Chapter 10
There are moments that you look back on, and you wonder…..did you really do that? Was that really you?
This is one of those times.
A haze falls over my eyes and all that matters is my fingers squeezing the air out of Johanna's throat. Her eyes turn feral and her hands start to scratch me like crazy, drawing blood at my hands, arms and face. And then everyone else seems to wake up and react.
Finnick grabs me by the waist and throws me over his shoulder. I don't even fight him. I let him carry me away, and watch as Johanna yells obscenities at me from behind Peeta, who has stepped in front of her.
Finnick carries me a few metres until we are back in the jungle, away from the beach. He sets me down gently at the base of a tree and moves away from me. He opens his mouth but I don't think he knows what to say. Luckily he doesn't have to. Peeta appears through the trees. "Keep an eye on Johanna," he mutters to Finnick. Finnick doesn't need any more encouragement. He takes powerful strides straight back to the beach and I hear his booming voice telling off Johanna. I feel a rush of friendship towards Finnick, and I know that I should not feel that when I must have to kill him very soon.
Peeta bends down next to me, and I feel his gaze on me; probing, wondering. He finally reaches a hand out and rests it on my knee. Tears crash down my face before I can stop them and I hide my face in my hands. I cannot look at him without breaking down even more.
He pulls my hands away and wipes away my tears. "Don't cry," he says firmly. But his voice wavers slightly when he speaks net. "They don't need to see you cry."
I don't care about them at all. But I know that this is not the right thing to say. I want to look into his eyes and tell him Gale was a mistake, that I never meant to hurt him like that because he is the closest thing to someone romantic I really have. But I can't say any of this with the cameras watching us. I may never be able to tell him this, even on my deathbed. If I want him to be the face of the rebellion, his cause will not be helped by me pretty much admitting our relationship was mostly a sham.
He yanks me to my feet, holding me so I cannot fall down again. I wonder then – when did Peeta become the strong one, and I became the one who needed to be saved? "Come on."
We walk slowly back to the beach where Johanna has calmed down. She and Finnick are standing closely, sharing an intense conversation. Johanna's eyes snap my way but I don't look at her. Beetee is lying on the sandbank, awake but drained. Wiress is muttering, pacing in circles. So I make Peeta let go of me and head over to her.
"Wiress?" She cocks her head at me. "You okay?" Just as the words leave my lips, a flash of lightening goes off in the grey, murky sky. Wiress's eyes light up, frenzied.
"Tick tock, tick tock!" she says and I look up at the sky above me. The flash of lightening doesn't reappear and I frown.
"Tick tock," I repeat to her. "Like a clock." It seems I've stumbled upon something because she nods and starts to mutter again so fast, I don't get another clear word out of her.
I walk away from her, staring out at the arena. I tune out everything I can, leaving only Wiress's muttering in the background. Tick Tock. Tick Tock. Tick Tock. Clock.
Everything seems to fall into place. The fog. The blood rain Johanna talked about. The arena is a clock.
"Hey guys!" I yell. Peeta, Finnick and Johanna all look my way. Even Beetee lifts his head. "The arena's a clock."
They all look at me with the same mix of scepticism and confusion. But I slowly explain what Wiress has known all along. The arena is a clock. All of these disasters have been carefully conducted by the Gamemakers. Every section of the jungle brings a new calamity. Wiress stands nearby, looking like she is floating on air. Her face has taken on an entirely peaceful look, like she is relieved that someone finally understands her.
We head to the Cornucopia, and sure enough, we are protected when the next destructive force descends on us. Peeta retrieves a package someone left behind in the mouth of the Corncucopia and he shows it to me. It is a tent. Possibly the most private place inside these games. When it comes time for bed, I offer to take the next watch and to my surprise, Johanna offers too. Peeta doesn't seem too happy about this but I give him a gentle shove away. He sleeps inside the tent by himself. Finnick cuddles with his trident. Beetee lays slumped a few feet away from him.
