Chapter Nine

"Close your eyes," I hear her say.

It is the only thing I could do to not focus on the fact that I am on a hovercraft, much like the ones used to transport us to the games, and also heading to the place where I was captured and tortured.

"Katniss, I feel like I am losing it," I say.

"You remember that time we were in that car in District Seven?" she asks.

"When?" I ask.

"That time, when it rained," she says. "The fact that the car was all metal, so you could hear every single rain drop. Remember?"

"Yes," I say.

"You told me to close my eyes and to focus on the rain drops, to see if I could hear where they landed," she says.

"Too bad it isn't raining," I say.

"Well can you remember it though," she says.

"Yes," I say.

"Describe it for me, because I am having a hard time picturing it," she says.

"Well we were in an old car that the Mayor kept telling us was from before the dark days. It was during our Victory Tour, and well it started to rain right before we were suppose to take the customary tour of the district," I say. "So Effie suggested a car ride through the district seeing how the Mayor was making such a fuss about the car."

I feel a slight drop and want to open my eyes.

"Nope," she says putting her hand on my eyelids. "You haven't finished telling me about that day."

I smile. "Well, we got into the car, and with the rain and the tour guide talking, all you could do is just stare out of the window."

The next thing, I never told her.

"The car stopped and the tour guide went out," I said. "We were in a warehouse district, and with the car off, you could hear every drop that hit the top of the car. So we played a game to see if we could find out where the next drop would land."

I could hear her lean in.

"Thank you by the way for shielding me from seeing that poor old man getting beaten up by the Mayor's guards," she says.

"How..." I say opening my eyes, and seeing that everyone is already unbuckling their seat belt. We have landed, and the whole story about the memory was just to keep my mind distracted enough not to cause an episode.

"Very good job," says Katniss's mother.

"He does to me sometimes, a little misdirection," she responds.

"Okay, everyone, visors on," the military pilot says.

We are each handed a helmet type equipment and once we put it on, a map comes on the visor and a voice comes on.

"Hunger Game Arena 75," the computerized voice comes on. A beeping sound comes on, and then vital signs come on the visor. Everything you could want to know about a person.

They open the weapon cases with each our names and we see small firearms, knives, spears, and bows with specific type arrows, normal arrows and red arrows.

I take out my two knives, one small and another long, and place them in their holders. The long one strapped on my thigh and the small one on my belt. There is one small caliber gun holstered on my chest. There is a quiver of arrows over my shoulder, sixteen in total, eight regular and eight red. Finally I grab a black bow that seems small for my taste, but with a flip of a wrist, the bow unfolds and expands to a large recurve bow that glows like Katniss's old bow.

"You look very snappy," I hear her say.

I turn and see her there. Hair back in a single braid, the same way she uses to place it back in the arena. Her bow over her shoulder, she taps it on her shoulder.

"Didn't think I would see my old bow from the war," she says.

Her quiver has more arrows that mines. In fact upon examining it closely there are two electronic type quivers where only one arrow sticks out from each quiver. She places one small knife on her boot and finally a small firearm on her hip.

We start to walk outside and find that we had landed on the beach of the Cornucopia. The sounds of birds are the first thing that I hear. I can still see the broken dome where it exploded. I tap the button on the visor and as I turned my head around, each section, each slice is labeled.

"Much better than my leaf," I say to Katniss.

She smiles and tells me, "well without your leaf we would have never survived back then."

A voice interrupts my thought process.

"So this is the Quarter Quell, not exactly your vacation home."

I turn around and find that Pollux is smiling.

"Hey, Peeta," says Pollux through a machine.

"Pollux?" I say confused. "How?"

"Beetee created something that take the thoughts of a person and project it through this speaker, although it is still very experimental, he has the only working prototype," says Cressida.

"This is wonderful Pollux," says Katniss coming over and saying hello for the first time. "There is so much to talk about."

"Yes, we have lotsss tooo," says Pollux before he hits a small machine. "Sorry, it still has some bugs."

Katniss stops and places a hand on her ear.

"Yes, I am here," she says. It must be talking over the radio, although it seems that it is only for her. It seems fitting that she would be made point for our team, as she was the same before after Boggs died.

"Understood," she says.

We walk outside before she stops.

"Okay listen up everyone," she says. "Tap the visor twice."

We do and then a red and yellow dot appears on the map.

"Yellow dot is where the first team landed their hovercraft. Red dot is the location of the primary switch," she says. "I have been told to go to the primary and complete the mission."

