The Hunger Games Part 3: The Victor
Chapter 21
In the remaining hours before nightfall, I gather rocks and do my best to
camouflage the opening of the cave. It’s a slow and arduous process, but after a
lot of sweating and shifting things around, I’m pretty pleased with my work, The
cave now appears to be part of a larger pile of rocks, like so many in the vicinity. I
can still crawl in to Peeta through a small opening, but it’s undetectable from the
out« side. That’s good, because I’ll need to share that sleeping bag again tonight.
Also, if I don’t make it back from the feast, Peeta will be hidden but not entirely
imprisoned. Although I doubt he can hang on much longer without medicine. If I die
at the feast, District 12 isn’t likely to have a victor.
I make a meal out of the smaller, bonier fish that inhabit the stream down
here, fill every water container and purify it, and clean my weapons. I’ve nine
arrows left in all. I debate leaving the knife with Peeta so he’ll have some
protection while I’m gone, but there’s really no point. He was right about
camouflage being his final defense. But I still might have use for the knife. Who
knows what I’ll encounter?
Here are some things I’m fairly certain of. That at least Cato, Clove, and
Thresh will be on hand when the feast starts. I’m not sure about Foxface since
direct confrontation isn’t her style or her forte. She’s even smaller than I am and
unarmed, unless she’s picked up some weapons recently. She’ll probably be
hanging somewhere nearby, seeing what she can scavenge. But the other three . .
. I’m going to have my hands full. My ability to kill at a distance is my greatest
asset, but I know I’ll have to go right into the thick of things to get that backpack,
the one with the number 12 on it that Claudius Templesmith mentioned.
I watch the sky, hoping for one less opponent at dawn, but nobody appears
tonight. Tomorrow there will be faces up there. Feasts always result in fatalities.
I crawl into the cave, secure my glasses, and curl up next to Peeta. Luckily I
had that good long sleep today. I have to stay awake. I don’t really think anyone
will attack our cave tonight, but I can’t risk missing the dawn.
So cold, so bitterly cold tonight. As if the Gamemakers have sent an infusion of
frozen air across the arena, which may be exactly what they’ve done. I lay next to
Peeta in the bag, trying to absorb every bit of his fever heat. It’s strange to be so
physically close to someone who’s so distant. Peeta might as well be back in the
Capitol, or in District 12, or on the moon right now, he’d be no harder to reach.
I’ve never felt lonelier since the Games began.
Just accept it will be a bad night, I tell myself. I try not to, but I can’t help
thinking of my mother and Prim, won dering if they’ll sleep a wink tonight. At this
late stage in the Games, with an important event like the feast, school will
probably be canceled. My family can either watch on that static-filled old clunker
of a television at home or join the crowds in the square to watch on the big, clear
screens, They’ll have privacy at home but support in the square. People will give
them a kind word, a bit of food if they can spare it. I wonder if the baker has
sought them out, especially now that Peeta and I are a team, and made good on
his promise to keep my sister’s belly full.
Spirits must be running high in District 12. We so rarely have anyone to root for
at this point in the Games. Surely, people are excited about Peeta and me,
especially now that we’re together. If I close my eyes, I can imagine their shouts at
the screens, urging us on. I see their faces — Greasy Sac and Madge and even the
Peacekeepers who buy my meat cheering for us.
And Gale. I know him. He won’t be shouting and cheering. But he’ll be
watching, every moment, every twist and turn, and willing me to come home. I
wonder if he’s hoping that Peeta makes it as well. Gale’s not my boyfriend, but
would he be, if I opened that door? He talked about us running away together. Was
that just a practical calculation of our chances of survival away from the district?
Or something more?
I wonder what he makes of all this kissing.
Through a crack in the rocks, I watch the moon cross the sky. At what I judge
to be about three hours before dawn, I begin final preparations. I’m careful to
leave Peeta with water and the medical kit right beside him. Nothing else will be of
much use if I don’t return, and even these would only prolong his life a short time.
