Catching Fire

The next morning, Katniss decides that it is time for her and Peeta to break off from the group. She knows it is only a matter of time before everyone turns on each other, especially now that there are only a handful of tributes left. Peeta agrees but asks to stay until the last of the enemy tributes are dead, because “Beetee’s trying to put together some kind of trap for them now” (357). Beetee devises a trap to electrocute the enemy tributes by running his special wire from the lightning tree to the saltwater sea. The plan will have to be perfectly timed to ensure that no one gets hurt, because lightning will strike the tree at exactly midnight. Beetee stresses that “this will require all our efforts” (361), so everyone must be in agreement. They agree, and the group scouts out the area around the lightning tree. They have a huge seafood feast, knowing that their plan will mean eliminating the water as a food source. Katniss thinks again of Peeta, and how he is now her “greatest opponent, the person who would keep [her] alive at his own expense” (365). She silently vows to “defeat his plan” (366) and do everything possible to make sure he survives to the end.

That night as midnight approaches, Beetee and Finnick wrap the lightning tree with wire and ask Katniss and Johanna to run the wire down to the beach, “through the jungle, unwinding the wire as we go” (369). Katniss is nervous about leaving Peeta behind and going off with Johanna, but she kisses Peeta goodbye and promises to see him at midnight. On their way down to the beach, however, someone cuts the wire. Johanna suddenly attacks Katniss by hitting her in the head with the wire container, pushing her to the ground, and stabbing her in the forearm, where each tribute has an implanted tracking device. Johanna tells Katniss to stay down, then runs off into the night. Katniss manages to get back to the lightning tree, assuming that Johanna has turned on her and hoping to protect Peeta in case Finnick follows suit. She finds Beetee knocked unconscious, and “holding a knife [...] wrapped loosely in wire” (375). Katniss wonders if Beetee meant to “send the lightning bolt’s energy into the force field” (376), and she thinks back to Haymitch’s warning from before she entered the arena: “You just remember who the enemy is” (378). Katniss is seized with fury as she remembers everything the Capitol and President Snow have done to her, her family, and the nation of Panem. She wraps the loose end of the wire around one of her arrows and fires it into the forcefield as lightning strikes the tree. She watches as “the dome bursts into a dazzling blue light,” and she is “thrown backward to the ground, body useless, eyes frozen wide” (379).

Katniss is knocked unconscious and picked up by a hovercraft as the arena’s forcefield is destroyed and the real world becomes visible. When she awakens, she is on a padded table and sees Beetee, unconscious and being treated nearby. She explores the hovercraft and discovers Plutarch Heavensbee, Finnick, and Haymitch talking. They explain to Katniss that “There was a plan to break [them] out of the arena from the moment the Quell was announced” (385), and that several of the tributes knew about it. Plutarch was in on the plan and reveals that he is part of an “undercover group aiming to overthrow the Capitol” (385). They are on their way to District 13, which does exist after all. They explain to her that most of the districts in Panem are rebelling as they speak, and the country is embroiled in the beginning stages of a war. As details of the plan and rescue come out, Katniss feels betrayed, knowing that she was “Used without consent, without knowledge” (385). They go on to explain that Johanna wasn’t attacking Katniss but cutting the tracker from her arm so she could escape from the arena. Peeta was kept alive because if Peeta died, they knew Katniss would want nothing to do with the rebellion. Peeta and Johanna were captured by the Capitol, but they had to save Katniss because “[she’s] the mockingjay [...] While [she] live[s], the revolution lives” (386). Katniss attacks Haymitch, furious that he didn’t keep Peeta safe like he promised, and she has to be sedated. When she awakens, Gale is by her side. He tells her that the Capitol sent planes into District 12, and although he got Katniss’s mom and sister out alive, Katniss’s home district has been completely destroyed.