Summary: Chapter 22The squad gathers and heads down the tunnels, away from the hissing cries. The smell of Snow's roses forces Katniss to lead the team into the Transfer, an underground causeway for delivery vehicles. Messalla is killed by a pod, and the rest of the squad take fire from a group of Peacekeepers.
Katniss begins to wake from a deep sleep. She believes she's at home, that her mother is stroking her hair, but instead she finds herself in a cold, damp cave. For a moment, she's alarmed, but then relaxes at the sight of Peeta. The medicine worked, and he is recovering quickly.
She ponders Gale's answer, that Katniss will choose the one she can't survive without. Katniss feels she can survive without both of them. In the morning, the group learns that rebel forces have found a way to safely advance past the pods and are quickly gaining ground.
The squad was pursued by lizard muttations in the Transfer, and Katniss detonated the Holo after the muttations killed Finnick, effectively covering their tracks, in the hope that Snow would not find them.
Summary: Chapter 25. Katniss recognizes the strange creatures chasing Cato as muttations, hybrid animals engineered by the Capitol. These muttations look like giant wolves but can walk upright like humans. Cato runs to the Cornucopia and Katniss follows, but she realizes Peeta can't keep up because of his injured leg.
Katniss explains that the berries, some of which Foxface stole, are poisonous. In a way, Peeta outsmarted Foxface. They decide to hold on to the rest of the berries in case the same opportunity arises with Cato.
Katniss is unsure how to tell the children about her and Peeta's past, but Peeta assures her that everything will be okay. To survive her constant fear that she and her family's safety could be taken away in an instant, Katniss thinks about every act of goodness she has seen.
Katniss gives the Holo the nightlock order and tosses it down the tunnel, killing the mutts below. Pollux, Gale, Cressida, Peeta, and Katniss are all who remain of the group.
In the sky that night, there is the picture of Thresh. Katniss is sad that he's dead and struggles to hide her pain. She sleeps with her hood over her face to hide it from the cameras so that she can say goodbye to Thresh and thank him. She promises to remember him and help his and Rue's family if she wins.
Why does Katniss kiss Peeta's forehead as he drops off to sleep Chapter 24?
Peeta sleeps first. Katniss kisses him on the forehead, for herself, she admits, and not for the audience. She is glad to have him there with her, comforted by the thought that together they can fight Peeta.
Katniss goes along with Caesar's suggestion but tries to keep the focus on Peeta. She finds out, too, that Peeta lost his leg and gets her first look at his prosthetic. Caesar, as expected, asks Katniss about the berries, and she struggles to get the right words out, but, afterward, Haymitch says she was perfect.
Due to the horror of his Games, his grief over his family's and girlfriend's deaths, and the overwhelming guilt he felt from being obligated to participate in the Games he hated while each and every one of his mentored tributes died in them, Haymitch turned to alcoholism to cope with his issues and feelings.
Katniss's focus on survival and her family's safety prevented her from fully considering romance, but her feelings for Peeta and Gale diverged in the end. Katniss ultimately chose Peeta because he understood her trauma and she didn't want to lose him, proving her love for him.
Thus, the audience doesn't know how old Katniss is when she dies. The only information the audience has about Katniss' future is that she and Peeta have a child together 15 years after their experiences in the Rebellion (at 33 years old) and that five years later, they have a second child.
During the interviews for the 75th Hunger Games, Peeta lied about Katniss being pregnant to try to protect her from the Games, and Katniss later stated that she miscarried due to an electric shock in the arena to avoid further questioning.
Peeta, however, is doing the best that he can, and he's eager to care for her now that he's starting to recover. Peeta feeds Katniss, as she tells him about what happened at the feast. She tells him about how Thresh spared her life, and Peeta takes in this news with disbelief.
In the 74th Hunger Games, Clove was the only Career tribute who came close to killing Katniss twice — at the Bloodbath and at the Feast, and certainly seemed to have a deep hatred for her, perhaps because Katniss received a higher score than her.
Katniss feels betrayed, most of all by Haymitch, who used her and Peeta. Eventually she wakes to find Gale there. He's badly injured and tells her the Capitol bombed District 12 after the Games. He got Prim and Katniss's mother out in time, but the District 12 is gone.
Peeta asks Katniss what Haymitch means and is extremely upset to discover that Katniss's feelings for him have all been an act, part of a survival strategy.
She understands that Gale is more than a friend to her but can't admit that she has romantic feelings toward him. She recalls their time in the woods, how she is a better hunter when he is there with her because she trusts him. They depend upon one another to survive and to provide for their families.
In Mockingjay, Katniss brought him with her to District 13 for Prim, and she included him as the first item of the Mockingjay Deal. When she became Buttercup's owner after Prim's death, the two bonded over their loss, and Buttercup stayed by her side much like he had Prim.
