Pawn of Panem | Finnick Odair [2]

Boggs : 11

Chapter Eleven

The shock of hearing Haymitch's voice yesterday, of learning that he was not only functional but had some measure of control over my life again, enraged me. I left the studio directly and refused to acknowledge his comments from the booth today, Katniss was friendlier, but just as annoyed.

Even so, I knew immediately he was right about my performance.

It took the whole of this morning for him to convince the others of my limitations. That Katniss and I can't pull it off. I can't stand in a television studio wearing a costume and makeup in a cloud of fake smoke and rally the districts to victory. It's amazing, really, how long I have survived the cameras. The credit for that, of course, goes to the editors, because I assure everyone I was a wreck when it came District 5 weekly news updates.

We gather around the huge table in Command. Coin and her people. Plutarch, Fulvia, Katniss, her prep team and my prep team. Finnick. Eero. A group from 12 that includes Haymitch and Gale, but also a few others from 5 I can't explain, like Janison and Gerard's sister, Autumn. At the last minute, a guard wheels Beetee in, accompanied by Dalton, the cattle expert from 10. I suppose that Coin has assembled this strange assortment of people as witnesses to my failure.

However, it's Haymitch who welcomes everyone, and by his words I understand that they have come at his personal invitation. This is the first time we've been in a room together since I attacked him. I avoid looking at him directly, but I catch a glimpse of his reflection in one of the shiny control consoles along the wall. He looks slightly yellow and has lost a lot of weight, giving him a shrunken appearance. For a second, I'm afraid he's dying. I have to remind myself that I don't care.

The first thing Haymitch does is to show the footage we've just shot. Katniss and I seem to have reached some new low under Plutarch and Fulvia's guidance. Both our voices and bodies have a jerky, disjointed quality, like puppets being manipulated by unseen forces.

"All right," Haymitch says when it's over. "Would anyone like to argue that this is of use to us in winning the war?" No one does. "That saves time. So, let's all be quiet for a minute. I want everyone to think of one incident where Sage Scrymgeour and/or, Katniss Everdeen, genuinely moved you. Not where you were jealous of their hairstyle, or Katniss's dress went up in flames or Sage made a halfway decent throw with a dagger. Not where Peeta or Finnick was making you like them. I want to hear one moment where they made you feel something real."

Quiet stretches out and I'm beginning to think it will never end, when Autumn speaks up. "When Katniss volunteered to take Prim's place at the reaping. Because I'm sure she thought she was going to die."

Autumn looks wholly like her brother and presses my emotions to watch as she sits there with her fingers twiddling together. She's lacking her usual bright skin from being outside 24/7 in District 5. She gives Katniss a light smile before lightly smiling at me.

"Excellent example," says Haymitch. He takes a purple marker and writes on a notepad. "Volunteered for sister at reaping." Haymitch looks around the table. "Somebody else."

I'm surprised that the next speaker is Boggs, who I think of as a muscular robot that does Coin's bidding. "When Sagitarra made the memorial for the little boy." Somewhere in my head an image surfaces of Boggs with a young boy perched up on his hip. In the dining hall, I think. Maybe he's not a robot after all.

"Who didn't get choked up at that, right?" says Haymitch, writing it down.

"I cried when Katniss drugged Peeta so she could go get him medicine and when she kissed him good-bye!" blurts out Volumina. Then she covers her mouth, like she's sure this was a bad mistake.