I stare down at my shoes, watching as a fine layer of ash settles on the worn leather. This is where the bed I shared with my sister, Prim, stood. Over there was the kitchen table. The bricks of the chimney, which collapsed in a charred heap, provide a point of reference for the rest of the house. How else could I orient myself in this sea of gray?
Almost nothing remains of District Twelve. A month ago, the Capitol's firebombs obliterated the poor coal miners' houses in the Seam, the shops in the town, even the Justice Building. The only area that escaped incineration was the Victor's Village. I don't know why, exactly. Perhaps so anyone forced to come here on Capitol business would have somewhere decent to stay.
But no one is returning except us. And that's only for a brief visit. The authorities in District Thirteen were against our coming back. They viewed it as a costly and pointless venture, given that at least a dozen individual hovercraft are circling overhead for our protection and there's no intelligence to be gained. I had to see it, though. I think Peeta did too. So I made it a condition of my cooperating with any of their plans.
Plutarch Heavensbee, the Head Gamemaker who had organized the rebels in the capitol, threw up his hands. "Let them go. Better to waste a day than another month. Maybe a little tour of Twelve is just what she needs to convince her we're on the same side."
The same side. A pain stabs my left temple where Johanna Mason hit me with the coil of wire. Memories swirl around while I try to sort out what is true and what is false. What series of events led me to be standing here in the ruins of my city? This is hard, because the effects of the concussion she gave me haven't completely subsided and my thoughts have a tendency to jumble around. Also, the drugs they use to control my pain and mood sometimes make me confuse things. I guess.
My name is Katniss Everdeen. I am seventeen years old. My home is District Twelve. I was in the Hunger Games. I escaped, so did Peeta. The Capitol hates me. Peeta hates me. No, wait, that's not right. Peeta should hate me. His family is dead because of me. District Twelve has been destroyed because of me—
"Katniss, should I come down?" My best friend Gale's voice reaches me through the headset the rebels insisted I wear. He's up in a hovercraft, watching me carefully, ready to come down at any point. I realize that I'm on the ground, kneeling in ash, my head in my hands. I look up at the hovercraft above me. "No, I'm alright." I say into the headset and force myself to stand up.
"You sure?" Gale asks uncertainly. "Cause I can come down." I shake my head but my vision is getting a little fuzzy. Am I alright? I can't tell.
"Where are you, Katniss?" Another voice crackles through the headset. Peeta's voice. I don't know where he is but he's somewhere on the ground in Twelve. When we landed we decided to split up, to take in the ruined district by ourselves, I suppose, but now I'm starting to wonder if that was a good idea, because it's not going to look good if I pass out and knock myself out against the pile of my old chimney. But I think he wanted to be alone—
"The Seam," I say before I can stop myself. Damn. He doesn't respond, but I know he's on his way. He shouldn't be taking care of me, he's the one who lost his entire family. But I don't want to say that over the headset for Gale and the pilots from Thirteen to hear.
I can't get around the fact that District Thirteen was instrumental in Twelve's destruction. This doesn't absolve me from blame—there's plenty of blame to go around. I had set something in motion long before the Quell that I had no ability to control. I know I should be grateful the way we have been welcomed into Thirteen. All eight hundred refugees who followed Gale into the meadow before the bombing started have been taken in and treated well. But without Thirteen, I would not have been part of the larger plot to overthrow the Capitol or had the wherewithal to do it. Even though I hate the Capitol that doesn't mean I'm ready to embrace Thirteen with open arms.
I hear footsteps in the rubble behind me and turn around with a start, my heartbeat quickening for a moment. It's Peeta, of course it is. He looks a little unsteady on the uneven ground on his artificial leg so I cross to him and hold out my hand. He takes it and jumps over a large cement block but doesn't let it go when he's back on solid ground. His face looks pained and lacks its usual softness. But I should be used to that by now. Neither of us has felt much like smiling in the past month.
"I saw it." he says quietly and I know he's talking about the bakery. "This was your house." It's not a question, he's been here before. I nod. It wasn't much, just a shack, but so many of my memories of my father exist in the ghost of the house. But it's gone now. All of it is gone. Because of what I did. What the Capitol did, a voice says deep inside my rattled mind but it's so quiet that I barely register it. I lean into Peeta's chest and he puts his arms around me. We stand like this for a moment before simultaneously pulling away and turning our backs on the Seam.
