Mockingjay

«You love me. Real or not real?»
I tell him, «Real.»

Finnick looks at me in disbelief. “I don’t, Katniss! Obviously, I don’t. I drag myself out of nightmares each morning and find there’s no relief in waking.” Something in my expression stops him. “Better not to give in to it. It takes ten times as long to put yourself back together as it does to fall apart.”

«Don’t worry, Katniss. It’ll pass.»

“I don’t know. We were under attack in Eight, for one thing. The hospital was under attack,” I say.

“Yes, and those hoverplanes came from District Two,” he says. “So, by taking them out, we prevented further attacks.”

hoping to see them recording some wave of reconciliation going through the crowd.

Instead I watch myself get shot on television.

Peeta. On the rooftop the night before our first Hunger Games. He understood it all before we’d even set foot in the arena. I hope he’s watching now, that he remembers that night as it happened, and maybe forgives me when I die.

My father. He seems to be everywhere today. Dying in the mine. Singing his way into Peeta’s muddled consciousness. Flickering in the look Boggs gives me as he protectively wraps the blanket around my shoulders. I miss him so badly it hurts.

“I would sacrifice a few, yes, to take out the rest of them,” he replies. “And if I were a spy in there, I’d say, ‘Bring on the avalanches!’”

oggs, who came to 2 when I did, told me that even with all the plotting, it was a little too easy to rescue Peeta. He believes if 13 hadn’t made the effort, Peeta would’ve been delivered to me anyway. Dropped off in an actively warring district or perhaps 13 itself. Tied up with ribbons and tagged with my name. Programmed to murder me

Not only does he hate me and want to kill me, he no longer believes I’m human. It was less painful being strangled.