Fever hallucinations come on that night.
Mika turns into Caesar, and I'm back at my interview, wearing the silly blue gingham gown that I think is a little over the top. I look like a doll.
"How many bites does it take to eat Serena?" Caesar asks me.
"Well," I say, "It took two people five minutes. But I don't know if they ate all of her. Probably they left a lot. They had to leave room for Glory."
I giggle uncontrollably.
"For dessert."
I realize I'm sitting on a throne of writhing blue snakes. I can't move off it. Can't move my limbs at all.
Caesar shakes me. "Cora, Cora," he says in Mika's voice. Then suddenly it is Mika, and he's crying. "Soren stole our water."
I try to come up from my fever dream. It's so hard. All I want to do is sleep. And I especially don't want to deal with bad news.
Through hiccups, Mika tells me the story. He was trying to get us moved into a more hidden spot, a cave, and Soren popped up behind him and grabbed the sack of water from him.
He swung the axe, too, but Mika ran away. It took him two hours to find me again.
Now he's exhausted and thirsty and mad, same as me.
My throat started to burn the instant I heard the water was gone.
There are no lakes, no ponds, no streams. The ocean water is salty and we have no filter.
Luckily, Mika had left the backpack with me. We have two white apples left. We eat them. The juice will keep us from dying for the rest of the day, hopefully, but then we'll have to figure something out.
"Set more snares, Mika," I say. "We got those straws. That means there have to be water pocket squirrels somewhere."
His face crumples. "Cora, I can't do a water pocket squirrel. I can't. You know I can't. Don't make me."
Water pocket squirrels are just what you'd think. They're squirrels with big sacs on their bellies that contain drinkable water. They've shown up in three Hunger Games that I can remember.
Watching contestants drink from them is disgusting. Sometimes they bite right in – I've seen tributes do it while the squirrel is still alive – and sometimes they poke a hole and drain the water out. The water is cloudy and gross. It looks like you would expect it would after coming out of a squirrel's stomach. I'm not even sure I'll be able to drink it.
Mika will probably barf.
He sets up snares all over, though. We've run out of twine at last, so he has to reuse old ones.
In the meantime, we return to the black and white tree, hoping for more apple juice, but we find the tree completely stripped of white apples.
Maybe it was Soren, maybe the Careers. Whoever it was, they made sure nobody else could use this food source.
With me sick, and not wanting to waste energy, the day passes in a quick, sleepy haze.
For the first time in this Hunger Games, we go a full day with no cannon, no faces in the sky.
There is one development.
Claudius Templesmith has an announcement.
Tomorrow there will be a feast.
###
Mika tells me in the morning, tearfully, that he has caught a water pocket squirrel, just one.
I know from past Games that it will contain about two cups of water. Enough to wake both of us up, keep dehydration at bay until we get us to the feast, which will be held at eleven. We have to get there early, because of course we don't have watches. The only way to keep time is by the sunrise…glow-rise, I guess…which I estimate to happen at 6 a.m.
It takes everything Mika has to bring the squirrel to me. He's not holding it very tightly. I can tell he hopes it escapes so he doesn't have to deal with drinking from it.
But I'm the firm babysitter. I pat his head, take the snare leash from him, and kill the squirrel. It takes about ten minutes, because my aim is terrible. I'm sick and my arm is weak.
At least there isn't blood poisoning yet. No black lines, just general infection.
There will be antibiotics at the feast. Templesmith said so. "Everything you could want. Food. Water. Medicine. It's a second Cornucopia!"
Mika holds his breath as I position the sharp end of one of our metal straws over the swollen belly of the squirrel.
"Do we have to drink straight from it?" he moans. "Don't we have something we can put the water in?"
I almost say no, but then I remember: The little plastic bag that the blanket came in. It's about the size of a fist, enough to hold Mika's share of the water.
We find the bag jammed in the bottom of our backpack, the top shredded, but the bottom intact.
Mika holds the bag open and looks away while I, after a deep breath, stick the straw into the squirrel.
Water gushes out immediately, splashing in my eye before I can aim it into the bag properly.
The bag fills quickly, and water is still spurting.
I gag and close my mouth over the end of the straw. This is too valuable to waste, I know. But it's so, so gross. Spurt, spurt. Squirrel juice. It's warm.
It takes all my willpower not to vomit, and to swallow the water. Mika, who has not even tasted his cloudy water, gacks loudly.
