1. Make sure all members of your Compartment are accounted for.
My mother and Prim haven't arrived, but I was one of the first people to reach the bunker. Both of them are probably helping to relocate hospital patients.
2. Go to the Supply Station and secure one pack for each member of your Compartment. Ready your Living Area. Return pack(s).
I scan the cavern until I locate the Supply Station, a deep room set off by a counter. People wait behind it, but there's not a lot of activity there yet. I walk over, give our compartment letter, and request three packs. A man checks a sheet, pulls the specified packs from shelving, and swings them up onto the counter. After sliding one on my back and getting a grip on the other two with my hands, I turn to find a group rapidly forming behind me. "Excuse me," I say as I carry my supplies through the others. Is it a matter of timing? Or is Plutarch right? Are these people modeling their behavior on mine?
Back at our space, I open one of the packs to find a thin mattress, bedding, two sets of gray clothing, a toothbrush, a comb, and a flashlight. On examining the contents of the other packs, I find the only discernible difference is that they contain both gray and white outfits. The latter will be for my mother and Prim, in case they have medical duties. After I make up the beds, store the clothes, and return the backpacks, I've got nothing to do but observe the last rule.
3. Await further instructions.
I sit cross-legged on the floor to await. A steady flow of people begins to fill the room, claiming spaces, collecting supplies. It won't take long until the place is full up. I wonder if my mother and Prim are going to stay the night at wherever the hospital patients have been taken. But, no, I don't think so. They were on the list here. I'm starting to get anxious, when my mother appears. I look behind her into a sea of strangers. "Where's Prim?" I ask.
"Isn't she here?" she replies. "She was supposed to come straight down from the hospital. She left ten minutes before I did. Where is she? Where could she have gone?"
I squeeze my lids shut tight for a moment, to track her as I would prey on a hunt. See her react to the sirens, rush to help the patients, nod as they gesture for her to descend to the bunker, and then hesitate with her on the stairs. Torn for a moment. But why?
My eyes fly open. "The cat! She went back for him!"
"Oh, no," my mother says. We both know I'm right. We're pushing against the incoming tide, trying to get out of the bunker. Up ahead, I can see them preparing to shut the thick metal doors. Slowly rotating the metal wheels on either side inward. Somehow I know that once they have been sealed, nothing in the world will convince the soldiers to open them. Perhaps it will even be beyond their control. I'm indiscriminately shoving people aside as I shout for them to wait. The space between the doors shrinks to a yard, a foot; there are only a few inches left when I jam my hand through the crack.
"Open it! Let me out!" I cry.
Consternation shows on the soldiers' faces as they reverse the wheels a bit. Not enough to let me pass, but enough to avoid crushing my fingers. I take the opportunity to wedge my shoulder into the opening. "Prim!" I holler up the stairs. My mother pleads with the guards as I try to wriggle my way out. "Prim!"
Then I hear it. The faint sound of footsteps on the stairs. "We're coming!" I hear my sister call.
"Hold the door!" That was Gale.
"They're coming!" I tell the guards, and they slide the doors open about a foot. But I don't dare move--afraid they'll lock us all out--until Prim appears, her cheeks flushed with running, hauling Buttercup. I pull her inside and Gale follows, twisting an armload of baggage sideways to get it into the bunker. The doors are closed with a loud and final clank.
"What were you thinking?" I give Prim an angry shake and then hug her, squashing Buttercup between us.
Prim's explanation is already on her lips. "I couldn't leave him behind, Katniss. Not twice. You should have seen him pacing the room and howling. He'd come back to protect us."
"Okay. Okay." I take a few breaths to calm myself, step back, and lift Buttercup by the scruff of the neck. "I should've drowned you when I had the chance." His ears flatten and he raises a paw. I hiss before he gets a chance, which seems to annoy him a little, since he considers hissing his own personal sound of contempt. In retaliation, he gives a helpless kitten mew that brings my sister immediately to his defense.
"Oh, Katniss, don't tease him," she says, folding him back in her arms. "He's already so upset."