After some debate, I strip him of his jacket and zip it on over my own. He doesn’t
need it. Not now in the sleeping bag with his fever, and during the day, if I’m not
there to remove it, he’ll be roasting in it. My hands are already stiff from cold, so I
take Rue’s spare pair of socks, cut holes for my fingers and thumbs, and pull them
on. It helps anyway. I fill her small pack with some food, a water bottle, and
bandages, tuck the knife in my belt, get my bow and arrows. I’m about to leave
when I remember the importance of sustaining the star-crossed lover routine and I
lean over and give Peeta a long, lingering kiss. I imagine the teary sighs
emanating from the Capitol and pretend to brush away a tear of my own. Then I
squeeze through the opening in the rocks out into the night.
My breath makes small white clouds as it hits the air. It’s as cold as a
November night at home. One where I’ve slipped into the woods, lantern in hand,
to join Gale at some prearranged place where we’ll sit bundled together, sipping
herb tea from metal flasks wrapped in quilting, hoping game will pass our way as
the morning comes on. Oh, Gale, I think. If only you had my back now . . .
I move as fast as I dare. The glasses are quite remarkable, but I still sorely
miss having the use of my left ear. I don’t know what the explosion did, but it
damaged something deep and irreparable. Never mind. If I get home, I’ll be so
stinking rich, I’ll be able to pay someone to do my hearing.
The woods always look different at night. Even with the glasses, everything has
an unfamiliar slant to it. As if the daytime trees and flowers and stones had gone
to bed and sent slightly more ominous versions of themselves to take their places.
I don’t try anything tricky, like taking a new route. I make my way back up the
stream and follow the same path back to Rue’s hiding place near the lake. Along
the way, I see no sign of another tribute, not a puff of breath, not a quiver of a
branch. Either I’m the first to arrive or the others positioned themselves last night.
There’s still more than an hour, maybe two, when I wriggle into the underbrush
and wait for the blood to begin to flow.
I chew a few mint leaves, my stomach isn’t up for much more. Thank
goodness, I have Peeta’s jacket as well as my own. If not, I’d be forced to move
around to stay warm. The sky turns a misty morning gray and still there’s no sign
of the other tributes. It’s not surprising really. Everyone has distinguished
themselves either by strength or deadliness or cunning. Do they suppose, I
wonder, that I have Peeta with me? I doubt Foxface and Thresh even know he was
wounded. All the better if they think he’s covering me when I go in for the
backpack.
But where is it? The arena has lightened enough for me to remove my glasses.
I can hear the morning birds singing. Isn’t it time? For a second, I’m panicked that
I’m at the wrong location. But no, I’m certain I remember Claudius Templesmith
specifying the Cornucopia. And there it is. And here I am. So where’s my feast?
Just as the first ray of sun glints off the gold Cornucopia, there’s a disturbance
on the plain. The ground before the mouth of the horn splits in two and a round
table with a snowy white cloth rises into the arena. On the table sit four
backpacks, two large black ones with the numbers 2 and 11, a medium-size green
one with the number 5, and a tiny orange one — really I could carry it around my
wrist — that must be marked with a 12.
The table has just clicked into place when a figure darts out of the Cornucopia,
snags the green backpack, and speeds off. Foxface! Leave it to her to come up
with such a clever and risky idea! The rest of us are still poised around the plain,
sizing up the situation, and she’s got hers. She’s got us trapped, too, because no
one wants to chase her down, not while their own pack sits so vulnerable on the
table. Foxface must have purposefully left the other packs alone, knowing that to
steal one without her number would definitely bring on a pursuer. That should
have been my strategy! By the lime I’ve worked through the emotions of surprise,
admiration, anger, jealousy, and frustration, I’m watching that reddish mane of
hair disappear into the trees well out of shooting range. Huh. I’m always dreading
the others, but maybe Foxface is the real opponent here.
She’s cost me time, too, because by now it’s clear that I must get to the table
next. Anyone who beats me to it will easily scoop up my pack and be gone.
Without hesitation, I sprint for the table. I can sense the emergence of danger
before I see it. Fortunately, the first knife comes whizzing in on my right side so I
can hear it and I’m able to deflect it with my bow. I turn, drawing back the
bowstring and send an arrow straight at Clove’s heart. She turns just enough to
avoid a fatal hit, but the point punctures her upper left arm. Unfortunately, she
throws with her right, but it’s enough to slow her down a few moments, having to
pull the arrow from her arm, take in the severity of the wound. I keep moving,
positioning the next arrow automatically, as only someone who has hunted for
years can do.
