The Hunger Games: Book Four - How it Might Have Been ... Gale.

Page Forty Three

Katniss

They have plagued me for days, these insecurities, but now they erupt inside me in a splutter of emotions. There are cries of fear, but they are muted under President Coin’s stern gaze. Her face has paled, but she is still strong and authoritative, forever ready for what faces her. I used to be like that; I can still be like that. Can I?

Coin barks out a number of orders in that eerily calm voice of hers, while I bite the inside of my cheek firmly to stop my teeth from chattering. All my fears are bubbling up inside me now, threatening to overflow.

The Capitol is real, they are back, they have my husband and daughter in their clutches. They are coming here, to District Thirteen, a place I’ve always seen as a haven. We were meant to come here, Peeta and I, to escape. That was always our plan. It seems almost ironic now that it’s all going to end here.

“We’ve got confirmation on the reports of the suspected Tribute names, m’aam,” an eager worker with a clipboard says to Coin, who gives me a glance that tells me more than I should know. I think my worst fear is about to be confirmed. It is.

Coin scans the list almost impatiently, as if she already knows what’s there. Of course she does; she’s her mother’s daughter. And in a sickly ironic way, she says my daughter’s name. “Oenothera Mellark,” she asks, as if it’s a rhetorical question, as if her name wasn’t on that list, as if my worst nightmare isn’t about to be confirmed.

I nod, because my throat is dry. Something flickers in the other woman’s eyes, but I don’t know what. If I were to guess, I would say it was the feeling of a mother losing her child. She can see the anguish that may consume me and she hates me for it, because when her own mother died, there was no way she was worried about the welfare of her children. Her megalomaniac, psychotic children.

I’m not sure now if I can trust Coin.

“We all have to make sacrifices, Mockingjay,” she almost spits, and then turns away to bark out more orders. I don’t know if this is a façade she is putting forward or if this is her true self. All will be revealed; I just have to live to see it.

My heart is breaking inside me, and I know now it’s because all those years ago, I was right. I didn’t want children because I knew the Capitol would return, I knew they would put any children I had into the Hunger Games.

I have to stop it. But can I? Can I be the Mockingjay again? According to Gale, I can’t, and I never will be.

Thinking of him, I look over to see his reaction to the latest news and find him rushing towards me. He has his own aspect of this project to run; now must be the times for goodbyes.

The colour of his eyes always made me feel calm; I only notice this now.

Hesitantly he gives me a quick kiss and whispers something quickly, something too quickly for me to comprehend right now. I just had a thought about him that was totally inappropriate for the time and the place, but just for a second, I felt home.

“Oenothera is on that ship,” he says again, urgently. “You can’t let them destroy it.”

“They won’t,” I sound sure of myself, and I don’t know why. All of a sudden I see now why Coin has turned her back on me, why she doesn’t in fact envy me – she’s going to kill my daughter and my husband for me.

“SHOOT IT DOWN!” she shouts again, glaring over the shoulder of a shivering worker that has his finger on a button and a digital target on the screen pointing straight at a holographic image of the impending hovercraft.

I don’t say a word; I speak in the way only I can. Grabbing my black bow and deftly nocking an arrow, I pierce Coin’s heart, not for the first time that century.