Chapter 28

Katniss

After my visit with Peeta I go back to my room, and I don't speak to anyone. Ruth still isn't in our room. It really makes me wonder where she goes during the day.

A little while later I wander the halls of this place, looking for something. I don't know what. I come to the door that goes outside. Guards are blocking my way out. "Sorry, miss. You can't leave," the taller one says.

"No one is allowed to get outside," the other adds.

"Please. I won't go far. I just want to get out of here," I beg. They don't budge but I notice the tall one's facial expression change. "Fine," I say, and begin walking away.

"Wait! Ms. Everdeen!" one of them says. I turned back around, trying to hold back my smirk. The tall one is holding a metal bracelet with a few numbers on it that mean nothing to me. "Put this on," he says. I do as I'm told. A tracker, I think. "You can go. It will give you a mild shock if you go outside of the limit lines. You can until it beeps; 2 hours."

It isn't anything different from last year, when we were underground. Except I was with Gale. Maybe sometime in the future we can hunt together again. It would definitely take me time to forgive him, though. Even then, it wouldn't be the same. It never will be.

I step outside, squinting my eyes. The ashes of 13 are still lying in scattered heaps. I wonder what this place used to look like. Probably not that different from 12. Now they look almost exactly the same. Besides the huge building in 13. I don't even know how they built that so fast. I wonder if there are still people living underground.

I just step into the woods when sirens start blaring from the building.

I whip my head around, and above me. I am expecting a hovercraft to fly in and kill me right here. Not even a hum sounds. I begin to run back to the building. The guards meet me halfway there. Two more of them follow. They surround me in a circle type formation, guns ready to fire. Questions bounce around in my head.

We get inside the building again. The sirens are even louder there. I cover my ears to stop the ringing.

We rush down the stairs to some kind of cellar, similar to the one underground. Except that it isn't so hard to breath. My eyes scan the crowd for Ruth. There she is, upstairs. I think she's looking for me.

I push the guards out of my way and run up the stairs, shoving people along the way. I grab Ruth's arm. Relief washes over her face. "Come on, we have to go!" I shout, trying to hear myself over the crowd and the sirens. She nods and takes my hand. We hurry back down the stairs.

"Where's Annie?" Ruth asks. I shrug, looking ahead.

"She's probably already down there," I reply. We reach the bottom of the long, seemingly never ending stairs. People are shouting and I think some, crying. What happened? Is Fiona going to bomb 13, like Snow did before? If she is, we aren't safe here. We need to get underground. Or maybe this is underground, but it's not stuffy and the air isn't as thin.

I feel Ruth's hand shaking. I bring her over to an empty section of the room and bend down to see her face directly. "Hey, it's alright," I say.

"I don't see Annie," she whimpers.

"I'm sure she's still coming down the stairs. It's alright," I say, pulling her into a hug.

"What if they bomb us?" she asks. Her voice is pure fear. I guess because her family was killed in a bombing.

"It's okay. I think we're underground. Besides, I'm not going to let them hurt you," I say, trying to talk quietly, but loud enough so she will still be able to hear me. She nods and embraces me again. Warmth begins rising up in my chest. I recognize this feeling. The feeling I got when I hugged Prim or Rue. It's not even a feeling I get with Peeta. It's the happiness of protecting someone as innocent and sweet as Prim and Rue and Ruth. Love. But a different kind of love that I share with Peeta.

A large screen turns on on the opposite side of the room. A woman, Fiona Snow is standing in front of a podium. Angry citizens protest in front of her. "President Paylor has been assassinated," she says. Her words enter my brain and bounce around, giving me a headache. Assassinated. Dead. Gone. Ruth begins shaking again.

"But I, Fiona Snow, am here to take over," she says, a fake sympathetic look plastered on her face. Take over? Bring back the Hunger Games? That's why people were sobbing when we came down here. They knew what was going to happen. I know that if they brought back the games, they would be 100 times more brutal. And Ruth is almost the age to be reaped. 11. Her first year could be the first year the games are back.

"Wait, isn't Plutarch supposed to take over?" I whisper to myself. Of course not. He's here, in 13. He can't take over. Shouts from the crowd in the Capitol get so loud, so violent. No Peacekeepers on the stage though. Instead, the masked soldiers.

A few yells from the crowd catch my attention. "Where's the Mockingjay?" one woman yells, and a few repeat her.

"I thought Snow's torture was over!"

"Katniss should get a say!"

"Where's Katniss?"

"The Games are against the law!"

All of their protests dance around in my head. I almost fall over but the wall catches me. It feed as though the walls are closing in. I can't breath. I have to get out. I don't even notice the stares I'm sure to be getting. I push passed the crowd. I realize Annie hadn't come down. Ruth. She knew it before I did.

I see her, her dark hair bouncing on her back as she runs back up the staircase. "Ruth!" I yell, but I can't be heard over the roar of the crowd. My voice sounds strangled and dry, like it did at the Reaping when I called Prim's name. "Ruth!"

She is already out, running somewhere I can't see. I get to the top after shoving people out of my way. Then I see her. She is running up the last set of stairs, to our room. "Annie!" she calls. I was too far behind her. She turns down a different hallway. Then, a scream that pierces me to my very core.