The idea that I've wounded the brute's tiny cat feelings just invites further taunting. But Prim's genuinely distressed for him. So instead, I visualize Buttercup's fur lining a pair of gloves, an image that has helped me deal with him over the years. "Okay, sorry. We're under the big E on the wall. Better get him settled in before he loses it." Prim hurries off, and I find myself face-to-face with Gale. He's holding the box of medical supplies from our kitchen in 12. Site of our last conversation, kiss, fallout, whatever. My game bag's slung across his shoulder.
"If Peeta's right, these didn't stand a chance," he says.
Peeta. Blood like raindrops on the window. Like wet mud on boots.
"Thanks for...everything." I take our stuff. "What were you doing up in our rooms?"
"Just double-checking," he says. "We're in Forty-Seven if you need me."
Practically everyone withdrew to their spaces when the doors shut, so I get to cross to our new home with at least five hundred people watching me. I try to appear extra calm to make up for my frantic crashing through the crowd. Like that's fooling anyone. So much for setting an example. Oh, who cares? They all think I'm nuts anyway. One man, who I think I knocked to the floor, catches my eye and rubs his elbow resentfully. I almost hiss at him, too.
Prim has Buttercup installed on the lower bunk, draped in a blanket so that only his face pokes out. This is how he likes to be when there's thunder, the one thing that actually frightens him. My mother puts her box carefully in the cube. I crouch, my back supported by the wall, to check what Gale managed to rescue in my hunting bag. The plant book, the hunting jacket, my parents' wedding photo, and the personal contents of my drawer. My mockingjay pin now lives with Cinna's outfit, but there's the gold locket and the silver parachute with the spile and Peeta's pearl. I knot the pearl into the corner of the parachute, bury it deep in the recesses of the bag, as if it's Peeta's life and no one can take it away as long as I guard it.
The faint sound of the sirens cuts off sharply. Coin's voice comes over the district audio system, thanking us all for an exemplary evacuation of the upper levels. She stresses that this is not a drill, as Peeta Mellark, the District 12 victor, has possibly made a televised reference to an attack on 13 tonight.
That's when the first bomb hits. There's an initial sense of impact followed by an explosion that resonates in my innermost parts, the lining of my intestines, the marrow of my bones, the roots of my teeth. We're all going to die, I think. My eyes turn upward, expecting to see giant cracks race across the ceiling, massive chunks of stone raining down on us, but the bunker itself gives only a slight shudder. The lights go out and I experience the disorientation of total darkness. Speechless human sounds--spontaneous shrieks, ragged breaths, baby whimpers, one musical bit of insane laughter--dance around in the charged air. Then there's a hum of a generator, and a dim wavering glow replaces the stark lighting that is the norm in 13. It's closer to what we had in our homes in 12, when the candles and fire burned low on a winter's night.
I reach for Prim in the twilight, clamp my hand on her leg, and pull myself over to her. Her voice remains steady as she croons to Buttercup. "It's all right, baby, it's all right. We'll be okay down here."
My mother wraps her arms around us. I allow myself to feel young for a moment and rest my head on her shoulder. "That was nothing like the bombs in Eight," I say.
"Probably a bunker missile," says Prim, keeping her voice soothing for the cat's sake. "We learned about them during the orientation for new citizens. They're designed to penetrate deep in the ground before they go off. Because there's no point in bombing Thirteen on the surface anymore."
"Nuclear?" I ask, feeling a chill run through me.
"Not necessarily," says Prim. "Some just have a lot of explosives in them. But...it could be either kind, I guess."
The gloom makes it hard to see the heavy metal doors at the end of the bunker. Would they be any protection against a nuclear attack? And even if they were one hundred percent effective at sealing out the radiation, which is really unlikely, would we ever be able to leave this place? The thought of spending whatever remains of my life in this stone vault horrifies me. I want to run madly for the door and demand to be released into whatever lies above. It's pointless. They would never let me out, and I might start some kind of stampede.
"We're so far down, I'm sure we're safe," says my mother wanly. Is she thinking of my father's being blown to nothingness in the mines? "It was a close call, though. Thank goodness Peeta had the wherewithal to warn us."
