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Who the wo the apartment, we find she was alone Perhaps her cry was hbor, or was simply an expression of fear At any rate, there&039;s no one else to hear her
This apartment would be a classy place to hole up in for a while, but that&039;s a luxury we can&039;t afford "How long do you think we have before they figure out some of us could&039;ve survived?" I ask
"I think they could be here anyti for the streets Probably the explosion will throw the for our exit point"
I go to athat overlooks the street, and when I peek through the blinds, I&039;m not faced with Peacekeepers but with a bundled crowd of people going about their business During our underground journey, we have left the evacuated zones far behind and surfaced in a busy section of the Capitol This crowd offers our only chance of escape I don&039;t have a Holo, but I have Cressida She joins ives ood news that we aren&039;t many blocks frolance at my companions tells me this is no ti blood from the neck wound, which we haven&039;t even cleaned Peeta&039;s sitting on a velvet sofa with his teeth cla off ainst the mantel of an ornate fireplace Cressida stands determinedly at my side, but she&039;s so pale her lips are bloodless I&039;y for that ebbs, I&039;ll be worthless
"Let&039;s check her closets," I say
In one bedroom we find hundreds of the wos, enough makeup to paint a house In a bedroom across the hall, there&039;s a si to her husband Perhaps to a lover who had the good luck to be out this ht of Peeta&039;s bloody wrists, I dig in my pocket for the handcuff key, but he jerks away from me
"No," he says "Don&039;t They help hold ht need your hands," says Gale
"When I feelmy wrists into them, and the pain helps me focus," says Peeta I let them be
Fortunately, it&039;s cold out, so we can concealcoats and cloaks We hang our boots around our necks by their laces and hide thee, of course, is our faces Cressida and Pollux run the risk of being recognized by acquaintances, Gale could be familiar from the propos and news, and Peeta and I are known by every citizen of Panem We hastily help one another apply thick layers of lasses Cressida wraps scarves over Peeta&039;s andaway, but stop for just a few moments to stuff pockets with food and first-aid supplies "Stay together," I say at the front door Then we un to fall Agitated people swirl around us, speaking of rebels and hunger and me in their affected Capitol accents We cross the street, pass a few more apartments Just as we turn the corner, three dozen Peacekeepers sweep past us We hop out of their way, as the real citizens do, wait until the crowd returns to its nor "Cressida," I whisper "Can you think of anywhere?"
"I&039;," she says
We cover another block, and the sirens begin Through an apartency report and pictures of our faces flashing They haven&039;t identified who in our party died yet, because I see Castor and Finnick aerous as a Peacekeeper "Cressida?"
"There&039;s one place It&039;s not ideal But we can try it," she says We follow her a few ate into what looks like a private residence It&039;s soh a ate onto a small back street that connects two main avenues There are a few poky stores - one that buys used goods, another that sells fake jewelry Only a couple of people are around, and they pay no attention to us Cressida begins to babble in a high-pitched voice about fur undergar the cold months "Wait until you see the prices! Believe me, it&039;s half what you pay on the avenues!"
We stop before a grimy storefront filled with mannequins in furry underwear The place doesn&039;t even look open, but Cressida pushes through the front door, setting off a dissonant chi Inside the dim, narrow shop lined with racks of merchandise, the smell of pelts fills my nose Business must be slow, since we&039;re the only custo in the back I follow, trailing o
Behind a counter sits the strangest person I&039;ve ever seen She&039;s an extre, for surely not even in the Capitol could they find this face attractive The skin has been pulled back tightly and tattooed with black and gold stripes The nose has been flattened until it barely exists I&039;ve seen cat whiskers on people in the Capitol before, but none so long The result is a grotesque, semi-feline mask, which now squints at us distrustfully
Cressida takes off her wig, revealing her vines "Tigris," she says "We need help"
Tigris Deep in er, less disturbing version of herself - in the earliest Hunger Games I can remember A stylist, I think I don&039;t remember for which district Not 12 Then she must have had one operation too many and crossed the line into repellence
So this is where stylists go when they&039;ve outlived their use To sad theme underwear shops where they wait for death Out of the public eye
I stare at her face, wondering if her parents actually na her ed her name to match her stripes
"Plutarch said you could be trusted," adds Cressida