Slowly, we make our way to Victor's Village. Peeta trips a few times and I need to stop and catch my breath but we make it there eventually. The houses stand in perfect rows, completely untouched by the bombs. It's eerie and I have a bad feeling about the place, but my mother asked me to pick up some bottles of medicine and I want to grab my father's old hunting jacket. When we get to my front door Peeta lets me go in by myself and goes to get a few things from his own house.
I find my father's hunting jacket and game bag in a closet and put the jacket on and the bag over my shoulder. The supple leather feels warm and comforting on my shoulders. I rummage through the cupboards and throw the medicine and some herbs into the bag, before hearing a noise behind me. I whip around, expecting to find a hoard of Peacekeepers, even though Thirteen said that they'd cleared the perimeter. Instead, I see a mangy ginger cat staring up at me. My jaw drops in shock. I'm impressed, to say the least.
"Buttercup." I say, sneaking towards him, trying on the sugary sweet tone of voice I've heard Prim use with him. "Come here you nasty, matted, flea-ridden—Gotcha!" I pick him up and stuff him unceremoniously into my game bag. He howls in objection but I close the bag tightly until he calms down. Prim is going to be ecstatic to see him. Pleased with myself, I leave the bag on a chair in the kitchen and go upstairs to collect some photos and my father's plant book—when I smell it.
My palms inexplicably begin to sweat. A strange sensation creeps up the back of my neck. I whip around to face the room but find it empty. And then I see it. A fresh, white rose, perfect down to its last thorn and silken petal.
And I know immediately who has sent it.
President Snow.
I begin to gag on the stench and I feel myself getting dizzy—Is it the smell or the concussion? I back out my room and nearly tumble down the stairs. How long has it been there? A day? An hour? The rebels did a sweep of Victor's Village before we were cleared to come here, checking for explosives, bugs, anything unusual. But perhaps the rose didn't seem noteworthy to them. Only to me. I pick up my game bag from the chair, bouncing it on the floor before I remember that it's occupied. I burst out of my front door, expecting to find Peeta waiting for me but he's not there. I look around, in case he's out of sight. Then my stomach drops.
I leave the game bag on the lawn and run to Peeta's door. It's locked. My suspicions confirmed and my panic starting to mount I slam my body against the door repeatedly but it doesn't budge. I hear Gale saying something in my ear but I can't respond. Without thinking, I put my elbow through the window next to the door, smashing the glass. I throw myself through and feel my face stinging and know I've cut myself. "Peeta!" I yell but he doesn't respond. I run from room to room, screaming his name until I find him, sprawled unconscious and pale on the floor of an upstairs room I vaguely register as his bedroom, even though I've never been in it. To my horror, I see what I feared. In his hand is a second white rose.
I'm feeling the effects of the poison too so I cover my nose and mouth with my sleeve and touch the vein on his neck. A pulse. There's a pulse. Somehow, I manage to choke something out on the headset and within seconds soldiers from Thirteen are there, lifting Peeta onto a stretcher and back onto the hovercraft. I want to go with them and I try to say that but instead I'm stuck on the floor, dizzy and sobbing. It's Gale who finds me there, shoves a gas mask over my nose and mouth, and half carries, half drags me out of the house and onto the same hovercraft. I sit, mute, as I'm buckled in and feel us lift smoothly off the ground and into the air, Peeta on the floor unconscious, medics swarming around.
Here we are, once again, Peeta on the brink of death and me powerless to do anything about it but sit silently and cry. I want to go to him but the medics are sticking tubes into his arms and an oxygen mask onto his face.
I put my head in my hands and try to block out the shouts from the medics that are competing with the ringing that's begun in my ears again. Don't be dead, I think. Please don't be dead, not after all this. Not when I thought you were safe. I feel Gale's arm around my shoulder but I don't look up. Instead I shove my hands over my ears, trying to hear nothing but the pumping of my own blood. This works for a little while until I feel Gale tapping on my shoulder. I look at him but my hands are still on my ears. He pulls them away.
