Chapter Twenty-One

*Update*

Now it's my turn to wait for a signal out, and the minutes tick by ridiculously slowly. Tigris isn't happy with the movement of the crowd - and at one point we hear distant gunfire - but I'm anxious: it feels wrong, somehow, to be waiting this long, and, after a while, I realize what my problem is. It's like I've watched her go down the hill with the coil of wire and Johanna again. The wrong decision then; the wrong decision now. I'm about to just burst out the door, when Tigris waves me on.

It's a dark morning, gray on white on gray. The clouds are low and the tiny little flecks of snow make a kind of mist, reducing visibility. The alley, which was near empty the day we came to it, is overflowing with people now, walking slowly up the street, bundled up in coats and head gear. There's a lot of low talking, some groaning, but mostly muffled. People are keeping their heads down, which is good for me. I'm trying not to draw attention to myself, and it's all I can do not to thrust people out of my way so I can hurry up and find Katniss.

I follow the crowd as it joins up with the scores of people walking up one of the main avenues. My heart sinks. First of all, I am heading straight toward the back of the Remake Center, which means the avenue that leads to the City Circle - the street on which I rode, twice, as a tribute. It doesn't matter that that is my destination; seeing it fills me with dread, anyway. Secondly, in this sea of refugees, how will I find Katniss?

The crowd stretches from sidewalk to sidewalk - and back, as far as I can see, and ahead. There's no way even a tenth of this crowd can be sheltered in the mansion, so what happens to most of them - us - when we get there? Hopefully, in the chaos, there will be a way to slip in … but …

There's another burst of gunfire, and this time, it's very close - maybe a couple of blocks ahead of us. Speak of chaos … everyone screams, and most people duck, or dive out of the street to the nearest sidewalk. A line of Peacekeepers breaks through us, attempting to run up towards the action. I can see the flashes from the guns coming from the rooftop of a building on the next block.

I break into a run … really a sort of modified, zig-zagging jog, in the wake of the Peacekeepers. This becomes easier as the crowd starts thinning out - many of the people now hesitating to push forward into what could be worse trouble than what they reckoned.

I stop short at the intersection of the next block, a move which might save my life, because, ahead of me, the line of Peacekeepers is thinned out by bullets from above. I dive to the side, under the flimsy awnings over the shops in this area. I can see them now - rebels, I guess, by their drab uniforms. They are shooting wildly into the intersection from the near corner of the roof, but as the Peacekeepers push through the intersection, the shooters run from the near corner to the far one, as the action moves ahead of us.

But what stopped me short was not the shooting. It is the bloodbath in the intersection. There are bodies everywhere - many of them the white-clad peacekeepers, yes. But many of them Capitol citizens, old men and women, young men and women, and children. For a few moments, I'm paralyzed with fear, and not the fear of the bullets, which I might actually welcome, at this point, depending. I need to see them all - just as I did in that arena - to make sure that she is not among the bodies.

It is its own form of torture, as I dash from body to body, trying to make my mind remember what she was wearing, so I can look for colors, but my mind is racing. I keep getting distracted by the small bodies, the vacant faces. The sound of the gun fire is now a near-constant, falling around my ears like the snow. There's a smell to it, too, acrid, dirty - making my nose hurt and my eyes water.

Somewhere up another couple of blocks, there's a loud noise - a muffled boom. Screams rend the air - some of intense pain, some of shock and horror. I go back to the sidewalk, crouch under an awning, and watch while a white smoke rises into the white air. There are faces in the windows - the refugees who have taken shelter in the avenue shops are pressing against the glass, watching me. I'm about to move on - keep following the noise and the screams - when I see a stirring on the ground next to me.

It's a little boy - like three, maybe. He's been shot in the stomach and is bleeding but stirring, and starting to cry. Shit. I can't …

But there's nothing else to do. I pull off my scarf and bunch it up against his wound. When the next squad of Peacekeepers runs past me, I call out for help, but I'm ignored. So, I pick him up and carry him into the nearest shop, which is a pet shop. Inside, the uneasy murmurs of the gathered citizens are drowned out by a cacophony of alarmed birds.

"Can anybody help him?" I scream over the noise. "Please - anyone …"

A loud boom rattles the ground and the lights in the shop flicker in and out. If the Capitol doesn't fall today, it will be a fucking miracle, I think, frantically.

