As the squad waits underground, Katniss realizes Snow has ended the grace period and released mutts into the tunnels to find her. When the hissing voices begin saying Katniss’s name, Peeta echoes them, and Katniss nearly shoots him, believing his hijacking has taken over. Instead, Peeta suddenly warns Katniss to run because whatever is coming wants to kill her. The group quickly arms its least protected members and keeps moving according to Pollux’s route, hoping to reach Snow before the mutts catch them.

The screams of Avoxes ahead prove the mutts will kill anyone, not just Katniss, and Katniss briefly proposes drawing them away alone. Before the group can act on any new plan, Snow’s rose scent rises from a stairwell and shakes Katniss badly, because it signals another psychological attack aimed directly at her. The smell drives her onto the underground Transfer, where she destroys one pod full of flesh-eating rats and warns the others away from a second trap labeled Meat Grinder.

Finnick stops Katniss from stepping into a golden light pod, and the squad helplessly watches Messalla die as the beam melts his flesh. Almost immediately, Peacekeepers attack from behind, trapping the group between soldiers and pods. Then the mutts arrive, kill the Peacekeepers with shocking speed, and charge the squad. Katniss triggers the Meat Grinder to block pursuit, abandons the assassination mission, and asks Pollux for the fastest route to the surface.

Pollux leads the survivors through a toxic main sewer to a ladder shaft. There Homes reveals that Jackson and Leeg 1 stayed behind at the Grinder to slow the mutts, and Gale destroys a bridge to buy more time. Katniss now sees the mutts clearly: white human-lizard creatures hissing her name, driven mad by the scent trail and by Snow’s rose odor mixed into the attack. The squad fires continuously, but the mutts keep coming through bullets and sewage, and Katniss, overwhelmed by panic and trauma, has to be forced up the ladders.

On the platform above, Katniss realizes only Pollux, Gale, Cressida, Peeta, and Katniss have made it, while Gale is badly wounded. Looking down the shaft, Katniss sees Finnick being torn apart by mutts, so Katniss activates the Holo’s self-destruct with the command nightlock, killing Finnick and blasting the mutts below. After Pollux seals the pipe, Peeta admits he is losing control and fears becoming like the mutts. Refusing to let Snow take him, Katniss kisses Peeta and begs him to stay with her, and Peeta regains himself enough to answer, Always. The five survivors climb into a Capitol utility room, where Katniss immediately shoots a woman who recognizes her and is about to call for help.