She grabs a paper and pencil and scribbles something, and hands it to me.

"Need a leaf of the yellow and red."

I nod, and start to quickly sketch the map of the current location and out position. Once I get the map done, I quickly do another one, placing it in my boot.

I hand her the other map and she places it inside her pocket.

"Pack up we leave in ten," she says walking around.

I follow her and tap her on the shoulder.

"Peeta," she says while signaling to me that we are doing the opposite.

I nod.

She removes the visor, takes out the knife and opens up the visor and takes out a small paper and then turns off a switch. She asks for mines which I give it to her. She goes through the same and then finally gives it to me.

"Okay," she says. "Quickly... in my pack Haymitch had left a note, a procedure on how to turn off the tracker and allows a private mode in our visors."

I look down at the visor and smile.

"He is still keeping secrets, still?" I say.

"He said that he left a note in your pack too. Have you checked?" she says.

I nod my head no.

"The code that you had was to tap your visor and then a private message that Haymitch had Beetee place in our visors only," she says.

"Obviously we are not going to the primary," I say.

"Obviously," she says. "We have a day, before we have to get to the primary site. So it means though we would have to move through the night if we want to get to them."

"Got any ideas on how to move through the night?" I say.

"These little things are the newest thing in military tech," she says tapping her visor. "Has night vision, and anyone that has the visor on, glows in a different color so that we know where we are."

We round up the team. Katniss's mother hands us each a med pack.

"If you encounter anything that you need medical assistance get to the shore and I will be there," she says.

Everyone starts to place the med pack on them, when her mother approaches us.

"You bring her back," she says.

I nod and she smiles quickly.

Coming back, we grab everything and jump in the water swimming for the shore. Can only remember that day so many years ago, having to trust Finnick because I had never learned how to swim.

I wonder if he saw us now, would he have agreed for his son to have come with us. Honestly, I think he would have shielded him from this, just like Sae wanted to do for April.

Of course, out of all of us, Liam and Katniss are the strongest swimmers of the group. They make it to the shore before we can, and are already getting our bearings before we go out.

"Direction is east-northeast about two clicks, if we hurry we can make it to the site before nightfall," she says.

Liam and April look at the map confused on the location and the objectives that we are ignoring. Pollux and Cressida knowing the way Katniss operates is already getting dry and taking out their weapons.

"In our squad, we never leave anyone behind," she says.

They nod, and we all prepare to scan for any movement. It seems that the zone they landed was the blood zone, and looking up we do not see any clouds.

"Point," says Katniss. "Peeta, April, cover the rear, Liam,Cressida, and Pollux, flank."

We all nod and remove our weapons. Katniss walks over to me, and we both look at each other.

"Ready?" she ask.

"Shoot straight," I tell her.

I unfold the bow and notch one arrow in the bow string. Cressida and Pollux take out their semi automatic weapons. Everything quiets down, almost as of the forest is anticipating something.

I take a deep breathe and begin to walk into the blood zone. The incline is something that we could never get use to, so we approach the zone in a cross pattern. There is a radio transmission from Plutarch which we all silence. It is more than likely trying to get us to aim for the primary.

We are trekking quickly and find no animals or birds or any kind. The trees all look the same in the sunlight, and of course they bring back the memory of the water that inside them. We make it a point to leave a trail as this time we do not have people trying to hunt us down.

"Eyes sharp," I tell April.

She has an arrow in her bow and is amazing how she moves like Katniss. Her hair she has it in a baseball cap with a pony tail sticking out.

The visor continues to beep of an incoming transmission which everyone ignores. The plan is to make it to the hovercraft and if the zone activates hide inside it and wait it out. We have enough meal packs to get us through the day.

In a second I hear a bow string released and look that April has taken down one of those tree rats that we had back in the Games. She removes the arrow, wipes down the blood off the arrow and places it inside the game bag that she brought before continuing walking backwards.

We take one break in between the trek. This is where Katniss finally takes the incoming transmission.

"Yes," she says.

She turns and begins to walk away from the group.

"I understand the severity of this mission, but understand this, we do not leave anyone behind, I made that mistake once," she says turning around and looking at me. Of course she means me, and leaving me behind back in the Quarter Quell. This time after years of hunting and coming into her own, her answers are more forceful and direct. "Look, I don't care about the mission; my main concern is the safety of our people. So if you would excuse me, we have to get going before nightfall."

