In the Seam

Gale and his family watch the Games ceremonies on their TV the night before the tributes enter the arena. They have seen Katniss transformed to the smiling Girl on Fire, blowing kisses with one hand, clutching Peeta's hand with the other, and wondered what else has changed within her. Tonight she's transformed again, glowing like the embers of a fire. Gale and his mother are both staggered by Katniss's beauty, and Gale has also to conceal his rising desire for this Girl on Fire. His face grows hot and his ears ring as he watches the exotic beauty who was Katniss, his own girl and hunting partner only six days ago.

Like any 17-year-old boy Gale doesn't want his feelings to be obvious to everyone, but he knows that his mother is aware of his love for Katniss and that she approves. A week ago Hazelle was looking forward to the eventual wedding of Gale and Katniss as more than just a wedding; Gale's marriage to Katniss would unite and perhaps finally heal two families shattered by the loss of their fathers and husbands.

Hazelle also knows that Katniss does not share Gale's feelings yet. Katniss is young for her age in many ways, having become head of her family so early. Hazelle assumes Katniss's worries about feeding her family crowd out thoughts of boys and love and flirting and her eventual marriage. Nevertheless Hazelle has always assumed Katniss would eventually chose Gale because he is her best friend and the only young man in a position to gain her trust. Now all Hazelle's hopes and wishes mean nothing unless Katniss returns from the Games alive. Even then everything would change in ways Hazelle cannot foresee.

Katniss's three-minute interview is too short for Gale and Hazelle, though all the other interviews seemed long. Gale is surprised by Katniss' frivolity and banter with the audience and the Gamesmakers. As she spins he knows he'll dream of catching her spinning, fumbling with the jeweled dress to uncover this new and beautiful Katniss and satisfy his hunger for her. His musing is interrupted by Peeta's interview, which he tunes in to just in time to hear Peeta's declaration of love. He sees Katniss blush, her face turned from the cameras in her confusion. He sees no sign that she is pleased by Peeta's feelings, but he is angered nonetheless, that he is so far away and cannot plead his own cause before Katniss's thoughts turn from him and the home he wants to make with her.

Gales has to get out of the house into the dark night. He rises abruptly and leaves the house, slamming the door behind him. He stalks through the quiet streets, carefully avoiding Peacekeepers, thinking and fuming and unwillingly captured by a fierce desire for the glowing Girl on Fire.

At the Mentors' headquarters

As the circles bring tributes up into the arena Haymitch leans forward, eagerly this year, to watch the first moves of his two protégées. He is torn between hoping they'll follow his advice and hoping they'll think for themselves. Both will be necessary to make it home alive and only the outcome will show when it's best to do one or the other. The gong sounds and the other mentors begin cheering and hollering in support of their own tributes but Haymitch keeps his thoughts to himself:

"What the – ? What's she doing . . . OK, she wants the silver bow and arrows . . . so she's got a pack and a knife. Get outa there! Git! OK, she's away. Go find water like I told you to. Good luck sweetheart.

"What the – ? What's he doing? This looks dangerous. This looks stupid, he's gonna get hisself killed. Wait, wait, they're talking? OK – well, now that was a good move against Clover! Very smooth. Didn't know he was that gooda wrassler. What the – ? What are they, having a meeting? That's got to be a Hunger Games first . . .

"Well, ain't that a bite in the ass. He's joined the careers. The boy who's in love with Katniss has joined her enemies. Let's hope he's got a strategy, 'cause I cain't figger out what he's up to."

Haymitch is cares more for both of his tributes than he will show. But only one can win, and between Katniss and Peeta, his money is on Katniss. She has the skills, she will be hard to catch, and when she gets hold of those bow and arrows, which he has no doubt she will do, she can be as lethal as Cato as long as she can be ruthless enough. And Haymitch thinks the girl who could lose her temper with the Gameskeepers will probably be plenty ruthless enough.

In the meantime, he keeps an eye on Peeta, trying to discern the method in his madness.

