XXVI
…
Jackson comes through the door, nothing stopping her. She does not knock or even call out upon entering. She just strides in. She moves like she is on a mission. The way she moves, it's like Katniss, as you can tell she moves with meaning, passion, and importance.
"Something happened."
Homes and Mitchell make their way into the room not five steps behind Jackson with the same importance in their motion. Just by the sight of the three of them, anyone could tell something was up, Jackson's words not needed.
Boggs and I pull our attention away from the blue prints of the tribute building spread up across the table in front of us and up toward Jackson, Homes, and Mitchell.
"What do you mean something happened?"
"She jumped," Jackson tells Boggs.
I look to her confused. "What do you mean something happened? What do you mean she jumped?"
"Your girl jumped off the tribute building?"
The words seem to echo through my mind.
Your girl jumped off the tribute building.
Your girl jumped off the tribute building.
Your girl jumped off the tribute building.
With each echo, it seems too much, getting louder and louder till I'm afraid I may go deaf.
Katniss, she's dead.
Boggs shakes his head. "You can't jump off the tribute."
What? "Yes, you can." I look to him confused. "There's no wall stopping a person from doing so. You just jump."
Again, Boggs shakes his head. "You can't jump and die."
"What do you mean you can't jump and die?"
"There's a force field a story down from the rooftop," Jackson cuts in.
"What?"
"They put a force field up following the 58th Hunger Games when the male, District 12 tribute jumped off the roof. It caused too many problems between stirring in the districts and a second Reaping. Snow was furious. And so as a result of it all, the Gamekeepers decided it would be the best way in which to keep tributes alive as it's what they use to keep them within the arena."
I look to her confused. "What does that mean though? Katniss?"
Boggs looks to me, "It means Katniss didn't die. She's alive. The force field reflected her back onto the rooftop. If anything, she sustained nothing too major most likely."
And then it hits me.
Katniss jumped off the tribute building, she nearly killed herself.
…
"Finnick Odair."
He gives me a superstar smile, showing off his Capitol's polished teeth. "It's finally nice to meet you, Cato Battenberg."
I nod.
"Katniss spoke highly."
I raise my eyebrows at him in confusion. "She spoke of me?"
"No." He shakes his head. "But from Cinna has told me I can only suspect."
"Thank you."
He nods. "So are you here with news about Annie?"
"Annie?"
He nods.
"Who's Annie?" I ask.
His face falls a bit, but just as quickly, he recovers. "Well, obviously you're not here about Annie so let's not dwell on the subject." He shakes his head, as if disappointed. "Why has Boggs bought my time today then, and sent you of all people." He pauses, looking to me. "Since when have you, a District 2 victor, been involved with a District 13 rebel? It's unheard of and a bit suspicious if you ask me."
"I didn't." I say through gritted teeth.
"Oh," he smiles, "Feisty."
I grit my teeth even hard, the grinding of them no doubt heard by Finnick across the coffee table.
"Lighten up." He smiles. "Hell knows you need to."
"I'm here about Katniss."
"You know she's going up to auction soon," he tells me, "You could have waited till then if you wanted instead of me passing a message onto her."
"I don't think there is going to be an auction." I tell him.
He laughs, snorts as if I had told him a joke. "Just because she tried to jump off the tribute building doesn't mean there isn't going to be an auction. Nothing is going to stop Snow from making a little extra money on the side."
I look him in the eye. "I don't think you understand. I don't think there is going to be an auction."
A still moment goes by before it clicks.
"Do you have a death wish?" He asks me, leaning across the table. "Do you want to die? Do you want the people you love to die? Do you want the people she loves to die? Do you want her to die?"
"I want her to be free."
Again he laughs, snorts as if I had told him a joke. "We live in a dictatorship, a dictatorship. There is no freedom here. Freedom is a bed time story mothers tell their children the night before the Reaping in hopes to ease their nerves. It's fake, an unattainable dream."
"But there is an underground society fighting for it."
"I don't know what you're talking about, Battenberg."
This time it is me who laughs. "Neither does Haymitch or Cinna or Johanna or Boggs or Chaff or Jackson or Beete or Plutarch or Effie."
He doesn't speak a word.
"I'm not some District 2 idiot. I know what is going. I have known for a while. I know that there are a number of victors linked to the underground society which associated with 13 about overthrowing the Capitol. And, I know since Katniss volunteered for her sister, something unheard of in District 12 that the number of supporters has grown, tripled probably, and that certain notions have put in motion."
