Mockingjay(55)

Plutarch’s attempt to cheer me up—laced with the news of another four, possibly five, murders—somehow backfires. Portia. Peeta’s prep team. Effie. The effort to fight back tears makes my throat throb until I’m gasping again. Eventually, they have no choice but to sedate me.

When I wake, I wonder if this will be the only way I sleep now, with drugs shot into my arm. I’m glad I’m not supposed to talk for the next few days, because there’s nothing I want to say. Or do. In fact, I’m a model patient, my lethargy taken for restraint, obedience to the doctors’ orders. I no longer feel like crying. In fact, I can only manage to hold on to one simple thought: an image of Snow’s face accompanied by the whisper in my head. I will kill you.

My mother and Prim take turns nursing me, coaxing me to swallow bites of soft food. People come in periodically to give me updates on Peeta’s condition. The high levels of tracker jacker venom are working their way out of his body. He’s being treated only by strangers, natives of 13—no one from home or the Capitol has been allowed to see him—to keep any dangerous memories from triggering. A team of specialists works long hours designing a strategy for his recovery.

Gale’s not supposed to visit me, as he’s confined to bed with some kind of shoulder wound. But on the third night, after I’ve been medicated and the lights turned down low for bedtime, he slips silently into my room. He doesn’t speak, just runs his fingers over the bruises on my neck with a touch as light as moth wings, plants a kiss between my eyes, and disappears.

The next morning, I’m discharged from the hospital with instructions to move quietly and speak only when necessary. I’m not imprinted with a schedule, so I wander around aimlessly until Prim’s excused from her hospital duties to take me to our family’s latest compartment. 2212. Identical to the last one, but with no window.

Buttercup has now been issued a daily food allowance and a pan of sand that’s kept under the bathroom sink. As Prim tucks me into bed, he hops up on my pillow, vying for her attention. She cradles him but stays focused on me. “Katniss, I know this whole thing with Peeta is terrible for you. But remember, Snow worked on him for weeks, and we’ve only had him for a few days. There’s a chance that the old Peeta, the one who loves you, is still inside. Trying to get back to you. Don’t give up on him.”

I look at my little sister and think how she has inherited the best qualities our family has to offer: my mother’s healing hands, my father’s level head, and my fight. There’s something else there as well, something entirely her own. An ability to look into the confusing mess of life and see things for what they are. Is it possible she could be right? That Peeta could return to me?

“I have to get back to the hospital,” Prim says, placing Buttercup on the bed beside me. “You two keep each other company, okay?”

Buttercup springs off the bed and follows her to the door, complaining loudly when he’s left behind. We’re about as much company for each other as dirt. After maybe thirty seconds, I know I can’t stand being confined in the subterranean cell, and leave Buttercup to his own devices. I get lost several times, but eventually I make my way down to Special Defense. Everyone I pass stares at the bruises, and I can’t help feeling self-conscious to the point that I tug my collar up to my ears.

Gale must have been released from the hospital this morning as well, because I find him in one of the research rooms with Beetee. They’re immersed, heads bent over a drawing, taking a measurement. Versions of the picture litter the table and floor. Tacked on the corkboard walls and occupying several computer screens are other designs of some sort. In the rough lines of one, I recognize Gale’s twitch-up snare. “What are these?” I ask hoarsely, pulling their attention from the sheet.

“Ah, Katniss, you’ve found us out,” says Beetee cheerfully.

“What? Is this a secret?” I know Gale’s been down here working with Beetee a lot, but I assumed they were messing around with bows and guns.

“Not really. But I’ve felt a little guilty about it. Stealing Gale away from you so much,” Beetee admits.

Since I’ve spent most of my time in 13 disoriented, worried, angry, being remade, or hospitalized, I can’t say Gale’s absences have inconvenienced me. Things haven’t been exactly harmonious between us, either. But I let Beetee think he owes me. “I hope you’ve been putting his time to good use.”

“Come and see,” he says, waving me over to a computer screen.

This is what they’ve been doing. Taking the fundamental ideas behind Gale’s traps and adapting them into weapons against humans. Bombs mostly. It’s less about the mechanics of the traps than the psychology behind them. Booby-trapping an area that provides something essential to survival. A water or food supply. Frightening prey so that a large number flee into a greater destruction. Endangering off-spring in order to draw in the actual desired target, the parent. Luring the victim into what appears to be a safe haven—where death awaits it. At some point, Gale and Beetee left the wilderness behind and focused on more human impulses. Like compassion. A bomb explodes. Time is allowed for people to rush to the aid of the wounded. Then a second, more powerful bomb kills them as well.