you can have." He slides his cuffs up the support and pushes himself into a sitting position. "None of the people we lost were idiots. They knew what they were doing. They followed you because they really believed you could kill Snow."
I don't know why but his voice reaches me. But if he's right, and I know he is, I owe the others a debt that can only be repaid one way. I pull my paper map from a pocket in my uniform and spread it out on the floor with new resolve. "Where are we Cressida?"
Tigris's shop sits about five blocks from the City Circle and Snow's mansion. We're in easy walking distance through a zone in which the pods are deactivated for the residents' safety. We have disguises that, with some embellishments from Tigris's furry stock, could get us safely there. But then what? The mansion's sure to be heavily guarded, under round-the-clock camera surveillance, and laced with pods that could become live at the flick of a switch.
"What we need is to get him out in the open," Gale says to me. "Then one of us could pick him off."
"Does he ever appear in public anymore?" Peeta asks.
"I don't think so," says Cressida. "At least in all of his recent speeches I've seen, he been in the mansion. Even before the rebels got here. I imagined he became more vigilant after Finnick aired his crimes."
We look at Finnick, and he gives a mock bow. That's right. It's not just the Tigrises of the Capitol who hate Snow now, but a web of people who know what he did to their friends and families. It would have to be something bordering on miraculous to lure him out. Something like…
"Don't even think about it!" Finnick interrupts. "Snow is too smart to let himself to be captured like that."
"What? I didn't even get say what I was thinking." I say.
"You were going to suggest that you allow yourself to get captured in the hopes that Snow would be present when you were executed." Finnick said.
"No." Peeta shakes his head. "There are too many alternative endings to that plan. Snow might decide to keep you and torture information out of you. Or have you executed publicly without being present. Or kill you inside the mansion and display your body out front."
"Gale?" I say.
"This isn't up for debate. If you were to die, then all the people who died so we could make it this far would have died in vain. This plan is not on the table, so think of something else." Finnick interjected.
"I'm going to agree with Finnick on this one." Gale said.
I can't really be mad at Gale because the plan is suicide, through and through. I thought.
In the quiet that follows, we hear Tigris's soft footfall overhead. It must be closing time. She's locking up, fastening the shutters maybe. A few minutes later, the panel at the top of the stairs slides opens up.
"Come up," says a gravelly voice. "I have some food for you." It's the first time she's talked since we arrived. Whether it's natural or from years of practice, I don't know, but there's something in the manner of her speaking that suggests a cat's purr.
As we climb the stairs, Cressida asks, "Did you contact Plutarch, Tigris?"
"No way to." Tigris shrugs. "He'll figure out you're in a safe house. Don't worry."
Don't worry. I feel immensely relieved by the news that I won't be given—and have to ignore—direct orders from 13. Or make up some viable defense for the decisions I've made over the past couple of days.
In the shop, the counter holds some stale hunks of bread, a wedge of moldy cheese, and half a bottle of mustard. It reminds me that not everyone in the Capitol has full stomachs these days. I feel obliged to tell Tigris about our remaining food supplies, but she waves my objections away. "I eat next to nothing," she says. "And then, only raw meat." This seems a little too in character, but I don't question it. I scrape the mold off the cheese and divide up the food among the rest of us.
While we eat, we watch the latest Capitol news coverage. The government has the rebel survivors narrowed down to the six of us. Huge bounties are offered for information leading to our capture. They emphasize how dangerous we are. Showing us exchanging gun fire with Peacekeepers, although not the mutts ripping off their heads. Do a tragic tribute to the woman lying where we left her, with my arrow still in her heart. Someone has redone her makeup for the cameras.
The rebels let the Capitol broadcast run uninterrupted. "Have the rebels made a statement today?" I ask Tigris. She shakes her head. "I doubt Coin knows what to do with me now that I'm still alive."
Tigris gives a throaty cackle. "Nobody knows what to do with you, girlie." Then she makes me take a pair of fur leggings even though I can't pay her for them. It's the kind of gift you have to accept. And anyway, it's cold in the cellar.
Downstairs after supper, we continue to rack our brains for a plan. Nothing good comes up, but we do agree that we can no longer go out as a group of six and that we should try to infiltrate the president's mansion next. Finnick is still against me being used as bait, and I don't bother arguing the point any further.
We change bandages, handcuff Peeta back to his support, and settle down to sleep. A few hours later I slip back into consciousness and become aware of a quiet conversation. Peeta and Gale. I can't stop myself from eavesdropping.
"Thanks for the water," Peeta says.
"No problem," Gale says. "I wake up ten times a night anyways."
"To make sure Katniss is still here?" asks Peeta.
"Something like that," Gale admits.
There's a long pause before Peeta speaks again. "That was funny what Tigris said. About no one knowing what to do with her."
"Well we never have," Gale says.
Its strange hearing them talk like this, but I didn't finish that thought because Finnick walked over and pulled the fur cover up to my shoulders, and then went to join Gale and Peeta. "I'm not exactly sure what this little conversation is about, or where it's heading, but I'm going to advise you to drop it before you say something you're going to regret."
There's a moment of silence before I hear Peeta's handcuffs slide down the support and he settles in. I hear Gale yawn, and then walk over to his nest. I'm not exactly sure where this conversation was going, but I'm guessing if Finnick stepped in and shut it down, it wasn't going to end well. I roll over and go back to sleep.