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Boggs appears and gets a fir now I look over at the hospital - just in tioes out of me All those people, the hundreds of wounded, the relatives, the s, see the swelling on his face left by Gale&039;s boot I&039;m no expert, but I&039;ned than angry, though "Back to the landing strip" I obediently take a step forward and wince as I becoht knee The adrenaline rush that overrode the sensation has passed and ed up and bloody and so on s quickly exas for the runway Halfway there, I puke on his bulletproof vest It&039;s hard to tell because he&039;s short of breath, but I think he sighs
A small hovercraft, different from the one that transported us here, waits on the runway The second my team&039;s on board, we take off No comfy seats and s this tis does eet back to 13 I want to take off ot a fair amount of vomit on it as well, but it&039;s too cold to think about it I lie on the floor with s spreading a couple of burlap sacks over me
When I wake up, I&039;m warm and patched up inns "How do you feel?"
"A little beat-up, but all right," I say
"No one even told us you were going until you were gone," she says
I feel a pang of guilt When your faer Games, this isn&039;t the kind of detail you should overlook "I&039; the attack I was just supposed to be visiting the patients," I explain "Next time, I&039;ll have them clear it with you"
"Katniss, no one clears anything with me," she says
It&039;s true Even I don&039;t Not since my father died Why pretend? "Well, I&039;ll have themnotify you anyway"
On the bedside table is a piece of shrapnel they re The doctors are ht have suffered from the explosions, since in with But I don&039;t have double vision or anything and I can think clearly enough I&039;ve slept right through the late afternoon and night, and I&039;ly s in war at Coet up and then realize they plan to roll my hospital bed directly there I want to walk, but that&039;s out, so I negotiate my way into a wheelchair I feel fine, really Except for , and the soreness from the bruises, and the nausea that hit a couple ood idea
As they wheel et uneasy about what I will face Gale and I directly disobeyed orders yesterday, and Boggs has the injury to prove it Surely, there will be repercussions, but will they go so far as Coin annulling our agreement for the victors&039; immunity? Have I stripped Peeta of what little protection I could give hiet to Command, the only ones who&039;ve arrived are Cressida, Messalla, and the insects Messalla beams and says, "There&039;s our little star!" and the others are senuinely that I can&039;t help but sPlutarch back off so they could get the footage they wanted They more than do their work, they take pride in it Like Cinna
I have a strange thought that if ere in the arena together, I would pick them as allies Cressida, Messalla, and - and - "I have to stop calling you &039;the insects,&039;" I blurt out to the cameramen I explain how I didn&039;t know their naested the shelled creatures The comparison doesn&039;t seely resemble each other Same sandy hair, red beards, and blue eyes The one with close-bitten nails introduces himself as Castor and the other, who&039;s his brother, as Pollux I wait for Pollux to say hello, but he just nods At first I think he&039;s shy or a s on me - the position of his lips, the extra effort he takes to s - and I know before Castor tells ue and he will never speak again And I no longer have to wonder whatdown the Capitol
As the rooenial reception But the only people who register any kind of negativity are Haymitch, who&039;s always out of sorts, and a sour-faced Fulvia Cardew Boggs wears a flesh-colored plastic ht about the broken nose - so his expression&039;s hard to read Coin and Gale are in the e that seems positively chummy
When Gale slides into the seat next tonew friends?"
His eyes flicker to the president and back "Well, one of us has to be accessible" He touches ently "How do you feel?"
They arlic and squash for the breakfast vegetable The er the fuhts suddenly seeht "Kind of rocky," I say "How are you?"
"Fine They dug out a couple of pieces of shrapnel No big deal," he says
Coin calls theto order "Our Airtime Assault has officially launched For any of you who missed yesterday&039;s twenty-hundred broadcast of our first propo - or the seventeen reruns Beetee hasit" Replaying it? So they not only got usable footage, they&039;ve already slapped together a propo and aired it repeatedly My pal myself on television What if I&039;m still awful? What if I&039;m as stiff and pointless as I was in the studio and they&039;ve just given up on getting anything better? Individual screens slide up frohtly, and a hush falls over the room
At first, my screen is black Then a tiny spark flickers in the center It blosso up the blackness until the entire fraine I feel the heat elowing red-gold The deep, resonant voice that haunts ins to speak Claudius Teer Gairl as on fire, burns on"
Suddenly, there I a before the real flames and smoke of District 8 "I want to tell the rebels that I aht, where the Capitol has just bombed a hospital full of unarmed men, women, and children There will be no survivors" Cut to the hospital collapsing in on itself, the desperation of the onlookers as I continue in voice-over "I want to tell people that if you think for one second the Capitol will treat us fairly if there&039;s a cease-fire, you&039;re deluding yourself Because you knoho they are and what they do" Back to e around ht back!" Now coe of the battle The initial boround - a close-up ofthe roof, diving into the nests, and then so shots of the rebels, Gale, andthose planes out of the sky S in on the cae? Well, I have one for him You can torture us and boround, but do you see that?" We&039;re with the ca on the roof of the warehouse Tight on the Capitol seal on a wing, whichat the president "Fire is catching! And if we burn, you burn with us!" Flaain Superimposed on them in black, solid letters are the words:
IF WE BURN YOU
BURN WITH US
The words catch fire and the whole screen burns to blackness
There&039;s a moment of silent relish, then applause followed by deently hits the replay button, and this time, since I knoill happen, I try to pretend that I&039; this on my television at home in the Sea like it on television Not in my lifetime, anyway
By the time the screen burns to black a second time, I need to know more "Did it play all over Panem? Did they see it in the Capitol?"
"Not in the Capitol," says Plutarch "We couldn&039;t override their syste on it But in all the districts We even got it on in Thich ame"
"Is Claudius Teives Plutarch a good laugh "Only his voice But that&039;s ours for the taking We didn&039;t even have to do any special editing He said that actual line in your first Gaive another round of applause to Cressida, her a team, and, of course, our on-camera talent!"
I clap, too, until I realize I&039;m the on-camera talent andforattention I can&039;t help noticing the strain on Fulvia&039;s face, though I think how hard thisHaymitch&039;s idea succeed under Cressida&039;s direction, when Fulvia&039;s studio approach was such a flop
Coin seeratulation "Yes, well deserved The result is more than we had hoped for But I do have to question the wideto operate within I know the raid was unforeseen However, given the circumstances, I think we should discuss the decision to send Katniss into actual combat"
The decision? To send rantly disregarded orders, ripped out uards the slip? What else have they kept froh call," says Plutarch, furrowing his brow "But the general consensus was that eren&039;t going to get anything worth using if we locked her in a bunker soun went off"
"And you&039;re all right with that?" asks the president
Gale has to kickto ht with that It felt good Doing soe"
"Well, let&039;s be just a little more judicious with her exposure Especially now that the Capitol knohat she can do," says Coin There&039;s a rumble of assent from around the table