A/N: Thanks to bigtimecrazy123 (your feedback was great!) and HermioneandMarcus (thanks for the encouragement) for reviewing, and thank you to everyone who added me to various and sundry alerts and favorites. Also, a small favor; if anyone knows of a beta reader who would be interested in working on this story, please let me know - and review! I love reviews. Okay. Chapter eleven ready to go.
I've been awake for at least forty-eight hours. The sleeping pill on interview night seems like a million years ago, but the Careers are still going strong, intent on hunting down more tributes before finally taking a break. They want to rack up kills, impress the sponsors. Me, I'm not to worried about that. I have two kills to my name, and for a female not from one of the Career districts, that's enough to keep people cheering for me - and to keep sponsors sending me gifts. I'm the only one out of the pack who's received a gift so far, and it was a good one; the injury on my hand is already healed.
The people in the Capitol may like me, but I'm not sure that the Gamemakers number among my fans. The branch that caused my fall last night was healthy and strong; my foot was placed close to the trunk; and I know for a fact that I used that particular branch for both a handhold and a foothold on my way up. I'm dead certain that the branch was a trap rigged by the Gamemakers, but it's a bit early for them to be killing off tributes. They usually wait until things get boring, and between the bloodbath yesterday and the killing of the girl from District Eight last night, things aren't anywhere near boring yet. So why did the Gamemakers try to kill me?
Then it occurs to me that the activation of the trap may not have been about me at all.
The Gamemakers were watching the training sessions, and they probably had cameras in the dining room and the lobby as well. They know that Cato and I have some sort of tentative friendship going, and they wanted to test it by seeing what he would do if my life were in danger. The Gamemakers were fostering drama - got to keep things exciting for the audience - and while the event somewhat clarified things for me and definitely got me a sponsor gift, I really wish it hadn't been my life on the line.
Then again, it wouldn't have worked the other way around. I've already saved Cato once.
Something slams into me and I stagger, falling flat on my back. Lost in my thoughts, I somehow managed to walk straight into a tree, a lapse in concentration that I can't afford to have happen again. While my alliance with Clove and Cato is solid, the boy from District Three owes me his life, and I've given Peeta no reason to dislike me, the tributes from District One probably wouldn't hesitate to take me out if they had the chance.
Glimmer snickers. "Nice going, Spirit."
Ah. Point proven.
"Shut up, Glimmer, you did the same thing an hour ago," Cato says. "This is getting pointless. We need to rest."
"No, we need to make more kills," Marvel argues. He's got a lock on the title of most bloodthirsty, and he seems to possess boundless energy.
"We've found everyone we're going to find," Cato says. "I can barely keep my eyes open. We're stopping. Let's find somewhere to sleep."
"It's the middle of the day!" Peeta objects.
"I said we're stopping," Cato snaps. "You going to tell me you're not tired?"
"Hey, guys, I think I found something," I say, getting on my knees and indicating the hollow. Obscured as it is by bushes, it's only visible from ground level. If I hadn't taken that fall, I wouldn't have found it. "No one will be able to see us if we're in there."
At first the Careers, especially Marvel, are reluctant, mumbling about how no one would dare to hunt us down. Then Peeta reminds them about Thresh, who we've seen neither hide nor hair of since the bloodbath, and they scramble into the hollow in a hurry. It's a tight fit for eight people; no matter how you contort yourself, you're always putting your feet in somebody's face. I'm the last one to crawl through the bushes, and I find what seems to be an empty spot, but when I put my head down, it lands on someone's abdomen. I stay still, hoping it's Lief - he's used to things like this.
"Who's that?" Cato says. "What are you doing?"
Dammit. "It's Spirit," I say. "I'm sorry, I'll move -"
"Move where?" Lief says crossly from somewhere by my knee. So that's where he is. "This is my space!"
"Nah, it's fine," Cato says. Then he adds in an undertone, "I thought you were Glimmer."
"Oh. No. No worries," I mumble, and decide there and then that I'm not going to move for the rest of the night, even if it kills me. I'm a restless sleeper, and who knows where I could end up if I start flailing around. But it's hard for me to fall asleep just lying still, and as a result, I'm awake when the noise starts.
