11. Unharnessed Power
"Well, Katniss Everdeen," Gale says with a hardened smile, my name dripping from his lips in sarcasm. "I see you've been making quite the name for yourself."
I have no idea nor any interest in what he means, all I can think about is the stew that I stayed up the whole night preparing. The stew that I look down and expect to see splattered all over the ground. Instead, I see that with his free hand Gale has caught it easily and is gripping the bottom of the container tightly just as his other hand grips me. I am at once relieved and incensed.
First, I snatch myself away from Gale, and then I yank the stew from his hands. I feel very protective over this soup that my parents drew in for me.
I stare at Gale, take in his uniform. The exact same outfit as before, only now it is a deep grey that I imagine is to guard against the dust and dirt that his white suit no doubt succumbed to. Good. I think, satisfied, He should've known better than to wear that shade of white here to begin with.
"What are you doing?" I spit out, glaring at him and I am reminded of that day weeks ago when I first asked him this. It seems as if that's all I'll ever ask him now. All I'll ever want to know anytime I see his face.
"Funny: I was going to ask you the very same question." Gale grabs my arm again and my weak struggle is useless against him as he pulls me over to the side of one of the slightly constructed buildings, which is lined by a gate, releasing me forcefully beside the thin wooden wall.
Out of the sight of others, I feel the familiar anxiety of being in Gale's presence creeping through me. I know that it is illogical, but I can't help but to have a slight feeling of fear and distrust of the boy-well, the man-who likely built the bomb that killed my sister. Actually…it's probably not illogical at all.
I look up into Gale's face; his chin now budded with dark prickly hairs, proof that he hasn't shaved in maybe a week. He really does look like a full-grown man now. I think, a stranger. And I am again reminded that this isn't the same boy who I used to know anymore.
I just stare at Gale, at first unwillingly allowing some of my anxiety to break forth in my face, before realizing that I have no reason to cower in his presence. I don't care if he is the Captain of the Guards. This is a person whose life I have saved. A person who's saved mine. We have no pretense of titles and unfamiliarity and so I begin to leer at him defiantly, though it occurs that I have no idea what it is that I am defying exactly.
Gale stares back at me, looking into my eyes, his own moving rapidly as if searching for something. His eyes widen and then he laughs a short, incredulous laugh.
"You…you don't even know? Do you? But then how could you?" Gale says and he is backing away from me, laughing harder in a way that sickens me; makes my defiance grow into a low anger at being the butt of his unexplained joke.
"Know what?" I ask between my teeth, and I feel my free hand curling into a fist.
"What you've started?! What you're inciting?!" Gale says and is now staring at me with a dumbfounded expression as if he's waiting for me to get his point, but I don't. So, he says calmly his expression now one of patience, "Katniss…the men and some of the kids are planning to start hunting now. They want to go into the woods and kill foxes, pheasants, squirrels…bears, even! Something about you taking one down; there's even talk of a "bear challenge". To see who can catch the biggest bear!" Gale's speech has become excited and distressed but I am still failing to fully understand.
"People…want to hunt?" I ask, feeling foolish as I mull it carefully. Who cares? "Well, it's not as if it's illegal anymore." I say, "Why should it matter?"
Gale is shaking his head, "Because, Katniss, the animals will all be extinct by the end of next winter. There are already so few of them left as it is and we're only in mid-summer. I know that you might not understand it, but there is a reason the Capitol doled out the food in the way that they did."
I can't even believe what I'm hearing "You're defending the Capitol?! You, of all people?!" My hand is curling tightly again, and I feel the urge to lash out rising.
"No. No, Katniss." Gale says, stern yet softer, as he backs up and leans against the short fence adjacent to the wall I am backed against. "But, the Capitol always kept the main food supply, the meat, for itself. That being the case, the fact that there were only say, ten thousand animals at any given time wasn't as important, because, officially, no one else was allowed to hunt them. The Capitol had their choice of deer, birds, fish…anything. And when the animals dwindled, they reproduced, and the Capitol still had their choice once again. But now that it's over? Now that the war is over, and people are experiencing freedom like they've never had before? Human beings have the tendency to go overboard. They will soon start hunting not just for food, but for sport. And by the time they realize the problem with that, it will be too late. Just as it once was."
I don't want them to, but Gale's words have meaning. Make sense. I begin nodding but say quietly, thinking out loud. "But…the people need more food, better food, better sustenance. That's the reason I started hunting for them in the first place."
Gale now wears a sympathetic look and there is a familiar gleam in his eyes. It's the same way he always looked before he said something romantic or leaned forward to kiss me. That is the way he is looking at me now. And even though I find myself blushing and glancing downward because of it, I don't want Gale looking at me this way anymore. In fact, I don't want him to ever again.
Luckily, Gale straightens his face up quickly saying gently, "I know, Katniss. But there are other ways to get it to them than to work them up into a tizzy about hunting."
I feel insulted and my simmering anger rises again, spilling forth in my words, "I wasn't trying to work anyone up into anything! I was trying to help!"
"I know Katniss, I know. But sometimes…you just…" Gale shakes his head a light smile against his lips before finishing "You have to start thinking before you act. You have a responsibility to use your power wisely. You have to Katniss. You don't have a choice anymore."
"My…power…?" I say, and my mind flashes me back to my dining car on the train before the first Hunger Games, with Peeta and Haymitch and we were talking before our training session.
Peeta talks me up, my shooting skills, my tree climbing. He is falling all over himself to tell Haymitch all about me, insisting that I will survive over him. That I will get more sponsors than he does. Everything he says, I have an answer for, because I see no reason why he would downplay himself in such a way. Finally, Peeta becomes frustrated, and then he says something that seems to convey some understanding about me to Haymitch that I am not privy to. "She has no idea. The effect she can have."
I remember it. I recall Peeta saying it and not knowing what he meant. At the time, I imagined that he was saying people pitied me.
Later, after a trick with poisonous berries so as not to have to kill Peeta in the first Hunger Games, President Snow, was sure that I was being defiant towards him and the Capitol when I was only trying to make sure we both survived. But the people thought so too, as we discovered when we visited the various districts. Eventually, people started rebelling.
People started uprising.
People started a war.
And now…
I feel the wall turn hard against my back, gasp for breath as the recognition of destruction grips me and I am again in the Capitol, fighting my way through the pods and the death, trying to get somewhere safe. The ground is splitting beneath me. Splitting. Splitting. People are shooting all around us. Rebels. A girl in a lemon yellow coat is killed and I am trying to hang on to focus. Trying to steady myself above the splintering pavement. My face is yanked upward and I feel hands wrapped tightly on both my arms. I see his face and vaguely hear him calling my name, but the sound is muffled against the sounds of the bombs dropping all around us. Why is he stopping me? Why is he holding me, when we should be running? I want Gale to stop it. To let go of me, so that we can get to Snow, so I begin to struggle against him.
Then…
I feel a slap against my cheek.
