The next morning she is woken up earlier than normal. The tribute from District 3 and her set up the bombs where the group tells them to. The boy doesn't let Peeta see how to set the charges. Peeta understands why, if she knew how to do it, he would outlive his resourcefulness. That takes up a good portion of the day. While he starts to set up some of the bombs, Peeta is put in charge of moving their supplies into the area.
By the time the sun is starting to set, Peeta is tired and sore. She's given the early morning shift, so she falls asleep quickly; the sky was barely dark.
Clove wakes her in the morning for her shift. Peeta decides she likes this time the best. Everything is quiet and she gets to see the sunrise.
When the rest of the careers wake, they eat some food. Glimmer and Clove invite her to go with them to the lake to wash. The three leave the other three tributes at the camp. Once again Peeta is left carrying their things while the careers have their weapons. They get to the lake and all wash at the same time.
"I bet you're missing those shower now, huh, 12?" Peeta nods at Clove.
"To be fair, I'm missing them too." Glimmer says. "At this point I'm even missing the Remake Center."
This makes Peeta chuckle and Clove and Glimmer both look at her strange. She stops quickly. "What?"
"Your real smile is cute." Glimmer explains. "Not as fake looking as your other one." Clove doesn't say anything to disagree.
Soon the three decide to head back to the camp. As they start to walk back, Clove sees something in the trees. It's one of the tributes. Glimmer is sent to go run back and tell the other careers about the find. Clove tells Peeta to give her a boost up into the tree. Peeta does so reluctantly. Clove doesn't make it very far into the tree before she demands Peeta help her down. Peeta agrees to climb the tree, having a pretty good idea of who is at the top of it.
While she's still close to Clove she shouts, "I don't have a weapon!"
Clove just scoffs. "I'm not giving you a weapon. You're a giant. If you manage to get close to them, you can pull them down."
Peeta frowns, but continues climbing. She wasn't yelling for Clove's sake. By the time she gets close enough to the other tribute, she can hear Glimmer and Cato getting closer to the tree.
"Hey Delvin." She says quietly.
Delvin smirks. "Glad to see you're alive."
"Won't be for long." She says jerking her heads towards the careers.
Delvin pulls out a makeshift spear, a branch with a knife tied to the end of it. "Eh. Wait for a sign and try to break a few branches on the way down, YOU TRAITOR!" He shouts the last part as he thrusts the spear towards her.
It barely grazes her shoulder. It hurts, but it won't kill her. She lets herself lose her footing and slip a few feet down the tree. When she gets a grip on a less than sturdy branch she pulls on the thing until it breaks. She lets herself slip further down the tree, this time grabbing a thin brach that breaks off in her hand immediately. From there she lets herself fall right to the ground, landing on her back.
Clove looks at her with disdain. Cato and Glimmer get to the tree then and look at Peeta on the ground.
"Do you have bandages?" She says weakly.
Glimmer shakes her head. "What'd they yell at you?"
"It was Delvin… The other tribute from 12." Peeta takes off her jacket to get a better look at the cut that's still bleeding a little. She notices that her hands look like a mess. "He called me a traitor."
"He's just mad you'll get further in the games than he does." Glimmer replies. "Why don't you and Clove go get some supplies and let Marvel what is going on? Then bring us some food back."
Clove doesn't seem happy to be listening to the orders, but she goes along. Peeta leaves her jacket at the tree. She hopes the sign Delvin was talking about doesn't come while she's gone.
When they get to the camp, Peeta wraps her wounds and her hands. Then she and Clove pack two bags. Marvel agrees to stay at the camp with their other supplies.
They head back to the tree. Cato and Glimmer are both irritated when they get back. Neither has been able to get up the tree or shoot Delvin with the bow. The sun has already set, so they decide to bundle up and go to sleep.
Delvin decides to make this hard for them all by whistling. Birds repeat this melody and make the forest louder than normal.
Peeta wonders if this is the sign, but it goes on too long to be one. The careers are irritated by it, but they all manage to get some sleep.
Early in the morning, when the sky is still dark, something small, hard, and cold hits Peeta on the head. When she recognizes it as Delvin's ring, she gets up quickly. She slips the ring on her finger. She leaves everything behind and creeps away as quietly as possible. When she's about 30 yards away, she hears something behind her. She whips around trying to see what it is. Cato is following her.
"Where you going 12?" Peeta sees that he doesn't have a weapon with him. He could just as easily kill her with his hands, but it might take him a little longer.