I’m at the table now, my fingers closing over the tiny orange backpack. My
hand slips between the straps and I yank it up on my arm, it’s really too small to fit
on any other part of my anatomy, and I’m turning to fire again when the second
knife catches me in the forehead. It slices above my right eyebrow, opening a gash
that sends a gush running down my face, blinding my eye, filling my mouth with
the sharp, metallic taste of my own blood. I stagger backward but still manage to
send my readied arrow in the general direction of my assailant. I know as it leaves
my hands it will miss. And then Clove slams into me, knocking me flat on my back,
pinning my shoulders to the ground, with her knees.
This is it, I think, and hope for Prim’s sake it will be fast. But Clove means to
savor the moment. Even feels she has time. No doubt Cato is somewhere nearby,
guarding her, waiting for Thresh and possibly Peeta.
“Where’s your boyfriend, District Twelve? Still hanging on?” she asks.
Well, as long as we’re talking I’m alive. “He’s out there now. Hunting Cato,” I
snarl at her. Then I scream at the top of my lungs. “Peeta!”
Clove jams her fist into my windpipe, very effectively cutting off my voice. But
her head’s whipping from side to side, and I know for a moment she’s at least
considering I’m telling the truth. Since no Peeta appears to save me, she turns
back to me.
“Liar,” she says with a grin. “He’s nearly dead. Cato knows where he cut him.
You’ve probably got him strapped up in some tree while you try to keep his heart
going. What’s in the pretty little backpack? That medicine for Lover Boy? Too bad
he’ll never get it.”
Clove opens her jacket. It’s lined with an impressive array of knives. She
carefully selects an almost dainty-looking number with a cruel, curved blade. “I
promised Cato if he let me have you, I’d give the audience a good show.”
I’m struggling now in an effort to unseat her, but it’s no use. She’s too heavy
and her lock on me too tight.
“Forget it, District Twelve. We’re going to kill you. Just like we did your pathetic
little ally . . . what was her name? The one who hopped around in the trees? Rue?
Well, first Rue, then you, and then I think we’ll just let nature take care of Lover
Boy. How does that sound?” Clove asks. “Now, where to start?”
She carelessly wipes away the blood from my wound with her jacket sleeve.
For a moment, she surveys my face, tilting it from side to side as if it’s a block of
wood and she’s deciding exactly what pattern to carve on it. I attempt to bite her
hand, but she grabs the hair on the top of my head, forcing me back to the ground.
“I think . . .” she almost purrs. “I think we’ll start with your mouth.” I clamp my
teeth together as she teasingly traces the outline of my lips with the tip of the
blade.
I won’t close my eyes. The comment about Rue has filled me with fury, enough
fury I think to die with some dignity. As my last act of defiance, I will stare her
down as long as I can see, which will probably not be an extended period of time,
but I will stare her down, I will not cry out. I will die, in my own small way,
undefeated.
“Yes, I don’t think you’ll have much use for your lips anymore. Want to blow
Lover Boy one last kiss?” she asks, I work up a mouthful of blood and saliva and
spit it in her face. She flushes with rage. “All right then. Let’s get started.”
I brace myself for the agony that’s sure to follow. But as I feel the tip open the
first cut at my lip, some great form yanks Clove from my body and then she’s
screaming. I’m too stunned at first, too unable to process what has happened. Has
Peeta somehow come to my rescue? Have the Gamemakers sent in some wild
animal to add to the fun? Has a hovercraft inexplicably plucked her into the air?
But when I push myself up on my numb arms, I see it’s none of the above.
Clove is dangling a foot off the ground, imprisoned in Thresh’s arms. I let out a
gasp, seeing him like that, towering over me, holding Clove like a rag doll. I
remember him as big, but he seems more massive, more powerful than I even
recall. If anything, he seems to have gained weight in the arena. He flips Clove
around and flings her onto the ground.
When he shouts, I jump, never having heard him speak above a mutter.
“What’d you do to that little girl? You kill her?”
