Catching Fire (The Hunger Games #2)(25)

I can see him swallowing his disappointment. "So, we'll go. We'll find out." He turns back to the fire, where the chestnuts are beginning to burn. He flips them out onto the hearth. "My mother's going to take some convincing."

I guess he's still going, anyway. But the happiness has fled, leaving an all-too-familiar strain in its place. "Mine, too. I'll just have to make her see reason. Take her for a long walk. Make sure she understands we won't survive the alternative."

"She'll understand. I watched a lot of the Games with her and Prim. She won't say no to you," says Gale.

"I hope not." The temperature in the house seems to have dropped twenty degrees in a matter of seconds. "Haymitch will be the real challenge."

"Haymitch?" Gale abandons the chestnuts. "You're not asking him to come with us?"

"I have to, Gale. I can't leave him and Peeta because they'd - " His scowl cuts me off. "What?"

"I'm sorry. I didn't realize how large our party was," he snaps at me.

"They'd torture them to death, trying to find out where I was," I say.

"What about Peeta's family? They'll never come. In fact, they probably couldn't wait to inform on us. Which I'm sure he's smart enough to realize. What if he decides to stay?" he asks.

I try to sound indifferent, but my voice cracks. "Then he stays."

"You'd leave him behind?" Gale asks.

"To save Prim and my mother, yes," I answer. "I mean, no! I'll get him to come."

"And me, would you leave me?" Gale's expression is rock hard now. "Just if, for instance, I can't convince my mother to drag three young kids into the wilderness in winter."

"Hazelle won't refuse. She'll see sense," I say.

"Suppose she doesn't, Katniss. What then?" he demands.

"Then you have to force her, Gale. Do you think I'm making this stuff up?" My voice is rising in anger as well.

"No. I don't know. Maybe the president's just manipulating you. I mean, he's throwing your wedding. You saw how the Capitol crowd reacted. I don't think he can afford to kill you. Or Peeta. How's he going to get out of that one?" says Gale.

"Well, with an uprising in District Eight, I doubt he's spending much time choosing my wedding cake!" I shout.

The instant the words are out of my mouth I want to reclaim them. Their effect on Gale is immediate - the flush on his cheeks, the brightness of his gray eyes. "There's an uprising in Eight?" he says in a hushed voice.

I try to backpedal. To defuse him, as I tried to defuse the districts. "I don't know if it's really an uprising. There's unrest. People in the streets - " I say.

Gale grabs my shoulders. "What did you see?"

"Nothing! In person. I just heard something." As usual, it's too little, too late. I give up and tell him. "I saw something on the mayor's television. I wasn't supposed to. There was a crowd, and fires, and the Peacekeepers were gunning people down but they were fighting back. ..." I bite my lip and struggle to continue describing the scene. Instead I say aloud the words that have been eating me up inside. "And it's my fault, Gale. Because of what I did in the arena. If I had just killed myself with those berries, none of this would've happened. Peeta could have come home and lived, and everyone else would have been safe, too."

"Safe to do what?" he says in a gentler tone. "Starve? Work like slaves? Send their kids to the reaping? You haven't hurt people - you've given them an opportunity. They just have to be brave enough to take it. There's already been talk in the mines. People who want to fight. Don't you see? It's happening! It's finally happening! If there's an uprising in District Eight, why not here? Why not everywhere? This could be it, the thing we've been - "

"Stop it! You don't know what you're saying. The Peacekeepers outside of Twelve, they're not like Darius, or even Cray! The lives of district people - they mean less than nothing to them!" I say.

"That's why we have to join the fight!" he answers harshly.

"No! We have to leave here before they kill us and a lot of other people, too!" I'm yelling again, but I can't understand why he's doing this. Why doesn't he see what's so undeniable?

Gale pushes me roughly away from him. "You leave, then. I'd never go in a million years."

"You were happy enough to go before. I don't see how an uprising in District Eight does anything but make it more important that we leave. You're just mad about - " No, I can't throw Peeta in his face. "What about your family?"

"What about the other families, Katniss? The ones who can't run away? Don't you see? It can't be about just saving us anymore. Not if the rebellion's begun!" Gale shakes his head, not hiding his disgust with me. "You could do so much." He throws Cinna's gloves at my feet. "I changed my mind. I don't want anything they made in the Capitol." And he's gone.

I look down at the gloves. Anything they made in the Capitol? Was that directed at me? Does he think I am now just another product of the Capitol and therefore something untouchable? The unfairness of it all fills me with rage. But it's mixed up with fear over what kind of crazy thing he might do next.