Someone takes the child, eventually, and I go running back outside. Now I'm sweating, despite the snow, and when I run up to the next corner, all these months of being under restraint, underfed, medicated have caught up to me, and I'm out of breath, too. I dash into an alley and take off my coat and - because it's a target on my back - the uniform shirt of District 13. That leaves me in a nondescript thermal undershirt, but I don't care. The cold snap is good for my brain, and I feel lighter, more agile. I also take off the wig, which is probably askew, anyway, and I just don't feel like I can run in it without worrying about it flying off. I pull a wool cap off of some dead man's head and push it over my blonde hair.

I look a lot more like Peeta Mellark, probably, but I'm betting the mayhem has moved beyond capturing some wayward former tribute.

Since my quick foray off the main street, it has cleared considerably. I can't see anyone ahead of me - well, no one moving. The roof tops have cleared, also. Now's my chance to make up ground.

Up at the next intersection, my feet start slipping on the cement. Here is where the next massacre has happened, and I struggle to make sense of it. The entire block seems to be covered with a slick layer of ice, as if water had been poured over it and quickly frozen over. The bodies here are scalded bright pink and again I scamper between them, looking with dread for the one girl - but recognition would be harder now, and I know I have already got myself too far behind, so I just make a quick survey before moving on.

The next block is even worse, the snow on the ground is flesh pink, spray painted with blood. The corpses, unreadable. I'm beginning to worry that it is not possible for Katniss not to be among the dead.

Up above me I am starting to see people again, swimming around vaguely in the misty, smoky light. I grasp a scarf that has fallen to the ground and wrap it around my neck and lips. I hesitate next to the body of a Peacekeeper, wondering if I should take his weapon. But - apart from the fact that I'm not sure I know how to use it, my only chance of staying alive back up where the fight is is to be taken as a harmless citizen, target to neither Peacekeepers nor rebels, so I let it be. A crowd has gathered around the next intersection, and as I push through, I see why - the entire intersection is gone, replaced by a gaping maw.

The people around the hole are screaming, and they are answered by the screams and some animal, mutt-like noises from below. And by bullets. The rebels are back on the rooftops and on the other side of the hole, aiming for us - trying to pick out Peacekeepers, I hope, but they are not the most accurate snipers, and someone falls right next to me before I realize I have to get out of the open. But … where …

Then I hear it, faintly. A voice I'd know anywhere. "Gale?! Gale?!"

As I turn toward the sound, I feel a sharp pain in my right knee. But it feels like just a glancing blow, so I ignore it for now, and instead push my way to the edge of the intersection - trying to see if I can find her, to catch a glimpse of her, and, if she's given herself away, to draw fire away from her.

"Everyone to the side street!" yells someone, almost in my ear, and the crowd lurches suddenly sideways. The Peacekeepers sprint to the new front of the line and start waving the crowd to follow them, to an alleyway off the street. And I realize - these people don't care anymore about Katniss or me. They are being fired upon by all sides. The rebels are targeting them from above - and have even passed them on the way to the City Circle. The Capitol is setting off pods in the streets, caring nothing about who gets killed. They're just trying to get out of here, anyway they can, and get to the place they have been promised safety.

I linger behind, letting the crowd move along without me, covering my head with my hands - as if that would keep a bullet from slicing it open. But it's safer with the Peacekeepers gone - the rebel bullets have slowed down. And I'm peering desperately over to the other side of the intersection, knowing that I heard her - and then, at the last minute, I see her. I can just see her flipping the cloak around on her back, turning the scarlet side under and the black lining out, before she leaps away, alone.

I can't call her name, obviously, so I hesitate a moment, wondering if I can shimmy along the edge of this hole to get to the other side, calculating how long it might take. I shake my head and follow the Peacekeepers down the alley. I just need to get to the City Circle, to meet her there. I wonder what happened to Gale, and I think of the screams in the hole with a sick feeling.

We creep down the alleyways for two, three, four blocks, then come out onto a wide, open street. Looking up, I can see the Training Center looming over us. Then everyone just starts bolting, running nonstop until the tribute avenue opens up on us and we are just outside the City Circle.

The first thing I have to do is dive to the ground as a spray of bullets opens up behind us. We've managed to come out right in front of the rebel front line. It's a small unit, and the Peacekeepers in our group turn and engage with them, with the Capitol refugees and me between them. I put my hands over my head and slither away on my elbows and knees.

Before I know it, I'm on the sidewalk on the far end and I get up and just start running. Pushing people out of the way - it doesn't matter anymore. So many people are dressed in black coats and cloaks, I can't easily find her. I can only hope she did make it here. But even if she didn't - and it's possible that I'm the last remaining survivor of Squad 451 - I have to get up to the City Circle and try to join the ranks of the refugees allowed in the mansion. It might be up to me to kill Snow.