After a few seconds, the insistent squirting stops, and I am able to breathe deep and sip more slowly, at my leisure.
"Drink yours, Mika," I say. He's just watching me suck on the straw, straight from the squirrel.
He gets this look on his face, like a two-year-old who won't eat his vegetables. "I don't wanna."
"You have to."
"No." He shuts his mouth tightly, shakes his head.
I do not need this.
"Mika Malone, you drink your water!"
Head shake.
"Two sips. Start with two sips, then you can take a break."
Head shake.
"Mika, your mother is watching. She's telling you to drink your water. You know that, right? She's yelling at the screen right now. Behave yourself."
He squirms. "You're not the boss of me."
"You drink that water," I say, "Or I will take the pack and leave you. You can go to the feast by yourself."
His lips tremble.
"Two sips," I repeat. "One, two. Do it quick, so it won't be so bad."
It takes another five minutes to get him to close his eyes and grimace as he sips. Another hour to get him to finish his bag.
Probably all the talking I do dries me out so much that the water was useless. The good thing about it, though, is that in trying to set a good example I learn to drink the squirrel juice without gagging. I show off how "good" it is by sucking even once the squirrel is mostly dried out.
By now it must be nine. We've got to get to the Cornucopia.
The possibility of not attending the feast doesn't seriously occur to either of us.
Mika wants real water. He can't stand the thought of more squirrels. I need medicine. If I don't get it, I'll die anyway. I also need more bandages for my arm and neck. We both crave real food, too. I've put the squirrel body in our pack. We don't want to eat meat until we have water to wash it down with.
And we need new weapons.
We try to strategize as we walk. We don't come up with much. I'm greatly slowed down. Mika was slow to begin with.
"Maybe everybody else is in as bad shape as we are," I say hopefully. "They don't usually hold feasts until most of the people are desperate for something."
Mika's trembling again. After this morning's tantrum, he's regressed a little from the maturity he had been developing. He's almost back to where he was at the beginning of the Games, a weepy, useless, young-for-his-age twelve-year-old.
He's lucky he's cute, is all I can think. This kind of behavior would get you killed like Gump got killed if you weren't cute enough to pull it off.
We arrive late – a hole in the ground is already opening next to the Cornucopia. We watch a platform filled with treasure rise from the ground. I put on my night vision glasses to get a good look.
Water bottles, more beautiful, sparkling water bottles. Rattling pill containers spill off the edge when the platform settles into place, all with big labels. Antifungal. Antibiotic. Pain suppressant. Antiinflammatory.
Fruits – big dew-flecked grapes, cut melons.
And packs of real food. Nuts and dried meats, cheese, even canned soups. The thought of salt makes my head spin.
Mika is staring at the pile with naked longing, but his feet are shuffling in the little kid way, like he has to pee. He wants to run.
"It's okay," I say. "I'll go. You stay here."
"You're too weak to go," he says, but without enthusiasm. He wants me to do it, to be the grownup.
Katniss rewards me for remembering my good girl role. It's not much – the parachute that floats down to us is only three inches across, and the package it carries is smaller than Mika's thumb, and nearly weightless.
I open it up to find two bright green pills.
They aren't medicine. I know what they are, from previous Games.
Energy pills.
They're as cheap a gift as you can get, cheaper than a loaf of bread or water. They're like a cup of super coffee. Contestants usually get sent them in the last days of the Games, when all the money has run out and the whole Game comes down to staying awake enough to fight for the last forty-eight hours. They give you a major energy surge for about an hour.
That will be all I need.
I take one and a half of them, and give the remaining half pill to Mika.
"So you're just going to walk in?" he asks.
"No, we'll wait until the first fight happens," I say. I'm feeling better already. "Then I'll run in, grab a water and antibiotics, and run out during the distraction. There's only seven of us left. Soren won't be here, so that's six. Minus me and you… that's only four people to fight. Not so bad."
The caffeine in the energy pill has my heart racing, though. There's always, ALWAYS at least one fatality per feast.
Mika puts a finger to his lips, the "quiet!" gesture, and points.
Someone is braving the feast.
It's Chetty, and she's not in great shape. One of her legs is torn up. The wound can't be as bad as it looks, or she couldn't be walking on it. It must be mostly superficial.
Her brown hair is matted. It looks like she just slept in a mud pile and dragged herself straight here. She has a bow and arrow, though, and she keeps them in a position where she could easily grab them while she begins stuffing food into the front of her shirt.
