Suzanne Collins - The Hunger Games (2008)

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To this day, I can never shake the connection between this boy, Peeta Mellark, and the bread that gave me hope, and the dandelion that reminded me that I was not doomed.

Suzanne Collins
He could have had his choice of any woman in the district. And he chose solitude. Not solitude – that sounds too peaceful. More like solitary confinement.

Suzanne Collins
The heat of the bread burned into my skin, but I clutched it tighter, clinging to life.

Suzanne Collins
Come on and eat with him. I promise, I won't let him kiss you again.

Suzanne Collins
It means we're on your side." That's what Bonnie said. I have people on my side? What side? Am I unwittingly the face of the hoped-for rebellion? Has the mockingjay on my pin become a symbol of resistance? If so, my side's not doing too well.

Suzanne Collins
And so I'm stupid for thinking they might be useful. Because of something Johanna Mason said while she was oiling her breasts for wrestling.

Suzanne Collins
And then, when he's been underwater so long I feel certain he's drowned, his head pops up right next to me and I start. Don't do that, I say. What? Come up or stay under? he says. Either. Neither. Whatever

Suzanne Collins
As coal pressured into pearls by our weighty existence. Beauty that arose out of pain.

Suzanne Collins
If it's true, why do they leave us to live like this? With the hunger and the killings and the Games?" And suddenly I hate this imaginary underground city of District 13 and those who sit by, watching us die. They're no better than the Capitol.

Suzanne Collins
I look down at our linked fingers as I loosen my grasp, but he regains his grip on me. No, don't let go of me, he says.

Suzanne Collins
The audience must be sick to death of the star-crossed lovers from District 12. I know I am.

Suzanne Collins
But Mockingjays were never a weapon," said Madge. "They're just songbirds. Right?" "Yeah, I guess so, I said, But it's not true. A mockingbird is just a songbird. A mockingjay is a creature the capitol never intended to exist. They hadn't counted on the highly controlled jabberjay having the brains to adapt to the wild, to thrive in a new form. They hadn't anticipated its will to live.

Suzanne Collins
Really, the combination of the scabs and the ointment looks hideous. I can't help enjoying his distress. "Poor Finnick. Is this the first time in your life you haven't looked pretty?" I say. "It must be. The sensation's completely new. How have you managed it all these years?" he asks. "Just avoid mirrors. You'll forget about it," I say. "Not if I keep looking at you," he says.

Suzanne Collins
In really bad times, the hungriest would gather at his door at nightfall, vying for the chance to earn a few coins to feed their families by selling their bodies. Had I been older when my father died, I might have been among them. Instead I learned to hunt.

Suzanne Collins
It's funny, because even though they're rattling on about the Games, it's all about where they were or what they were doing or how they felt when a specific event occurred.... Everything is about them, not the dying boys and girls in the arena

Suzanne Collins
So, here's what you do. You win, you go home. She can't turn you down then, eh? says Caesar encouragingly. I don't think it's going to work out. Winning…won't help in my case, says Peeta. Why ever not? says Caesar, mystified. Peeta blushes beet red and stammers out. Because…because…she came here with me.

Suzanne Collins
Great. Now I have to go back and tell Haymitch I want an eighty-year-old and Nuts and Volts for my allies. He'll love that.

Suzanne Collins
They more than do their work, they take pride in it. Like Cinna.

Suzanne Collins
The way she kissed you in the Quarter Quell…well she never kissed me like that…I should have volunteered to take your place in the first Games. Protected her then…I guess it's Katniss' problem. Who to choose…Katniss will pick whoever she thinks she can't survive without.

Suzanne Collins
Peeta bakes. I hunt. Haymitch drinks until the liquor runs out.

Suzanne Collins
Charred bits of black silk swirl into the air, and pearls clatter to the stage… I'm in a dress of the exact design of my wedding dress, only it's the color of coal and made of tiny feathers. Wonderingly, I lift my long, flowing sleeves into the air, and that's when I see myself on the television screen. Clothed in black except for the white patches on my sleeves. Or should I say my wings. Because Cinna had turned me into a mockingjay.

Suzanne Collins
That was the one thing I had going for me. Taking care of your family.

Suzanne Collins
I reach out to touch his cheek and he catches my hand and presses it against his lips.

Suzanne Collins
I never see these things coming. They happen too fast. One second you're proposing an escape plan and the next...

Suzanne Collins
I search his eyes for the slightest sign of anything, fear, remorse, anger. But there's only the same look of amusement that ended our last conversation. It's as if he's speaking the words again. "Oh, my dear Miss Everdeen. I thought we had agreed not to lie to each other." He's right. We did. The point of my arrow shifts upward. I release the string. And President Coin collapses over the side of the balcony and plunges to the ground. Dead.

Suzanne Collins
By the end of the session, I am no one at all. Haymitch started drinking somewhere around witty, and a nasty edge has crept into his voice. "I give up, sweetheart. Just answer the questions and try not to let the audience see how openly you despise them.

Suzanne Collins
When I break into the clearing, she's on the ground, hopelessly entangled in a net. She just has the time to reach her hand through the mesh and say my name before the spear enters her body.

Suzanne Collins
They play in the Meadow. The dancing girl with the dark hair and blue eyes. The boy with blond curls and gray eyes, struggling to keep up with her on his chubby toddler legs. It took five, ten, fifteen years for me to agree. But Peeta wanted them so badly. When I first felt her stirring inside of me, I was consumed with a terror that felt as old as life itself. Only the joy of holding her in my arms could tame it.

Suzanne Collins
As we trudge back through the woods, we reach a boulder, and both Gale and I turn our heads in the same direction, like a pair of dogs catching a scent on the wind. Cressida notices and asks what lies that way. We admit, without acknowledging each other, it's our old hunting rendez-vous place. She wants to see it, even after we tell her it's nothing really. Nothing but a place where I was happy, I think.

Suzanne Collins
But once I saw Fulvia Cardew crumple up a sheet of paper with just a couple of words written on it and you would've thought she'd murdered someone from the looks she got.

Suzanne Collins