It's like a cross between a chain saw and somebody strangling a goose. "What the hell is that?" Cato says.
"Who's making that noise?" Lief adds. Apparently I'm not the only one with insomnia.
"It's Marvel," Peeta says from somewhere on the other side of the hollow. "He's snoring."
"How do you know?"
"Because I'm stuck between him and Glimmer," Peeta says. I feel Cato wince.
"Sorry, Peeta," I say. "Bad luck."
"Stop talking," Lief says. "We didn't stop so you all could have a pleasant chat. Go to sleep!"
I take advantage of the moment to readjust my position, getting more comfortable - or as comfortable as I can get when sleeping in what amounts to a cuddle puddle of some of my greatest enemies in the Games. It's a good thing no one can move, I find myself thinking. Otherwise we'd all try to kill each other in our sleep.
When I wake up, I can tell something is wrong right away, but I'm not sure what it is. No one is dead. Nobody is bleeding. We're all alive and unhurt. I'm still using Cato as a pillow and I haven't migrated anywhere awkward overnight. Nothing has visibly changed, but still, something is off. I don't figure out what it is until I yawn and inhale a deep breath of air.
The acrid tang of smoke scrapes my throat, and through a gap in the bushes, I make out the warning orange glow of flames. I sit up so fast that I hit my head on the bushes and yell, "Fire!"
Cato sits up, almost chinning himself on my shoulder. "What?"
I point. Cato repeats my warning at a much louder volume while I kick Lief awake. Lief in turn whacks the boy from District Three in the stomach and kicks Marvel awake. Marvel sits up with a roar and accidentally drives his arm into Peeta's stomach, and Peeta's retaliatory strike hits Glimmer, who steps on Clove as she makes for the exit.
It's a panicked, scrambling exit, and because I refuse to trample Lief on the way out, I'm the last one out of the hollow, throwing myself at the opening and bolting through the woods. Every time I chance a look back, the flames seem to be catching up, and for one terrible moment, I think I see Valentine in the flames, his arms outstretched.
I'm waiting.
I come to a stop, staring at him, almost hypnotized. I can feel the heat of the flames on my back.
"Spirit, move!" Cato grabs my arm and drags me down a game trail. Even in the midst of my panic, I can't help but admire how smart he is. Game trails always lead to water. The guy at the disorientation training mentioned it exactly once, while he was nailing us into barrels, and somehow Cato remembered it.
The game trail ends at a stream and Cato pulls me into the water. "Where are the others?" I gasp. My throat feels raw, and I'm guessing it's the smoke.
"Don't know," Cato says. He's doubled over, coughing. "We gotta keep moving, Spirit."
We wade downstream. Ducking into the water when the flames get too close. Moving as fast as we can, yelling the others' names in between the coughing fits. I call out for Lief, but either he can't hear me or he's concentrating on something else. Like surviving the flames.
The stream eventually feeds into the lake, and by the time we reach it, Cato and I are soaking wet and exhausted - and we still don't know if any of the others have survived.
"We'd have heard a cannon if they're dead," I rationalize. "Wouldn't we?"
"Look on the bright side, District Seven," Cato rasps. I notice he's stopped calling me Spirit "If they're dead, you're that much closer to winning."
I ignore him. If Lief is dead, it doesn't matter if I win or not. This mission is too difficult for one person to accomplish on her own. "Let's try the camp. Maybe some of them made it back there."
We wait for an hour. Two hours. Three. I find a blackberry bush and strip it, letting the sweetness soothe my aching throat. Cato doesn't ask me for some of the berries or even where the bush is; he just sits there, and eventually I bring him some berries, too. I think the possible wreckage of his plans for these Games has temporarily short-circuited him, and again I'm reminded of the one great weakness of the Career pack. They rely on a formula. To give them some credit, the formula works most of the time, but when it doesn't, they're lost.
I guess that's why they keep people like me around.
