LEGENDS ▹ the hunger games au

xxvii

THE GIRL WITH NO NAME

THERE was a gun to her head.

Katniss had felt useless. Worthless. She couldn't stay in Thirteen anymore; if she wanted to be the Mockingjay, she would have to be away from the pain of Willow's hijacking. She wanted to go to the Capitol, but Coin and Plutarch wouldn't allow it. She made a decision. First the districts. Next the Capitol. And then she could kill Valeria Snow.

So, Katniss went to Two, where their mountain fell and night fell even quicker. It was Gale's idea to destroy the mountain where most of the Capitol's military were housed, and she had been sick with the sounds of bombs dropping. Killing is always personal. Now, trains carrying survivors came out of the debris and the rebels all around her trained their weapons on the wounded and dying.

A man had staggered out from the smoking station, one hand pressed against a bloody cloth at his cheek, the other dragging a gun. Either he couldn't hear Boggs' shouts to put down his weapon or he chose to ignore them. When bullets ripped through the air and he fell to his face, she took off running for him — to help him. Perhaps Katniss shouldn't have, but she hadn't thought that they would end up with her pressed to his chest and a gun in her face.

But how else would this ever end?

Through the dust and smoke in his throat, the man's garbled speech was barely understandable, "Give me one reason I shouldn't shoot you."

"Drop the gun!" Boggs ordered from somewhere far behind.

Gale was somewhere back there. So was Haymitch, and the other members of her film crew. The one relief was that Peeta wasn't here. He stayed behind to be with Willow, and at least that had spared them both from knowing he was seconds away from seeing her get a bullet in the head.

The rest of the grim world faded away. All she could see was the man in front of her, whose gun jabbed under her chin and eyes demanded one reason to keep her alive. Katniss wanted to believe she had thousands of reasons he shouldn't put a bullet in her head, but there was nothing. All she managed to say was:

"I can't."

A look of confusion flickered across her gunman's dark tortured eyes.

"I guess that's the problem, isn't it? We blew up your mine. You burned my district to the ground. We each have every reason to want to kill each other." Katniss stayed on her knees across from him, voice low and urgent, "So if you wanna kill me, do it. Make another Snow happy. I'm tired of killing their slaves for them."

"I'm not their slave," he muttered.

"I am." Katniss decided, surprising him, "That's why I killed Cato. And he killed Thresh. And Thresh killed Clove. She tried to kill me, and I had Willow who killed Blitz and Minerva."