The anthem has long since played, and there are no lights in the arena save ours tonight. It's strange to be surrounded by artificial darkness. Black like coal or burnt bread, the sky unbroken by the normal celestial configurations. The Careers don't bother to make a fire, because Cato intends to spend most of the night hunting Tributes, knowing we are the only ones bold enough to move through the arena at these hours. I guess they don't think District 3 might need one—or they don't care.
I'm somewhat comforted that we thought to leave the stack of sleeping bags inside the mouth of the Cornucopia instead of moving them with the rest of the supplies. At least he'll have that—since he's staying behind, again. Mostly because Cato doesn't want him tagging along. Physically-speaking, the boy's more of a liability than an asset, which is all Cato sees. Careers look for the obvious, surface-level benefits in their alliances, but not much deeper. And not necessarily mutual. They'll keep him around for awhile to manage and protect the supplies—and long enough to make sure the reactivated mines function properly.
But there's no way to know exactly how long the fragile dependence we constructed will last. I know I'm only around because they still don't have what they want most. Katniss.
I sit with my knees pulled up to my chest, my body tensely coiled. My sword lies next to me, and my hand rests on the cool earth beside it, fidgeting. I shine my flashlight ahead, watching Marvel and Cato leisurely finish their last tins, hoping they thought to set some aside for the trek so I don't have to venture back through the minefield again tonight. My water bottles are full and secure in my belt loops, and I have a few tins of food in my jacket, though I can't imagine eating them. My stomach constricts every time my eyes drift back to the woods. I worry about what we'll find—or what we won't.
If we find her, I have to distract them or draw them away—or fight them. I'm not optimistic about any of those options. But if we don't find her, their patience with me will be drawn very thin, at best, which means I'll have fewer and fewer opportunities to subvert the Careers and act on her behalf. And for the life of me, I just don't know what to do next.
Clove stands restlessly to her feet, and I swing my flashlight around to catch her itchy fingers fumbling with her jacket, the place where her knives are kept. "Come on, Cato," she demands impatiently. "Let's get going. It's dark now. Been dark," she adds with heavy emphasis.
"Yah, alright," he says, standing to his feet and stretching.
The rest of us follow his lead with only a minor amount of grumbling—mostly under the breath, because no one wants to annoy those two. Even Marvel, strong and skilled as he is, doesn't cross Cato. We collect our weapons of choice, and Cato fumbles in his pocket for a match so District 4 can light her torch. When the flame is burning brightly, casting a mix of flickering orange light and shadows over our faces, he turns to me and says expectantly, "Where to tonight, Lover Boy?"
I exhale deeply. I expected this, though that didn't enable me to be any better prepared with an attractive, new strategy. Honestly, what I'm about to say seems like common sense, but I've got to sell it like it's more.
"Well," I say, stalling as my eyes scan the treeline, "we took the line on the far right of the wooded area last time and found there weren't any good places to hide or set up camp." I sweep the trees with my flashlight and continue thoughtfully, brow furrowed in concentration. "So even if she'd crossed through that terrain, I don't think she'd stay there. I'd suggest going straight ahead tonight. Directly into the woods. See if we come across anything different."
Cato's watching me closely, arms folded across his chest, and I rush to add, "I definitely think we've got to keep looking for a water source. She hasn't been forced out to the lake, so she must have found one out there. And if she's found one out there," I pause, my voice low, "she won't be far from it."
Clove nods vigorously and prods, her voice edgy, "Come on, Cato. It's as good a plan as any. I want to move."
He lifts his chin in agreement, and she grins malevolently. Marvel grabs his spear and lets out a loud whoop. Without waiting for further instruction or questioning, I head straight for the woods at an easy jog. Their excitement will drive them initially, but I know the pace won't last long, especially with Glimmer and District 4 just straggling along at the back of the pack.
The trees are scattered, much like the far side of the woods, but the ground remains flat, for which I am thankful. The descent down that steep slope was very difficult to navigate—and even harder on the return trip.
It's not long, maybe an hour, before everyone slows to a walk. There's not much to see in the dark, but with the more manageable pace, I'm able to point out changes—or disturbances—in the terrain. At first, they're mostly imagined. But after awhile, it really does begin to change noticeably. The trees are thicker, and there is more brush and growth under foot. At times I even have to use my sword to hack through branches, vines, bushes. The earth becomes softer, and I can feel my heels sink into its yielding nature rather than being harshly rebuffed by its firmness.
I stop for a second, rocking my boots heel-to-toe over the forgiving ground. Cato presses against my back and growls, "What?"