She turns it off and lets out a grunt of frustration.

"You okay?" I say.

"They don't realize that we need the entire team in order to complete this mission," she says.

"I am sorry," I say.

I sit on a rock and take out the water bottle. Trying to remove the cap she notices something that I had already known the small trembles in my hand.

She looks at me.

"It is nothing, just nerves," I say.

"It is not nothing, Peeta," she says. She taps on the visor and sees that the secondary site locator has been removed. She takes out the paper map and gets our bearings.

"Took them long enough," I say.

"Well they must know that we would have thought of that already," she says.

"How far?" I ask.

"We still have probably another good two hours," she says. "Then we can make camp."

"Okay," I say beginning to rub my hand as she removes the cap off the water bottle and hands it back to me. She places her hand on my cheek and I close my eyes wanting to just escape where we are.

I look down and I can't help it.

"What," she says sitting down next to me.

"Just thinking about this place, and how I lost you," I say. "That is what worries me."

"You won't lose me," she says as she grabs my hand interlacing the fingers, until she shows me the rings. "You ready to get going? Don't want to be caught outside in the rain."

I get up and see the squad is looking at us.

"Was it like this before?" says April to Cressida.

"You mean in the war?" she says. "Well not so much, but they had their moments."

"I remember that night in the tunnel," says Pollux through the visor. "The way she would watch him sleep, not like she was guarding him, but more like she was worried about him. That is when I knew."

"No, the moment was when she was told him his favorite color back in camp," says Cressida.

"What do they mean Uncle Peeta," says April.

"Come on, we have only three hours to make it to the hovercraft before this section activates," I say. "I will tell you all about it inside when we are safe."

They all groan and I can see Katniss looking at me with those eyes.

"Which way," I say turning and catching her.

She picks up the location and gets walking in that direction. We pick up the pace seeing how the sun is quickly hiding behind the trees. I see Katniss taking out an old compass and pointing it to the trees. I remember seeing it a couple of times back in District Twelve.

It was during the summer when we first ventured into the forest after we had gotten married. We usually just go by time and not by distance. It is all about giving ourselves enough time to get back to either the district fence or to our house by the lake.

That day we went a little too far and were in a place that even Katniss didn't recognize. We stood there both of us confused turning around and seeing what seems where the same trees.

"What do we do?" I ask.

She looks around and finally says.

"We are going to sleep in the trees," she says taking out the rope.

Looking up at the trees, I remember how great that plan happened in the Games.

She walks around some trees, looking for the perfect tree. Coming to an old oak tree she knocks on the trunk and smiles.

"This one," she says. "Can you climb up to that branch up about twenty feet?"

Looking up at where she is pointing at, I can see that it is a climb, but I nod and she places the rope on my shoulder.

"Once you are up wait for me," she says.

I place my hands on the little crevices of the trunk, and start to climb the tree. About fifteen feet up I look down and can see that she is placing her traps on the ground to let us know if anything would be approaching us.

I sit at the branch twenty feet up the old oak wood tree. Looking down I can see that Katniss is already scaling the tree. Of course she reaches the branch a lot quicker than I did. Once she below she tells me to stand as she gets on the same branch. She then tells me to straddle the branch as she does the same. She picks up her feet and tells me to lift my feet to her thighs.

"Pass me the rope," she says.

I hand her the rope which she uses to tie both of my feet around the branch and around her. Then I lean back and she leans back on me.

"Comfy?" I say.

"Not really, but hold on let me try something," she says digging in her pant pockets for something. After a couple of seconds she pulls out an old compass which she opens and points looking for a specific location.

"There," she says. "That way is the district."

She rubs the compass as trying to remember some old memory.

"It was my fathers," she says. "It is one of the things that he would give me when he would go to the mine. He told me that he would always come back for it."

She closes it and I can tell that she is remembering her father.

"Still waiting for him to get it back from me," she says.

"I know what we can do," I say. "Where was it that District Twelve is located?"

She opens the compass and points it toward the district.

"That way," she says.

I grab her hand and lift it directly up until we see a bright star in the sky. I let go of her hand and point at the star.

"There," I say. "Do you see that star? That would be your father's star. He would be there looking at you from above. So if you can follow that star you could also find your way home."

She grabs my hand and holds it in the moonlight.

"Now I am comfy," she says holding my hand on her thigh. "Now I can go asleep."

She place her head on my chest and finally I kiss her head and she lets out a big sigh and we both close our eyes.