I can't find him in the throng, but he will know what I want. A good clean shot to end it all. Only there's no arrow, no bullet. Is it possible he can't see me? Above us on the giant screens placed around the City Circle, everyone can watch the whole thing being played out.
He sees, he knows, but he doesn't follow through. Just as I didn't when he was captured. Sorry excuses for hunters and friends. Both of us. In both the films and the novels, Gale is shown to love Katniss.
The two have an intimate relationship, having grown close through their shared turmoil and tragedy. In the novels, Gale compares himself to the man in "The Hanging Tree" song, his tears causing Katniss to kiss him. The night before the reaping for the Quarter Quell, Katniss and Gale walk back into town together, and he admits to her "It'd be better if he were easier to hate.
He'd be dead and I'd be a happy little victor all by myself. Like every Sunday. Effie Trinket. Haymitch Abernathy. Cato Hunger Games. Peeta Mellark. Katniss Everdeen. Lavinia Hunger Games. Greasy Sae. Madge Undersee. Claudius Templesmith. Octavia Hunger Games. It turned out okay. Even catches the occasional rat. Sometimes, when I clean a kill, I feed Buttercup the entrails. He has stopped hissing at me. I swing my legs off the bed and slide into my hunting boots.
Supple leather that has molded to my feet. I pull on trousers, a shirt, tuck my long dark braid up into a cap, and grab my forage bag. On the table, under a wooden bowl to protect it from hungry rats and cats alike, sits a perfect little goat cheese wrapped in basil leaves. I put the cheese carefully in my pocket as I slip outside.
Our part of District 12, nicknamed the Seam, is usually crawling with coal miners heading out to the morning shift at this hour. Men and women with hunched shoulders, swollen knuckles, many who have long since stopped trying to scrub the coal dust out of their broken nails, the lines of their sunken faces. But today the black cinder streets are empty. Shutters on the squat gray houses are closed.
May as well sleep in. If you can. Our house is almost at the edge of the Seam. I only have to pass a few gates to reach the scruffy field called the Meadow. Separating the Meadow from the woods, in fact enclosing all of District 12, is a high chain-link fence topped with barbed-wire loops. Even so, I always take a moment to listen carefully for the hum that means the fence is live. There are several other weak spots in the fence, but this one is so close to home I almost always enter the woods here.
Electrified or not, the fence has been successful at keeping the flesh-eaters out of District Inside the woods they roam freely, and there are added concerns like venomous snakes, rabid animals, and no real paths to follow.
My father knew and he taught me some before he was blown to bits in a mine explosion. There was nothing even to bury. I was eleven then. Five years later, I still wake up screaming for him to run. Even though trespassing in the woods is illegal and poaching carries the severest of penalties, more people would risk it if they had weapons. But most are not bold enough to venture out with just a knife.
My bow is a rarity, crafted by my father along with a few others that I keep well hidden in the woods, carefully wrapped in waterproof covers. My father could have made good money selling them, but if the officials found out he would have been publicly executed for inciting a rebellion.
But the idea that someone might be arming the Seam would never have been allowed. In the fall, a few brave souls sneak into the woods to harvest apples. But always in sight of the Meadow. Always close enough to run back to the safety of District 12 if trouble arises. Then I glance quickly over my shoulder.
Even here, even in the middle of nowhere, you worry someone might overhear you. When I was younger, I scared my mother to death, the things I would blurt out about District 12, about the people who rule our country, Panem, from the far-off city called the Capitol.
Eventually I understood this would only lead us to more trouble. So I learned to hold my tongue and to turn my features into an indifferent mask so that no one could ever read my thoughts. Do my work quietly in school.
Make only polite small talk in the public market. Discuss little more than trades in the Hob, which is the black market where I make most of my money. Even at home, where I am less pleasant, I avoid discussing tricky topics. Like the reaping, or food shortages, or the Hunger Games. Prim might begin to repeat my words and then where would we be? In the woods waits the only person with whom I can be myself. I can feel the muscles in my face relaxing, my pace quickening as I climb the hills to our place, a rock ledge overlooking a valley.
A thicket of berry bushes protects it from unwanted eyes. The sight of him waiting there brings on a smile. Gale says I never smile except in the woods. My real name is Katniss, but when I first told him, I had barely whispered it. Then when this crazy lynx started following me around the woods looking for handouts, it became his official nickname for me.
I finally had to kill the lynx because he scared off game. But I got a decent price for his pelt. I take it in my hands, pull out the arrow, and hold the puncture in the crust to my nose, inhaling the fragrance that makes my mouth flood with saliva. Fine bread like this is for special occasions. He must have been at the bakery at the crack of dawn to trade for it. His expression brightens at the treat.
Happy Hunger Games! I catch it in my mouth and break the delicate skin with my teeth. Through Katniss' thoughts, we found out about several events in Gale's life. We find out that he and Katniss once saw a rogue boy and girl running from a Capitol hovercraft in the woods, and failed to help them as the boy was killed and the girl kidnapped. We find out that once he and Katniss shot a deer together in the woods and sold its meat for enough money to buy a nanny goat for Prim.
Gale carried the goat to Katniss' house because he was so excited to see Prim's reaction. Once Katniss became one of the final eight tributes alive, the Capitol sent camera crews to District 12 to interview her family and friends. When asked about her friends, everyone directed the camera crews to Gale. However, the Capitol people thought that Gale was "too handsome and too male" to be Katniss' best friend without jeopardizing Katniss' on-screen romance with Peeta.