The wherewithal. A general term that somehow includes everything that was needed for him to sound the alarm. The knowledge, the opportunity, the courage. And something else I can't define. Peeta seemed to have been waging a sort of battle in his mind, fighting to get the message out. Why? The ease with which he manipulates words is his greatest talent. Was his difficulty a result of his torture? Something more? Like madness?
Coin's voice, perhaps a shade grimmer, fills the bunker, the volume level flickering with the lights. "Apparently, Peeta Mellark's information was sound and we owe him a great debt of gratitude. Sensors indicate the first missile was not nuclear, but very powerful. We expect more will follow. For the duration of the attack, citizens are to stay in their assigned areas unless otherwise notified."
A soldier alerts my mother that she's needed in the first-aid station. She's reluctant to leave us, even though she'll only be thirty yards away.
"We'll be fine, really," I tell her. "Do you think anything could get past him?" I point to Buttercup, who gives me such a halfhearted hiss, we all have to laugh a little. Even I feel sorry for him. After my mother goes, I suggest, "Why don't you climb in with him, Prim?"
"I know it's silly...but I'm afraid the bunk might collapse on us during the attack," she says.
If the bunks collapse, the whole bunker will have given way and buried us, but I decide this kind of logic won't actually be helpful. Instead, I clean out the storage cube and make Buttercup a bed inside. Then I pull a mattress in front of it for my sister and me to share.
We're given clearance in small groups to use the bathroom and brush our teeth, although showering has been canceled for the day. I curl up with Prim on the mattress, double layering the blankets because the cavern emits a dank chill. Buttercup, miserable even with Prim's constant attention, huddles in the cube and exhales cat breath in my face.
Despite the disagreeable conditions, I'm glad to have time with my sister. My extreme preoccupation since I came here--no, since the first Games, really--has left little attention for her. I haven't been watching over her the way I should, the way I used to. After all, it was Gale who checked our compartment, not me. Something to make up for.
I realize I've never even bothered to ask her about how she's handling the shock of coming here. "So, how are you liking Thirteen, Prim?" I offer.
"Right now?" she asks. We both laugh. "I miss home badly sometimes. But then I remember there's nothing left to miss anymore. I feel safer here. We don't have to worry about you. Well, not the same way." She pauses, and then a shy smile crosses her lips. "I think they're going to train me to be a doctor."
It's the first I've heard of it. "Well, of course, they are. They'd be stupid not to."
"They've been watching me when I help out in the hospital. I'm already taking the medic courses. It's just beginner's stuff. I know a lot of it from home. Still, there's plenty to learn," she tells me.
"That's great," I say. Prim a doctor. She couldn't even dream of it in 12. Something small and quiet, like a match being struck, lights up the gloom inside me. This is the sort of future a rebellion could bring.
"What about you, Katniss? How are you managing?" Her fingertip moves in short, gentle strokes between Buttercup's eyes. "And don't say you're fine."
It's true. Whatever the opposite of fine is, that's what I am. So I go ahead and tell her about Peeta, his deterioration on-screen, and how I think they must be killing him at this very moment. Buttercup has to rely on himself for a while, because now Prim turns her attention to me. Pulling me closer, brushing the hair back behind my ears with her fingers. I've stopped talking because there's really nothing left to say and there's this piercing sort of pain where my heart is. Maybe I'm even having a heart attack, but it doesn't seem worth mentioning.
"Katniss, I don't think President Snow will kill Peeta," she says. Of course, she says this; it's what she thinks will calm me. But her next words come as a surprise. "If he does, he won't have anyone left you want. He won't have any way to hurt you."
Suddenly, I am reminded of another girl, one who had seen all the evil the Capitol had to offer. Johanna Mason, the tribute from District 7, in the last arena. I was trying to prevent her from going into the jungle where the jabberjays mimicked the voices of loved ones being tortured, but she brushed me off, saying, "They can't hurt me. I'm not like the rest of you. There's no one left I love."
Then I know Prim is right, that Snow cannot afford to waste Peeta's life, especially now, while the Mockingjay causes so much havoc. He's killed Cinna already. Destroyed my home. My family, Gale, and even Haymitch are out of his reach. Peeta's all he has left.
"So, what do you think they'll do to him?" I ask.
Prim sounds about a thousand years old when she speaks.
"Whatever it takes to break you."