Peeta's first moves in the Games

As Katniss disappears into the woods Peeta turns his attention to the Cornucopia. The three career boys turn on Thresh immediately and fight what looks like a losing battle. The area around them is scattered with knifes, a spear and an axe; Thresh has disarmed his attackers and they are fighting hand-to-hand. One boy is doubled over and retching, another is struggling to stand, and a third is trying to protect his head from Thresh's blows. All four are bloody and bruised and beat up.

The girls from the career districts arm themselves straightaway and attack all tributes who approach the cornucopia. The career girls are fighting more successfully than the boys, three well-trained and well-armed girls against eleven tributes with no experience in fighting, most of them preoccupied by trying to find a weapon or supplies in the cornucopia. Most of them look to Peeta like they should have run for the woods as Haymitch had advised him to do.

Peeta walks around to the boy from District 3, who is still standing indecisively on his circle. He describes his idea for the land-mines to the guy, whose name is Anto. They each dig up a land-mine. Anto recognizes them from the factory he works in and tells Peeta that even a tiny weight within 3 inches of the mine will set it off, and the blast radius is about 18 inches. He starts to rearm it while Peeta keeps an eye on the fighting.

Thresh has one tribute on the ground with his foot on the boy's throat. He raises his foot and stamps so hard that Peeta can hear the crack and crunch of breaking bones. Before the other two boys can react Thresh turns and sprints into the tall grass across from the woodlands and disappears. Cato and the boy from District 1 collapse, gasping and bleeding and spent.

Two career girls turn their attention to Peeta and Anto, the last two tributes standing uninjured. Clove runs at Peeta with a knife in each hand, but Peeta is the "takedown artist" in the wrestling club in District 12 and though Clove thinks he is completely unprepared, in fact he's ready for her. In a burst of street-fighting countered by wrestling moves Clove manages to slash Peeta's arm before he throws her face down on the ground with his knee on her back. Glimmer stalks up to Anto while trying to fit an arrow onto the silver bow. She sneers at him "Do you want to be my target practice for this thing?" Peeta answers for him, "He's rearmed that landmine he's holding. If you hit him you'll probably die in the blast."

Glimmer and Clove are good at fighting, not so good at thinking. Both girls are beautiful, strong and cruel, but neither is very bright. Glimmer yells to the other career tributes "Cato! Marvel! Come over here!"

Peeta calls out as they approach, "District 3 rearmed the landmine under his circle. He's armed with that landmine so walk carefully. Listen, we have a proposal for you. If you don't like the proposal, we can fight after we talk."

"You're bluffing."

"Am I?"

"Let go of Clove."

"If she tosses the knives away."

They all stand in silence until Cato says " Throw 'em, Clove." She hesitates for a few seconds before she tosses them and Peeta steps back a pace to let her scramble to her feet.

"So what's this proposal?"

Peeta gestured to Anto, the boy from District 3. "He can rearm these things. We could take all the weapons and supplies from the cornucopia and use these mines to booby-trap the stuff so no other tribute could get at it – or if they try, they die. Or we could mine the field where Thresh is. Anyway, we'll give you 12 armed mines if we join your alliance."

Marvel turned to Peeta. "Why you, what have you got, loverboy?"

"It was my idea."

"What else?"

"You lost your guy from District 4."

"So?"

"I'm about the same size and weight."

"How about you show us where your girlfriend is?"

"I know the kind of places she will probably hang out in, but I don't know any more about the arena than you do."

"So – what? – were you scamming everybody with that love story?"

'No, just answering the questions. Truthfully."

"So why would you help us find her?"

Peeta shrugs. "Self-defense I guess. I suppose she'd kill me if she had to, she's not in love with me. And I certainly don't want to be the one to kill her."

"How did she get that 11?"

"I think she threw something at the Gamesmakers. I heard our mentor say something about spunk counts as much as skill."