"I'm sorry 12," she says bluntly an hour into our watch. I turn to her, and she is twisting her axe in her hands. Is she planning on chopping my head off as an apology? "I was out of line."
I scoff. I don't think Johanna Mason has apologised to anyone in her life. But I guess it's a start. Still, I am not the forgiving type. "You meant what you said. You may be sorry about it now but that doesn't change anything."
"Jeez, why don't you just accept my apology?" she growls.
"Because it's not a proper apology," I spit back.
"Fine, I'm truly, sincerely sorry. I beg for your forgiveness oh great one." She snorts loudly and Finnick stirs in his sleep. "It's not like you didn't make me pay anyway." She tilts her head up, and in the soft moonlight, I can see the red marks around her throat. Good.
"You did your own damage," I reply, angling my face towards her so she can get a good look at the scratch she left under my eye. There are plenty of them on my wrists too from when she tried to pry my fingers off.
"We even then?" she says, looking at me with a glint in her eyes.
"Not by a long shot," I say brusquely, and that effectively ends our conversation.
Just as the last minutes of our shift tick over, we hear noises. Both of us rise to attention, looking sideways at each other, listening closely.
Johanna kicks Finnick's feet and he rises with a start. I poke my head into the tent where Peeta is asleep. I shake him until he rockets up, his hands squeezing at my shoulders. His eyes are mad. "It's only me Peeta."
The nightmare in his eyes slowly fades. We stumble out of the tent just in time to see Gloss slit Wiress's neck. A blood red smile on her neck grins at us before she falls face forward in the water.
It's the Careers. They've decided to go on the offence after playing it safe from all of the unnatural disasters that the Gamemakers had unleashed upon us. And they're out to kill. Gloss descends on Peeta and before I can send an arrow to his head, Johanna has planted her axe in his chest. The cannon is instant as Gloss falls to the ground dead. Enobaria comes barging through the bushes, dodging Finnick's trident throw. I spot Cashmere heading for Peeta and I let an arrow fly. She sees it but she doesn't get away fast enough. It pierces her shoulder, long enough for Peeta to pull his knife out. Before he can though, Johanna has already finished Cashmere off with contempt written on her face.
I am so focused on protecting Peeta, on watching him, that I do not see Brutus before it is too late. I do not see him before his knife goes straight into my side. I gasp at the blinding pain as he twists it under my ribs. I grab his shoulder and try to push him off but he digs in harder. He pulls it out and I drop straight to my knees, my eyes watering. He looms over me, ready to finish me off but a trident spears him in the chest. He collapses into the dirt and the cannon sounds, signalling his death, and luckily not my own. I hold my stomach as my eyes roll back into my head, as if I could still save my long gone baby.
When I emerge from the darkness, Peeta hovers over me and his hands go to my side, trying to staunch the flow of blood. His face is remarkably still. "Peeta," I pant, trying to reach my arm up. My limbs feel useless though.
"Shut up," he tells me, and it's not with malice that he does. He's just trying to save my energy.
"I got her," says a voice. Finnick's bronze haired face peers in, and he picks me up, carrying me away from the Cornucopia. He lays me down by the water and he and Peeta try to fix my wound. They wash away what blood they can and then wrap a long moss leaf around my stomach to stop me from bleeding. But I'm starting to feel dizzier by the second and I can feel the blood leaking from my wound. I can't sit up. I can't do anything but lie there. They search through all of the packs we've gathered and Finnick finds some kind of fever pills, like the ones I gave to Peeta in the first games.
They make me take one, just in case, before I take a turn for the worse. They fuss over me for a while and I watch them with amusement. They bicker about the best way to do treat me, whether or not they could get Haymitch to send some medicine, whether or not they should move me.
