The covert glances and quiet murmurs I usually evoke are nothing compared to the reaction brought on by the sight of my bizarre-looking prep team. The gaping mouths, the finger pointing, the exclamations. «Just ignore them,» I tell my prep team. Eyes downcast, with mechanical movements, they follow me through the line, accepting bowls of grayish fish and okra stew and cups of water.

We take seats at my table, beside a group from the Seam. They show a little more restraint than the people from 13 do, although it may just be from embarrassment. Leevy, who was my neighbor back in 12, gives a cautious hello to the preps, and Gale’s mother, Hazelle, who must know about their imprisonment, holds up a spoonful of the stew. «Don’t worry,» she says. «Tastes better than it looks.»

But it’s Posy, Gale’s five-year-old sister, who helps the most. She scoots along the bench to Octavia and touches her skin with a tentative finger. «You’re green. Are you sick?»

«It’s a fashion thing, Posy. Like wearing lipstick,» I say.

«It’s meant to be pretty,» whispers Octavia, and I can see the tears threatening to spill over her lashes.

Posy considers this and says matter-of-factly, «I think you’d be pretty in any color.»

The tiniest of smiles forms on Octavia’s lips. «Thank you.»

«If you really want to impress Posy, you’ll have to dye yourself bright pink,» says Gale, thumping his tray down beside me. «That’s her favorite color.» Posy giggles and slides back down to her mother. Gale nods at Flavius’s bowl. «I wouldn’t let that get cold. It doesn’t improve the consistency.»

Everyone gets down to eating. The stew doesn’t taste bad, but there’s a certain sliminess that’s hard to get around. Like you have to swallow every bite three times before it really goes down.

Gale, who’s not usually much of a talker during meals, makes an effort to keep the conversation going, asking about the makeover. I know it’s his attempt at smoothing things over. We argued last night after he suggested I’d left Coin no choice but to counter my demand for the victors’ safety with one of her own. «Katniss, she’s running this district. She can’t do it if it seems like she’s caving in to your will.»

«You mean she can’t stand any dissent, even if it’s fair,» I’d countered.

«I mean you put her in a bad position. Making her give Peeta and the others immunity when we don’t even know what sort of damage they might cause,» Gale had said.

«So I should’ve just gone with the program and let the other tributes take their chances? Not that it matters, because that’s what we’re all doing anyway!» That was when I’d slammed the door in his face. I hadn’t sat with him at breakfast, and when Plutarch had sent him down to training this morning, I’d let him go without a word. I know he only spoke out of concern for me, but I really need him to be on my side, not Coin’s. How can he not know that?

After lunch, Gale and I are scheduled to go down to Special Defense to meet Beetee. As we ride the elevator, Gale finally says, «You’re still angry.»

«And you’re still not sorry,» I reply.

«I still stand by what I said. Do you want me to lie about it?» he asks.

«No, I want you to rethink it and come up with the right opinion,» I tell him. But this just makes him laugh. I have to let it go. There’s no point in trying to dictate what Gale thinks. Which, if I’m honest, is one reason I trust him.

The Special Defense level is situated almost as far down as the dungeons where we found the prep team. It’s a beehive of rooms full of computers, labs, research equipment, and testing ranges.

When we ask for Beetee, we’re directed through the maze until we reach an enormous plate-glass window. Inside is the first beautiful thing I’ve seen in the District 13 compound: a replication of a meadow, filled with real trees and flowering plants, and alive with hummingbirds. Beetee sits motionless in a wheelchair at the center of the meadow, watching a spring-green bird hover in midair as it sips nectar from a large orange blossom. His eyes follow the bird as it darts away, and he catches sight of us. He gives a friendly wave for us to join him inside.

The air’s cool and breathable, not humid and muggy as I’d expected. From all sides comes the whir of tiny wings, which I used to confuse with the sound of insects in our woods at home. I have to wonder what sort of fluke allowed such a pleasing place to be built here.

Beetee still has the pallor of someone in convalescence, but behind those ill-fitting glasses, his eyes are alight with excitement. «Aren’t they magnificent? Thirteen has been studying their aerodynamics here for years. Forward and backward flight, and speeds up to sixty miles per hour. If only I could build you wings like these, Katniss!»

«Doubt I could manage them, Beetee,» I laugh.

«Here one second, gone the next. Can you bring a hummingbird down with an arrow?» he asks.

«I’ve never tried. Not much meat on them,» I answer.

«No. And you’re not one to kill for sport,» he says. «I bet they’d be hard to shoot, though.»

«You could snare them maybe,» Gale says. His face takes on that distant look it wears when he’s working something out. «Take a net with a very fine mesh. Enclose an area and leave a mouth of a couple square feet. Bait the inside with nectar flowers. While they’re feeding, snap the mouth shut. They’d fly away from the noise but only encounter the far side of the net.»

«Would that work?» asks Beetee.

«I don’t know. Just an idea,» says Gale. «They might outsmart it.»

«They might. But you’re playing on their natural instincts to flee danger. Thinking like your prey…that’s where you find their vulnerabilities,» says Beetee.

I remember something I don’t like to think about. In preparation for the Quell, I saw a tape where Beetee, who was still a boy, connected two wires that electrocuted a pack of kids who were hunting him. The convulsing bodies, the grotesque expressions. Beetee, in the moments that led up to his victory in those long-ago Hunger Games, watched the others die. Not his fault. Only self-defense. We were all acting only in self-defense….

Suddenly, I want to leave the hummingbird room before somebody starts setting up a snare. «Beetee, Plutarch said you had something for me.»

«Right. I do. Your new bow.» He presses a hand control on the arm of the chair and wheels out of the room. As we follow him through the twists and turns of Special Defense, he explains about the chair. «I can walk a little now. It’s just that I tire so quickly. It’s easier for me to get around this way. How’s Finnick doing?»

«He’s…he’s having concentration problems,» I answer. I don’t want to say he had a complete mental meltdown.

«Concentration problems, eh?» Beetee smiles grimly. «If you knew what Finnick’s been through the last few years, you’d know how remarkable it is he’s still with us at all. Tell him I’ve been working on a new trident for him, though, will you? Something to distract him a little.» Distraction seems to be the last thing Finnick needs, but I promise to pass on the message.

Four soldiers guard the entrance to the hall marked Special Weaponry. Checking the schedules printed on our forearms is just a preliminary step. We also have fingerprint, retinal, and DNA scans, and have to step through special metal detectors. Beetee has to leave his wheelchair outside, although they provide him with another once we’re through security. I find the whole thing bizarre because I can’t imagine anyone raised in District 13 being a threat the government would have to guard against. Have these precautions been put in place because of the recent influx of immigrants?

At the door of the armory, we encounter a second round of identification checks—as if my DNA might have changed in the time it took to walk twenty yards down the hallway—and are finally allowed to enter the weapons collection. I have to admit the arsenal takes my breath away. Row upon row of firearms, launchers, explosives, armored vehicles. «Of course, the Airborne Division is housed separately,» Beetee tells us.