After what feels like hours, two silver parachutes drop down to the victors. Before they are even open, everything erupts. The rebels are throwing rocks and bricks and who know what at the peacekeepers. Suddenly the sidewalk in front of some peacekeepers explodes, and I realize the rebels have some kind of homemade explosives they are throwing as well.

I don't even take in what's going on; it's all happening at once. The mob is rushing at the line of peacekeepers, still throwing rocks and more home-made explosives at them. The line between rebels and peacekeepers blurs. Gunfire rains down into the crowd from the rooftop guards. Some rebels have guns, and obviously someone has those explosives, but most are wielding bricks and knives. It's hard to take everything in, so I focus on Johnny and Carlo, who are the closest to me. The crowd pushes back against the enemy, but our goal is not here in the square.

Johnny and I follow Carlo through the melee, pushing toward the main square. The crowds move with us, surging down the tree-lined avenue. Huge buildings tower over us on each side. We move quickly down the blocks until the next wave of peacekeepers finds us. There's more confusion as the two groups clash. Then smoke and gas fill the air in front of us.

We're pushing our way through the mob when Marai pulls me into an alleyway toward a fire escape. I hoist her up to the ladder, where she quickly climbs to a platform and crouches behind a rusty bin. I watch her train the gun toward the peacekeepers, carefully lining up a shot, only to have the bullet lodge in the wall of the building behind the peacekeepers. She pulls back behind the bin, and after a pause slowly lines up another shot. This time she catches one square in the throat and he spins around and crumples to the ground at the impact. A nearby peacekeeper sees it happen and looks in our direction for the shooter. Marai is hidden, but I'm completely exposed. I can't think. I panic, and with nowhere else to go I run back into the mob, trying to angle away from the peacekeepers. But the one who spotted me isn't letting me disappear into the crowd, and is chasing after in my direction. My small size allows me to slip through the crowd, but I've only made it a short way when I'm yanked backward off my feet. I turn, jabbing my knife into the man behind me, but the uniform is thick and resists the blade. The peacekeeper gives me a smug look and out of the corner of my eye I see his arm swinging toward me. Then everything goes black.

When I come to, my head is throbbing viciously. My eyes and throat are dry and scratchy. I press my eyes shut, trying to find some relief in the darkness behind my eyelids. After several minutes I feel a slight tremor, and hear booming in the distance. I open my eyes and find that I'm back in the apartment. A damp cloth lays across my forehead. I try to remember how I got here - I remember going with Johnny and his friends to the organized protest against the Capitol, but everything after that is fuzzy at best. Disconnected images of the violent clashes flicker in my mind. It makes me feel sick. I pull the cloth over my eyes and feel the coolness of its damp surface ease the pain in my head a little. I lay still, playing a soothing piano tune in my head, until I hear quiet footsteps nearby. I open my eyes to see Bear walking into the kitchen.

I walk into the kitchen, where he's prying the flesh out of some shellfish. "What's that?" I ask. He looks at me strangely. "You mean the clams? How hard did you get hit?" My face burns as I remember that I haven't told anyone I'm not from district 4, so they think I know all about shellfish. I try to cover quickly, saying "Umm, I meant what you're going to do with them." "Well, I was thinking about eating them. Unless you have a better idea?" he answers sarcastically. I roll my eyes at him, and he softens a bit. "How are you feeling?" "Okay I guess. How did I get back here?"

"Johnny brought you. He went back out. You want some food?" he gestures to the clams. My stomach is already in knots and I can't imagine eating those clams right now. "Uhh, no thanks. I'll just get some water." "There's bread on the shelf, too - kinda stale though" he says, pointing. "Oh, thanks." I gulp down water, and cut off a piece of bread to chew on. Bear doesn't say anything else. I'm a little intimidated by him, so I sit quietly with my bread, absently watching him and the clams. I remember the tremors when I woke, which have subsided, and ask if he felt them too. "More bombings. We should be okay here." He doesn't elaborate. Right about now I really miss Johnny and Spinner, who would undoubtedly be talking a mile a minute about everything that's going on. Bear's not exactly unfriendly, he just doesn't seem to have much interest in talking. At least, to me anyway.