Clove is scrambling backward on all fours, like a frantic insect, too shocked to
even call for Cato. “No! No, it wasn’t me!”
“You said her name. I heard you. You kill her?” Another thought brings a fresh
wave of rage to his features. “You cut her up like you were going to cut up this girl
here?”
“No! No, I —” Clove sees the stone, about the size of a small loaf of bread in
Thresh’s hand and loses it. “Cato!” she screeches. “Cato!”
“Clove!” I hear Cato’s answer, but he’s too far away, I can tell that much, to do
her any good. What was he doing? Trying to get Foxface or Peeta? Or had he been
lying in wait for Thresh and just badly misjudged his location?
Thresh brings the rock down hard against Clove’s temple. It’s not bleeding, but
I can see the dent in her skull and I know that she’s a goner. There’s still life in her
now though, in the rapid rise and fall of her chest, the low moan escaping her lips.
When Thresh whirls around on me, the rock raised, I know it’s no good to run.
And my bow is empty, the last loaded arrow having gone in Clove’s direction. I’m
trapped in the glare of his strange golden brown eyes. “What’d she mean? About
Rue being your ally?”
“I — I — we teamed up. Blew up the supplies. I tried to save her, I did. But he
got there first. District One,” I say. Maybe if he knows I helped Rue, he won’t
choose some slow, sadistic end for me.
“And you killed him?” he demands.
“Yes. I killed him. And buried her in flowers,” I say. “And I sang her to sleep.”
Tears spring in my eyes. The tension, the fight goes out of me at the memory.
And I’m overwhelmed by Rue, and the pain in my head, and my fear of Thresh, and
the moaning of the dying girl a few feet away.
“To sleep?” Thresh says gruffly.
“To death. I sang until she died,” I say. “Your district. . . they sent me bread.”
My hand reaches up but not for an arrow that I know I’ll never reach. Just to wipe
my nose. “Do it fast, okay, Thresh?”
Conflicting emotions cross Thresh’s face. He lowers the rock and points at me,
almost accusingly. “Just this one time, I let you go. For the little girl. You and me,
we’re even then. No more owed. You understand?”
I nod because I do understand. About owing. About hating it. I understand that
if Thresh wins, he’ll have to go back and face a district that has already broken all
the rules to thank me, and he is breaking the rules to thank me, too. And I
understand that, for the moment, Thresh is not going to smash in my skull.
“Clove!” Cato’s voice is much nearer now. I can tell by the pain in it that he
sees her on the ground.
“You better run now, Fire Girl,” says Thresh.
I don’t need to be told twice. I flip over and my feet dip into the hard-packed
earth as I run away from Thresh and Clove and the sound of Cato’s voice. Only
when I reach the woods do I turn back for an instant. Thresh and both large
backpacks are vanishing over the edge of the plain into the area I’ve never seen.
Cato kneels beside Clove, spear in hand, begging her to stay with him. In a
moment, he will realize it’s futile, she can’t be saved. I crash into the trees,
repeatedly swiping away the blood that’s pouring into my eye, fleeing like the wild,
wounded creature I am. After a few minutes, I hear the cannon and I know that
Clove has died, that Cato will be on one of our trails. Either Thresh’s or mine. I’m
seized with terror, weak from my head wound, shaking. I load an arrow, but Cato
can throw that spear almost as far as I can shoot.
Only one thing calms me down. Thresh has Cato’s backpack containing the
thing he needs desperately. If I had to bet, Cato headed out after Thresh, not me.
Still I don’t slow down when I reach the water. I plunge right in, boots still on, and
flounder downstream. I pull off Rue’s socks that I’ve been using for gloves and
press them into my forehead, trying to staunch the flow of blood, but they’re
soaked in minutes.
Somehow I make it back to the cave. I squeeze through the rocks. In the
dappled light, I pull the little orange backpack from my arm, cut open the clasp,
and dump the contents on the ground. One slim box containing one hypodermic
needle. Without hesitating, I jam the needle into Peeta’s arm and slowly press
down on the plunger.
My hands go to my head and then drop to my lap, slick with blood.
The last thing I remember is an exquisitely beautiful green-and-silver moth
landing on the curve of my wrist.