We're well into the afternoon when a smoke-blackened figure appears out of the woods. Cato grabs for his sword and seems like he's about to charge, but a coughing fit derails his attack plan. I put a hand on my hammer, but I don't think I'm going to need it. I'd recognize that shaggy haircut anywhere.
"Power down, Cato," I say. "It's just Lief."
The figure staggers toward us, opens its mouth to say something, then doubles over coughing. I take the initiative, because he sure isn't going to get out whatever it is on his own. "Lief, where are the others?"
His answer is pretty garbled. I only make out three words; "tree", "injured", and "Katniss". That's enough for Cato, though, and he's off and running into the woods. I chase after him, hoping he won't have a heart attack or respiratory failure, leaving Lief to trail behind me, coughing and gagging.
Lief, what the hell happened to you guys? I say. It's been hours!
We had to go around the fire and stupid Marvel got us lost, Lief says. Then we found Katniss - she got burned pretty bad - and we treed her. Except we don't know what to do now that we've got her. You and Cato seem to be the brains of this outfit.
Funny. Where is she again?
Lief sends me the location. "Cato," I yell, because he's taken off toward the valley instead of the forest, "you're going the wrong way!"
He comes tearing out of the brush, panting, sword in hand. I point him in the right direction and he starts running again. I catch up to him just as he reaches the other Careers, and Lief comes wheezing in behind us moments later.
"I can't believe we got her!" Marvel, despite the fact that his brown hair is gray with ash, is positively giddy. "We got District Twelve!"
Peeta is doing a good job of not looking terrified for Katniss. "I don't know," he says doubtfully. "She's pretty high up."
"Don't worry," Cato says. "We can get her."
Who's we? I wonder. I know next to nothing about trees, but I can tell you for a fact that there's no way some of those branches will take Cato's weight. Or any of ours, for that matter. Clove and I are the smallest, but Katniss is still at least forty pounds lighter than we are. Unless I'm mistaken - and I don't think I am - we're stuck.
"How's everything with you?" Katniss calls down to us.
"Well enough," Cato says. "Yourself?"
"It's been a bit warm for my taste," Katniss says. "The air's better up here. Why don't you come on up?"
"Think I will," Cato says.
"No," I hiss. "She's playing with you. There's no way you're going to make it -"
"Here, take this, Cato," Glimmer says, interrupting me, and she tries to hand Cato the bow and arrows. My view of Katniss Everdeen's face is a little obscured, but even from this distance, I can tell that the sight of the bow in Glimmer's hands makes her blood boil.
Stupid Glimmer. She's telling Cato what he wants to hear, instead of the truth, which is that he's risking his life going up there. If anyone should be chasing Katniss up a tree, it should be me. I'm the best climber here.
But then again, I don't know what I'd do if I got within striking distance of her. My mission is to keep her alive, and not killing her when I had the chance would sever my alliance with the Careers and alert the Capitol that something is foul in the arena. I can't. I just have to watch Cato try to climb the tree and hope he doesn't kill himself doing it.
"No," Cato says to the bow and arrows. "I'll do better with my sword."
No, you won't, I think. Katniss starts climbing again, and as she goes I get a glimpse of the burn on her leg. She's tough, to still be moving with what's got to be at least a second-degree burn covering her upper thigh. It crosses my mind that Katniss could be the victor even without Lief and I here to control things.
I hear an awful crack and see Cato fall, arms flailing, a pretty good-sized branch tumbling down beside him. He must be a terrible climber if he broke that branch; it could definitely take twice his weight. I observe this clinically as Cato plummets through the leaves, while beside me Glimmer gives a phony gasp and Lief snickers.
Cato hits the ground hard and lays there for a second, all the air knocked out of him. Then he scrambles back up, swearing fluently. I'm worried - he fell hard enough to break at least a few ribs - but I know better than to ask if he's all right. It'll make him angry. Maybe I'll ask later, after we can reach some sort of consensus about what to do here.
Watch yourself, Spirit, Lief says. You almost sound like you care.
Shut up!
"I'll try," Glimmer says, and pulls herself into the tree.
"Better back up," I say in an undertone. "If she falls, we don't want her to take us all out."
