Chapter 26 Chapter 26 The Arrow of Revenge

Walking out of the hall, I found Pera still standing where she was. "Did you find what you were looking for?" she asked. I held up the white rose in reply, and stumbled past her.I must have found my way back, because by the time my mind returned to reality, I was filling a glass bottle with water and putting flowers in it.Kneeling on the cold tile floor, I squinted my eyes and looked at the flower carefully. In the bright daylight, it is difficult for my eyes to focus on the white flower.I slipped my fingers inside the bracelet and twisted it like a tourniquet, hoping the pain would help me hold on to real reality, like Peeta.

Although the details will vary, I think there are two possibilities for this matter.Possibility number one, the Capitol sent the helicopter and dropped the parachute, sacrificing the lives of their own children, knowing the Rebels would send someone to help them out.This is what I have always believed.There is correlative evidence for this inference.The helicopter had the Capitol emblem on it, the plane did not engage the enemy, and the Capitol had a habit of using children as their weapon against the various jurisdictions.The second possibility is just as Snow said.Helicopters controlled by the rebels killed the children to bring the war to an end.But if that's the case, why didn't the Capitol military open fire on the enemy?Is it because they were too surprised?Or they have no resistance.In the thirteenth district, people take children very seriously, or at least they always seem to be.Maybe, I'm not included.People have stopped seeing me as a child for a long time.For them, once I lose the value of use, I can discard it.Why would they do it when they knew their medical staff would come and the second bomb would go off?They won't.They can't do that.Snow is lying.He is using me like never before.Hope I can stand against the rebels and destroy them.Yes, it sure is.

But what is tangled in my heart, lingering?First, those bombs that go off twice.Not that the Capitol wouldn't have the same weapon, but I'm pretty sure the Rebels have one.This is the intellectual offspring of Gail and Beetle.The next problem is that Snow did not escape on a plane.I knew he was a man with a desperate need for survival, and it was hard to believe that he didn't have a suitable hiding place, such as an underground bunker, where enough food was stored to last him the rest of his pathetic, despicable life.The final question is his opinion of Cohen.The irrefutable fact is that she did exactly what he said.Let the Capitol fight fiercely with the jurisdictions, then take power in a leisurely way when the time is right.Even if that was her plan, it doesn't prove that the parachute was dropped on her orders.She is already in sight of victory, and everything is under her control.

Except for me. I think back to my conversation with Boggs, when we talked about Cohen's successor, and I confess to not thinking about who her next successor would be.He said: "If your first answer is not Cohen, then you are a threat, and you have the brand of the opposition engraved on your face. You know, your personal influence is greater than anyone else." Bo "As things stand, all you've done to her is put up with her," Gus said. Suddenly, I thought of Prim again. She was not yet fourteen years old, and she was not qualified as a soldier, but she went to the front line by accident.How did all this happen?My little sister would love to go, no doubt about that.She was more capable than many people her age, and even so, it took someone of high rank to approve a thirteen-year-old to go to war.Was it approved by Cohen?Doing this in the hope that I'll go completely insane after losing Prim?Or, let me stand by her side with confidence?I can imagine it, without even having to see it with my own eyes.At that time, many cameras will focus on the central square of the city, remembering this moment forever.

But now I'm in a mad state of random suspicions, and I'm on the verge of going mad.There may be many people who know about this task, and the relevant information may be leaked.is it possible?Who else would know except Cohen, Plutarch, and a handful of loyal, but easy to get rid of squad members? I need to figure this all out, but everyone I trusted is dead, Cinna, Boggs, Finnick, Prim.Then there's Peeta, and he can only guess, and God knows what his state of mind is.In that case, the only option is to ask Gail.He is far away now, even if he is by my side at this moment, can I trust him?How can I tell him to help me without implying that his bomb killed Prim?This is impossible, and this is the main reason why Snow can lie to me.

In the end, there was only one person who could possibly know what was going on and who I could trust.Bringing up the subject is dangerous in itself, but since Haymitch can bet on me in the arena, I don't think he's going to sell me to Korn.No matter what barriers we've had between us, we still like to work things out between the two of us. I struggled to get up from the ground, went out, across the hall, to his room.I knocked on the door and no one answered, so I pushed the door open and walked in.Whew, it's incredible how he can mess up a place so quickly.Dishes filled with leftovers, wine bottles, and furniture broken after drunkenness made the room extremely messy.He didn't take a bath either, he was all dirty, lying in a ball of quilt, already unknown.

