Crewe tested his shoulder after Farler had bandaged it as best he could and then the troupe continued on foot, following Luath's trail of broken branches and heavy, hasty, lost footprints. She had a fair head start on them since Crewe could not move until his shoulder had been set and he insisted on marking the clearing with a tracker so that a hovercraft from Thirteen could return to claim the bodies of the fallen soldiers at a later time. However, Luath had no idea where she was going with nothing to follow whereas Haymitch and the others only had to follow her trail.

To conserve power, Crewe switched off his microphone, but Praxis stayed online with them, sending them updates of the hovercraft's location every ten minutes or so until it was supposedly a few minutes out with reinforcements.

"Crewe, your replacement is aboard the craft. When he arrives, you'll be relieved—"

"Sir, I wish to continue until we find Luath," said Crewe as he switched his microphone back on and Haymitch saw his eyebrows pull together in pain as he followed behind Slone who was leading. "I can't rest easy knowing she's still out here and soldiers are lying dead back in that clearing."

"She won't get away, Crewe, but you're injured and you won't do anyone any good if you try to follow her in your condition. You and anyone else who doesn't wish to continue will be able to board the craft where you'll be taken care of while the rest continue to follow Luath and two more hovercrafts search from above. Ask your team now; who's for going on and who's for coming back to Thirteen."

Crewe looked from face to face of his team, but no one volunteered to stop, for they too felt that they owed the dead soldiers a debt in finding Luath. Haymitch was glad of Sloan, Farler, and Flax's company, but he doubted whether Bastian would be very useful in the wild and Caesar was just as lost, still bumping into trees and bushes with his magnified eyeglasses. On the pretense of asking Crewe to demand that Caesar return with him, Haymitch saw a shimmer in the air above and the hovercraft appeared. Not a moment later, Katniss and Gale Hawthorne had joined them on the ground and before they could so much as greet the team, Haymitch turned his own microphone back on to speak with Praxis.

"Why did you just send two teenagers as a replacement for trained soldiers?"

"Soldier Hawthorne is trained," Praxis pointed out. "And Katniss has proved to be an excellent hunter. You'll need both of their tracking skills to catch Luath if she's managed to evade the hovercrafts so far."

"Sending the Mockingjay out to track a traitor is one of the stupidest things you could do with her—"

"You and Katniss are a team, Haymitch. Together, the two of you are the face of the rebellion, and yet you've been out there for hours. She is just as qualified as you, not to mention more obedient to commands. She and Soldier Hawthorne stay. If you have a problem, you can accompany Crewe back to Thirteen."

"Give it up," said Caesar when Haymitch made to retort. "I'm just an observer of her skills, but even I know that we need her for this."

"We do, but we don't need you," said Haymitch. "You're alerting everything within a ten mile radius that we're coming because you can't see where you're going. Go back with Crewe."

"That's not your call to make," said Caesar savagely.

Haymitch appealed to Crewe, but the soldier just shrugged with his good shoulder so that Haymitch kicked out at the dirt in frustration. "Oh, come on! You'd have to be stupid to let him stay out here! He can't see for shit, he has no experience in the wild, and he's likely to get himself killed when he falls on his own weapon—"

"He knows how to use that weapon," said Crewe. "He saved me with it."

"You're his mentor, Haymitch," said Flax pointedly. "He needs the training if he wants to get out of the Capitol after the coup, but if you'd rather Snow tortured him live on television, go ahead and send him back with Crewe."

"That's a bullshit argument and you know it," Haymitch shot back. "He can practice just as well in one of the simulators instead of out here."

"I want him here," said Katniss. "And I have my reasons," she added as Haymitch made to ask.

"You heard her, Haymitch," said Praxis over the comlink. "The two of you hold equal status, but since she's cooperative, I'm going with her request. Flickerman stays."

"Who's my replacement, commander?" asked Crewe as he prepared to mount the ladder.

"Soldier Mercer will take over from here," said Praxis as Bastian stepped to the forefront.

"I understood that my replacement was aboard ship, Commander?" said Crewe quizzically.

"You understood incorrectly," said Bastian smoothly.

"Hold the fuck up here," said Flax before Haymitch had a chance to voice his outrage. "You're putting Bastian in charge? You're letting the Capitol's top blacksmith lead this mission to go and track down a Capitol informant? No offense—"

"If I wanted to eliminate all of you in Thirteen, I would have done so upon arrival, Flax," said Bastian testily. "Snow is a patient man, but even he's fed up with talk of rebellions and radicals. He knows that Haymitch has gone missing, but he never ordered the hit on him, so he assumes that Haymitch either took his own life, fled, or was taken captive by rebels. He's tired of waiting to find out what happened and he would gladly wipe out Thirteen if he knew who was here. But he doesn't because while you all were occupied glaring at me when you thought I wasn't looking, Luath crept up right under your noses and sold you all out. I didn't; I remained loyal. So yes, Praxis put me in charge because I'm qualified."

