Catching Fire

everything is so thick it’s clear it hasn’t been disturbed for years. Light struggles to filter in through four grimy square windows set in the sides of the dome. Haymitch kicks the trapdoor shut and turns on us.
    “What happened?” he asks.
    Peeta relates all that occurred in the square. The whistle, the salute, our hesitation on the verandah, the murder of the old man. “What’s going on, Haymitch?”
    “It will be better coming from you,” Haymitch says to me.
    I don’t agree. I think it will be a hundred times worse coming from me. But I tell Peeta everything as calmly as I can. About President Snow, the unrest in the districts. I don’t even omit the kiss with Gale. I lay out how we are all in jeopardy, how the whole country is in jeopardy because of my trick with the berries. “I was supposed to fix things on this tour. Make everyone who had doubted believe I acted out of love. Calm things down. But obviously, all I’ve done today is get three people killed, and now everyone in the square will be punished.” I feel so sick that I have to sit down on a couch, despite the exposed springs and stuffing.
    “Then I made things worse, too. By giving the money,” says Peeta. Suddenly he strikes out at a lamp that sits precariously on a crate and knocks it across the room, where it shatters against the floor. “This has to stop. Right now. This — this — game you two play, where you tell each other secrets but keep them from me like I’m too inconsequential or stupid or weak to handle them.”
    “It’s not like that, Peeta —” I begin.
    “It’s exactly like that!” he yells at me. “I have people I care about, too, Katniss! Family and friends back in District Twelve who will be just as dead as yours if we don’t pull this thing off. So, after all we went through in the arena, don’t I even rate the truth from you?”
    “You’re always so reliably good, Peeta,” says Haymitch. “So smart about how you present yourself before the cameras. I didn’t want to disrupt that.”
    “Well, you overestimated me. Because I really screwed up today. What do you think is going to happen to Rue’s and Thresh’s families? Do you think they’ll get their share of our winnings? Do you think I gave them a bright future? Because I think they’ll be lucky if they survive the day!” Peeta sends something else flying, a statue. I’ve never seen him like this.
    “He’s right, Haymitch,” I say. “We were wrong not to tell him. Even back in the Capitol.”
    “Even in the arena, you two had some sort of system worked out, didn’t you?” asks Peeta. His voice is quieter now. “Something I wasn’t part of.”
    “No. Not officially. I just could tell what Haymitch wanted me to do by what he sent, or didn’t send,” I say.
    “Well, I never had that opportunity. Because he never sent me anything until you showed up,” says Peeta.
    I haven’t thought much about this. How it must have looked from Peeta’s perspective when I appeared in the arena having received burn medicine and bread when he, who was at death’s door, had gotten nothing. Like Haymitch was keeping me alive at his expense.
    “Look, boy —” Haymitch begins.
    “Don’t bother, Haymitch. I know you had to choose one of us. And I’d have wanted it to be her. But this is something different. People are dead out there. More will follow unless we’re very good. We all know I’m better than Katniss in front of the cameras. No one needs to coach me on what to say. But I have to know what I’m walking into,” says Peeta.
    “From now on, you’ll be fully informed,” Haymitch promises.
    “I better be,” says Peeta. He doesn’t even bother to look at me before he leaves.
    The dust he disrupted billows up and looks for new places to land. My hair, my eyes, my shiny gold pin.
    “Did you choose me, Haymitch?” I ask.
    “Yeah,” he says.
    “Why? You like him better,” I say.
    “That’s true. But remember, until they changed the rules, I could only hope to get one of you out of there alive,” he says. “I thought since he was determined to protect you, well, between the three of us, we might be able to bring you home.”
    “Oh” is all I can think to say.
    “You’ll see, the choices you’ll have to make. If we survive this,” says Haymitch. “You’ll learn.”
    Well, I’ve learned one thing today. This place is not a larger version of District 12. Our fence is unguarded and rarely charged. Our Peacekeepers are