When he finishes eating, I follow him back to the table where they'd been when Johnny first brought me here. I'd thought he'd be on lookout duty or something, and ask him about it. He shakes his head, "not right now." "What about the broadcasts? The quell?" I ask. His face breaks out in a tired but happy smile. "It's over." I start to ask who won, wondering if he's happy because it was Finnick, and for the first time questioning how long I was unconscious. But Bear keeps talking, almost to himself. "They really did it. They escaped. At least, I think they escaped. They destroyed the arena." Then it's as if he remembers I'm there, and explains. "It was 12. Katniss shot Betee's wire into the forcefield, and the lightning struck, and it destroyed everything." "What happened to them?" I ask. A cloud passes over his face and he shakes his head. "Don't know for sure, but it had to be the plan. So they must've escaped."

I start to turn on the television, but Bear stops me. "Don't. It's just showing the bombings." Instead, he unearths a faded map of the area and tells me what he knows about the uprisings here in 4. The rebel group we were with has taken one of the lesser administration buildings, and Carlo and Marai are inside. But peacekeepers are still holding their own against the mob outside, and there's some fear that if more reinforcements are brought in, the rebels inside the building will be trapped there. Despite the bombings, Bear doesn't think the Capitol has bombed them - he thinks the Capitol wants those buildings - and whatever's inside them - intact, and they won't destroy them unless they have to. He's disappointed when I point out that if they aren't bombing it when it's in rebel hands, there can't be anything that useful for the fight inside. Bear's frustrated to not know anything about what's happening in other districts. If the district leaders know, they're not sharing that information.

I realize I might be able to contribute something, and after running through it in my head first, I rattle off, "Umm, I can't say anything about districts one or two, but they wouldn't rebel anyway. Three has had some action. But I ... couldn't tell what it's like now. Five, six and seven seem quiet, at least they did. Eight's like here, but worse. They didn't even have reporters based there before the games, so it must be a mess. And their uprising started before four's I think. They've definitely cracked down in ten, eleven and twelve, too. But umm, they're weaker to start, and I don't think they've really rebelled - at least not ten and twelve." It's a mix of things I actually know, from alerts I overheard in my father's den and the little I did pick up on the train, plus my intuition based on all those papers we read from the Capitol.

Bear stares at me for a few minutes, before asking, "How do you know all that?" My lie comes easily, maybe because it's based in truth. "The day I met Johnny, I was at the train station that morning. I knew a train was coming through, and I listened in on some peacekeepers and Capitol reporters." He eyes me appraisingly for a minute, then nods thoughtfully and turns back to the map. "Well, it pretty well fits what we've heard. And the more districts that rebel, the more the Capitol will be spread thin trying to fight us. Hopefully the victors' escape will inspire them."

Something about this catches in my mind. "Wait, you said they're broadcasting bombings? Are they all district four? We should be watching, maybe we can figure out what's happening?" Bear throws his head back and seems to be looking at the ceiling. He replies, "Ugh, I'm an idiot. Come on."

I wish it hadn't occurred to me to watch the broadcasts. It's terrible, seeing the Capitol uncaringly bomb the districts. I'm crying within minutes, blubbering an apology to Bear. Why did I suggest watching this? But most of the bombings seem to be targeting specific parts of the districts, and Bear is starting to point out when he recognizes a location, scribbling notes on a scrap of paper. We've been watching less than 20 minutes when the Capitol broadcasts a night-time bombing, with flames erupting out of a blackened landscape. I've never seen district 12 from the air, but even so it only takes a minute for me to recognize the city square. I can't help but cry out. Tears flow down my cheeks, but I can't tear my eyes from the screen. The mayor's house is unmistakable. So is the explosion that levels it. When the screen switches to a Capitol reporter, the words make no sense to me. All I can think of is home.

A/N: What do you think so far? I hate for Maddie to find out about the district 12 bombing this way, but in Mockingjay there's a reference to rebroadcasts of the bombing of district 12, so I figure the Capitol was airing it soon after it happened.