Katniss tries to make sense of her conversation with Snow. She desperately wants to disbelieve him but has to admit that his assessment of Coin is accurate; She let the Capitol and the districts destroy each other, then stepped in to take control. Katniss recalls Boggs’ warning that she was a threat to Coin. She wonders how Prim ended up on the front lines in the Capitol. At only 13, she was not equipped to be a first responder. Katniss needs to speak to someone, but everyone she trusts is dead except for Peeta.

The rebel government announces that Katniss will be allowed to execute Snow publicly. As her prep team makes her over, Gale arrives to give her the arrow she will use in the execution. Katniss asks point blank if Gale designed the bomb that killed Prim. Gale responds that it doesn’t matter—she will forever associate him with Prim’s death.

Katniss is called into a meeting with the surviving victors of past Hunger Games. Coin enters and asks them to vote to settle a debate. Victims of the Capitol have called for every remaining Capitol citizen to be executed, but this would drop population numbers drastically. Coin instead proposes holding one final Hunger Games, with tributes reaped from the children of the Capitol elite.