Chapter Sixteen

Katniss sat stiffly in the chair in Madge's makeshift office. She'd awoken ten minutes previous to shouting and racket. As soon as her eyes had opened, the blonde girl had grabbed her hand and dragged her her into the room she used as an office. Her head was spinning and she felt nauseated but Madge didn't seem to care.

"You are now the voice," she said. "You have to lead the movement."

Katniss looked at her stiffly. "Why me?" she asked, her voice rough from sleep.

"Because we don't have Mellark anymore," Madge answered. "You're all we have now. The girl who helped the slave to his feet. Believe me, we'd rather have your slave than you."

Katniss balled her fists and gritted her teeth. "He's not my slave," she said. "I thought someone like you would know that. His name is Peeta. If I hear you call him slave one more time then I refuse to help you or your cause."

Madge pursed her lips. "I apologize," she said. Katniss didn't want to accept the apology because her words were full of acid but she decided it was the best she was going to get.

"What are Jackson and Harper going to do with him?" Katniss asked.

"Why does it matter?"

"Because I want to know."

The blonde laughed and shook her head. "No, you really don't."

The answer worried Katniss. She didn't like it. Why wouldn't she want to know what they were going to do with Peeta in the Capitol? Surely they were just going to put him back into the Compound until things were fixed, right? If Madge thought Katniss didn't want to know what was going to happen up there . . . what were they going to do to him?

"How do we stop them from hurting him?" she asked.

"Depends on whether you're going to help us or not," Madge said. Katniss scowled and crossed her arms.

"Depends on what you want me to do," she said.

Madge leaned forward so her elbows rested on the mahogany desk that sat between them. "When we called upon you and . . . Peeta, we were looking for someone with the voice to bring everyone to the realization of our wrongs. But we don't have that anymore. Mr. Mellark could have helped us end this within a month with the words he could string together out of nothing."

That had to be an exaggeration, surely.

"In the Capitol Compound he managed to upstart a revolt in his sector," Madge continued. "They all just . . . stopped. When Jackson had taken Peeta off into the P&P floor with the duct tape on his mouth-"

"How do you know about that?" Katniss asked. Madge smiled and gestured to the shelves of files on the wall to their left.

"Justice Building records," she said. "Anyway, when Jackson bumped him up a level simply for standing up for his friend who was dying, the slaves in his old sector revolted. They stopped working and began reciting phrases that they'd heard Mr. Mellark say in the past."

"What happened? To them, I mean," Katniss asked.

"What happened?" Madge repeated. "75% of them died. Well, were killed for their disobidence. The other 25% were tortured for the defiance. I believe Mr. Mellark still holds those people's lives in his conscience."

"He never told me about that," Katniss said.

Madge frowned. "Would you?"

How much more hadn't he told her? How much of Peeta's past had he hidden from her? How had she never thought to ask more? Why had she never thought to try and discover more? How hard must it be to have the lives of hundreds of slaves on your mind everyday?

"Mellark's only weakness was his compassion," Madge sighed. "Maybe if he was just that little bit tougher he wouldn't have taken your place to be taken away."

Katniss was slightly offended. Was Madge saying that she'd rather that she was taken to the Capitol over Peeta? Then again, Katniss would have rathered that as well.

"And now we've got you," Madge deadpanned. "And we're going to have to turn you into something big. Something brave. Something massive."

Katniss scoffed. "And how are you planning to do that, huh?"

Madge stood up. "Well, we don't know that yet," she said. "We're still working on it." She left the office, leaving Katniss alone to drown in what she'd just been told.

She found herself being angry. At Peeta, for taking her place. At herself, for not fighting harder to save him. At Gale, for holding her back. At Madge, for thinking for one second that she could start a rebellion over the male slaves. Over the one thing that been in the country for a hundred years. How could she possibly bring an end to that?

Katniss shifted in her seat and heard something crinkle in her pocket. Frowning, she slipped her hand into the pocket and pulled a crumpled piece of paper. Had that always been in there?

She unfolded it and found a message written across it.

You're not starting a rebellion, you're leading a revolution.

Be the Mockingjay.

~P

When had he put that in her pocket? Surely not recently. These jeans had been in the wash recently, did he put the message in her pocket then? But he didn't know that there was going to be all this a couple of days ago. A couple of days ago everything was normal. Everything was okay. A couple of days ago no one was thinking about rebellion.

Apart from him.

He had always believed in her.

This alone brought tears to her eyes and Katniss wiped them away quickly. She was not a crybaby. She refused to get over emotional about a scrap of paper. A voice at the back of her head told her that it wasn't just a scrap of paper. It was solid proof that Peeta had always knew that she was going to have to be the one who started the rebellion.

Only she wasn't.

She was the one who'd have to lead the revolution.

It was then she knew what she had to do.

Katniss pushed back from her chair and left the office. Her feet thumping against the stairs echoed as the reception area of the Justice Building grew silent around her. Every eye, every gaze, every stare burned into her skin as she walked across the glossy white floor to the double doors at the front of the building.

She was blinded by flashes as she emerged back out onto the platform in which mere hours ago, Peeta was taken from her. Camera crews had appeared in 12, newsreporters everywhere discussing the revolt in 12. But as soon as she had stepped out of the building, every single one turned to her. For a moment, Katniss froze. Right now, every woman-and maybe some men too-where looking at her on their television screens. She was on the emergency news channel live, everywhere, right this moment.

