第120章

  red or maybe a jet black?"
  flavius performs some beauty miracle on my hair, managing to even out the front while getting some of the longer locks to hide the bald spots in the back. my face, since it was spared from the flames, presents no more than the usual challenges. once i'm in cinna's mockingjay suit, the only scars visible are on my neck, forearms, and hands. octavia secures my mockingjay pin over my heart and we step back to look in the mirror. i can't believe how normal they've made me look on the outside when inwardly i'm such a wasteland.
  there's a tap at the door and gale steps in. "can i have a minute?" he asks. in the mirror, i watch my prep team. unsure of where to go, they bump into one another a few times and then closet themselves in the bathroom. gale comes up behind me and we examine each other's reflection. i'm searching for something to hang on to, some sign of the girl and boy who met by chance in the woods five years ago and became inseparable. i'm wondering what would have happened to them if the hunger games had not reaped the girl. if she would have fallen in love with the boy, married him even. and sometime in the future, when the brothers and sisters had been raised up, escaped with him into the woods and left 12 behind forever. would they have been happy, out in the wild, or would the dark, twisted sadness between them have grown up even without the capitol's help?
  "i brought you this." gale holds up a sheath. when i take it, i notice it holds a single, ordinary arrow. "it's supposed to be symbolic. you firing the last shot of the war."
  "what if i miss?" i say. "does coin retrieve it and bring it back to me? or just shoot snow through the head herself?"
  "you won't miss." gale adjusts the sheath on my shoulder.
  we stand there, face-to-face, not meeting each other's eyes. "you didn't come see me in the hospital." he doesn't answer, so finally i just say it. "was it your bomb?"
  "i don't know. neither does beetee," he says. "does it matter? you'll always be thinking about it."
  he waits for me to deny it; i want to deny it, but it's true. even now i can see the flash that ignites her, feel the heat of the flames. and i will never be able to separate that moment from gale. my silence is my answer.
  "that was the one thing i had going for me. taking care of your family," he says. "shoot straight, okay?" he touches my cheek and leaves. i want to call him back and tell him that i was wrong. that i'll figure out a way to make peace with this. to remember the circumstances under which he created the bomb. take into account my own inexcusable crimes. dig up the truth about who dropped the parachutes. prove it wasn't the rebels. forgive him. but since i can't, i'll just have to deal with the pain.
  effie comes in to usher me to some kind of meeting. i collect my bow and at the last minute remember the rose, glistening in its glass of water. when i open the door to the bathroom, i find my prep team sitting in a row on the edge of the tub, hunched and defeated. i remember i'm not the only one whose world has been stripped away. "come on," i tell them. "we've got an audience waiting."
  i'm expecting a production meeting in which plutarch instructs me where to stand and gives me my cue for shooting snow. instead, i find myself sent into a room where six people sit around a table. peeta, johanna, beetee, haymitch, annie, and enobaria. they all wear the gray rebel uniforms from 13. no one looks particularly well. "what's this?"