第117章

  "there are so many things we should discuss, but i have a feeling your visit will be brief. so, first things first." he begins to cough, and when he removes the handkerchief from his mouth, it's redder. "i wanted to tell you how very sorry i am about your sister."
  even in my deadened, drugged condition, this sends a stab of pain through me. reminding me that there are no limits to his cruelty. and how he will go to his grave trying to destroy me.
  "so wasteful, so unnecessary. anyone could see the game was over by that point. in fact, i was just about to issue an official surrender when they released those parachutes." his eyes are glued on me, unblinking, so as not to miss a second of my reaction. but what he's said makes no sense. when they released the parachutes? "well, you really didn't think i gave the order, did you? forget the obvious fact that if i'd had a working hovercraft at my disposal, i'd have been using it to make an escape. but that aside, what purpose could it have served? we both know i'm not above killing children, but i'm not wasteful. i take life for very specific reasons. and there was no reason for me to destroy a pen full of capitol children. none at all."
  i wonder if the next fit of coughing is staged so that i can have time to absorb his words. he's lying. of course, he's lying. but there's something struggling to free itself from the lie as well.
  "however, i must concede it was a masterful move on coin's part. the idea that i was bombing our own helpless children instantly snapped whatever frail allegiance my people still felt to me. there was no real resistance after that. did you know it aired live? you can see plutarch's hand there. and in the parachutes. well, it's that sort of thinking that you look for in a head gamemaker, isn't it?" snow dabs the corners of his mouth. "i'm sure he wasn't gunning for your sister, but these things happen."
  i'm not with snow now. i'm in special weaponry back in 13 with gale and beetee. looking at the designs based on gale's traps. that played on human sympathies. the first bomb killed the victims. the second, the rescuers. remembering gale's words.
  "beetee and i have been following the same rule book president snow used when he hijacked peeta."
  "my failure," says snow, "was being so slow to grasp coin's plan. to let the capitol and districts destroy one another, and then step in to take power with thirteen barely scratched. make no mistake, she was intending to take my place right from the beginning. i shouldn't be surprised. after all, it was thirteen that started the rebellion that led to the dark days, and then abandoned the rest of the districts when the tide turned against it. but i wasn't watching coin. i was watching you, mockingjay. and you were watching me. i'm afraid we have both been played for fools."
  i refuse for this to be true. some things even i can't survive. i utter my first words since my sister's death. "i don't believe you."
  snow shakes his head in mock disappointment. "oh, my dear miss everdeen. i thought we had agreed not to lie to each other."
  chapter 26
  out in the hall, i find paylor standing in exactly the same spot. "did you find what you were looking for?" she asks.
  i hold up the white bud in answer and then stumble past her. i must have made it back to my room, because the next thing i know, i'm filling a glass with water from the bathroom faucet and sticking the rose in it. i sink to my knees on the cold tile and squint at the flower, as the whiteness seems hard to focus on in the stark fluorescent light. my finger catches the inside of my bracelet, twisting it like a tourniquet, hurting my wrist. i'm hoping the pain will help me hang on to reality the way it did for peeta. i must hang on. i must know the truth about what has happened.
  there are two possibilities, although the details associated with them may vary. first, as i've believed, that the capitol sent in that hovercraft, dropped the parachutes, and sacrificed its children's lives, knowing the recently arrived rebels would go to their aid. there's evidence to support this. the capitol's seal on the hovercraft, the lack of any attempt to blow the enemy out of the sky, and their long history of using children as pawns in their battle against the districts. then there's snow's account. that a capitol hovercraft manned by rebels bombed the children to bring a speedy end to the war. but if this was the case, why didn't the capitol fire on the enemy?