Mockingjay

in and untangle the mess of lies. Then I settle for something I can accomplish.
    “Have you eaten?” I ask. A slight shake of his head indicates he hasn’t. I open a can of chicken and rice soup and hand it to him, keeping the lid in case he tries to slit his wrists with it or something. He sits up and tilts the can, chugging back the soup without really bothering to chew it. The bottom of the can reflects the lights from the machines, and I remember something that’s been itching at the back of my mind since yesterday. “Peeta, when you asked about what happened to Darius and Lavinia, and Boggs told you it was real, you said you thought so. Because there was nothing shiny about it. What did you mean?”
    “Oh. I don’t know exactly how to explain it,” he tells me. “In the beginning, everything was just complete confusion. Now I can sort certain things out. I think there’s a pattern emerging. The memories they altered with the tracker jacker venom have this strange quality about them. Like they’re too intense or the images aren’t stable. You remember what it was like when we were stung?”
    “Trees shattered. There were giant colored butterflies. I fell in a pit of orange bubbles.” I think about it. “Shiny orange bubbles.”
    “Right. But nothing about Darius or Lavinia was like that. I don’t think they’d given me any venom yet,” he says.
    “Well, that’s good, isn’t it?” I ask. “If you can separate the two, then you can figure out what’s true.”
    “Yes. And if I could grow wings, I could fly. Only people can’t grow wings,” he says. “Real or not real?”
    “Real,” I say. “But people don’t need wings to survive.”
    “Mockingjays do.” He finishes the soup and returns the can to me.
    In the fluorescent light, the circles under his eyes look like bruises. “There’s still time. You should sleep.” Unresisting, he lies back down, but just stares at the needle on one of the dials as it twitches from side to side. Slowly, as I would with a wounded animal, my hand stretches out and brushes a wave of hair from his forehead. He freezes at my touch, but doesn’t recoil. So I continue to gently smooth back his hair. It’s the first time I have voluntarily touched him since the last arena.
    “You’re still trying to protect me. Real or not real,” he whispers.
    “Real,” I answer. It seems to require more explanation. “Because that’s what you and I do. Protect each other.” After a minute or so, he drifts off to sleep.
    Shortly before seven, Pollux and I move among the others, rousing them. There are the usual yawns and sighs that accompany waking. But my ears are picking up something else, too. Almost like a hissing. Perhaps it’s only steam escaping a pipe or the far-off whoosh of one of the trains. . . .
    I hush the group to get a better read on it. There’s a hissing, yes, but it’s not one extended sound. More like multiple exhalations that form words. A single word. Echoing throughout the tunnels. One word. One name. Repeated over and over again.

“Katniss.”

The grace period has ended. Perhaps Snow had them digging through the night. As soon as the fire died down, anyway. They found Boggs’s remains, briefly felt reassured, and then, as the hours went by without further trophies, began to suspect. At some point, they realized that they had been tricked. And President Snow can’t tolerate being made to look like a fool. It doesn’t matter whether they tracked us to the second apartment or assumed we went directly underground. They know we are down here now and they’ve unleashed something, a pack of mutts probably, bent on finding me.
    “Katniss.” I jump at the proximity of the sound. Look frantically for its source, bow loaded, seeking a target to hit. “Katniss.” Peeta’s lips are barely moving, but there’s no doubt, the name came out of him. Just when I thought he seemed a little better, when I thought he might be inching his way back to me, here is proof of how deep Snow’s poison went. “Katniss.” Peeta’s programmed to respond to the hissing chorus, to join in the hunt. He’s beginning to stir. There’s no choice. I position my arrow to penetrate his brain. He’ll barely feel a thing. Suddenly, he’s sitting up, eyes wide in alarm, short of breath. “Katniss!” He whips his head toward me but doesn’t seem to notice my bow, the waiting arrow. “Katniss! Get out of here!”
    I hesitate. His voice is alarmed, but