(Katja's POV)
We woke up the next morning to Dalton pounding on the door. "You've overslept!" he snapped. After 10 frantic minutes of dressing in sweatpants and shirts (no point dressing up, Tegan explained, we'd change into arena clothes in the launch room), we stumbled out the door, Dalton shoving a bagel and a thermos into each of our hands. Alamo was already waiting nervously by the door to our quarters.
We were bundled into a car, then on a hovercraft. I was relieved to see that Fuse was nowhere near us, and that Tegan and I could sit next to each other. Neither of us flinched as the tracker went in.
Guards roughly separated us to go to our respective chambers below the arena; I didn't even get a chance to hug her goodbye. In my launch room, I nervously braided my hair and put the token pieces on the ends of the plaits, turning the metal over in my hands. Then, a sudden idea.
(Tegan's POV)
I wasn't nervous at all; it was either make it through and die helping Katja, or just be killed within the next few minutes. The stylist from Three helped me into the outfit: long, slightly baggy pants with many pockets, made of rough material on the outside but lined with a softer inner layer, a skintight tank top, a cotton long-sleeved shirt, a light, but soft and thick, black zip-up jacket, and ordinary running shoes.
"It's going to be cool, but not freezing," the stylist thought. "The jacket is good down to about thirty degrees, and the layers will accommodate changing conditions." I zipped it up, over the token I'd pinned to the shirt, and stepped into the glass tube.
Complete darkness enveloped me, and I felt a split second's claustrophobic panic until light spilled into my tube, revealing a cloudless, clear sky. As the plate clicked into place, I scanned the arena, looking for Katja. The plates were on a long beach, all equidistant from a metal cornucopia on a flat rock edging out of the sand that faced a body of water so large that I couldn't see where it ended. The other side of the beach sloped gradually up into a forest of broad pine trees, thick with branches that hid their trunks all the way down to the forest floor. I smelled the air. No salt. The water was probably fresh. The jacket seemed a bit too warm; I judged it to be in the upper sixties.
My eyes finally found Katja, five plates and ninety degrees from me. Fifty-five seconds left. She saw me, and took the token pieces out of her braid, throwing me a significant look. My hand went to my token, and I undid it. I had no idea what she meant by it, but I trusted her completely. Forty-five seconds.
Suddenly, she shouted, sounding angry, in German. "I'm faking being mad at you so everyone will think our alliance broke! When there are five seconds left, throw your token at the nearest Career. We're going to blow their plates. Then we're splitting up. You don't bother with the supplies, just head for the forest. And I'm going in. Hopefully with some Careers out and the rest stunned by the blast, I'll get something. Give me a sign if you understand all that." Thirty seconds. The others looked confused at Katja's outburst, but they didn't seem to understand.
Meanwhile, in the Capitol:
"Get me a translator NOW!" Seneca Crane, the head Gamemaker bellowed.
"But we've banned other languages since the Rebellion and jailed or whipped anyone who...no one will come forward even if they know it!" one of the pit workers protested.
"Then we'll have to say we'll give amnesty. We need to know what Three and Ten are saying. It could be part of a rebellion."
"Maybe you won't need them," the white-jacketed tech shouted. "Do you think they're doing what I-?" Three echoing booms cut him off midsentence.
(Tegan's POV)
I nodded, then realized Katja was too far away to clearly see that. So I held up my hand, with the three middle fingers outstretched.
That gesture meant so much. Goodbye. I love you. You matter. I had only ever seen it at a tribute's funeral when I was 10. He had made it to the top four, and everyone saw his courage.
I held my token and scanned the nearby plates. I was next to the deaf boy, but another plate over stood the psychopath from Two. On her other side, Alamo shook in his shoes.
Examining the beach, I saw weapons piled deep into the Cornucopia, and small backpacks placed equidistantly around it, at a distance of about fifty feet. Twenty seconds. I looked over at the girl from Two, trying to judge my throw's angle and distance. If I didn't throw far enough, there wouldn't even be a piece of me for anyone to bury. Fifteen seconds. I cocked my arm back for a long overhead throw, hoping the small pin would fly over the deaf boy entirely. I caught Katja's gaze. I love you. Ten seconds.
My chest felt tight, so I craned my neck to look at the open sky and manage a deep breath. Seven seconds. My hand shook, slick with sweat. Now.
I threw it, watching its trajectory with a pounding heart and dry mouth. I heard Katja call. "No! Look at the clock!" The buzzer would be lost in the sound-
I couldn't hear anything, and the ground shook under me like- I remembered the last earthquake, the one that broke all our- the clock clicked over to zero seconds.
I threw myself off the plate, keen to get out of the area in case the initial blasts set off more, and immediately fell hard onto the sand. Okay. So running was out. Then, I saw a long piece of driftwood inches from my head, probably blown from the blast. Could I walk? Staking the stick in deeply with each step, I hobbled towards the trees, not daring to look back. Hopefully the others were still too shell-shocked to fight.
I heard light footsteps behind me, stumbling, then a hard thud. It was so close that the sand spray from the fall got in my hair. I looked back for one second. One of the twelve-year old twins had fallen, a knife in his neck and a backpack in his hands. He had been too frantic even to put it on.
As I ducked to grab the backpack with one hand, another knife just skimmed the top of my hair. I couldn't take time to register who was throwing, but a sinking feeling rose in me. It was probably Two. Had I killed Alamo instead? I stumbled as fast as I could towards the forest, and pulled a knife out of the roots of the first tree I came to. She was still throwing, but if I could get more coverage, she'd give up and go back for more. I blocked the idea of a fight between her and Katja out of my head.