"Do you feel that?" I ask quietly, shining my flashlight on my feet.
"Feel what?" Marvel asks curiously, coming up on my other shoulder.
"The ground. How it's getting softer," I explain, sweeping the light at waist level now. "And see how the vegetation's getting thicker—," I add intently.
"So what," Glimmer retorts from the rear of the group, clearly bored.
"What's it mean, Lover Boy?" Cato sneers, the side of his face breaking into my peripheral vision.
"It means—there's water somewhere around here," I say, matter of fact, trying to keep my voice calm and even, though I'm clenching the hilt of my sword anxiously to my side.
I paid attention to the Capitol trainers when they gave tips on survival skills. Figured it would be useful—since I didn't actually have any. And how to find water had seemed an especially important and essential piece of information at the time. My attentiveness is paying off now—I just don't know what the pay off will be.
"Excellent," Cato says, and I can almost hear his lips curl. He smacks me roughly on the back, and the force of it knocks me forward. So I press onward, taking the not-so-subtle hint.
I can feel their palpable energy cut through the cold air and the silence. They don't have to say anything. It's in the heightened breath and heavy footfall. Cato and Clove begin to press past me, no longer relying on me to lead as they instinctively sense they are closing in on their prey. Cato aggressively slashes through the dark with his sword, not so much to ease the journey as to make sure nothing slows us down or gets in our way.
But we do slow down, eventually, because the air begins to feel thicker, somehow. It's harder to take full, satisfying breaths, though I'm not sure why.
Suddenly, Marvel cries out, "Smoke! I smell smoke!"
We all freeze, and Clove hisses, "Yes." The word sizzles through the pack, and they begin looking around excitedly, trying to determine the direction from which it comes.
"Do you see anything?" District 4 asks expectantly, holding her torch aloft and squinting in the dark.
"No," Cato answers in frustration, adjusting his strange glasses. "Everything just looks—brighter."
I stand still in the center of their chaos, uncertain and on edge. There's definitely a distinctive burning smell in the air. The charged feeling takes on substance now that I can qualify it with more than one sense. But it still feels, smells—different—somehow. My brow furrows in concern and hesitation. I slowly rotate my position. The pungent aroma doesn't seem to waft toward us from just one direction. No. In fact, it seems to be rolling toward us, like a wave, ready to overwhelm and consume.
"Guys," I whisper nervously, the words caught in my suddenly-dry throat.
They don't answer, now absorbed in an argument over which way to go.
"Guys!" I yell more forcefully, backing out of the center of the pack. An unseen force compels me to move—and move away.
"What is it?" Cato growls angrily, eyes flaming and oblivious. "Where are you going?"
I sweep my flashlight frantically around woods and say earnestly, "I don't think it's a campfire."
"What?" Marvel asks, scratching his head in confusion. "I can smell the smoke. We all can."
"I know, I know," I say, continuing to take small steps backwards, as my eyes flit from one face to the other. "But there's too much smoke. It's all around us. And it's getting hard to breathe. Haven't you noticed?"
They stop to look at one another and each takes a deep, focused breath. I can see uncertainty creep into their eyes.
My eyes begin to water, and I can actually see the smoke drifting around us now, eerie gray against the ominous black. It stings when I inhale and adrenaline begins to course through my muscles, my brain. "That's not a contained fire," I plead with great difficulty, choking on the last word. "We've got to go. We've got to run. It's coming!"
Then I feel the radiating heat, and Glimmer screams as birds unexpectedly fly through the trees, furious wings batting at the air and our heads. There are feet stampeding past us, animals fleeing—and we are fleeing, too. Back in the direction we came. Trying to outrun the wall of smoke threatening to overtake us—and whatever feeds it.
We run like we have not run since the night we were on to the girl from District 8. We don't just smell smoke. We smell death. But this time—our own. So we run faster, harder.
Pain blazes through my legs and my chest and my lungs, and I fight against myself, struggling onward. We cannot stop for rest this time. There is no slowing down or falling behind. There is only living or dying. We all know it.
Then I feel my feet slamming onto hard earth again, and I'm encouraged, driven forward. And we keep running. I don't know how long we run. Until we no longer feel the heat and breathe the smoke. Until the air starts to smell and feel fresh and clear again. Only then do I allow my feet to lose some of their urgency.