"We can stand here arguing about who's in charge and who's staying, or we can get to tracking Luath while we can," said Gale.

Crewe was lifted out on the hovercraft and the group was left in an eerie silence in its wake. Caesar turned to thank Katniss for her support, but due to the horrible magnification in his glasses, he spun right into Haymitch and if his weapon had been live, it would have shot Haymitch's toe off. Haymitch snatched the glasses off of Caesar's face, threw them down, and crushed them under his heel.

"If you get me killed, I'll come back and haunt you," Haymitch vowed. "And if you shoot me, I'll start cutting off your appendages one by one. You interviewed me, Soldier Flickerman, tell me; am I both serious and capable of doing that?"

"To the people who deserve it, yes," said Caesar swiftly.

They didn't keep him as host for four decades for nothing.

() / /

Gale and Katniss moved quickly, silently, and with more skill than Haymitch had ever seen on camera, but they had now been on the move for at least two hours and Haymitch felt that if Luath could be caught, she would have been by now. Katniss kept Caesar on her tail, ordering him to step exactly as she did and copy her every movement, which he did, though what purpose it served was anyone's guess. It did become evident that Caesar was a fast learner, however, when both Katniss and Gale leapt aside followed only milliseconds later by Caesar as a ground snare meant to impale the shins with razor sharp branches flew out at them. The trap was too short to reach Haymitch and the others, but it would have gotten all three of those in front if Katniss hadn't spotted it.

Pulling Caesar out of the bushes where he had landed, Katniss dusted him off and clapped his arm approvingly. "You're getting the hang of it," she praised.

"If Luath took the time to set up that trap, she knows we're onto her, but she also lost valuable time," said Gale. "We're catching up."

"I would hope so after two hours," said Farler, taking a swig from his water pouch and then turning it upside down to signify its emptiness.

"There sounds like there's a river ahead," said Katniss as she perked her head up and turned it sideways to listen. "We can fill up there."

They jogged for another five minutes or so and then they came upon an enormous drop off where, by flashlight, they could see a swift, powerful river was flowing by except for the narrow part where it looked shallow enough to cross. At the edge of the cliff, Haymitch looked straight down and thought—as always happens when confronted with an insurmountable fear—what would happen if he suddenly lost his balance. In the process of thinking how he might save himself, a vision flashed in front of him of a man holding Haymitch by the fingertips as his leg was slowly being swallowed alive by an massive slug-like insect. He saw an enormous stinger slash the man across the face, saw the man's eyes fill with venemous blue blood.

"Haymitch?" asked Caesar at Haymitch's side and Haymitch snapped out of his relapse to discover that he was now on all fours, his hands extended over the ledge as if to grab the man's hands and haul him up.

Blinking furiously, Haymitch looked up at Caesar and as the moon shone down on the two of them, Haymitch could see that Caesar understood. Caesar pulled him away from the ledge and secured a firm, locked grip around Haymitch's wrist. The others were too busy trying to find a way down, but Caesar knelt beside him and spoke in barely more than a whisper.

"Sickle's dead, Haymitch, and you're not the one who killed him."

"I saw him," Haymitch insisted.

"No, you didn't. There's no insects down there, no Sickle, no danger."

"You saw the tapes; you'd know. Was there anything I could have done to save him?"

"Haymitch?"

Katniss also took a knee beside him and the look on Haymitch's face must have told her everything she needed to know, for she put her forehead to his and gave a small sigh. No words needed to be exchanged, for of everyone in their group, Katniss was the only one who had held someone as they died, held a friend and watched the light fade from their eyes, awoken from vivid nightmares that made her relive the Games.

"There she is!" cried Farler.

The group put their flashlights together to form one giant spotlight on Luath who was trying to wade through the shallow part of the river.

"Shoot her down," Bastian ordered and Katniss stood up, taking aim with her bow. It was not a difficult shot by distance or skill, but Katniss didn't fire as Luath reached the halfway point and started to pick up speed.

"Soldier Everdeen, take her out."

"I can't," said Katniss, lowering her bow.

"Soldier Hawthorne—"

"If I kill her now, it's murder," said Gale, shouldering his crossbow.

"If she gets across the river, we'll lose her," said Flax.

"I'm not just going to shoot an unarmed woman in the back," said Katniss angrily. "If you want her dead, you do it."

"She may be unarmed, but she doesn't give a shit about the hundreds of people living in Thirteen," said Flax. "She'd just as soon see you, your family, and every last person in Thirteen blown into oblivion."

"I can't—"

"Move," said Bastian, taking aim with his rifle.

As if only just realizing what Bastian was doing, Caesar suddenly looked sick to his stomach as he tried to stop his fellow Capitol resident, but Bastian had already fired and the shot echoed over the valley as the bullet went through Luath's spine and out her heart. Her arms flew up instinctively as her back arched in pain, but she was dead before she hit the water and the river carried her body downstream.

"Praxis, this is Mercer," said Bastian into his microphone to the stunned silence of the group. "Target is eliminated. Come pick us up."