"Haymitch," I called to him, shaking his leg.As always, it would not wake him up at all.I shook him a few more times, but I had no choice but to pick up the kettle and pour water on his face.He took a sharp breath, and the knife in his hand danced in the air.Clearly, Snow's downfall did not end his fears. "Oh, you," he said.Hearing his voice, he was not completely sober. "Haymitch," I said. "Listen, Mockingjay finally spoke." He laughed and said, "Haha, Plutarch should be happy this time." After speaking, he picked up the bottle and gulped down the wine, " Why am I all wet?" I timidly threw the water bottle on the pile of dirty clothes behind me.

"I need your help," I said. Haymitch belched and breathed out alcohol, "What's the matter, honey? Got boy problems again?" I don't know why, but Haymitch's words hurt me, he was rarely able to so.My reaction to that must have been on my face, as Haymitch, drunk as he was, still seemed to want to take his words back. "Well, it's not funny." At this time, I had already walked to the door. "It's not funny! Come back!" Then, I heard the sound of his body falling heavily to the ground. He must have tried to catch up with me, but it was in vain.

I walked around the big house until I found a closet full of silk clothes.I yanked the clothes off the hangers, piled them into a pile, and ducked into the pile of clothes.I found a morphine tablet in my pocket and swallowed it dryly to suppress my hysteria that was about to break out.But that didn't really solve the problem.I heard Haymitch calling me from a distance, and in his current state, he's not going to find me, especially since I've found this new hiding place.I wrapped myself in my clothes and felt like a caterpillar about to emerge from its cocoon, which I always find the most peaceful state.Yes, it was like that at first, but at night, the hoops became more and more uncomfortable, and the slippery clothes suffocated me, and I felt that I had to become a beautiful insect to break out of the cocoon.I twisted my body uneasily, trying to get rid of the cocoon that bound me and unlock the secret of growing beautiful wings.Despite my best efforts, I was still an ugly insect, and I was burned into this ugly form by the flames from the bomb.

The encounter with Snow brought me back to the past with nightmares.It was like being stung by a killer bee again.Horrible images appeared in my dreams, and there was only a brief pause. I thought I had woken up, but other horrible images followed one after another.When the guards finally found me, I was sitting in a closet, screaming and screaming, with a lot of clothes tangled up in my body.I resisted desperately when they came to help me, until finally they managed to convince me that they were helping me.They took off the tangled clothes on my body and accompanied me back to the room.Passing a window on my way back to my room, I found that it was daylight, fog was covering the Capitol, and there was still snow in the sky.