Cato says "yeah, right" sarcastically and stands for a moment, glaring belligerently at Peeta. Peeta holds his gaze without expression until Cato says "We won't protect you or your buddy. You get all that stuff out of the Cornucopia and set the traps around it AND stay around to fetch stuff for us so we don't risk the mines, then yeah, we won't kill you." He smirks and winks at the girls. "Yet. Anto stays with the supplies and you hunt with us, Loverboy."

Peeto just nods curtly. Without talking he and Anto dig up the remaining mines while the career tributes sort through supplies for food and first aid kits. The careers relax and eat and bandage each other as Peeta and Anto get to work. Anto collects the landmines and a few tools from the Cornucopia and laboriously rearms the mines about 30 feet from the others. Peeta walks to and fro bringing supplies and equipment from the Cornucopia. As he fetches and carries he sorts through the supplies and chooses two sheathed knives and the best medical kit for his belt, and stuffs matches and packets of food in his pockets. Whenever he's out of sight from other tributes he studies items in the medical kit and is amazed to find tiny injections of antibiotics and anti-tracker jacker venom, pills to take if you have to drink the water untreated, something called advanced wound care, as well as aspirin and antiseptic rinse and bandages. After mastering the usage instructions he stows the most valuable items in his pockets under food and matches.

Then he and Anto carefully place and mark the mines while the careers drowse in the sun. Cato wakes as the day cools into evening and hustles the others awake and ready to hunt down the tributes who got away.

Anto stays with the booby-trapped supplies. He saved one landmine for himself, which he can use as a grenade, and thanks to Peeta's great idea he now hopes to simply outlast all the others.

Peeta is pleased with the success of his plan. The careers have placed themselves in a vulnerable position and don't realize it: without him or Anto they will have to risk themselves to get their supplies and they don't realize how sensitive the landmines are. Peeta doesn't expect the careers to put up with him very long. He intends to escape them as soon as he can, preferably with the bow and arrow Glimmer now carries. If he can take the bow and arrow to Katniss, he hopes she will team up with him.

As they arm themselves for the hunt, Cato quizzes Peeta about Katniss.

Cato insists "You must know how she got that 11."

"No, I don't. Did you guys tell each other what you did for the private session?"

"Weren't you coached together? Her and you ate lunch together, like you was love buddies."

"Yeah, our mentor wanted us to do that. He wouldn't tell us why. From the training I don't know any more about her than you guys do."

Glimmer said "Well, I saw her throw a spear. She was pathetic."

"What does she do in your District?"

"I don't hang out with her at school, nobody does. She's a loner."

"Don't kids work in your District?"

"The town kids do. She's from the mining families, and they don't work until they are 18, when they go into the mines. Well, the boys are miners. I don't know what girls do."

The careers' tempers don't improve as they hunt though the woods without finding even a trace of the other tributes. They have no way of knowing that three of the girls are clustered near Katniss. Rue, Foxface and the girl from District 8 all have the same plan, to follow Katniss wherever she goes for a few days, in the hope of teaming with her or otherwise learning from her. The boy from District 10 went from the cornucopia into the woods near the grass, where he thought he could best hide. Katniss, Rue and Foxface are all in trees; while Katniss sleeps, Rue and Foxface shiver and thirst. The freezing girl from District 8 gives in and lights a fire around 3:00, which draws the hunters straight to her. Wood smoke is a powerful scent and the hunters are drawn to it before they even realize they smell it.

During the hunt Cato and Marvel spell it out for Peeta: he will kill their first victim that night, even if it's Katniss, or they will kill him. Peeta had guessed this would happen, and is sure that they won't find Katniss. He says with sufficient nonchalance, "I've killed before," which is true in a way. At home his dad and brothers and he butcher their own livestock, so he has killed chickens and pigs and knows to aim for the big blood vessels in the neck.

When they creep up on the girl from District 8 asleep over her fire, Clove and Glimmer wake her as Peeta steps behind her, just for the fun of watching her die aware that she being killed, and for the fun of watching Peeta kill, aware that his victim is aware he is killing her. Peeta had foreseen this as well, and gets through the ordeal without cracking. As they move on and no cannon fires, he returns to the girl, knowing she's no longer conscious and will die soon when enough blood has drained from her body. He holds her hand till the cannon booms then leaves with her small pack.