Therefore, Gale is presented in the interviews as Katniss' cousin. Gale seems to resent this falsehood, as does Katniss. Gale, as well as his mother and siblings, greets Katniss at the train station when she comes home from the Hunger Games.
By the beginning of Catching Fire , Gale has turned 19, graduated school, and begun working in the coal mines. He spends all of his Sundays hunting in the woods with Katniss. The two remain best friends, but their relationship has been complicated by Katniss' on-screen romance with Peeta Mellark.
Katniss, confused about whether or not she actually loves Peeta, and feeling like she somehow betrayed Gale during the Games, has fallen out with Peeta and now devotes her time to Gale and his family. She hunts in the woods every day and gives all the produce to the Hawthornes. She offered to give the Hawthornes a share of her winnings so that Gale doesn't have to work in the mines, but Gale refuses to allow this.
He is even uncomfortable with Katniss hunting for his family, although his mother Hazelle does not object. Gale and Katniss did not see each alone until a few weeks after the end of the Hunger Games, at their meeting place in the woods. They shared an emotional reunion. The kiss only added to his suspicion that Katniss does not really love Peeta. He threatens to kill Gale and his family if she doesn't convince Panem that she is truly in love with Peeta.
She admits that her engagement to Peeta is fake, and that Snow was unconvinced by their romance and is probably going to kill all of Katniss' friends and family. She asks Gale and his family to escape into the woods with her. He agrees happily, and confesses that he loves her. He is disappointed by her reply that she cannot love anyone romantically at such a perilous time. He is further angered when he finds out that Katniss plans to bring Peeta along into the woods.
Finally, when Katniss lets slip that uprisings have begun in District 8 , Gale refuses to run with her, telling her that it is their duty to fight for a free Panem.
After his spat with Katniss at the lake, Gale goes to the Head Peacekeeper's house to sell a wild turkey from the woods to Cray. Upon on arriving, however, he finds that Cray has been replaced by a new Head: the bloodthirsty, Capitol-loving Romulus Thread. Gale is arrested for poaching, forced to plead guilty, and whipped at least forty times. Upon arriving at the whipping post, Katniss throws herself in front the whip and takes a lash across her face before she, Haymitch , and Peeta convince Thread to stop the punishment.
Gale is rushed to Katniss' mother and Prim, who set about treating him with their limited supplies. Katniss is very distressed throughout the whole process, and goes berserk when her mother refuses to give Gale more painkillers. Luckily, Madge brings Gale morphling , an expensive painkiller from the Capitol, before the pain gets too bad. She finally understands his lifelong need to rebel against the Capitol. Gale spends the next few days at Katniss' house, receiving free care and treatment from her mother and Prim.
Eventually he goes home and begins working in the mines, but ever since his whipping there has been a crackdown in District Furthermore, the merchant families have stopped bringing Hazelle laundry because of the Hawthorne family's association with Katniss.
Rory takes out tesserae, which upsets Gale greatly. He is devastated by the news that Katniss will be a tribute in the Quarter Quell , and tells her that they should have run away when they had the chance. He helps Katniss, Peeta, and Haymitch in their training efforts by teaching them all about snares and trapping. Gale watches the Quarter Quell from afar, and is probably horrified by Peeta's false proclamation that he and Katniss are married and that Katniss is pregnant.
When the victors are broken out the arena, the Capitol bombs District Gale manages to rescue about people and lead them into the woods. With only two bows and a fishing net, he manages to feed them all for three days before they are rescued by District Gale is at Katniss' bedside when regains consciousness from her concussion, and tells her that District 12 is gone. In Mockingjay , Gale lives in District 13 and spends time with Beetee designing weapons to use against the Capitol.
Katniss becomes uncomfortable with the brutality involved in some of Gale's weapons. He is one of the main characters and has a deeper relationship with Katniss while Peeta is a prisoner of the Capitol, but their relationship undergoes a number of strains throughout the book.
When Katniss visits the remains of District 12, Gale goes along in order to protect her. On their way back to District 13, Gale comforts Katniss and reassures her everything will work out.
When Peeta is interviewed with Caesar Flickerman , Gale tries to go to Katniss and help her when she leaves the room, but Boggs attempts to stop him. Gale and Katniss talk about the situation and she tells him that she'll be the mockingjay.
She and Gale go hunting like they used to and the two of them enjoy their time together until he asks her why she cares for her prep team so much. Katniss tells him that they helped her a lot in the Hunger Games. Gale becomes mad about this and leaves. He and Katniss go to the weapons room where Beetee has been inventing weapons for the rebels. There, Gale is allowed to pick out a weapon and chooses a military bow and arrow. Gale goes along with Katniss and the others to shoot propos for the rebellion.
Gale and the group arrive in District 8 to film their propaganda at a hospital. While there, the Capitol attacks the hospital and Gale, along with Katniss and the others, battle the enemy.
After the battle they meet at the command room in District 13 and discuss the propaganda. They decide to allow Katniss to go back in to combat and shoot more propos when she is ready.
Gale goes to comfort Katniss as she heals. Gale goes back to Beetee and helps him make military weapons. Gale and Katniss have tension between them.
Gale tries to be normal around Katniss but she knows he saw the interview and tries to not talk or say anything about it. Gale tells her it was to protect her since she is too stressed, Katniss enraged tells him to stop lying to her. Gale and Katniss go to District 12 to shoot another propo. When shooting one at Katniss' house, Gale asks to see his house, but Cressida tells him to reenact the night of the bombing.
Later Gale and Katniss kiss because they are both in pain and the only way to escape this pain is by this. After the interview with Peeta, the entire district retreats to safe bunkers during the bombing.
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