"Look," Gale says and nods in Peeta's direction. He's still on the floor of the hovercraft but he's awake, looking confusedly up at the medics until his eyes find me. I try to get out my seat before remembering that I'm buckled in. Fumbling, my hands shaking, I get out of the restraints and throw myself onto the floor towards Peeta. I brush the strands of blond hair away from his eyes as he tries to focus them.
"Don't touch the roses," he says weakly. "Something wrong with them." I choke out something between a laugh and a sob. He frowns and reaches up feebly to touch my cheek. "Katniss found you collapsed on the floor of your house," one of the medics says to Peeta before running some sort of test on his arm. He looks at the medic, seemingly trying to get his bearings. "Another five minutes and you'd have been in a lot of trouble," the medic says casually. That's a bit of an understatement, I think. Another five minutes and he would have been dead. I clutch Peeta's hand to my face and kiss it before realizing that Gale is less than five feet away. I don't let go of his hand, but I do make a more concerted effort not to show more affection than I need to.
Why is that exactly? After all, he's seen far more than a kiss on the hand in the Games, so why should it bother me if he sees this now? Because you're not in the Games anymore, I find myself thinking. Well, obviously I'm not in the Games anymore, which is why it's so frustrating that Peeta seems to still be in danger of dying! I don't want to spend so much time worrying what Gale or Peeta thinks about every little thing I do anymore, it's driving me crazy and clearly there are far more important things to think about.
"I'm alright," Peeta says and smiles softly. I nod but I feel tears continuing to drip down my face. I wipe them away angrily with my sleeve. I'm so sick of not being able to control my emotions, I hope the side effects of this stupid concussion start to go away soon.
When we reach Thirteen, Peeta is wheeled away by medics to the hospital. I make to follow them but Gale grabs hold of my arm and stops me. We're standing in the enormous underground hangar that contains all of Thirteen's hovercraft—the one we flew here in was minuscule compared to some of the war machines they seem to have. Something needles at the back of my brain. Thirteen seems to have a lot of weaponry and it took them seventy-five years to decide to help the rest of Panem? Something just doesn't seem right about it.
"Katniss," Gale says and I realize I'm staring around absently at the hovercraft. I turn back to Gale to see that he looks upset. "Did you choose him?" I stare at him. Choose who, Peeta? "What do you mean?" I ask slowly. I don't want to make any assumptions because if I'm wrong I'll look like an idiot. Gale sighs exasperatedly. "Peeta. You chose him over me."
Oh great, so I was right.
This is a conversation that I absolutely do not want to have right now, or preferably ever, because if I've done one thing it's not make a choice between Gale and Peeta. This is exactly the kind of thing I don't want to be worrying about right now, not when there's a literal rebellion happening, the Capitol is trying to kill me and everyone I care about, and of course, can't forget the fact that Thirteen wants me to be the poster child of the rebellion. On top of all this, my head won't stop pounding and I barely know what's going on half the time—so no, I haven't made a choice. Besides that, I swore a long time ago that I would never get married or have children because I don't want my kids to get sent to the Hunger Games.
But things are changing. The rebellion means that things are changing. Well, alright. I suppose that if by some miracle the rebellion succeeds then things could be different. And maybe that would mean that I wouldn't need to be so scared all the time. Maybe that would mean that I could have a family—for some reason I think about the kiss that Peeta and I shared on the beach in the Games. But, I thought I was about to die when I kissed him like that. I was ready to die, doesn't that negate any meaning I could glean from anything I did in the Quell? I don't know. I don't know. My head is really starting hurt now and I'm starting to get confused. What does Gale want to know this for anyhow?
"I don't know." I say, finally defeated by the question. "I'm sorry, I know that's not what you want to hear." To my surprise, Gale grins. "What?" I ask.
"If you don't know," he says, still grinning. "It means I've still got a chance."
Something nags at me when he says this but I don't know exactly what it is. I do. I need you. In my head, I hear the words I said to Peeta on the beach. Did I mean those words? Do I need him? After the first Games, I could easily say that anything I said or did, I said or did it to keep myself alive. But the Quell was different. Or was it? After all, we were still on camera. And I was trying to keep Peeta alive. But now the ringing in my ears is back, there's a pounding behind my right eye, and suddenly I'm so tired from the events of the day that all I want is to disappear into my bed and shut out the world and everything in it.