Catching Fire (The Hunger Games #2)(97)

It is not so much a question of forgetting Peeta as remembering the others. All it takes is one look at Gale and they come surging into the present, demanding to be acknowledged.

"Prim?" I gasp.

"She's alive. So is your mother. I got them out in time," he says.

"They're not in District Twelve?" I ask.

"After the Games, they sent in planes. Dropped firebombs." He hesitates. "Well, you know what happened to the Hob."

I do know. I saw it go up. That old warehouse embedded with coal dust. The whole district's covered with the stuff. A new kind of horror begins to rise up inside me as I imagine firebombs hitting the Seam.

"They're not in District Twelve?" I repeat. As if saying it will somehow fend off the truth.

"Katniss," Gale says softly.

I recognize that voice. It's the same one he uses to approach wounded animals before he delivers a deathblow. I instinctively raise my hand to block his words but he catches it and holds on tightly.

"Don't," I whisper.

But Gale is not one to keep secrets from me. "Katniss, there is no District Twelve."

END