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What will break me?

This is the question that consumes me over the next three days as ait to be released from our prison of safety What will break me into a million pieces so that I am beyond repair, beyond usefulness? Ihours and weaves itself throughout htmares

Four more bunker , but there&039;s no urgency to the attack The bo hours so that just when you think the raid is over, another blast sends shock waves through your guts It feels ned to keep us in lockdown than to decimate 13 Cripple the district, yes Give the people plenty to do to get the place running again But destroy it? No Coin was right on that point You don&039;t destroy what you want to acquire in the future I assume what they really want, in the short term, is to stop the Airtime Assaults and keep me off the televisions of Panem

We receive next to no infor Our screens never coet only brief audio updates from Coin about the nature of the boed, but as to its status, we&039;re in the dark

Inside the bunker, cooperation is the order of the day We adhere to a strict schedule for , exercise and sleep Sranted to alleviate the tedium Our space becomes very popular because both children and adults have a fascination with Buttercup He attains celebrity status with his evening gao, during a winter blackout You siht beam around on the floor, and Buttercup tries to catch it I&039;h to enjoy it because I think it makes him look stupid Inexplicably, everyone here thinks he&039;s clever and delightful I&039;m even issued a special set of batteries - an enormous waste - to be used for this purpose The citizens of 13 are truly starved for entertaina away at me Crazy Cat becomes aI want so badly to secure, is the light As long as Buttercup feels he has the chance of catching the elusive light under his paws, he&039;s bristling with aggression (That&039;s how I&039;ve been since I left the arena, with Peeta alive) When the light goes out coht and confused, but he recovers and s (That&039;s ould happen if Peeta died) But the one thing that sends Buttercup into a tailspin is when I leave the light on but put it hopelessly out of his reach, high on the wall, beyond even his ju skills He paces below the wall, wails, and can&039;t be coht off (That&039;s what Snow is trying to do to ame takes)

Maybe this realization onthat Peeta was in his possession and being tortured for rebel infor tortured specifically to incapacitate ht of this revelation that I truly begin to break

After Crazy Cat, we&039;re directed to bed The power&039;s been cohtness, other times we squint at one another in the brownouts At bedtime they turn the lahts in each space Priles with Buttercup on the lower bunk My mother&039;s on the upper I offer to take a bunk, but they make me keep to the floor

I&039;id with the tension of holding ether The pain over ine tiny fissures spreading out into s, over ood jolt of a bunker e, razor-sharp shards

When the restless, wiggling majority has settled into sleep, I carefully extricate h the cavern until I find Finnick, feeling for some unspecified reason that he will understand He sits under the safety light in his space, knotting his rope, not even pretending to rest As I whisper my discovery of Snow&039;s plan to break y is very old news to Finnick It&039;s what broke hi to you with Annie, isn&039;t it?" I ask

"Well, they didn&039;t arrest her because they thought she&039;d be a wealth of rebel information," he says

"They know I&039;d never have risked telling her anything like that For her own protection"

"Oh, Finnick I&039;m so sorry," I say

"No, I&039;m sorry That I didn&039;t warn you somehow," he tells me

Suddenly, a e and grief after the rescue Finnick is trying to console ure out he doesn&039;t know anything pretty fast And they won&039;t kill hiainst you"

"You did warn h On the hovercraft Only when you said they&039;d use Peeta against ht you meant like bait To lure me into the Capitol somehow," I say

"I shouldn&039;t have said even that It was too late for it to be of any help to you Since I hadn&039;t warned you before the Quarter Quell, I should&039;ve shut up about ho operates" Finnick yanks on the end of his rope, and an intricate knot becoain "It&039;s just that I didn&039;t understand when I ht the whole romance was an act on your part We all expected you&039;d continue that strategy But it wasn&039;t until Peeta hit the force field and nearly died that I - " Finnick hesitates

I think back to the arena How I sobbed when Finnick revived Peeta The quizzical look on Finnick&039;s face The way he excused nancy "That you what?"