Chapter 21
In the remaining hours before nightfall, I gather rocks and do my best to
camouflage the opening of the cave. It’s a slow and arduous process, but after a
lot of sweating and shifting things around, I’m pretty pleased with my work, The
cave now appears to be part of a larger pile of rocks, like so many in the vicinity. I
can still crawl in to Peeta through a small opening, but it’s undetectable from the
out« side. That’s good, because I’ll need to share that sleeping bag again tonight.
Also, if I don’t make it back from the feast, Peeta will be hidden but not entirely
imprisoned. Although I doubt he can hang on much longer without medicine. If I die
at the feast, District 12 isn’t likely to have a victor.
I make a meal out of the smaller, bonier fish that inhabit the stream down
here, fill every water container and purify it, and clean my weapons. I’ve nine
arrows left in all. I debate leaving the knife with Peeta so he’ll have some
protection while I’m gone, but there’s really no point. He was right about
camouflage being his final defense. But I still might have use for the knife. Who
knows what I’ll encounter?
Here are some things I’m fairly certain of. That at least Cato, Clove, and
Thresh will be on hand when the feast starts. I’m not sure about Foxface since
direct confrontation isn’t her style or her forte. She’s even smaller than I am and
unarmed, unless she’s picked up some weapons recently. She’ll probably be
hanging somewhere nearby, seeing what she can scavenge. But the other three . .
. I’m going to have my hands full. My ability to kill at a distance is my greatest
asset, but I know I’ll have to go right into the thick of things to get that backpack,
the one with the number 12 on it that Claudius Templesmith mentioned.
I watch the sky, hoping for one less opponent at dawn, but nobody appears
tonight. Tomorrow there will be faces up there. Feasts always result in fatalities.
I crawl into the cave, secure my glasses, and curl up next to Peeta. Luckily I
had that good long sleep today. I have to stay awake. I don’t really think anyone
will attack our cave tonight, but I can’t risk missing the dawn.
So cold, so bitterly cold tonight. As if the Gamemakers have sent an infusion of
frozen air across the arena, which may be exactly what they’ve done. I lay next to
Peeta in the bag, trying to absorb every bit of his fever heat. It’s strange to be so
physically close to someone who’s so distant. Peeta might as well be back in the
Capitol, or in District 12, or on the moon right now, he’d be no harder to reach.
I’ve never felt lonelier since the Games began.
Just accept it will be a bad night, I tell myself. I try not to, but I can’t help
thinking of my mother and Prim, won dering if they’ll sleep a wink tonight. At this
late stage in the Games, with an important event like the feast, school will
probably be canceled. My family can either watch on that static-filled old clunker
of a television at home or join the crowds in the square to watch on the big, clear
screens, They’ll have privacy at home but support in the square. People will give
them a kind word, a bit of food if they can spare it. I wonder if the baker has
sought them out, especially now that Peeta and I are a team, and made good on
his promise to keep my sister’s belly full.
Spirits must be running high in District 12. We so rarely have anyone to root for
at this point in the Games. Surely, people are excited about Peeta and me,
especially now that we’re together. If I close my eyes, I can imagine their shouts at
the screens, urging us on. I see their faces — Greasy Sac and Madge and even the
Peacekeepers who buy my meat cheering for us.
And Gale. I know him. He won’t be shouting and cheering. But he’ll be
watching, every moment, every twist and turn, and willing me to come home. I
wonder if he’s hoping that Peeta makes it as well. Gale’s not my boyfriend, but
would he be, if I opened that door? He talked about us running away together. Was
that just a practical calculation of our chances of survival away from the district?
Or something more?
I wonder what he makes of all this kissing.
Through a crack in the rocks, I watch the moon cross the sky. At what I judge
to be about three hours before dawn, I begin final preparations. I’m careful to
leave Peeta with water and the medical kit right beside him. Nothing else will be of
much use if I don’t return, and even these would only prolong his life a short time.