She won't be able to wield the bow and arrow once she's carrying water bottles, I realize. When she goes for the water I'll run in.
Mika grabs my arm.
"Her eyes!" he says.
My night vision, the slightly off colors and my spinning head have made me miss something else that's wrong with Chetty's face. Her eyes are still red and black. She's still infected with the blue snake venom.
How? It's been two days. Mika was only infected half a day.
Maybe Chetty really got bit, like three or four times. I wonder about Jax. Has the venom worn off for him? It must have, or Chetty would be dead.
Chetty has water bottles under one arm now. I have to go.
In and out. Fast.
The energy pills give me courage, or at least I imagine they do.
I take a deep breath and burst from our hiding spot, sprinting up behind Chetty. She spins, drops the water bottles, tries to raise her bow.
I knock her to the ground. She loses the bow, and I jump on it, snapping it in half.
Then I grab a water bottle, a pill bottle labeled antibiotics, and a pack of dried meat, and turn to run back.
Chetty grabs my ankle and trips me. My bounty spills across the ground.
I turn to face her.
Blood still surrounds her mouth. Blood from Serena and Glory. Gore is caught in her teeth. Gross.
We're wrestling, and since we're both injured and the same sized, we're evenly matched, and then I hear the Thud Thud Thud of male footsteps slamming up to us.
It's Moses and Block. Medium-sized Career boys, dressed head to toe in thick dried-leather armor, carrying a legitimate arsenal of weapons.
From a few yards away, Moses flings a spear. I've seen him aim a trident, and know he's not going to miss.
Chetty and I instinctively roll together at the last possible moment. The spear digs up the ground at my back, and slices through my shirt and a layer of skin. Moses is preparing another spear while Block runs for the food.
I frantically yank Chetty up, trying to use her as a human shield against Moses. She hisses, gnashing her messed-up teeth, and digs her nails into my shoulders.
But Moses never throws his spear.
A huge, dark shape rams into him with astonishing force, pounding him to the ground.
Block turns, alarmed, and calls his ally's name.
The shape is Jax, big handsome Jax, and oh my god.
He hasn't recovered from the venom, either. If anything, he's worse.
His face is covered in blood, his eyes are so artificially red they seem to glow.
His expression is inhuman. Deep lines and hollows are carved all around his face, turning his healthy, classic features into a demonic mask.
He's whaling on Moses' face, the only exposed part of Moses' body. At the sight, Chetty shrieks and wrenches herself out of my grip. She flings herself, not at me, but at Jax and Moses. She gets her mouth on one of Moses' fingers and bites it off while Block and I stand staring in horror.
Block makes eye contact with me over this mess. I see him trying to think of a way to rescue his friend.
This is my chance. I have no attachment to the players in this fight.
I grab what I can, two water bottles, my pills, three cans of soup. I stuff it all in my backpack as I run.
Then I go back for one more thing: A new club. It served me so well before, and I need a weapon.
Moses is unconscious now. Jax and Chetty are eating him.
Where's Block?
Wham!
A blow to the back of my head lays me out, blinds me.
Block. He's going to kill me. I have barely thought about him the whole Games. He's a faceless Career from District Two, just a brute like the rest of them.
I roll and find him standing over me with a brute's weapon, a big stick that looks like he pulled a branch straight off a tree. He raises it to smash down on me.
Then he curses. Turns.
Mika runs away from him, screaming. He's holding Gump's arrow.
I told you to stay put, you little monster, I think. Why would you leave the woods? I'm too beaten-up to speak.
"What the hell?" says Block. He puts his hand to his hip and it comes away bloody. Just a little bloody. Mika has stabbed him, poked him really.
Then Block gasps and grabs at the wound. Scratches at it.
Collapses.
Poison. The black apple poison. Mika has dipped his arrow tip in it, and saved my life.
One last time today, please let it be the last time, I stagger to my feet. Grab stuff.
The head wound makes me drunk. I can barely understand what I'm getting, and I know I'm moving incredibly slowly. I drop water bottles twice on my way away from the Cornucopia, and bend over like an old woman to pick them up, creaking and achy.
Mika meets me at the tree line. He gathers the stuff when I drop it at his feet, and leads me away. I don't know where we go.
All I register for the rest of this day, and the next, is the sound of the two cannons that go off shortly after we're a safe distance away.