Chapter 10

TL;DR: Katniss runs to the rescued Peeta and he tries to strangle her — the Capitol has "hijacked" his mind to see her as a monster to be killed.

Spoilers through Chapter 10.

Chapter in one sentence

The rescue's joy collapses into horror as Katniss learns the Capitol has turned Peeta into a weapon against her.

What happens

The rescued victors are back in District 13. Finnick Odair reunites, weeping with joy, with Annie Cresta — the District 4 girl he loves. Carried on that hope, Katniss races to the hospital to see Peeta, picturing the boy with the bread who has always loved her. Instead, the moment she reaches him, Peeta's hands close around her throat. His eyes are full of pure, murderous hatred; he means to kill her. Soldiers — Boggs among them — wrench him off before she suffocates, but her neck is bruised and bloodied and something in her has been shattered. The doctors explain what the Capitol has done: Peeta has been "hijacked," a torture technique using tracker-jacker venom to distort and overwrite memory. Every memory of Katniss has been poisoned until he genuinely believes she is a lethal mutt — a creature sent to destroy him.

Key moments

• Finnick and Annie — A tearful, joyful reunion between two damaged people.
• The attack — Peeta seizing Katniss's throat with murderous hatred.
• Pulled off — Boggs and others wrenching Peeta away before she suffocates.
• Hijacking explained — The doctors revealing how the Capitol rewrote Peeta's mind.

Character shifts

• Katniss — Loses the one constant she counted on; the Peeta who always loved her is gone, and she does not know if he can return.
• Peeta — Arrives not rescued but weaponized — his love for Katniss deliberately inverted into terror.

Why this chapter matters

This is the book's cruelest reversal. The trilogy's steadiest source of warmth — Peeta's love for Katniss — has been turned by the Capitol into a murder weapon. The chapter introduces hijacking, the book's central image of trauma as something done to a mind, and it reframes the war: the Capitol does not just kill people, it unmakes them. Everything after this is, in part, the question of whether Peeta can be reclaimed.

Themes to notice

• The wounds that don't close — Hijacking is trauma made literal and surgical.
• War is fought with cameras — Peeta was used on air, then weaponized; he has been an instrument all along.

Book club questions

1. The Capitol attacked Peeta through love and memory specifically. Why is that the cruelest possible target?
2. Finnick's joyful reunion sits right beside Peeta's attack. Why does the book pair them?
3. Is the Peeta who attacks Katniss still Peeta? How does the book want us to hold that question?

Visual memory hook

A joyful reunion in one corridor and, in the next room, a familiar face emptied of love and twisted with hatred, hands reaching for a throat.

What's next

Katniss and the rebellion absorb the cost of hijacking and turn toward the Capitol's last great stronghold — District 2.