Mockingjay

for the water,” Peeta says.
    “No problem,” Gale replies. “I wake up ten times a night anyway.”
    “To make sure Katniss is still here?” asks Peeta.
    “Something like that,” Gale admits.
    There’s a long pause before Peeta speaks again. “That was funny, what Tigris said. About no one knowing what to do with her.”
    “Well, we never have,” Gale says.
    They both laugh. It’s so strange to hear them talking like this. Almost like friends. Which they’re not. Never have been. Although they’re not exactly enemies.
    “She loves you, you know,” says Peeta. “She as good as told me after they whipped you.”
    “Don’t believe it,” Gale answers. “The way she kissed you in the Quarter Quell . . . well, she never kissed me like that.”
    “It was just part of the show,” Peeta tells him, although there’s an edge of doubt in his voice.
    “No, you won her over. Gave up everything for her. Maybe that’s the only way to convince her you love her.” There’s a long pause. “I should have volunteered to take your place in the first Games. Protected her then.”
    “You couldn’t,” says Peeta. “She’d never have forgiven you. You had to take care of her family. They matter more to her than her life.”
    “Well, it won’t be an issue much longer. I think it’s unlikely all three of us will be alive at the end of the war. And if we are, I guess it’s Katniss’s problem. Who to choose.” Gale yawns. “We should get some sleep.”
    “Yeah.” I hear Peeta’s handcuffs slide down the support as he settles in. “I wonder how she’ll make up her mind.”
    “Oh, that I do know.” I can just catch Gale’s last words through the layer of fur. “Katniss will pick whoever she thinks she can’t survive without.”

A chill runs through me. Am I really that cold and calculating? Gale didn’t say, “Katniss will pick whoever it will break her heart to give up,” or even “whoever she can’t live without.” Those would have implied I was motivated by a kind of passion. But my best friend predicts I will choose the person who I think I “can’t survive without.” There’s not the least indication that love, or desire, or even compatibility will sway me. I’ll just conduct an unfeeling assessment of what my potential mates can offer me. As if in the end, it will be the question of whether a baker or a hunter will extend my longevity the most. It’s a horrible thing for Gale to say, for Peeta not to refute. Especially when every emotion I have has been taken and exploited by the Capitol or the rebels. At the moment, the choice would be simple. I can survive just fine without either of them.
    In the morning, I have no time or energy to nurse wounded feelings. During a predawn breakfast of liver pâté and fig cookies, we gather around Tigris’s television for one of Beetee’s break-ins. There’s been a new development in the war. Apparently inspired by the black wave, some enterprising rebel commander came up with the idea of confiscating people’s abandoned automobiles and sending them unmanned down the streets. The cars don’t trigger every pod, but they certainly get the majority. At around four in the morning, the rebels began carving three separate paths — simply referred to as the A, B, and C lines — to the Capitol’s heart. As a result, they’ve secured block after block with very few casualties.
    “This can’t last,” says Gale. “In fact I’m surprised they’ve kept it going so long. The Capitol will adjust by deactivating specific pods and then manually triggering them when their targets come in range.” Almost within minutes of his prediction, we see this very thing happen on-screen. A squad sends a car down a block, setting off four pods. All seems well. Three scouts follow and make it safely to the end of the street. But when a group of twenty rebel soldiers follow them, they’re blown to bits by a row of potted rosebushes in front of a flower shop.
    “I bet it’s killing Plutarch not to be in the control room on this one,” says Peeta.
    Beetee gives the broadcast back to the Capitol, where a grim-faced reporter announces the blocks that civilians are to evacuate. Between her update and the previous story, I am able to mark my paper map to show the relative positions of the opposing armies.
    I hear scuffling out on the street, move to the windows, and peek out a crack in the shutters. In the early morning light, I see a bizarre spectacle.