to ice, my lungs unable to suck air. It’s as if Snow’s breathing right in my face, telling me it’s time to die.
The others are shouting at me, but I can’t seem to respond. Strong arms lift me as I blast the head off a mutt whose claws have just grazed my ankle. I’m slammed into the ladder. Hands shoved against the rungs. Ordered to climb. My wooden, puppet limbs obey. Movement slowly brings me back to my senses. I detect one person above me. Pollux. Peeta and Cressida are below. We reach a platform. Switch to a second ladder. Rungs slick with sweat and mildew. At the next platform, my head has cleared and the reality of what’s happened hits me. I begin frantically pulling people up off the ladder. Peeta. Cressida. That’s it.
What have I done? What have I abandoned the others to? I’m scrambling back down the ladder when one of my boots kicks someone.
“Climb!” Gale barks at me. I’m back up, hauling him in, peering into the gloom for more. “No.” Gale turns my face to him and shakes his head. Uniform shredded. Gaping wound in the side of his neck.
There’s a human cry from below. “Someone’s still alive,” I plead.
“No, Katniss. They’re not coming,” says Gale. “Only the mutts are.”
Unable to accept it, I shine the light from Cressida’s gun down the shaft. Far below, I can just make out Finnick, struggling to hang on as three mutts tear at him. As one yanks back his head to take the death bite, something bizarre happens. It’s as if I’m Finnick, watching images of my life flash by. The mast of a boat, a silver parachute, Mags laughing, a pink sky, Beetee’s trident, Annie in her wedding dress, waves breaking over rocks. Then it’s over.
I slide the Holo from my belt and choke out “nightlock, nightlock, nightlock.” Release it. Hunch against the wall with the others as the explosion rocks the platform and bits of mutt and human flesh shoot out of the pipe and shower us.
There’s a clank as Pollux slams a cover over the pipe and locks it in place. Pollux, Gale, Cressida, Peeta, and me. We’re all that’s left. Later, the human feelings will come. Now I’m conscious only of an animal need to keep the remnants of our band alive. “We can’t stop here.”
Someone comes up with a bandage. We tie it around Gale’s neck. Get him to his feet. Only one figure stays huddled against the wall. “Peeta,” I say. There’s no response. Has he blacked out? I crouch in front of him, pulling his cuffed hands from his face. “Peeta?” His eyes are like black pools, the pupils dilated so that the blue irises have all but vanished. The muscles in his wrists are hard as metal.
“Leave me,” he whispers. “I can’t hang on.”
“Yes. You can!” I tell him.
Peeta shakes his head. “I’m losing it. I’ll go mad. Like them.”
Like the mutts. Like a rabid beast bent on ripping my throat out. And here, finally here in this place, in these circumstances, I will really have to kill him. And Snow will win. Hot, bitter hatred courses through me. Snow has won too much already today.
It’s a long shot, it’s suicide maybe, but I do the only thing I can think of. I lean in and kiss Peeta full on the mouth. His whole body starts shuddering, but I keep my lips pressed to his until I have to come up for air. My hands slide up his wrists to clasp his. “Don’t let him take you from me.”
Peeta’s panting hard as he fights the nightmares raging in his head. “No. I don’t want to…”
I clench his hands to the point of pain. “Stay with me.”
His pupils contract to pinpoints, dilate again rapidly, and then return to something resembling normalcy. “Always,” he murmurs.
I help Peeta up and address Pollux. “How far to the street?” He indicates it’s just above us. I climb the last ladder and push open the lid to someone’s utility room. I’m rising to my feet when a woman throws open the door. She wears a bright turquoise silk robe embroidered with exotic birds. Her magenta hair’s fluffed up like a cloud and decorated with gilded butterflies. Grease from the half-eaten sausage she’s holding smears her lipstick. The expression on her face says she recognizes me. She opens her mouth to call for help.
Without hesitation, I shoot her through the heart.