I didn’t expect that.” “I told you he hated me,” I say.
We’re sideswiped by a gurney bearing an unconscious, emaciated young woman with a shaved head. Her flesh shows bruises and oozing scabs. Johanna Mason. Who actually knew rebel secrets. At least the one about me. And this is how she has paid for it.
Eyes so black they seem all pupils.
Finnick!” Something between a shriek and a cry of joy.
Maybe he just sees me as I really am. I have to get some sleep.
I hope old new doesn’t haunt new you. We’ve already got enough ghosts between us.
So that’s what you’re thinking now?” I shrug. “Katniss, as your oldest friend, believe me when I say he’s not seeing you as you really are.
We got them all out. Except Enobaria. But since she’s from Two, we doubt she’s being held anyway. Peeta’s at the end of the hall. The effects of the gas are just wearing off. You should be there when he wakes.” Peeta. Alive and well – maybe not well but alive and here. Away from Snow. Safe. Here. With me. In a minute I can touch him. See his smile. Hear his laugh. Haymitch’s grinning at me. “Come.
He tells of the history of Panem, the country that rose up out of the ashes of a place that was once called North America. He lists the disasters, the droughts, the storms, the fires, the encroaching seas that swallowed up so much of the land, the brutal war for what little sustenance remained. The result was Panem, a shining Capitol ringed by thirteen districts, which brought peace and prosperity to its citizens.
I’m light-headed with giddiness. What will I say? Oh, who cares what I say? Peeta will be ecstatic no matter what I do. He’ll probably be kissing me anyway.
Always,” he murmurs.
Finnick recites a poem he wrote to his one true love in the Capitol, and about a hundred people faint because they’re sure he means them.
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He slumps back in his chair, distraught.
What about your mentor, Haymitch Abernathy?
I’m light-headed with giddiness. What will I say? Oh, who cares what I say? Peeta will be ecstatic no matter what I do. He’ll probably be kissing me anyway. I wonder if it will feel like those last kisses on the beach in the arena, the ones I haven’t dared let myself consider until this moment.
Hey, Catnip,” says Gale. My real name is Katniss, but when I first told him, I had barely whispered it. So he thought I’d said Catnip. Then when this crazy lynx started following me around the woods looking for handouts, it became his official nickname for me. I finally had to kill the lynx because he scared off game. I almost regretted it because he wasn’t bad company. But I got a decent price for his pelt.
I don’t know what Haymitch knew.” “Could he have been part of the conspiracy?
Come see, Gradma’am!” It was another nickname coined by little Tigris, who’d found “Grandma,” and certainly “Nana,” insufficient for someone so imperial.
That I shouldn’t have trusted him,” says Peeta.