"I had to pee." Peeta lies.
Cato seems to consider her answer. He steps closer to her. She backs away. Soon she's backed up against a tree and Cato is crowding her space.
"What are you scared of 12?" He says in a low and dangerous voice.
"You." Peeta admits.
Cato chuckles. "We're in an alliance. I won't hurt you." Cato grabs onto her forearms. "Yet."
And then Cato kisses her. It's not the turn of events she saw happening. She stands there dumbstruck for a few moments. It isn't her first kiss, but it angers her that it will be her last. She struggles against Cato's hold, and that just seems to just excite him. He bites down hard on her lip breaking the skin.
Peeta opens her mouth in protest and Cato sticks her tongue in her mouth. She bends her arms and tries to claw at his, but it doesn't work well.
But suddenly there is a loud thump and then screams. This causes Cato to turn around and loosen his grip. It is the chance Peeta needs.
She grabs Cato by the jacket and knees him in the gut. He stumbles back and Peeta punches him the face. She doesn't wait for him to recover, she starts running.
She runs until she is sure no one has followed her. Then she tries to catch her breathe. She wishes she had water, but she didn't bring anything with her. Soon a canon goes off. Peeta hopes it's not Delvin.
Soon she hears a whistle that Delvin had done during the night. She looks up hoping to see her best friend. Instead of the blond, Peeta sees a different tribute. It's Rue.
Rue shimmies down the tree next to Peeta.
"Are you okay?" The younger girl asks.
Peeta looks at her shoulder. Since it's been bandaged, it doesn't feel too bad. "Yeah, Delvin mostly did this for show."
"I meant your face."
Peeta licks her lip then, feeling the wound. It's bled more that she thought it would. "You should see the other guy." Peeta hopes she broke his nose.
Rue gives her some of the water and they wait. The younger girl explains Delvin's plan. If everything went how it was supposed to, a nest of tracker jackers should have fallen on the careers sleeping under him. He was supposed to meet with Rue later.
"He said if I found you, I could trust you." Rue adds. "But I already knew that."
Both girls spend the rest of the day waiting for Delvin to appear. Finally Peeta decides to go look for him. She carefully makes her way back to where the careers had set up camp. There is a nest on the ground, but all the jackers are gone. She keeps her eyes out for anyone, but sees nothing. She finds a blood trail not too far from the tree and decides to follow it.
When she finds Delvin she starts to cry.
"Cut that out." He says weakly.
She falls to her knees near him and tries to find where the bleeding is coming from. He groans when she touches him and eventually pushes her hands away.
"I'm glad you're okay." Delvin says with a grin.
"What happened?"
"The little one with the knives. The nest landed on the pretty one, then and then the other ran off. The people came to collect the dead girl, so I thought it was safe to come down." Delvin coughs up some blood. "I was wrong."
"I found you though. We can go and find Rue and then I can go steal supplies from the careers. I know they have bandages." She starts to unravel the bandages on her hand. "We can use these for no-"
"Bandages aren't gonna help Peeta. I already bled out too much."
Peeta shook her head. "No, it'll be fine Delvin. It'll be okay. You'll be okay. You have to be. You still have to get married."
Delvin laughed and then started to cough up more blood. "I'm glad you found me Peeta. But I can't move. I don't have much longer."
"Don't say that."
"I need you to give Madge the ring back."
"You give it back to her!" Peeta says angrily. "I'm not leaving you here."
Delvin sighs. "Fine. Go grab my spear. I know it fell somewhere near the tree. I can use the branch to support myself, and you can use the knife in case we run into anyone." Peeta nods and stands. Delvin reaches a hand out towards her and grabs her wrist. "Good Luck." He squeezes.
"I'm just going back to the tree. I'll be back in like 3 minutes." Peeta runs back towards the tree. She reaches down to grab the spear. The branch has been broken, but the knife is still there. She is looking around for another stick to use when she hears the canon.
She rushes back to where Delvin was and finds him dead.
Peeta screams.
With tears in her eyes she runs as fast as she can back to where her and Rue had met the first time. Rue comes down out of the tree and looks around for Delvin until she realizes Peeta is sobbing. The younger girl holds onto Peeta while she cries.
Night falls and Peeta does little except drink some water and eat some of the berries Rue finds.
That night the two share a sleeping bag. Peeta cries herself to sleep even though she thought she didn't have any more tears left.