Eventually midnight comes and the Capitol anthem plays. A projection of the dead tributes plays against the rocks of the ceiling. The first face to show is Cashmere's. Brutus' face is next, and I think of the trident that speared his chest. Then, I think of the pair of useful glasses they were both wearing before their bodies disappeared. I curse myself for not thinking of grabbing them.
Wiress follows the Careers, making me glad that Beetee is fast asleep and too fevered to wake.
Following her is Mags and Blight, and their faces would not pass by fast enough.
Finnick is awake, his eyes sad as he watches. I look to assess Johanna's reaction.
Johanna locks eyes with me. With the projection, there is light, and she is able to see without glasses. I try to discern the emotion on her face. Not quite anger… disappointment maybe?
Then the world darkens again. I can still see her, but she can no longer see me and turns away.
Peeta nudges my arm. I turn to him. He is frowning. Then he pulls me into his arms.
He rubs a tense spot between my shoulders, and I let myself relax a little. I wonder what the next day will bring us. I wonder when I will die. I wonder what's going on back home.
Prim. My mother. Gale. Madge. I think of them watching me from home. At least I hope they're at home, and not taken into custody, to be punished as Cinna was, or Darius. Punished because of me. Everybody.
I begin to ache for them. Peeta must notice my sudden stiffness because his hands grip me harder, and he holds me closer to his chest.
I can feel his heartbeat.
One of his thumb traces my arm.
I imagine shapes in it, then Peeta suddenly says, "Oh. I almost forgot."
He withdraws and pulls something from his fanny pack. It is my golden mockingjay pin. I had completely forgotten about it. It must have fallen off when I had stripped out of my wet clothes from the previous day.
"Thank you," I say.
Peeta pins it easily onto the front of my shirt.
"I wanted us to match." He touches the locket around his neck, with its engraved mockingjay.
Beetee sputters awake. He is all panic and before Finnick can move to comfort him, I turn to the man, and place a calming hand on his shoulder.
"Beetee, you're safe," I say.
He squints up at me. He does not have night vision glasses, and he says, "Wiress? Is that you?"
"No, Beetee," I tell him softly. "It's me, Katniss."
"Oh, Wiress. It's all gone so, so wrong. This wasn't supposed to happen. You weren't supposed to get hurt, I'm sorry…" and the man begins to cry.
The Quell. He's talking about the Quarter Quell and grieving Wiress.
Peeta takes one of Beetee's big hands into his own strong, square ones and squeezes.
"It's okay, Beetee," Peeta murmurs. "No one thought this Quell should have happened."
"No," says Beetee. "No... not... Wiress," he broke off there, coughing. His eyes are streaming with tears when he recovers. "Have you forgotten? The rescue... the plan... someone must have… a betrayal on the inside... arena change..."
Peeta's eyes spring up to find mine.
He's not talking about the Quarter Quell... but he is.
What 'other' arena could he be talking about?
I touch Beetee's shoulder again to gain his attention and ask, "What rescue plan, Beetee?"
Beetee squints up at me. "Wiress? Is that you?"
"Yes," I say. I find Beetee's other hand and grasp it tightly. "It's me, Wiress."
"Oh, Wiress," he repeats. "They changed it!"
"I-I know…"
"District Thirteen..."
Peeta shakes his head suddenly. "He's delirious, Katniss."
I press my lips together.
"Beetee's must be thinking of his old Hunger Game. He's making the connection of how this arena is different from his last..." says Peeta.
"But then what's the rescue plan?" I demand.
I think of the way Finnick's been acting. Even from the beginning. The way he looked after Peeta fell: scared, uncertain, frustrated. Lost, I conclude, remembering the flustered way he's been putting himself to work around here and his troubled eyes. The things he whispers to Johanna are not about nothing. The way they both look wistfully to Beetee, as if he held all the answers. I thought to dismiss it then. What harm were a few looks? Especially between two injured people. But now I replay them in my head over and over again.
"What if what he's saying means something?" I hiss, so quietly it was almost as if I had not.
Peeta only shrugs.
"Katniss," I hear Finnick's voice and raise my head. Finnick is wide awake, listening. "He's delirious…"
Johanna hisses something to him that I cannot hear. Finnick shakes his head.
Peeta leans closer to Beetee to comfort him, but Beetee tightens his grip on my hand and pulls me closer. "Wiress, you have to... there's only so many... the odds are so... cruel. Don't let it happen... save her... we have to - the mockingjay..."
Save her? The mockingjay? Wiress, save the mockingjay? Who is her? What is the mockingjay? Beetee cannot literally mean a mockingjay bird... no, but the 'her' he speaks of could very convincingly be nicknamed the Mockingjay. And this Mockingjay could very conveniently be a girl whose been associated with mockingjays. On a watch. Branded into a piece of bread. Across a necklace. Pinned on the front of my shirt...
