After leaving Snow, Katniss clings to a white rose and forces herself to think through his accusation that the rebels, not the Capitol, dropped the parachutes that killed the Capitol children and Prim. She reviews the evidence on both sides, but Boggs’s warning about Coin, the use of double-exploding bombs like Gale and Beetee designed, and the suspicious fact that Prim was somehow placed on the front lines push Katniss toward a terrifying possibility: Coin may have engineered the attack to seize power and control Katniss.

Desperate for someone she can trust, Katniss goes to Haymitch, but he is drunk, disheveled, and too careless to help. His flippant joke wounds Katniss, and she flees into a wardrobe, swallows a leftover morphling tablet, and spirals into nightmares. Guards eventually find her at dawn, tangled in silks and screaming, and return her to her room, where a hungover Haymitch waits with medicine and food.

That morning, Katniss is bathed and prepared for Snow’s public execution. Her old prep team reappears, along with Effie, and they manage to make her look outwardly like the Mockingjay again despite her burns and scars. Gale visits to give her the ceremonial arrow she is meant to use for Snow’s execution, and when Katniss asks whether the bomb that killed Prim was his, Gale admits he does not know whether it was their design, adding that she will always think about it. Katniss cannot deny that, and the exchange confirms the emotional break between them.

Expecting instructions for the spectacle, Katniss is instead taken to a meeting of the surviving victors: Peeta, Johanna, Beetee, Haymitch, Annie, and Enobaria. Coin tells them Snow will be executed, then proposes a final, symbolic Hunger Games using Capitol children related to the regime’s leaders, claiming this will satisfy the districts without wiping out the Capitol population. Peeta, Annie, and Beetee vote no, while Johanna and Enobaria vote yes. When Katniss says, “I vote yes … for Prim,” Haymitch says he is with the Mockingjay, giving Coin the majority. Katniss then asks Coin to make sure Snow wears the white rose over his heart.

Katniss is led before the massive crowd in the City Circle and given her place for the execution. Snow is brought out and tied to a post, and Katniss aims at the rose on his chest as instructed. But when she sees his amused expression and remembers his insistence that they not lie to each other, Katniss acts on what she has concluded about Coin. She lifts her aim from Snow to Coin and releases the arrow, killing the new president instead.