When we finally stumble from the woods, the night is gone. The sun is bright in the sky, and we're exhausted, dragging ourselves over the open ground toward the Cornucopia. I can hardly feel my legs, though I feel every breath that scratches through my lungs. Not until I toss my body to the earth, not bothering to unroll a sleeping bag first, do I think to pull a water bottle from my belt and take a long, soothing drink. It flows coolly over my parched lips, and I care for nothing else. Not the tins of food still heavy in my pockets or the Careers sprawled about me on the ground, equally desperate and fatigued.
My body lies limp against the earth, and I keep my throbbing eyes closed, concentrating all my energy on breathing and sipping water, alternately and slowly, until the bottle lies empty in my hand, and I hear snores around me. Then sleep takes me.
x x x x
I am standing in the woods, surrounded by smoke so dense it's like a fog about me. I can't see anything through the blackness of night or cloud. Panic overwhelms me, and I want to run, but I don't know where to go. I spin helplessly, first one way, then another. My eyes burn and my lungs feel charred, and I want to scream, but I don't have the breath.
Finally, I see light, and I am relieved. But only momentarily. The light is rushing toward me, bowling through the woods, consuming everything in its path. Trees. Brush. Animals. Birds. I've waited too long. There is no escaping it, no outrunning it. It rages wildly and will not be satisfied until I succumb.
I hold my head in my hands and scream wordlessly, though I know it's useless. The heat is upon me, and I can feel it licking at my skin, every touch leaving a blister in its place.
I lift my head frantically and see a hand on my arm. A hand!
It's Katniss.
She stands before me, eyes black and body ablaze with orange-red flame. She is burning me. I can't escape, but I wouldn't if I could.
"Peeta, why didn't you come for me?" she wails, every note of her cracking voice raw and etched with pain. "Why?"
"I didn't know. I didn't know you were there! I didn't know you needed me!" I plead desperately. I am burning, burning, but I stifle the screams and wrap her in my arms. I want to cry, but there are no tears. I cannot save her. It's too late. I cannot even save myself.
"I would have come. I would have," I groan helplessly into my blistering hands as she dissolves into ash. And I cannot breathe.
I wake with a start. Hyperventilating will do that. I roll painfully onto my side and choke into the ground. My lips coat with dirt, and my throat is still baked and dry. My eyes feel the same, which is good, otherwise I'd probably be crying. And I can't do that. I draw in ragged breaths, eyes squeezed shut, until I hear movement next to me.
I open my eyes and see boots, someone kneeling at my head. "I filled up your water bottle," District 3 whispers. I'm glad he's there. He doesn't know how glad. I keep hoping against my intuition, hoping that when we leave, he'll run. But he hasn't yet. And I'm both sad and grateful.
He puts a tentative hand beneath my shoulder. He's not strong enough to lift me, but the touch encourages me to pull myself into a sitting position. I wipe my sleeve over my gritty mouth and take the water, drinking deeply from the bottle, though my body slumps forward awkwardly over my folded legs. When it's emptied, I set it on the ground by my knee and hold my head in my hands, much like I did in the dream.
I can feel the boy's eyes on me, but there is nothing to say. We both know it. I can't tell him what I've seen, and he won't ask. "So you smell—smokey," he observes at last.
"I smell like I almost got roasted," I say, coughing harshly into my hands.
"Yah. Well, do you want to eat something?" he asks. I can see him holding out a tin, trying to entice me. "I already restocked the supplies. Brought enough for everyone."
I sigh heavily and look around the camp in a daze. The sun is high in the sky, and the Careers are still passed out where they fell. I run a hand over my head and accept the tin from the boy. He nods and backs away, settling himself against the Cornucopia with his knees pulled up to his chest. I still have full tins of food in my jacket, but I can save those for next time. Though I hate it, there's guaranteed to be a next time.
I eat the food, because I need it, but I have to force myself to swallow. It hurts, and my body wants to reject it. Then I force myself to stand and walk around, stretching my legs and working out the stiffness. But the pungent aroma of my jacket starts to get to me, and I can't take the building agitation any longer. The smell is painful. The memories are painful. And I want to wash it all away. So I stride toward the lake, taking a wide berth around the booby-trapped supplies, stripping the jacket from my body as I go.
The heat beats down on my shoulders relentlessly, and I kneel at the bank, plunging my hands into the water so that I can feel the sensation of coolness spreading over my skin, stealing the warmth away. When my mind is calm again, I pull the food and other supplies from the pockets and set them next to me. Then I slide the jacket into the water, watching it float, watching the sweat and dirt and smoke invisibly dissolve beneath its cleansing current.
