Katniss

I slide the door open slightly with my foot, then risk poking my head around the edge of the door. It's eerily quiet—I'm used to Gale not caring much for subtlety when he's so hidden into the woods—and for a second I'm wondering if I was right about seeing the fumes in the air, when I hear it. The quiet crackle of firewood nearby.

Cautiously, I step into the cottage, careful not to make a noise. Sure enough, there's no telltale smell of pine, no game bag left carelessly on the floor. It's not Gale. But if he's not the one that lit the fire…who is?

"Freeze!" calls a tremulous voice from behind me. I instinctively reach for my bow and arrows, only to remember that I stashed them back in the hollow tree. I raise my hands slowly and turn around, trying to control my trembling. I shut my eyes waiting for the sound of a gunshot that never comes. Instead, there's something of a gasp, and I open my eyes and stare at a slightly stocky woman with brown hair streaked with gray, pulled up in a bun. She's wearing drab gray clothes, and a bulletproof vest over them. I'm wondering just how cold she is when I notice the gun being pointed at my chest.

"Are you…" her voice, so authoritative at first, trails off. She clears her throat and begins again, adjusting the gun towards me. "Are you Katniss Everdeen?"

I nod heavily, feeling my arms lower themselves. She's still glaring at me, but not quite so suspiciously. Then, after what seems like forever, she finally lowers her gun, outstretching her arm. "Jackson," she says, shaking my hand vigorously. She points at one of the rooms in the cottage. "And my commander Boggs is over there." She leans in and whispers, "Met up with some stray Peacekeepers on the way."

I let out a breath I didn't even realize I've been holding, but then I struggle to piece the bits together. "Wait, on the way?" I ask, confused. "On the way from where?"

She hesitates before taking my arm and leading me into a room. On the bare bed, there is a middle-aged man with shortly cropped gray hair and a nasty scar along his cheek. He's spread out, unconscious, on the mattress, and there's a thick bandage around his torso that is slightly stained with blood.

"Boggs," Jackson calls out to him, gently shaking his shoulder. He wakes up and blinks a few times before zooming in on me; then he sits up, wide alert, and winces at the pain it must cause him on his chest. "This is Miss Everdeen."

There's something odd contorting his face, and for a second I fear it might be a grimace, a wince, until he finally breaks out into a relieved smile, and I realize the emotion that overcame him: elation. I don't know this man personally, I doubt he knows me personally…and yet he is so overjoyed at seeing me that he doesn't even consider me—a victor, a killer, a huntress—a threat. "Katniss," he breathes, taking my hand and shaking it just as hard as Jackson did, something I can just tell must be killing him. "I'm Commander Boggs. So nice to finally meet you in person."

"We're soldiers from Thirteen," Jackson explains in a hushed voice, glancing out the doorway for Peacekeepers. I don't bother telling her that the lazy Capitol guards probably wouldn't risk going through the electric fence to check up on smoke that could simply be a small forest fire. "But we're not staying for long."

Boggs and Jackson study me for a second, what it takes for me to realize that they're waiting for my response to this. The only thing that comes to mind is to bombard them with questions.

"District Thirteen? Weren't you destroyed by the Capitol?" I demand, flying at them with anger. They abandoned the rest of us, the rest of their fellow slaves, to the Capitol's mercy, and here they come now with fancy machinery and trained soldiers, now that other districts are slowly being annihilated. Hate is not a strong enough word to describe what I feel.

Boggs groans as he sits up, sliding a hand over his stomach as he looks at me. "Katniss, listen," he says, his voice urgent. "Now's not the time or place to discuss this." He knows, then. He knows that as a double victor, there is no way I'm not being tracked. In fact, it amazes me that I haven't been hauled off to the Capitol by now for trespassing into the woods. Now I could get busted on a daily basis for just leaving my house.

Jackson turns to Boggs, eyeing his injury. I swallow a thick lump in my throat as I go through my mental list of medicines that could probably heal his wound in five minutes, medicines too far away to fetch. She looks at me, eyebrows creased as if she can't make up her mind about something. Finally she says, "Boggs and I are just here to check the general situation of 12. I'm afraid there's not much we can do, only the two of us, to help your…predicament."

"We'll be back with a larger group after your Victory Tour," Boggs adds, using Jackson's shoulder as support to prop himself up against the beat-up bed board. "For now, we're useless." Jackson stands up, leaning to aid Boggs in doing the same. He hisses in pain, but lets her wrap one arm around him to hold him up.

I turn to them, surprised that they're leaving so quickly with only the night—not even a blizzard, nothing—to cover them. "Is there anything I can do to help?" I ask, my teeth gritting at the thought that I have so much to hold against the Capitol. Finishing them off is my only way of possibly repaying Peeta for all he's done for me. "Help…rebel?"

Jackson purses her lips tightly, sizing me up. Finally she just says, "Look pretty in the Victory Tour." Then, just as they're walking out the back door of the cottage, she turns and adds, "Especially in District 11."

District 11, I think over and over, walking back home. I'm only thirty minutes behind Gale in arriving, but I'm expecting some sort of worried ambush when I step through the door. They must've meant it as some sort of warning. But warning for what? A rebellion? Are they going to do some major uprising in that poor, overpopulated district? My stomach churns at the thought of Rue's little sisters engaging in such a violent war. Surely they wouldn't be able to survive, and Thirteen must know that, being such a malnourished crowd, the people from Eleven would never be able to pull that off.

I'm five steps away from the door when a Peacekeeper intercepts my entry.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Aah I hate cliffhangers as much as you do, trust me. I wasn't even going to add it until I typed it! Anyways, I loved Boggs in Mockingjay and he was going to appear here sometime. Reviews are encouraged as always, and thanks for keeping up with this story! I hope I've made it worthwhile!