Great, she&039;s one of Plutarch&039;s people So if her first move isn&039;t to turn us in to the Capitol, it will be to notify Plutarch, and by extension Coin, of our whereabouts No, Tigris&039;s shop is not ideal, but it&039;s all we have at thebetween an old television on her counter and us, as if trying to place us To help her, I pull down ht of the screen falls on rowl, not unlike one Buttercup reet me with She slinks down off her stool and disappears behind a rack of fur-lined leggings There&039;s a sound of sliding, and then her hand ees and waves us forward Cressida looks at me, as if to askAre you sure? But what choice do we have? Returning to the streets under these conditions guarantees our capture or death I push around the furs and find Tigris has slid back a panel at the base of the wall Behind it seeestures forabout the situation screa to Tigris, searching those tawny eyes Why is she doing this? She&039;s no Cinna, so to sacrifice herself for others This woman was the embodiment of Capitol shallowness She was one of the stars of the Hunger Games untiluntil she wasn&039;t So is that it, then? Bitterness? Hatred? Revenge? Actually, I&039; and hot Especially if every glance in a mirror reinforces it
"Did Snow ban you from the Gaer tail flicks with displeasure "Because I&039; to kill him, you know" Her mouth spreads into what I take for a smile Reassured that this isn&039;t coh the space
About halfway down the steps,the hideout with a flickering fluorescent bulb It&039;s a small cellar with no doors or s Shallow and wide Probably just a strip between two real baseo unnoticed unless you had a very keen eye for dimensions It&039;s cold and dank, with piles of pelts that I&039;ht of day in years Unless Tigris gives us up, I don&039;t believe anyone will find us here By the time I reach the concrete floor, my companions are on the steps The panel slides back in place I hear the underwear rack being adjusted on squeaky wheels Tigris padding back to her stool We have been sed up by her store
Just in tie of collapse We make a bed of pelts, strip off his layers of weapons, and help him onto his back At the end of the cellar, there&039;s a faucet about a foot from the floor with a drain under it I turn the tap and, after ins to flow We clean Gale&039;s neck wound and I realize bandages won&039;t be enough He&039;s going to need a few stitches There&039;s a needle and sterile thread in the first-aid supplies, but e lack is a healer It crosses ris As a stylist, she must knoork a needle But that would leave no one h already I accept that I&039;rit ed sutures It&039;s not pretty but it&039;s functional I smear it with medicine and wrap it up Give him some painkillers "You can rest now It&039;s safe here," I tell hiht
While Cressida and Pollux make fur nests for each of us, I attend to Peeta&039;s wrists Gently rinsing away the blood, putting on an antiseptic, and bandaging theot to keep them clean, otherwise the infection could spread and - "
"I knohat blood poisoning is, Katniss," says Peeta "Even if my mother isn&039;t a healer"
I&039;es "You said that saer Games Real or not real?"
"Real," he says "And you risked your life getting the"You were the reason I was alive to do it"
"Was I?" The cohting for his attention, because his body tenses and his newly bandaged wrists strain against the y saps from his body "I&039;m so tired, Katniss"
"Go to sleep," I say He won&039;t until I&039;ve rearranged his handcuffs and shackled him to one of the stair supports It can&039;t be co there with his arms above his head But in a few minutes, he drifts off, too
Cressida and Pollux have ed our food andup a guard I look at Gale&039;s pallor, Peeta&039;s restraints Pollux hasn&039;t slept for days, and Cressida and I only napped for a few hours If a troop of Peacekeepers were to coh that door, we&039;d be trapped like rats We are coer-wo passion for Snow&039;s death
"I don&039;t honestly think there&039;s any point in setting up a guard Let&039;s just try to get some sleep," I say They nod numbly, and we all burrow into our pelts The fire inside th I surrender to the soft, musty fur and oblivion
I have only one drea in which I&039; is intact, the people alive Effie Trinket, conspicuous in a bright pink wig and tailored outfit, travels withto ditch her in places, but she inexplicably reappears atthat ason schedule Only the schedule is constantly shifting, derailed by our lack of a stamp froh heels We caray station in District 7, awaiting a train that never comes When I wake, sohttime forays into blood and terror
Cressida, the only person awake, tells me it&039;s late afternoon I eat a can of beef stew and wash it doith a lot of water Then I lean against the cellar wall, retracing the events of the last day Moving death by death Counting thes lost on the block Three - Messallatheht - Castor, Ho decapitated by the rose-scented lizard ht dead in twenty-four hours I know it happened, and yet it doesn&039;t seem real Surely, Castor is asleep under that pile of furs, Finnick will cos will tell me his plan for our escape
To believe them dead is to accept I killed thes - they died on an actual assign me on a mission I fabricated My plot to assassinate Snow see here in this cellar, tallying up our losses, fingering the tassels on the silver knee-high boots I stole froot about that I killed her, too I&039; out unarive myself up
When everyone finally awakens, I confess How I lied about the e There&039;s a long silence after I finish Then Gale says, "Katniss, we all knew you were lying about Coin sending you to assassinate Snow"
"You knew, maybe The soldiers from Thirteen didn&039;t," I reply
"Do you really think Jackson believed you had orders from Coin?" Cressida asks "Of course she didn&039;t But she trusted Boggs, and he&039;d clearly wanted you to go on"
"I never even told Boggs what I planned to do," I say