"Are you girls done?" I muster weakly. Both look down at me and Finnick even smiles at me. Finally they agree to move me into the tent for some protection. Finnick offers to take the first shift with Johanna. Peeta settles in next to me, wrapping me in the sleeping bag so I don't get cold. I tell him to get inside with me and though he initially refuses, eventually he relents. His body warmth diminishes the coldness I feel.
We are quiet for a long time. Then I realise there is so much I need to say to him. "Listen, if I don't make it –"
"You really need to be quiet," he tells me, and he surprises me by kissing me lightly on my nose. "You're not gonna die. After all, haven't we been here before?"
He speaks of our time in the cave, when the situations were reversed. When it was Peeta who was dying, and me who comforted him. I'm sure the audience and Snow are enjoying the irony of it all.
"We have. But I have a feeling we're not gonna be here again." He grits his teeth and tightens his arms around me, as much as he can without hurting me.
"Don't talk," he says simply and I close my eyes and bury my head in his shirt. I like that in the tent, they can barely see our shadows. They cannot see us, maybe hear us but we are almost alone. I doze off for only a little bit and when I wake up, Peeta is barely awake. It's darker than it should be and I know that this is deliberate. The only light is from the soft thin light from one of the small lantern lights they grabbed off of Brutus.
I look up at him, his mess of blonde hair falling over his forehead. There's some dry blood on his neck, probably mine and his full lips are set in an almost smile. There's a large gash in his uniform, right above his bellybutton. I reach through it and graze my fingers along the panels of his stomach. I can feel his hard, sinewy muscles underneath the tips of my blistered fingertips.
"Having fun there?" he asks, cracking one eye fully open. He grins down at me and this breaks my heart. It's a grin I haven't seen in a long time and it might be the last time I see it.
"You have muscles," I comment in surprise.
"You sound surprised," he says in a pretend offended tone.
"I just never noticed."
He puts his hand across my forehead and I frown. "What are you doing?"
"Just checking if you have a fever. You don't seem to but I don't know how else to explain the words coming out of your mouth," he says with a laugh.
"Let me be serious Peeta," I say. I stroke his face, trying to pick my words as carefully as I can. "I know a lot has happened but I just….." Oh god, I wish I was good at saying things. "If we – if we hadn't had to come back in here, I would've – it would have been you and me. Forever." He looks away, probably thinking I'm just saying this because I'm dying and I want to make him happy. That I'm still trying to make up for what happened between Gale and me. I jerk his head back around to look at me. "I'm serious Peeta. This isn't the fever or me dying or anything else." I stop to take a breath in, because what I'm about to say is the hardest thing I've ever said. And then I whisper, "I love you."
It's the first time that I've said it to him, to any boy and meant it. I could never say it to Gale. But I love Peeta. I do. I love him, and his kind heart, and gentle soul. I love the boy with the bread and I cannot bear to lose him or be without him. I know that however this ends, one of us will die without the other. Gale is my friend, my brother, my comfort and strength for so long. But I what I need is Peeta's unconditional love and care, not Gale's fire and passion. I have enough of my own.
Peeta looks down at me. He studies me, maybe trying to find the lie in my words. But it seems he doesn't because a light comes into his eyes. He sees that it's not just an act. It's not for the Games. It's real. "I love you too." He bends his head down and kisses me as strongly as he dares to. This kiss makes me feel more alive than I ever have; ironic since I'm technically dying. "Always."
"Always," I echo. I nestle into him again and we lie in silence for a few moments. I can see he can't seem to wipe the smile off his face and this makes me happy. If not for these Games, we might have more time, we might have a chance. But right now, this admission of love is all we will ever have.
Or is it?
"Peeta?" I say in a tiny, hesitant voice. He looks down at me and perhaps he sees how badly my hands are shaking because he kisses them. It's so hard for me to express these kind of feelings that every part of my body fights against letting my guard down. But I have to do this.
In the lowest voice I can muster, I say in a trembling voice, "Make love to me."
Ahh do you hate me for leaving it there? :D next one should be up in a couple of days. reviews make me happy :)