Her mind went back to the day on the balcony. When Peeta had first spoken to her. They'd discussed Shakesphere, of all things. They'd discussed Romeo and Juliet. The balcony scene. She'd sung to the mockingjay and it had repeated the song to Peeta. He'd praised her voice and she was shocked to realize that she didn't mind that he'd heard her.

"Do any of you even know what love means anymore?" Katniss found herself blurting out. She didn't know what possessed her to say that of all things but it seemed to capture the attention of the women in the crowd. "I mean, hundreds of years of this and not one of us seem to consider what it would be like to fall in love anymore. Why?"

She stepped forward and gestured around herself, at the Justice Building, at them, at the estates further beyond. "I was raised on the basis that men were bad. That they were the scum of the country and, sure, it's probably what everyone's been raised on but can anyone, right here, right now, tell me what they did wrong all those years ago to deserve this?"

To her surprise, no one did.

"The only man in my life when I was a child, was my father," Katniss said, her voice trembling at the mention of her dad. She hadn't spoken about him to anyone since he'd died. Not out loud anyway. "And he was the kindest person I'd ever met."

The woman before her pulled faces at the thought. It made Katniss feel angry. Because it was true, her father didn't do anything wrong, and he was kind and caring and he loved her very much. Who gave these people the right to judge what he was like just because of what gender he was?

No one, that's who.

"And, for another thing, if these men are so awful and cruel, who do I thank for being able to stand here. On this platform, right here, right now. Because if it wasn't for a man, I'd be dead," Katniss said. "That man they took to the Capitol as a hostage? He saved my life when I was a kid. I was going to die if it hadn't of been for him. Who do I thank for that? His mother for giving birth to him? Because, no offence, that's bullshit. His mother was a bitch, why should I thank her for anything when it was his actions that saved me, not hers?

"Now you're going around killing people for being in love? I don't understand it! And if I get one person saying that I'm mentally disabled for not understand it then I'm going to crack! I was top of my class in District 5, I won the spelling bee six years in a row, I helped my little sister with her calculus homework every night, I am not an idiot!"

Katniss couldn't stop herself now, she was too far into it.

She stood at the edge of the stage and held her arms out at her sides.

"I'am Katniss Everdeen and I'am the Mockingjay!" she yelled at the top of her lungs. She pointed right into the lens of a camera. "And if we burn, you burn with us!"

There was a pause as the crowd digested what she said. Katniss' chest was heaving up and down. She was unable to believe that it was her who had just said that. It was like someone took a hold of her voice and spoke for her. Like Peeta himself had guided her through it. She felt enpowered, strong, like she could do anything.

Then the ground beside her exploded.

The bang shattered her eardrums and Katniss' jumped backwards in horror. Someone had tried to shoot her! She scuttled backwards and pressed her back against the Justice Building, terrified. What had she done? Of course all she'd done was make them more angry, what had she expected?

Just when she was about to give up hope, a gun shot blown upwards from the middle of the crowd, sending people pushing backwards to clear a circle around the gun welder. Katniss squinted to see who it was, her mouth dropping open when she saw the brown haired girl with the baby bump fumbling with the pistol she'd stolen off the Law Abider at her feet who was clutching their head in pain.

Annie's eyes were wild, scanning the crowd in fear and she held the gun in her trembling hands. "You took Finn from me!" she screamed at them all. "You all took my Finn away from me!" Katniss felt a pang in her heart and she stepped forward again.

"Annie," she called. The girl looked at her and pointed the gun at her. Katniss shot her hands up in surrender. "I'm not going to hurt you. We're on your side. Come over here, you'll be safe with us." She held her hands to the panicked girl and prayed that she wouldn't send a bullet through her brain.

Annie looked conflicted, like a thousand things were going on behind her glassy eyes, before stepping forward toward the platform. The crowd parted in fear of getting shot and let her pass. Katniss took the girl's hands and pulled her up to stand beside her. She held the girl close as she began to cry and shot a glare at the crowd.

"I promise you this," she said, her voice lowered, "there is at least one man for every woman in this country because it's required for everyone to have a slave. There's women out there who are in love but are too scared to speak out. We are going to get them up. Get them to join us. To join the revolution. And I'm giving you one warning, and one warning only, make sure you're on the right side when we win. And even if we don't, even if we fall, we're dragging you down with us!"

Without daring to look back, she turned and helped Annie back towards the Justice Building hideout. Her heart was going fast, faster than Katniss thought possible. She still couldn't believe that was her who had just spoken. Her mind was still fuzzy from the reality of it all when Madge enclosed her and Annie in a hug as soon as they stepped through the threshold of the building.

"Well done!" she said. "You've done it!"

"Done what?" Katniss asked. Surely they'd only see her as a crazy girl who went on a mad rant on t.v

Madge's grin was wide enough to catch a bee hive. "You've started it!"

Katniss didn't speak because she was too scared to face the truth of it. Madge sighed and shook her head.

"You've started the rebellion!"

Katniss was afraid that was what she was going to say.

A/N: I got someone telling me it would be good to have a Peeta POV it see what's going on with him in the Capitol, what do you think guys?

Please R&R! :D