He opens his mouth, but I continue.
"I know since the Tour and word was leaked that Katniss's sister is no longer alive and that Katniss has been taken to the Capitol that a number of the districts have started to rebel. District 3 and 6 has been purposely sending faulty equipment to the Capitol. A number of the factories in 8 have been burned down along with a number of silos in 9. And, in District 11 they have simply just have not been working in the fields-"
He doesn't let me continue. "What do you want?"
"I told you, I am here about Katniss."
"What about her?"
"She needs to be out of here, she is needed to lead the districts against the Capitol."
"Yes," he tells me, "I know that, everyone knows that. But what about her?"
"Where is she?"
He lets out an uneasy breathe as if he wants to laugh yet can't. "Boggs doesn't know?"
"Know what?"
"She's in the President's Mansion." He pauses. "Since she pulled that little trick the other night, she has been locked up somewhere in the President's Mansion. Don't know where, but like the tribute building, everything has doubled, tripled in security this then, even more so than when Snow first brought her to the Capitol."
He pauses again, looking to me as if I am a kicked puppy.
"She's in deep. Snow isn't letting his eye off of her, not for a second. He knows there is something brewing and he knows she is the key to it all. Anything and everything to keep her in his possession, he will do."
I nod. "How much longer are you in the Capitol for?"
"Boggs doesn't know that either?"
My blank stare answers his question, words are not needed.
"We're all here until further notice."
"We're?" I ask.
He nods, leaning back in his chair. "All of Snow's dolls, his play toys. Enobaria, Gloss, Cashmere, Johanna, and myself."
I look to him confused.
"Katniss isn't going to auction by herself this week," he explains, "Snows doing package deals, pulling in more money, suppressing us victors, attempting to suppress this rebellion, trying to gain control."
"What? Why?"
"Snow knows there is a war coming and he isn't going to play fair." He pauses, looking out the window at the city below. "He is going to break your girl in a matter of days, break her in the way it has taken him years to break the rest of us, Enobaria, Gloss, Cashmere, Johanna, and myself." He pauses. "And then he will go to the districts, destroy each one, one at a time till again, he has complete control over Panem."
…
"I need blueprints of the President's Mansion?"
Boggs looks up from his work confused. "Why?"
And before I can respond, it clips within Jackson's head. "No."
Next, it is Mitchell. "It'll be impossible."
Homes catches on just as fast adding, "Security is horrific, Mitchell is right, it'll be impossible."
Boggs, still confused looks around the room at the rest of us. "What are you talking about?"
"Katniss is in the President's Mansion."
The moment those words sink in, Boggs's face completely transforms… and I can't describe to you in words negativity of his expression yet, that the face he wears is not welcoming.
"What?"
Boggs just shakes his head, running his hands over his face.
"What?" I press.
"This will make things more difficult."
"That doesn't mean it won't happen. Difficult or not, it's not impossible. I have survived the games and you guys have infiltrated the Capitol, that is merely impossible. This," I tell them, "This has some odds in its favor."
Boggs just shakes his head and the rest of them can barely make eye contact with me.
"What?"
"We may have to go on without Katniss for the time being."
I snort, shaking my head at this remark. "Funny joke."
"It's not a joke Cato," he tells me. "It's one thing to do a search and rescue from the tribute building and it's another to do a search and rescue from the President's Mansion. It will take a week at the minimum to get blueprints for the mansion and between that setback and the security Snow has set up in there and the increase number of soldiers we would need for such a mission, it will be a death wish going on after her. We would have better luck a month or two into fighting when Snow's hand is forced to send the majority of his Peacekeepers to the districts leaving him understaffed and under-protected."
"The rebellion needs her though." I explain, trying to make sense. "She is the face of the rebellion as Plutarch said, she is the one that has sparked this thing, has driven the districts to finally taking action. They, the districts, need her to lead them."
"We can go on without her for the time being, though."
I shake my head. "No, you can't."
"Her capture will feed the rebellion, cause it to grow even stronger."
"She is the face of the rebellion." I argue. "Not some toy puppet you can play life and death with."
"And the rebellion can survive without her for some time as it has been doing for over the last seventy years."
"Well, I'm not going on without her."