Peeta's anger at the Games bubbles up. He hates himself for having killed that girl and yet it was kill or be killed in an utterly artificial situation. But he has to be cool in front of Cato and the career pack.

The next day, as Katniss and her shadows march farther and farther away from the lake in search of water, the careers and Peeta alternately hunt and rest, hunt and rest. The careers do not think of trees as hiding places, and Peeta doesn't know Katniss climbs trees. It's not until after the fire, when they actually see Katniss scramble up a tree, that the careers and Peeta realize they've been overlooking an important part of the arena.

Cato and the career girls are infuriated by Katniss's verbal and physical victory over them but Marvel calms them down. "We'll get her in the morning. We'll set fire to the tree, chop it down, whatever it takes. Relax!" Peeta says nothing. All night his mind goes round and round and he can't think of anything at all but what a mess he's got himself into.

In the morning he's awake, so he's the first to see and hear the tracker jacker nest tumbling down, and he instinctively runs. When he hears Clove and Cato and Marvel behind him yelling "to the lake" he realizes that he's running from tracker jackers and reaches for his anti-tracker jacker venom injector. As soon as a tracker jacker stings him, he jams the tiny needle into his thigh and trips (on purpose) so as to hide the small instrument. He picks up a few more stings on the way to the lake, and they swell and hurt locally, but his mind remains clear.

Cato and Clove beat him to the lake, they are submerged to the neck when Peeta reaches the end of the woods. Peeta's got five stings, but the tracker jackers are gone now, and with Cato in the lake and under the influence this might be his chance to grab the bow and arrow and break away from the careers. He reverses direction so fast he doesn't see Cato come after him, but he hears a splash from the lake and the roar of Cato's temper. As Cato sees it, Peeta's "girlfriend" Katniss made Cato look a fool twice and she bested him in battle as well. Peeta's going to pay for that. Peeta has the advantage of speed on the way back to the tracker jacker nest, since the venom isn't messing up his head, and he hears Cato crashing and blundering slowly behind him. But when Peeta reaches the tracker jacker tree he finds Katniss still there, struggling to string an arrow. She has several tracker jacker stings and she's already hallucinating.

"What are you still doing here?" Peeta hisses. "Are you mad? Get up! Get up!" He prods Katniss to stand with the shaft of a spear and shoves her with all his strength. "Run!" he screams, "Run!" Behind him Cato slashes his way through the brush. He's badly stung under one eye, and in other places as well, but a big body can withstand more venom than a smaller one and Cato isn't hallucinating as badly as Katniss yet. Katniss flees too quickly for Cato to follow, so Cato focuses on Peeta again. He slashes his sword fiercely, almost too fast for Peeta to keep out of range, and too fast for Peeta to see behind himself to pick a path to safety. Peeta's back slams against a tree as Cato's sword tip cuts him viciously across the upper thigh and both fall to the ground. Cato is totally under the influence of tracker jacker venom now, while Peeta is savagely wounded.

With Cato fully delusional from the venom, Peeta is free to take care of himself and his injury. He douses the wound with the antiseptic rinse and applies the pressure bandage right over his pants, like it says in the directions. He does a limping, lurching crab-walk to get away from Cato's moaning and shouting.

He is not far from the lake but he can't make it there and back and put enough distance between himself and his new enemies. While Clove, Cato and Marvel are out of their minds on tracker jacker venom, Peeta has maybe two days to crawl far enough away that they won't find him. He has four tiny shots of antibiotics. He'll have to depend on what Glimmer and the girl from District 4 had in their packs for food, water and warmth. He inches over to their camping site and rifles through the stuff they left behind. There are two sleeping bags on the ground and a water bottle they'd been sharing, but the packs contain mostly weapons and only small packets of snack foods. Peeta will be hungry but he will be warm. His most important task now is to get away from here, and find a place with water where he can rest until his luck turns one way or the other.