Catching Fire

die,” I say hopelessly.
    “No, back home. What happens when they reach the final eight tributes in the Games?” He lifts my chin so I have to look at him. Forces me to make eye contact. “What happens? At the final eight?”
    I know he’s trying to help me, so I make myself think. “At the final eight?” I repeat. “They interview your family and friends back home.”
    “That’s right,” says Peeta. “They interview your family and friends. And can they do that if they’ve killed them all?”
    “No?” I ask, still unsure.
    “No. That’s how we know Prim’s alive. She’ll be the first one they interview, won’t she?” he asks.
    I want to believe him. Badly. It’s just . . . those voices . . .
    “First Prim. Then your mother. Your cousin, Gale. Madge,” he continues. “It was a trick, Katniss. A horrible one. But we’re the only ones who can be hurt by it. We’re the ones in the Games. Not them.”
    “You really believe that?” I say.
    “I really do,” says Peeta. I waver, thinking of how Peeta can make anyone believe anything. I look over at Finnick for confirmation, see he’s fixated on Peeta, his words.
    “Do you believe it, Finnick?” I ask.
    “It could be true. I don’t know,” he says. “Could they do that, Beetee? Take someone’s regular voice and make it . . .”
    “Oh, yes. It’s not even that difficult, Finnick. Our children learn a similar technique in school,” says Beetee.
    “Of course Peeta’s right. The whole country adores Katniss’s little sister. If they really killed her like this, they’d probably have an uprising on their hands,” says Johanna flatly. “Don’t want that, do they?” She throws back her head and shouts, “Whole country in rebellion? Wouldn’t want anything like that!”
    My mouth drops open in shock. No one, ever, says anything like this in the Games. Absolutely, they’ve cut away from Johanna, are editing her out. But I have heard her and can never think about her again in the same way. She’ll never win any awards for kindness, but she certainly is gutsy. Or crazy. She picks up some shells and heads toward the jungle. “I’m getting water,” she says.
    I can’t help catching her hand as she passes me. “Don’t go in there. The birds —” I remember the birds must be gone, but I still don’t want anyone in there. Not even her.
    “They can’t hurt me. I’m not like the rest of you. There’s no one left I love,” Johanna says, and frees her hand with an impatient shake. When she brings me back a shell of water, I take it with a silent nod of thanks, knowing how much she would despise the pity in my voice.
    While Johanna collects water and my arrows, Beetee fiddles with his wire, and Finnick takes to the water. I need to clean up, too, but I stay in Peeta’s arms, still too shaken to move.
    “Who did they use against Finnick?” he asks.
    “Somebody named Annie,” I say.
    “Must be Annie Cresta,” he says.
    “Who?” I ask.
    “Annie Cresta. She was the girl Mags volunteered for. She won about five years ago,” says Peeta.
    That would have been the summer after my father died, when I first began feeding my family, when my whole being was occupied with battling starvation. “I don’t remember those Games much,” I say. “Was that the earthquake year?”
    “Yeah. Annie’s the one who went mad when her district partner got beheaded. Ran off by herself and hid. But an earthquake broke a dam and most of the arena got flooded. She won because she was the best swimmer,” says Peeta.
    “Did she get better after?” I ask. “I mean, her mind?”
    “I don’t know. I don’t remember ever seeing her at the Games again. But she didn’t look too stable during the reaping this year,” says Peeta.
    So that’s who Finnick loves, I think. Not his string of fancy lovers in the Capitol. But a poor, mad girl back home.
    A cannon blast brings us all together on the beach. A hovercraft appears in what we estimate to be the six-to-seven-o’clock zone. We watch as the claw dips down five different times to retrieve the pieces of one body, torn apart. It’s impossible to tell who it was. Whatever happens at six o’clock, I never want to know.
    Peeta draws a new map on a leaf, adding a JJ for jabber-jays in the four-to-five-o’clock section and simply writing beast in the one where we saw the tribute collected in pieces. We now have a good idea of what seven of the hours will bring. And if there’s any positive to