In the rebel meeting, Gale argues that the Nut should be buried under avalanches because District 2's workers cannot be trusted and sacrificing some people is worth destroying the Capitol's strongest military base. Katniss and Lyme object that the people inside deserve a chance to surrender and may include coerced workers or rebel spies. Boggs proposes a compromise: collapse the mountain entrances but leave the train tunnel open so survivors can escape into the square and be taken prisoner, and President Coin approves that version after Beetee raises both the casualties and Peeta's warning about the danger of destroying too many of Panem's people.

That evening, Katniss watches from the roof of the Justice Building as hoverplanes trigger landslides that exceed expectations and turn the entire mountainside into a tomb. The scale of the destruction makes Katniss imagine the terror inside the Nut and sends her back to the day her father died in a mine accident in District 12. Because Katniss knows exactly what it means to wait for trapped miners who may never return, the rebel victory feels morally unbearable instead of triumphant.

Inside the building, Boggs confirms that the train tunnel was left open, but he also explains that the rebels are taking control of the square so any survivors can be contained when they emerge. Haymitch then tells Katniss that Peeta recognized "The Hanging Tree" because he once heard Katniss's father sing it at the bakery, which becomes the first memory connected to Katniss that does not trigger a violent breakdown. The news gives Katniss a small, painful sign that some part of the real Peeta may still be reachable.

Near midnight, with no one yet emerging from the mountain, Haymitch asks Katniss to deliver a scripted surrender speech over District 2's emergency system. As Katniss begins speaking from the steps of the Justice Building, two trains suddenly arrive carrying armed, wounded survivors from the Nut. Rebel machine-gun nests surround the square, and Katniss realizes the planned surrender scene is about to become another massacre.

Katniss runs toward a burned young man from the Nut and orders the rebels to hold their fire, but the man points his gun at Katniss's head. Instead of defending herself, Katniss admits she cannot give him a reason not to shoot because both sides have been turned against each other by the Capitol. Speaking live to District 2 and the rebels, Katniss rejects the cycle of district-against-district killing, begs everyone to unite against the Capitol, and is shot before she can see whether anyone answers her appeal.