Haymitch, suffering from a hangover, was waiting for me with a pile of pills and a plate of food in front of me.Neither of us had any appetite for dinner.He tried talking to me, and seeing that I wouldn't talk, he told me to take a shower.The bathtub is very deep and you have to walk up three steps to get down to the bottom.I was soaked in water, the foam was up to my neck, and I hoped that the pills would take effect as soon as possible.My eyes were fixed on the rose that had lost its petals overnight and filled the steamy bathroom with its tangy aroma.I got up and grabbed a towel to block the smell.Then I heard a light knock on the door, and then the bathroom door opened, revealing three familiar faces.They were about to smile at me, but even Vinia hid her astonishment at the sight of my scarred body. "It's amazing!" Octavia screamed, and then burst into tears.I was amazed at their appearance, and then I thought that today must be the important day, the day of Snow's trial.They're here to clean me up for the camera.Looks like they're going to have to go to the trouble of getting me back to "basic beauty" again.No wonder Octavia was crying, it was impossible. Seeing my burned and scarred skin, they didn't even dare to touch it, for fear of hurting me, so I bathed myself and dried myself.I told them I was almost pain-free, but Flavius ​​was still hesitant when he pulled the robe over me.When I got to the bedroom, I was taken aback again.She was sitting upright in the chair, from the metallic wig to the signature high-heeled shoes, everything was clean and neat.She was holding a notepad in her hand, and there was almost no change except that her eyes were a little blank. "Effie," I said. "Hi, Katniss." She stood up and kissed me on the cheek like nothing had happened since we last broke up before Century X, "Oh, it seems very, very, A very important day awaits us. So, why don't you hurry up and get ready, and I'll start to see if everything goes according to plan." "Okay." I said to her back. "Everyone said that Plutarch and Haymitch took great pains to keep her alive, and she was put in prison after you escaped, so she didn't die." Vinia said in a low voice. Effie Trinket, The Rebel.It's a stretch to say that, but I didn't want Cohn to kill her, so I made a mental note to say she was a rebel when asked. "Plutarch kidnapped the three of you, it seems really good." "Of all the makeup artists who participated in the Century Xtreme Competition, only a few of us survived, and the others died." Viniya said.She didn't specifically say who killed them, but I figured it wouldn't matter who killed them.She carefully put my scarred hand in hers, lifted it up and looked at it carefully. "Well, what color do you think your nails should be? Red or black?" When I did my hair, Flavi showed great skill, trimming the front hair curtain neatly and using the longer hair in the back to cover the scar.My face, since it wasn't burned, makeup wasn't a huge challenge.When I put on the Mockingjay costume that Cinna designed, the only scars I could see were my neck, my forehead and my hands.Octavia pinned the Mockingjay pin to my left breast, and everyone stepped back to see the effect in the mirror.I couldn't believe it, although my skin was like a burnt wasteland, but from the outside, they had dressed me up like a normal person. There was a knock on the door, and Gail walked in. "Can I have a few minutes with you?" he asked.I saw in the mirror that the make-up artists were at a loss when Gail came in. They didn't know where to go, they turned away but bumped into each other, and finally they hid in the bathroom.Gale stands behind me and we look at the two of us in the mirror.I tried to capture the boy and girl who met in the woods five years ago and became best friends; I wondered what would have happened between them if the girl hadn't been chosen for the Hunger Games what.Will she fall in love with this boy and even marry him.Maybe someday, when their siblings were all grown up, she'd run away with him into the woods and never return to District 12 again.Will they live happily in the woods?Or, even without the Capitol, would there be unresolved pain and sorrow between them? "I brought you this," said Gale, holding up a quiver.I took it and found that there was only an ordinary arrow in it. "Just symbolically, you shoot the last arrow of this war." "What if I miss the shot? Will Cohen bring the arrow back to me, or she will shoot the arrow into Snow's skull herself," I said. "You can't miss it." Gale put the quiver back on my back. We stood facing each other, but avoided each other's eyes. "You didn't come to see me when I was in the hospital." He didn't answer, so I just asked, "Is that the bomb you invented?" "I don't know, neither does Beetle. Does it matter? You're always thinking about it," he said. He waited for me to deny it, and I wanted to deny it, but it was true.Even now, I can see her engulfed in flames and feel the heat of the flames.And I could never separate this moment from Gail.My silence counts as my answer. "I only have one thing on my mind, and that is to protect your family," he said. "Just shoot it, okay?" He touched my neck and left.I want to call him back and tell him I was wrong, I'll figure it out, I'll remember the circumstances under which he invented that bomb.In this matter, too, I am guilty of the unpardonable.I'll find out who threw the bomb.Prove those bombs were not dropped by the rebels.I will forgive him.But I failed to say all this, the pain will only keep pressing in my heart. Effie came in and called me to a meeting.I put my bow on my back, and when I went out, I remembered the beautiful roses in the bottle.When I opened the bathroom door, I found my makeup artists sitting in a line by the tub, slumped and frustrated.I realized that I wasn't the only one living in a broken world. "Come on," I told them, "the audience is waiting." I had thought we had been summoned because Plutarch wanted to show me where to stand and how to shoot Snow.Instead, I was sent to another room where six people sat around a table: Peeta, Johanna, Beetle, Haymitch, Annie, and Inoberry.They were all wearing the uniforms of the Thirteenth District Rebels.No one seemed very energetic. "What is this for?" I asked. "We can't tell, it seems to be a gathering of survivors and victors." Haymitch replied. "Are we all the ones who survived?" I asked. "That's the price of fame. We've