After some debate, I strip him of his jacket and zip it on over my own. He doesn’t
need it. Not now in the sleeping bag with his fever, and during the day, if I’m not
there to remove it, he’ll be roasting in it. My hands are already stiff from cold, so I
take Rue’s spare pair of socks, cut holes for my fingers and thumbs, and pull them
on. It helps anyway. I fill her small pack with some food, a water bottle, and
bandages, tuck the knife in my belt, get my bow and arrows. I’m about to leave
when I remember the importance of sustaining the star-crossed lover routine and I
lean over and give Peeta a long, lingering kiss. I imagine the teary sighs
emanating from the Capitol and pretend to brush away a tear of my own. Then I
squeeze through the opening in the rocks out into the night.
My breath makes small white clouds as it hits the air. It’s as cold as a
November night at home. One where I’ve slipped into the woods, lantern in hand,
to join Gale at some prearranged place where we’ll sit bundled together, sipping
herb tea from metal flasks wrapped in quilting, hoping game will pass our way as
the morning comes on. Oh, Gale, I think. If only you had my back now . . .
I move as fast as I dare. The glasses are quite remarkable, but I still sorely
miss having the use of my left ear. I don’t know what the explosion did, but it
damaged something deep and irreparable. Never mind. If I get home, I’ll be so
stinking rich, I’ll be able to pay someone to do my hearing.
The woods always look different at night. Even with the glasses, everything has
an unfamiliar slant to it. As if the daytime trees and flowers and stones had gone
to bed and sent slightly more ominous versions of themselves to take their places.
I don’t try anything tricky, like taking a new route. I make my way back up the
stream and follow the same path back to Rue’s hiding place near the lake. Along
the way, I see no sign of another tribute, not a puff of breath, not a quiver of a
branch. Either I’m the first to arrive or the others positioned themselves last night.
There’s still more than an hour, maybe two, when I wriggle into the underbrush
and wait for the blood to begin to flow.
I chew a few mint leaves, my stomach isn’t up for much more. Thank
goodness, I have Peeta’s jacket as well as my own. If not, I’d be forced to move
around to stay warm. The sky turns a misty morning gray and still there’s no sign
of the other tributes. It’s not surprising really. Everyone has distinguished
themselves either by strength or deadliness or cunning. Do they suppose, I
wonder, that I have Peeta with me? I doubt Foxface and Thresh even know he was
wounded. All the better if they think he’s covering me when I go in for the
backpack.
But where is it? The arena has lightened enough for me to remove my glasses.
I can hear the morning birds singing. Isn’t it time? For a second, I’m panicked that
I’m at the wrong location. But no, I’m certain I remember Claudius Templesmith
specifying the Cornucopia. And there it is. And here I am. So where’s my feast?
Just as the first ray of sun glints off the gold Cornucopia, there’s a disturbance
on the plain. The ground before the mouth of the horn splits in two and a round
table with a snowy white cloth rises into the arena. On the table sit four
backpacks, two large black ones with the numbers 2 and 11, a medium-size green
one with the number 5, and a tiny orange one — really I could carry it around my
wrist — that must be marked with a 12.
The table has just clicked into place when a figure darts out of the Cornucopia,
snags the green backpack, and speeds off. Foxface! Leave it to her to come up
with such a clever and risky idea! The rest of us are still poised around the plain,
sizing up the situation, and she’s got hers. She’s got us trapped, too, because no
one wants to chase her down, not while their own pack sits so vulnerable on the
table. Foxface must have purposefully left the other packs alone, knowing that to
steal one without her number would definitely bring on a pursuer. That should
have been my strategy! By the lime I’ve worked through the emotions of surprise,
admiration, anger, jealousy, and frustration, I’m watching that reddish mane of
hair disappear into the trees well out of shooting range. Huh. I’m always dreading
the others, but maybe Foxface is the real opponent here.
She’s cost me time, too, because by now it’s clear that I must get to the table
next. Anyone who beats me to it will easily scoop up my pack and be gone.
Without hesitation, I sprint for the table. I can sense the emergence of danger
before I see it. Fortunately, the first knife comes whizzing in on my right side so I
can hear it and I’m able to deflect it with my bow. I turn, drawing back the
bowstring and send an arrow straight at Clove’s heart. She turns just enough to
avoid a fatal hit, but the point punctures her upper left arm. Unfortunately, she
throws with her right, but it’s enough to slow her down a few moments, having to
pull the arrow from her arm, take in the severity of the wound. I keep moving,
positioning the next arrow automatically, as only someone who has hunted for
years can do.
