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Summary: Chapters 21 & 22

Chapter 21

Haymitch and Maysilee manage to get the bugs off one another, but they lose a lot of blood in the process. The two determine that the Gamemakers clearly don’t want them near the hedge. It starts to rain, and they use the tarps to collect water.

After deciding to return to the Cornucopia to look for more food, they hear a male scream. As there are only female Careers left, they immediately go to help whatever Newcomer is clearly in danger and find three Newcomers writhing in pain with spikes protruding from their skin while a large porcupine the size of a bear advances toward them. Haymitch and Maysilee manage to drive the porcupine away, but the three Newcomers die from their wounds. Maysilee tells Haymitch one of them has to win the Games so they can become the “worst victor in history” by “refus[ing] to play their game.” Haymitch repeats his father’s advice about not letting the Capitol paint their posters with their blood, and the two pinkie swear on it.

The anthem plays. There are only five of them left now: Haymitch and Maysilee, Silka and Maritte (two Careers), and Wellie (a young girl from District 6). They decide to find Wellie tomorrow. Maysilee takes the first watch and starts to sing an old children's song about a ladybug “fly[ing] away home” because its house is on fire. Haymitch laughs at the reference to the hedge, but it inspires in him a plan to break through the maze. 

Chapter 22

Haymitch intends to use the blowtorch to burn through the hedge until he gets to the generator and then, hopefully, burn that too. Aloud, he tells Maysilee they should return to the hedge because he thought of a way to weaponize it for the next poster. She recognizes Haymitch’s plan has something to do with defying the Capitol, and agrees.

Suddenly, they’re ambushed by the remaining Careers, and Haymitch and Maysilee take off with Silka and Maritte in pursuit. The four come across three Gamemakers leaning over a berm of flowers. The Gamemakers threaten them for being somewhere they shouldn’t, and Maritte and Maysilee kill them.

The four face off for a moment when a hovercraft appears out of nowhere and drops a bomb into the clearing that explodes in a cloud of dirt and gas. Haymitch grabs Maysilee, and the two run through the woods. Maysilee yells at Haymitch for hesitating and not attacking the Gamemakers. He apologizes for freezing, and the two make up. They head back to the hedge, and Haymitch lights a branch on fire and tells Maysilee to fend off any ladybugs. They fight their way through and walk to the edge of what turns out to be a cliff with a hundred-foot drop. Haymitch can see the generator at the cliff’s base, nestled in the pointy rocks. He’s distressed that the generator is both so close and so far away; he tells Maysilee that they have come to the “end of the road.”

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