LEGENDS ▹ the hunger games au

xxii

BE THE MOCKINGJAY

THERE was nothing left of District 12.

Nearly nothing.

Only the Victor's Village was left standing.

With Gale keeping watch in the hovercraft above, Katniss made her way back home with her boots crunching against blackened skeletons of people she once knew. Ash and dust still hung in the air, infecting her lungs with every breath. Buildings were entirely gone or mostly crushed in, craters carving out chunks of the earth. Wild dogs ate what little flesh there was off of scattered bones of people and animals alike. Burned and charred bodies laid in piles, mouths still stretched open in silent screams.

Katniss was sick with grief and horror, and even crawling was a struggle.

Peeta hadn't wanted to come. He said he didn't need to.

Since that night the survivors reached Thirteen, they hadn't said a word to each other.

Coin didn't want to let her go at all, but Plutarch seemed to think it would help her cooperate. Remind her who the real enemy was. Katniss didn't need reminding. She knew. He was the one who killed her son. He was the one who kidnapped her daughter. She could feel him taunting her from hundreds and hundreds of miles away, as she stood in the ruins of the home he destroyed.

Wasn't this what Snow warned her about? All those years ago, before she realized she had to marry Peeta, before she stomped out the sparks of the rebellion she was now expected to lead. He told her to imagine her town reduced to ashes, gone and radioactive and buried under dirt as if it never existed.

"Would you like to be in a real war?"

"No."

"Good. Neither would I."

The sun was white against the grey sky, but Katniss could feel no warmth as she followed the familiar path into the Victor's Village. The grass was burned and ash clung to the air here as well, but three houses still stood. Numb, she couldn't feel the cool of the brass doorknob when she twisted it and stepped inside the place she called home for the past twenty—six years.

An empty house awaited her.

"They're gone," she whispered to the walls, and wondered if they already knew.

After all, the house looked unlived in. Untouched. Everything covered in a thin layer of dust. Like her family had never existed. No memory left of them at all.

She left the door open behind her.

At first, her boots echoed hollowly against the worn floorboards of the entryway through the hallway and up the stairs. Then she moved through the home on hunter's feet, like she had once tried to teach her children to do. She couldn't go into Rye's room, and she refused to go into Will's. She picked up a few necessities as she went: a photo of her father, a sketchbook for Peeta, some herbs for her mother, the family plant book. The book fell open to a page with yellow flowers tucked into the binding and she slammed it quickly shut because it was Willow who picked them in the first place.