I’m at the table now, my fingers closing over the tiny orange backpack. My
hand slips between the straps and I yank it up on my arm, it’s really too small to fit
on any other part of my anatomy, and I’m turning to fire again when the second
knife catches me in the forehead. It slices above my right eyebrow, opening a gash
that sends a gush running down my face, blinding my eye, filling my mouth with
the sharp, metallic taste of my own blood. I stagger backward but still manage to
send my readied arrow in the general direction of my assailant. I know as it leaves
my hands it will miss. And then Clove slams into me, knocking me flat on my back,
pinning my shoulders to the ground, with her knees.
This is it, I think, and hope for Prim’s sake it will be fast. But Clove means to
savor the moment. Even feels she has time. No doubt Cato is somewhere nearby,
guarding her, waiting for Thresh and possibly Peeta.
“Where’s your boyfriend, District Twelve? Still hanging on?” she asks.
Well, as long as we’re talking I’m alive. “He’s out there now. Hunting Cato,” I
snarl at her. Then I scream at the top of my lungs. “Peeta!”
Clove jams her fist into my windpipe, very effectively cutting off my voice. But
her head’s whipping from side to side, and I know for a moment she’s at least
considering I’m telling the truth. Since no Peeta appears to save me, she turns
back to me.
“Liar,” she says with a grin. “He’s nearly dead. Cato knows where he cut him.
You’ve probably got him strapped up in some tree while you try to keep his heart
going. What’s in the pretty little backpack? That medicine for Lover Boy? Too bad
he’ll never get it.”
Clove opens her jacket. It’s lined with an impressive array of knives. She
carefully selects an almost dainty-looking number with a cruel, curved blade. “I
promised Cato if he let me have you, I’d give the audience a good show.”
I’m struggling now in an effort to unseat her, but it’s no use. She’s too heavy
and her lock on me too tight.
“Forget it, District Twelve. We’re going to kill you. Just like we did your pathetic
little ally . . . what was her name? The one who hopped around in the trees? Rue?
Well, first Rue, then you, and then I think we’ll just let nature take care of Lover
Boy. How does that sound?” Clove asks. “Now, where to start?”
She carelessly wipes away the blood from my wound with her jacket sleeve.
For a moment, she surveys my face, tilting it from side to side as if it’s a block of
wood and she’s deciding exactly what pattern to carve on it. I attempt to bite her
hand, but she grabs the hair on the top of my head, forcing me back to the ground.
“I think . . .” she almost purrs. “I think we’ll start with your mouth.” I clamp my
teeth together as she teasingly traces the outline of my lips with the tip of the
blade.
I won’t close my eyes. The comment about Rue has filled me with fury, enough
fury I think to die with some dignity. As my last act of defiance, I will stare her
down as long as I can see, which will probably not be an extended period of time,
but I will stare her down, I will not cry out. I will die, in my own small way,
undefeated.
“Yes, I don’t think you’ll have much use for your lips anymore. Want to blow
Lover Boy one last kiss?” she asks, I work up a mouthful of blood and saliva and
spit it in her face. She flushes with rage. “All right then. Let’s get started.”
I brace myself for the agony that’s sure to follow. But as I feel the tip open the
first cut at my lip, some great form yanks Clove from my body and then she’s
screaming. I’m too stunned at first, too unable to process what has happened. Has
Peeta somehow come to my rescue? Have the Gamemakers sent in some wild
animal to add to the fun? Has a hovercraft inexplicably plucked her into the air?
But when I push myself up on my numb arms, I see it’s none of the above.
Clove is dangling a foot off the ground, imprisoned in Thresh’s arms. I let out a
gasp, seeing him like that, towering over me, holding Clove like a rag doll. I
remember him as big, but he seems more massive, more powerful than I even
recall. If anything, he seems to have gained weight in the arena. He flips Clove
around and flings her onto the ground.
When he shouts, I jump, never having heard him speak above a mutter.
“What’d you do to that little girl? You kill her?”