When I raise my eyes to Johanna and Finnick again, I can see the truth reflecting back at me in their faces.
"He's delirious," I say, finally, numbly.
Everyone eagerly nods their heads to agree with me.
But that does not mean I do not believe any of it. This does not mean he hasn't just said what he has. Beetee is delirious enough to say these things within the Capitol's hearing, during the filming of the Hunger Games, and in normal circumstances, he would be dead already. Maybe all of us are dead already. If something has gone so horribly wrong that everyone around me seems hopeless, then maybe it is only a matter of time before we are all doomed.
I cannot say I understand exactly what it means. Only that these people around me have gone into this arena with entirely different plans than just winning. I wonder about Haymitch momentarily, if he had hinted to this, but my mind is reeling so badly nothing seems to stick out. Thinking of him, makes me think of District 12, of home, of family… of every citizen who might have caught something Beetee said before the cameras turned away.
Would the cameras turn away? Was there a point to hide our failed rebellious act? Does it not show that the Capitol had bested us? Except, what did they beat us at? What was it that Beetee mentioned? Everything going wrong. A betrayal on the inside. The wrong arena. Saving her, the Mockingjay… me.
I cannot even begin to understand what significance they mean to give me when titling me the Mockingjay, only that it ties into the rebellion. Which is somehow important enough to convince the past victors in this arena to put my life before their own. Like Cecelia, who ran to me in my time of need. Or Finnick volunteering to jump into a pit after Peeta... begging me not to go in myself. Mags giving up her sight at the loss of her life. Finnick being there for us when we were attacked by the Careers. All of these acts come back to me, scattered, building up.
That's when I feel the betrayal. A white-hot sliver of anger. Haymitch must have known. He knew, encouraged, and possibly planned this. It has always been his plan to save me, never Peeta. He never intended to help me.
Everyone around me is waiting – waiting for me to react or take action.
"Beetee was saying the same stuff earlier," Johanna says, rolling her eyes. "All the nonsense talk. Beetee said things about District Thirteen, about it being alive, thriving." Finnick cringes at her words. "Some ridiculous rescue mission for a bird. Can you believe it? And that Wiress, kept ticking and tocking... while he told her that something's different."
"That's a bit strange," Peeta says.
"You bet," says Johanna. "This sort of talk could probably start an uprising. Wouldn't want that, would we?" She throws back her head and shouts, "Whole country in rebellion? Wouldn't want anything like that!"
My mouth drops open in shock. No one, ever, says anything like that in the Games. Absolutely, they've cut away from Johanna and will be editing her out. But I have heard her, and I can never think about her again in the same way. She'll never win any awards for kindness, but she certainly is gusty. Or crazy. Or sicker than I thought.
No one seems to know what to say or do, though.
The plan has failed, and there is no reason for me to be angry if that's true.
Beetee falls back into a fevered sleep.
Peeta and I return to our own space, and the darkness around us for the first time suddenly seems suffocatingly full of life. An endless number of cameras on us at every angle. Microphones picking up ever sound. I have no doubt that if they had the right technology, they'd install something that'd read our thoughts to them as well. I'm glad they can't, because the things I am thinking about would be treacherous in any situation, let alone ours.
My first priority is still Peeta, I know that. The basic needs are there also: water, food, shelter. We are lacking in an unfailing food supply, and the only thing that we have had to eat were the rolls. My stomach cramps in a familiar way, empty except for the scarce water I drank from a limited water supply. Shelter revolves solely on seeing, and though Peeta and I have glasses, that can change at any time.
Despite this new revelation, I still must think about these Hunger Games like any other. I must depend on the only certain facts, something the Capitol has guaranteed for seventy-three years before this, and that there is only one winner.
My hand unconsciously moves to fidget with the pin on the front of my shirt.
Eventually we must move on.
We have to keep moving.
For breakfast, we finish the bread rolls. Since Beetee is the sickest he gets one full one, while the rest of us split one with a second person. That one scrap of bread goes down uneasily, with a sip of water. My stomach is still gurgling.
We walk down one of the tunnels, hopeful it leads us somewhere with food.
The walls of this tunnel are unusually jagged. We have to walk single file since there is hardly enough room for one person.
After quite a while I begin to grow uneasy of the endless blackness ahead and the sharp, serrated edges of the walls closing in on me. There is no sign of prey or water.
Suddenly weak, I lean carefully against the wall to rest.
Peeta touches my arm.
The sound of a cannon causes me to jump.
Everyone in the group is eyeing each other. Finnick reassures Johanna and Beetee that it is not our group.
I raise my head.
With my arm leaning against the wall, I feel it. A vibration.
A pebble falls from above, hitting Peeta in the ear. He looks up.
"We have to move," I say, grabbing his hand. "Quickly!"