There is not an inch of space in the Circle. Throwing elbows and thrusting my hip against the people in front of me, I just keep running into a wall of bodies.

"The rebels! The rebels!"

There's a shout from behind me and the whole crowd pushes forward with a scream. This is crazy. Not only will I not be able to find Katniss, if she even is here, I may very well end up crushed to death by the crowd. I look up at the buildings around me. The Training Center is opposite me, and I'm not going back there, anyway. Closer to me are a couple of other buildings. I remember what Cressida said - a library, a restaurant, a museum, the Game Center; they could be any of these, there is no signage that I can see. I push against the crowd and head over to the nearest of the buildings.

There are a couple of large concrete planters in front of it, maybe 18 inches high. I jump up onto one and clutch the trunk of a small, leafless tree, and look up toward the mansion.

Something is - vaguely familiar - about what I see. In front of the mansion steps, there is a large enclosure made up of concrete barricades. Peacekeepers surround the enclosure, and the crowd presses against it. Inside the barricade are children. Little kids - screaming or shell-shocked. Older kids, some holding babies or toddlers. Teenagers, huddling in groups. Why …?

I've just barely formulated an idea when the noise in the crowd suddenly stops. The gunfire stops, too, and there is just an eerie silence as a hovercraft suddenly appears overhead. For a split second, before I see the Capitol seal on the underside of it, I think - this is it. I'm about to die in a fire bombing just like my family did in District 12. And, for a split second, I'm OK with it. But it's not bombs dropping on the Circle. It's silver parachutes, just like the ones in the arena that bring gifts, and they are falling right into the enclosure of children.

Supposedly the victory in District 2 crippled the Capitol's air forces, or so I had heard. So why are they wasting their resources on this activity - why not just let the refugees up into …

Boom. Boom. BOOM. The ground shakes and I am thrown backward onto the cement. That rattling sensation, the concussion feeling. I clutch my head. What … happened?

The crowd around me is getting up and some of them are pushing forward, the rest running back. I cough, and push myself up off the ground, hopping back onto the planter. I have a clear view of the barricade now and see it - maybe the worst thing I've seen in two years of seeing horrible things up close, of witnessing them first hand or having them done to me. The parachutes, it seems, brought not gifts, but bombs. And the children in the enclosure have been decimated. Their bodies - their body parts - are scattered everywhere. The ones who have survived are attempting, panicked, to scale the blood-splattered barricades. The Peacekeepers who had been guarding them are now frantically shoving the barricades aside.

They are joined by rebel soldiers, and a line of white-uniformed District 13 medics.

This … makes no ….

As if drawn to it, I step forward, not knowing what to do except to try to help recover the children. But then I'm arrested by a single voice, faint in the roar of the crowd, but crying out in a frantic wail like nothing I've ever heard before. Except maybe once.

"Prim! Prim!"

And in that arrested moment, the Circle ignites in fire. It streaks out from the center of the barricade with a roar of sound, like a train screaming through a tunnel. I just have time to throw my arms over my eyes when it catches me, licking me from head to toe, a tongue of pure pain.

I drop to the ground, screaming myself, I think, as the flames shoot out all around me. I rock myself on the cement, trying to put out the fire, trying to make sense of all the sounds and the smells - thick smoke, burning wood, burning skin, blood. The heat baking the snow so that it falls like boiling water around me.

Katniss.

I scramble to my feet, looking around. In the steam of the Circle, the children, the first wave of rebels – most of them medics - the Peacekeepers and many of the citizens who fought and clawed their way here this morning are dead or burning - the luckier ones are fleeing back down the avenue into the arms of the rebellion. More squadrons of rebels are running up into the circle and they are storming past the barricades now, and they are not alone. Some of the remaining Peacekeepers have thrown off their helmets and have joined their charge up the mansion steps.

Katniss.

I see her now - burning. She was quite close to the barricade, but was blown backward and lies on her face, her black cloak ignited. And here, at last, at the very end, it is finally my turn to save her.

I throw myself over her, patting down the fire with my bare hands. I can see where her layers of clothes have burned away and the patches of her skin are showing, charred black. I cover her with my body, waiting for the waves of people to pass us by, unwilling to let either of us be known and taken away - by either side. Then, when I think it might be safe, I pick her up - she's light as air - and stumble with her off the circle, back to the one place I know. Back to the Training Center.