I finally stopped at the first thick strand of trees, checked- as I thought, Two had stopped following at the tree line- and hid under the clean-smelling, opaque branches of the largest tree. The branches were so thick and everywhere that no one would see me unless they were inches away. But my view of the fighting was now mostly obscured.
Scrambling, I hurried halfway up the branches to a gap in the foiliage something startled me. "Hey! Pervert!" The sound was soft and distorted, but no question; I could hear again.
Looking down at the beach, I couldn't see Katja anywhere, but the girl from Four was fighting with Fuse on the waterline. "You fucking..." she shouted through gritted teeth, trying to drag him into the water.
"She's a liar!" he protested.
"I believe her!"
It took several seconds to realize who the "her" was. And then I almost fell out of the tree. Someone believed me, was listening to my interview. This was the Hunger Games, yet here this girl was, protecting her competition, alliance or not.
Two emerged from the Cornucopia dragging as many bags and weapons- knives, arrows, a trident- as she could. Her face and jacket were covered in blood. She had even smeared some across her forehead, like war paint. Her gigantic district partner followed, as well as the girl from One, who looked like she was in shock.
My stomach dropped. I'd missed my throw and killed Alamo. Thirteen. Naive. A kid. I shook so much I had trouble holding onto the branches. But that left- if Katja's throws were good- the boy from One and the boy from Four already out.
"Leave him!" Quartz from Two shouted at Four. "Let's get as many kills as we can now! And besides, you're defending that crazy bitch and her little girlfriend? That news footage of them made me want to puke!"
"It's got nothing to do with her being a...well...It's about what he's done!" Her face shifted as she struggled with conflicting feelings, and after several seconds, Four settled for shoving Fuse hard onto the sand and kicking him in the groin. "That's for Tegan. I'm not going to forget you." Fuse ran right past my tree in his headlong, branch-breaking flight from the Career pack. It took everything I had not to drop out of the branches and go at him with my bare hands.
The monstrous boy from Two threw a small rock into the mouth of the Cornucopia, and there was a yelp in response. A tall, dark shape dragged out two huge backpacks. I tilted my head in confusion. The boy from Nine? Well, deaf or not, he was a brick wall.
But where was Katja? I remembered, with a pang, a bloodcurdling scream I had heard during the first of the fighting.
(Katja's POV)
Three echoing booms filled the air with sand and shrapnel. Coughing, I looked through the whirlwind at the clock. One second. The force of the explosions had thrown me onto my hands and knees. Reflexively, I grabbed the edge of my plate and forced myself to wait a second longer.
My legs shook as I stumbled onto the sand, my eyes stung, and it felt like I was trying to breathe in broken glass. The uneven ground seemed to shift under me, but I saw the main supply cache was unharmed. And Tegan was nowhere near the Cornucopia. Good. She hadn't gone into the fight. But now the Careers and the other tributes- most were small, but Nine's boy and Seven were nothing to sneeze at either- were starting to move towards the supplies as well. Now, Katja. I spotted a brown backpack and small metal box far from the Cornucopia- that was it! I ran- or at least, moved as quickly as I could- parallel to the shore, curving my path around the outside of the plates to avoid colliding with the other tributes. I heard indistinct shouting- at least my hearing wasn't totally gone. But now I saw several figures closing in on the horn. I was out of time. Just a few feet left. I grabbed the bag and box and veered off. Not towards the forest. I'd have to run back through all the fighting. But Tegan was probably in the forest. My stomach sank. The fighting would pin me down here for hours, while she worried…
I saw something flash in my peripheral vision, and flinched hard to one side before I could see what it was. An arrow landed in the sand an inch from my foot. The Careers. I looked around frantically. If I continued parallel to the beach, I could…
The rocks. About 100 yards ahead, there were odd rock formations, granite rising out of the white sand and water's edge. And there was a way up. I slammed into the lowest rock to avoid another arrow. The rock was maybe four feet tall and as wide, with a slightly flattened top and a notch halfway up the side. Pushing against the side of the rock with the textured soles of my shoes, I clambered up onto it, almost doubling over to present less of a target. My brain worked furiously- the formation was mostly making an open plain of rock, no caves, nowhere to hide. Keep moving. Move. On my feet on my feet. I moved to run forwards, but abruptly stopped. I had wanted to jump up onto a higher rock, the next one, but there was a small gap between the two. A cannon went off, and then everything clicked.
I could use my manipulation skills, even here. Not thinking about how much this would hurt, I pretended to jump the gap to get onto the next rock, keeping my body low to the ground. But I didn't put enough power into the jump. I was falling down the narrow gap, smashing my head painfully into the side and tearing at my nails as I fought for purchase on the rock face. Those same smooth faces could be used to stop me! Just before I would have hit the sand- and probably broken something- I forced my legs up, planting my feet against one of the rocks, which slammed my back against the other.
The start of a scream rent the air, and I screamed along with it, putting my entire lung power into it and imagining myself dying. It had to be believable. The one problem, though, with my position was that I couldn't see my pursuer? Pursuers? I did get a high score, so who knows how many of them were after me. The two rocks formed a v-shaped gap, and all I could see besides the sides was a tiny strip of clear blue water.
I listened intently. "She fell down the gap," a male voice shouted. "And that was her scream. Even if she's not dead or seriously hurt, she's stuck. We can come back later and take care of her." It had worked. Now there was nothing to do but wait.
After an hour or so, I heard the Careers go crashing towards the forest. This was my chance. I looked around; I really did seem stuck! But I'd slowed my fall by bracing my feet and back. Would it work the other way, too? I made a V with my body and climbed up the face, using my back as leverage. Several minutes and a few slips later, I lay panting on the rocks. The area around the Cornucopia was clear. Now, to find Tegan.