When I pull the dripping jacket from the water, I feel a sense of short-lived relief. I twist the sopping mass in my hands, wringing out as much excess water as I'm able. Then I spread it upon the bank and let the hot afternoon sun do its work. It continues on its steady, predictable trajectory through the sky, persistently measuring the passage of time which, at any other time in my life, I might have welcomed. Here, it brings only foreboding.
So I turn the jacket over and decide to return to the Cornucopia. It will dry no more quickly under my watchful eye. I can't speed the sun any more than I can slow it down.
I trudge across the open ground, hand shading my eyes, and note that the Careers are all awake, now, and emptying the tins District 3 bravely procured earlier. Clove is back at target practice, an exercise that she seems to never tire of. I don't know if she enjoys it or if it's a sort of coping mechanism. Or if, after hours and hours of practice, it's simply become a compulsion she can't deny.
I pick another tin from the diminishing pile and lower myself to the ground next to the boy's preferred spot against the Cornucopia. We all eat in silence, and I try not to flinch with every thwack, thwack, thwack of Clove's blades.
After a few more rounds, she stands up, downs the last of the water from her bottle, and tosses it to the ground at Cato's feet. He narrows his eyes at her, but in her agitation, I can tell she doesn't care in the slightest. She's practically hopping from foot to foot when she says, words bursting forth, "I don't want to wait till it's dark tonight."
"We always go when it's dark. There are reasons for that," Cato mutters, disgruntled, not lifting his eyes from his food.
"I know that," she spits, frustrated, pacing around the other Careers, who ignore her. "But we didn't get anyone yesterday. And that's a problem."
"Why?" Glimmer asks carelessly, turning a tin over in her hands, trying to decide if she wants it or not. She decides not and tosses it to District 4.
"Because we have to find the other Tributes eventually. I'd like that to happen before we run out of supplies. And before the gamemakers start getting—creative," she says fiercely, arms crossed over her chest. "You know they will," she adds, her voice low. Her words hang in the air, filling our little camp like the heavy smoke that still hangs in our clothes.
Cato pauses, and his face hardens before shoveling another bite into his mouth.
Marvel leans back on his hands and asks with a yawn, "But why the need to head out early?"
"Considering what we almost ran straight into last night, I guess I'd just like to see where I'm going for once," she says, her tone biting. "The glasses only help so much."
"Fine," Cato snaps, nostrils flaring. "We'll go when everyone's done eating. Good enough?" he challenges with a sideways glance at her, eyes flashing.
"Fine," she retorts and whips another knife out of her jacket, flinging it across the camp with intensity.
I stand to my feet and quickly offer, "I'll fill up the water bottles."
Without waiting for a reply, I collect the empty containers littering the ground and shove them into the burlap sack. I don't need to sit around listening to them argue. Things are tense enough as it is without them disagreeing on strategy—and who's in charge of it.
But who knows, I shrug to myself, maybe they'll get tired of it and kill one another while I'm gone. That brings a small smile, and I cheer myself with the thought as I walk back toward the lake, laden bag slapping against my back.
I find that my jacket is dry, and just in time. The sun is moving lower in the sky, and it will be cool soon. So I quickly slip my arms into the sleeves and return the tins of food still lying on the bank to their respective pockets. Then I fill the bottles with water and set them on the bank, squeezing a few drops of iodine into each. I watch the colored liquid dissipate in the water before carefully replacing the lids. Then I reload the bag and walk slowly back to the Cornucopia, where the Careers are all preparing themselves for another hunt.
By the time we're ready, evening is near, and I'd guess we have about an hour of light to semi-darkness to start with. I hope that will be good enough for Clove. At this point, it will have to be.
My eyes scan the treeline yet again, and I consider our options. Without waiting to be asked, I speak up, "We may as well take the far left side of the woods this time." I direct their eyes to the entry point with my finger. "The side near the lake."
When we enter the woods, I immediately see that the trees and growth look more plush and vibrant. I don't know if this is due solely to the proximity to the lake or if there are ancillary water sources connecting it to this part of the arena. It would make sense for the lake to be fed from somewhere, rather than being a free-standing body of water—it just didn't occur to me until now.
We press through the heavier growth single-file, and I lead the way as the light fades around us, forced to pick out a path more deliberately than in the other areas of the wood, which slows our pace considerably. I've just shoved through a large bush hanging over my chosen course, when I see a pool of water not too far away shimmering in the low light. Sitting on the edge of the pool, weary eyes closed in half-sleep, is Katniss.
Every muscle in my body tenses. It seems like I've spent every minute of my time here warring within myself—desperately wanting with all of my being to see her, yet also hoping intensely that I never will. And there she is. All I can think to do is yell it loudly.