Cato snorts. "When she falls, you mean. I don't know who she thinks she's kidding. You're the climber. We should have sent you up and been done with it."
I shrug. "It wouldn't make a difference. Katniss is too high up and I'm too heavy for those branches."
Cato considers me for a second. Then he puts an arm around my waist and lifts me up in the air. I try my best not to shriek, but I end up making some protesting noise that's somewhere between a squeak and a hiss.
"You're not that heavy," Cato says.
"Maybe not to you, but the branches don't have your muscles," I say. "Can you set me down?"
Cato complies, and I step away, putting a little distance between us. The moment has gotten suddenly awkward, and both of us focus on Glimmer, who's forty feet up in the tree and pulling out her bow.
After Glimmer's abortive attempt to kill Katniss, which only results in the girl on fire getting ahold of an arrow, there's dissension in the ranks. Clove wants to climb the tree and kill Katniss herself, and when I point out that she's too heavy, she responds by saying that she's much lighter than Glimmer. Glimmer, of course, takes offense, and quite the girl fight is shaping when Peeta finally says, "Oh, let her stay up there. It's not like she's going anywhere. We'll deal with her in the morning."
I nod my agreement, and so does Lief, but it falls to Cato - the de facto leader of our merry band of murderers - to approve it. "Fine," he says. "Let's eat, too. I'm starving."
I bet Katniss is rolling her eyes. Cato probably doesn't know what starving feels like. Not that I do, either. Even when the Peacekeepers torched our crops and scattered our livestock, we knew how to feed ourselves from the tundra. There was nothing they could really do to eradicate us; short of killing us all, one by one.
"I'll set some deadfalls," I suggest. "Then we'll have fresh meat for breakfast tomorrow."
"We have plenty of food," Marvel says.
"With the way you eat, who knows how long that'll last?" I say pointedly. "I'll set the traps. You guys stay here and stuff your faces. Lief, come help me, will you?"
Once we're out of earshot and I've made sure no one's following us, Lief turns to me expectantly. "What is it? Or did you really need my help with the deadfalls?"
I grab him and drag him close, whispering in his ear. "Tomorrow morning, right after the anthem plays, Katniss is going to drop a nest of tracker jackers on us. Don't get stung. Run as fast as you can to the lake. Okay?"
"Got it," Lief says. "So where do you want me to set the deadfalls?"
I point out a game trail and off he goes. I had to whisper the warning to prevent those watching from wondering why I can see the future. At this point, I could kill Lief for not listening more closely when Abbess was explaining what would happen, because now the burden of keeping us both alive is resting squarely on my shoulders. As if I didn't have enough to worry about.
I set my snares, corral Lief, and return to the campsite. The Careers have built a fire and are passing out the food.
"Here's yours," Clove says, handing me a couple strips of dried meat and a hunk of bread. "Marvel tried to eat it, but Cato wouldn't let him."
"I did not," Marvel protests. "But hey, if you don't want it -"
"I want it!" I say hastily. "This is the Hunger Games, Marvel. I'm not going to let you eat my damn dinner!"
Everyone laughs, and as I look around the circle of teenagers, I realize once again that all of them save Peeta are going to die in the next few weeks. Glimmer is going to die sooner - in the next few hours, actually. And unless I'm willing to ruin the set path even further, there's nothing I can do about it. About any of it. They're just kids. They don't deserve to die.
You're just a kid, Lief points out. You're only eighteen.
Shut up. That's different and you know it.
I don't think it's different, Lief says.
Yeah, well, no one's asking you.
"Hey, District Seven," Clove says to me, "want this last piece of bread?"
I shake my head. "Nah, you have it. I'm stuffed."
After awhile, the fire begins to die down and the Careers drop off to sleep one by one. Even Glimmer, who's supposed to be on watch. I can't bring myself to sleep, not when I know what's going to happen in the morning. I stay awake to watch over them, knowing it's futile. My eyes linger on Cato's face, surprised at how young he looks when he's asleep, without that arrogant grin stamped on his features. And then, as always, I think of Valentine.
"You're not the same person," I say quietly. "Are you?"
There's no one but the cameras to hear my question.