"That I knew I&039;din ay Maybe you don&039;t know yourself But anyone paying attention could see how ently

Anyone? On Snow&039;s visit before the Victory Tour, he challenged me to erase any doubts of my love for Peeta "Convince me," Snow said It seems, under that hot pink sky with Peeta&039;s life in liave him the weapon he needed to breakti the knots bloom and vanish, before I can ask, "How do you bear it?"

Finnick looks at me in disbelief "I don&039;t, Katniss! Obviously, I don&039;t I dragand find there&039;s no relief in waking" Soive in to it It takes ten tiether as it does to fall apart"

Well, hemyself back into one piece

"The more you can distract yourself, the better," he says "First thing toet you your own rope Until then, take ht onthem up for Buttercup&039;s inspection If one looks suspicious, he swipes it out of the air and bites it a few tiers are sore, but I&039; on

With twenty-four hours of quiet behind us, Coin finally announces we can leave the bunker Our old quarters have been destroyed by the bos Everyone must follow exact directions to their new compartments We clean our spaces, as directed, and file obediently toward the door

Before I&039;s appears and pulls nals for Gale and Finnick to join us People move aside to let us by Soame seems to have made me more lovable Out the door, up the stairs, down the hall to one of those multidirectional elevators, and finally we arrive at Special Defense Nothing along our route has been das ushers us into a room virtually identical to Command Coin, Plutarch, Haymitch, Cressida, and everybody else around the table looks exhausted Soh I&039;ency stihtly around his cup as if at any ht be taken away

There&039;s no sround," says the president "You have two hours to get footage showing the da, establish that Thirteen&039;s military unit remains not only functional but dojay is still alive Any questions?"

"Can we have a coffee?" asks Finnick

Stea cups are handed out I stare distastefully at the shiny black liquid, never having been ht help me stay on my feet Finnick sloshes soar bowl "Want a sugar cube?" he asks in his old seductive voice That&039;s hoe ar Surrounded by horses and chariots, costumed and painted for the crowds, before ere allies Before I had any idea what made him tick The memory actually coaxes a smile out of me "Here, it i three cubes in jay, I catch Gale watching me and Finnick unhappily What now? Does he actually think soo to Finnick&039;s last night I would&039;ve passed the Hawthornes&039; space to get there I guess that probably rubbed hi out Finnick&039;s coot rope burn on ers, I can barely holdfor ot Peeta Gale can think whatever he wants

In my new Remake Roojay suit, arranges my hair, and applies minimal makeup before my coffee&039;s even cooled In tenthe circuitous trek to the outside I slurp reatly enhance its flavor As I knock back the dregs that have settled to the bottoh s hits a lever that opens a trapdoor Fresh air rushes in I take big gulps and for the first tie into the woods, and h the leaves overhead So to turn "What day is it?" I ask no one in particular Boggs tells ins next week

September That means Snow has had Peeta in his clutches for five, maybe six weeks I exa I can&039;t will, which is far too rapid for ins to litter the forest floor We come to our first crater, thirty yards wide and I can&039;t tell how deep Very Boggs says anyone on the first ten levels would likely have been killed We skirt the pit and continue on

"Can you rebuild it?" Gale asks

"Not anytienerators and a poultry fars "We&039;ll just seal it off"

The trees disappear as we enter the area inside the fence The craters are ringed with a , very little of the current 13 was aboveground A few guard stations The training area About a foot of the top floor of our building - where Buttercup&039;sjutted out - with several feet of steel on top of it Even that was never meant to withstand more than a superficial attack

"How ive you?" asks Haymitch

"About ten minutes before our own systes

"But it did help, right?" I ask I can&039;t bear it if he says no

"Absolutely," Boggs replies "Civilian evacuation was completed Seconds count when you&039;re under attack Ten minutes meant lives saved"