got two sides, the Capitol killing the victors because they're suspected of treason, and the rebels killing the victors because they think they're in league with the Capitol." Johanna glared at Inobeli and said, "Then what is she doing here?" "She's protected by the so-called 'Mockingjay Protocol,'" Cohen said as he walked into the house. "Katniss Everdeen offered to pardon captured victors in exchange for supporting the cause of the Resistance. Katniss has always kept her word, so we must keep our word." Inobeli smiled at Johanna, but Johanna said, "Don't be complacent, we will kill you anyway." "Sit down, Katniss," Cohn said, closing the door behind him.I took the seat between Annie and Beetle and carefully placed Snow's rose on the table.As usual, Cohen went straight to the point, "I asked you to come to settle an argument. Today, we are going to execute Snow. In the past few weeks, hundreds of his associates who oppressed the people of Panem have been killed. Trial and now awaiting the fate of being guillotined. However, the suffering of the people in the various jurisdictions is so great that this does not seem to be enough to cause popular outrage. The current situation is that many people demand that all people with Capitol citizenship should be executed uniformly .However, in order to maintain a steady population growth, we cannot do so." Through the water in the glass, I can see that Peeta's hand is deformed.He also had burns on his hands.So we're all burned.I followed his hand and looked up, and saw the lick marks on his forehead, the eyebrows were burned away, but the eyes were spared.It was the same blue eyes that used to stare at me back in the old days, drooping shyly at school, as they still do now. "Therefore, we had another option. Since my colleagues and I could not agree on the matter, it was agreed that the winner would decide the matter. As long as four people pass, it can take effect. No one can abstain. This The suggestion is to have another Hunger Games symbolically, with the contestants being the children of those formerly in power, rather than exterminating all Capitols," Cohen said. All seven of us turned to her. "What?" Johanna said. "We're having the Children of the Capitol host another Hunger Games," Cohen said. "Are you kidding me?" Peeta said. "No. I also need to tell you that if the Hunger Games does happen, the public must know that it was approved by you. Of course, for security reasons, we will keep it a secret as to who voted for and who voted against. ' Cohen told us. "Is that Plutarch's idea?" Haymitch asked. "I proposed it. This is to satisfy people's desire for revenge at the minimum cost of life. You can vote now." "No!" Peeta yelled. "Of course I voted no! We can't have the Hunger Games anymore!" "Why not?" Johanna retorted. "It seems fair to me. Snow even has a granddaughter. I vote for it." "Me too." Inobeli said, her expression was very indifferent, "Let them also taste the bitter fruit they brewed." "That's why we rebelled! Remember?" Peeta looked at everyone, "Annie?" “I voted no with Peeta. Finnick would have voted no if he was here,” Annie said. "But he's not here because Snow's mutant killed him," Johanna reminded her. "No, that would set a bad precedent. We can't hate each other. Right now, unity is the prerequisite for our survival. No," Bit said. "That leaves Katniss and Haymitch," Cohen said. Did the same thing happen about seventy-five years ago?Did some people sit around the table and vote for The Hunger Games?Were there differences of opinion at the time?Are there also calls for amnesty for those who resisted, and calls for compensation for the deaths of children in various jurisdictions?Snow's rose scent wafted up my nose and down my throat, pinching my throat and choking me hopelessly.Everyone I love has died, and now we're talking about having another Hunger Games in the name of reducing the cost of life.Nothing has changed and never will. I carefully weighed how I should decide, trying to think through everything.With my eyes fixed on the rose, I said word for word, "I voted yes...for Prim." "Hymitch, it's your turn," Cohen said. Peeta was furious, and he kicked Haymitch, reminding him that he might be part of an atrocity, but I felt Haymitch's eyes on me.Now comes the moment when I will know how much we are alike, how much we understand each other. "I'm on the side of the mockingjay," he said. "Very well, this is the end. Now everyone has to take their positions and prepare to participate in Snow's execution ceremony." As she passed me, I held up the water glass with the rose in it, "Can you let Snow wear this? It's on the left side of his heart?" Cohen smiled. "Of course. And I'll let him know about the new Hunger Games." "Thank you." I said. Then, a group of people flocked to the room and gave me a final touch-up of makeup. Plutarch explained the last few words to me, and then, led by the guards, I walked to the gate.The city's circular square was crowded with people, many of them stood on the road next to it, while others stood in the distance.Guards, officials, rebel leaders, victors.The crowd erupted in cheers as Cohen walked onto the terrace.Then Effie tapped me on the shoulder, and to a deafening cheer, I walked out the door and took my place.It was sunny, but the air was still icy.As instructed, I turned around, fully revealed my image to the audience, and waited in silence.When Snow was escorted out, the crowd went crazy.Guards tied his hands to a post.There is no need to do this anymore, he can't run away, he can't go anywhere.This is not the wide front desk in front of the training center, but the narrow street in front of the presidential palace.No wonder no one asked me to practice, he was only ten yards away. I feel the bow in my hand is shaking slightly.I reached out, grabbed the arrow, put it on the bow, and aimed at the rose, keeping my eyes on his face.Then he coughed and blood dripped down his chin.He licked the blood from his thick lips with his tongue.I stared into his eyes, trying to find something there, fear, remorse, anger.But all I saw was the mocking look we had at the end of our last conversation.He seemed to be saying the same thing, "Oh, my dear Miss Everdeen, I think we've come to an agreement not to lie to each other." He is right.Neither of us lie to each other. My arrow pointed upwards and shot out.President Cohen fell off the balcony and fell to the ground.died.