Clove is scrambling backward on all fours, like a frantic insect, too shocked to
even call for Cato. “No! No, it wasn’t me!”
“You said her name. I heard you. You kill her?” Another thought brings a fresh
wave of rage to his features. “You cut her up like you were going to cut up this girl
here?”
“No! No, I —” Clove sees the stone, about the size of a small loaf of bread in
Thresh’s hand and loses it. “Cato!” she screeches. “Cato!”
“Clove!” I hear Cato’s answer, but he’s too far away, I can tell that much, to do
her any good. What was he doing? Trying to get Foxface or Peeta? Or had he been
lying in wait for Thresh and just badly misjudged his location?
Thresh brings the rock down hard against Clove’s temple. It’s not bleeding, but
I can see the dent in her skull and I know that she’s a goner. There’s still life in her
now though, in the rapid rise and fall of her chest, the low moan escaping her lips.
When Thresh whirls around on me, the rock raised, I know it’s no good to run.
And my bow is empty, the last loaded arrow having gone in Clove’s direction. I’m
trapped in the glare of his strange golden brown eyes. “What’d she mean? About
Rue being your ally?”
“I — I — we teamed up. Blew up the supplies. I tried to save her, I did. But he
got there first. District One,” I say. Maybe if he knows I helped Rue, he won’t
choose some slow, sadistic end for me.
“And you killed him?” he demands.
“Yes. I killed him. And buried her in flowers,” I say. “And I sang her to sleep.”
Tears spring in my eyes. The tension, the fight goes out of me at the memory.
And I’m overwhelmed by Rue, and the pain in my head, and my fear of Thresh, and
the moaning of the dying girl a few feet away.
“To sleep?” Thresh says gruffly.
“To death. I sang until she died,” I say. “Your district. . . they sent me bread.”
My hand reaches up but not for an arrow that I know I’ll never reach. Just to wipe
my nose. “Do it fast, okay, Thresh?”
Conflicting emotions cross Thresh’s face. He lowers the rock and points at me,
almost accusingly. “Just this one time, I let you go. For the little girl. You and me,
we’re even then. No more owed. You understand?”
I nod because I do understand. About owing. About hating it. I understand that
if Thresh wins, he’ll have to go back and face a district that has already broken all
the rules to thank me, and he is breaking the rules to thank me, too. And I
understand that, for the moment, Thresh is not going to smash in my skull.
“Clove!” Cato’s voice is much nearer now. I can tell by the pain in it that he
sees her on the ground.
“You better run now, Fire Girl,” says Thresh.
I don’t need to be told twice. I flip over and my feet dip into the hard-packed
earth as I run away from Thresh and Clove and the sound of Cato’s voice. Only
when I reach the woods do I turn back for an instant. Thresh and both large
backpacks are vanishing over the edge of the plain into the area I’ve never seen.
Cato kneels beside Clove, spear in hand, begging her to stay with him. In a
moment, he will realize it’s futile, she can’t be saved. I crash into the trees,
repeatedly swiping away the blood that’s pouring into my eye, fleeing like the wild,
wounded creature I am. After a few minutes, I hear the cannon and I know that
Clove has died, that Cato will be on one of our trails. Either Thresh’s or mine. I’m
seized with terror, weak from my head wound, shaking. I load an arrow, but Cato
can throw that spear almost as far as I can shoot.
Only one thing calms me down. Thresh has Cato’s backpack containing the
thing he needs desperately. If I had to bet, Cato headed out after Thresh, not me.
Still I don’t slow down when I reach the water. I plunge right in, boots still on, and
flounder downstream. I pull off Rue’s socks that I’ve been using for gloves and
press them into my forehead, trying to staunch the flow of blood, but they’re
soaked in minutes.
Somehow I make it back to the cave. I squeeze through the rocks. In the
dappled light, I pull the little orange backpack from my arm, cut open the clasp,
and dump the contents on the ground. One slim box containing one hypodermic
needle. Without hesitating, I jam the needle into Peeta’s arm and slowly press
down on the plunger.
My hands go to my head and then drop to my lap, slick with blood.
The last thing I remember is an exquisitely beautiful green-and-silver moth
landing on the curve of my wrist.
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