A/N: Thank you so much for the lovely reviews! You guys make this so much fun. The next couple chapters are on the shorter side, so I'll post another one tomorrow. I usually post about once a week, but the rest of the story is mapped out, so it will definitely be completed. Thank you all for reading! Enjoy!
12
The pain becomes a background buzz that makes it impossible to sleep. I finally settle into a daze somewhere between sleeping and waking. As soon as predawn light starts to turn the forest gray, I give up and drag myself out of my sleeping bag.
I break camp in time to collect some more water before I get moving. As the sun comes up, I inspect the cuts on my hands and arms. The worst ones haven't scabbed yet, but they're not bleeding anymore, and the skin around them is white. I'm not sure what that means, but I know it's better than the skin around them being red, which would mean infection.
It rains again in the middle of the afternoon, and I manage to rinse my shoulder wound. My entire arm is throbbing now, and the skin around the gash is swollen and pink. I don't know what to do besides bandage it back up and hope for the best. Focusing on my injuries means I don't collect much drinking water, and my bottle is only half-full.
I've been walking for a while when the forest goes silent again. It's like someone hit a switch, and the birdsong I didn't even realize I was hearing cuts off in an instant.
I don't wait around this time. As soon as I notice the silence, I'm sprinting through the woods, my eyes on the trees.
My legs are shaking so bad that I trip and slam into the soft ground. As I push myself up, I feel something trembling beneath me. Silver pebbles and gold pine needles dance across the forest floor.
I'm not shaking. The arena is. The Gamemakers made an earthquake.
We learned about earthquakes in history class. A bad one at the beginning of the Catastrophes caused a giant tidal wave that dragged whole cities underwater. As far as I know, there's never been one in Panem. Until now.
I try standing up. The trembling ground sends vibrations up my legs, but by steadying myself against the trees, I manage to keep jogging. The shaking gets weaker. After a little while, it stops.
I slow to a walk and look around. Nothing seems to have been damaged out here. The birds are singing again and I start to relax. Looks like the Gamemaker's trap didn't catch me. Maybe being so far out in the woods saved me from it. I imagine the earth splitting apart beneath the Cornucopia, maybe the entire field disappearing into a bottomless pit. That would be pretty impressive for the audience, especially since the Careers tend to set up camp at the Cornucopia. The strongest tributes might be out of the Games, along with all of their supplies. I won't know unless I check.
I'm hoisting myself painfully into a low-branched tree when the first cannon sounds. Just like after the Cornucopia, the blasts go off one after another. A summary of the dead.
The cannon goes on and on, my heart speeding up with each boom. I'm one of the final twenty tributes. Now seventeen. Now fifteen. Now thirteen.
Thirteen. Twelve tributes dead in the earthquake. Thirteen left in the arena. And I'm one of them.
My heart is pounding as I claw my way up the tree, scratching my arms and legs and not bothering to care. I'm in the final thirteen. I can't believe it.
When I finally get into the top branches, I turn toward the mountain and the Cornucopia. I can't see either. There's a thick, black cloud in front of the mountain, stretching up into the sky. It's like no storm cloud I've ever seen. It looks more like smoke. Did the earthquake start a fire? If it did, it's the field that's burning; I can't see any flames among the trees.
I try to guess at the location of the mountain in the smoke, then climb back down and keep walking.
The light is just turning that first shade of sunset orange when I see a dark wall up ahead. I freeze, waiting to find out what new trap I've stumbled into.
Nothing happens. After a few moments, I creep forward, knife first.
When I reach the wall, it just turns out to be a hedge. I roll my eyes at myself and reach out to push the branches aside.
The leaves sting like needles. I jerk my hand back with a gasp of pain and stick my fingers in my mouth, trying to suck out the invisible stingers that seem to be burrowing into my skin.
The hedge is too tall to climb, and it goes on in either direction as far as I can see.
My heart is beating double-time in my chest. This is the edge of the arena. I'm sure of it. I actually found the edge. I listen hard, but I can't hear any noises from the other side.
I pull my fingers out of my mouth. They still hurt a little. I'm not getting through that thing without an axe and possibly full body armor.
I turn left and start walking, my eyes on the hedge. Maybe it's shorter somewhere else. Or maybe I can find a tree with branches close enough to the hedge that I can see to the other side.
I keep walking as the sun goes down, but the trees near the hedge aren't much taller than me, and the hedge doesn't get any shorter. There has to be a break somewhere. Doesn't there?
I'm so desperate to find a way through that I almost ignore the first few drops of rain that tell me another downpour is coming. I have to force myself to set up the bottle and funnel. I pull off my shirt and the moss bandage.
My shoulder looks worse. The short downpour gives it another rinse, and I decide not to bandage it up again tonight. My other cuts have been healing pretty well – maybe I should have left this one exposed all along.
I set up my sleeping bag under some low bushes near the hedge, even though I doubt any other tributes have made it out this far. Why would they? As far as I know, no tribute has ever tried to find the edge of the arena before. But I can't help feeling like there's something precious on the other side of that hedge. Maybe something I can use to get out of here. Maybe just an out-district wasteland I could fade away into. Maybe a row of Peacekeepers ready to gun me down. Still. I'd rather go out fighting one of them than another tribute.
I sit facing the hedge while I drink some water and eat a little beef and fruit. When the anthem begins, I tip my head back and look into the sky to see the fallen.
It's a long list tonight. A girl and a boy from One. The other girl from Two. Shanty and a boy from Four. That's five of the Careers dead – and five still alive.
There are some others I don't recognize, then Shibori and Bobbin from Eight. I think of the boys in the crowd at our interviews, the ones who held up Shibori's face in a heart. There'll be lots of tears in the Capitol tonight. Or maybe they've already found another tribute to lust after.
The image of a girl from Eleven is replaced by the Capitol's seal as the anthem ends. So Maysilee escaped the earthquake too. I decide that I'm happy about this, and don't let myself think about it any more than that.
I put my shirt back on, careful not to let the filthy cloth touch the wound on my shoulder. I crawl into my sleeping bag with my knife in one hand, watching the hedge until I drift off.
It's still dark when I wake up. At first I think it's the pain that jarred me awake, but then I hear a shrill beep. I catch my breath, trying to place the sound. Is it coming from the other side of the hedge?
I ease myself out of my sleeping bag in case I need to make a quick escape, my knife clenched tightly in my fist.
There's something pale reflecting moonlight on the ground between me and the hedge. I edge closer, knife raised. When I recognize the silver parachute, my shoulders slump. It's a sponsor gift.
The thing stops beeping as soon as my fingers close around it. I tear off the parachute and open the metal canister attached to it.
Inside is a tiny pot of white ointment. I look at it, then at my shoulder. The stuff smells like chemicals, and I've got a pretty good idea what it is. What I don't understand is why it's been sent to me.
Who would sponsor me? There are thirteen tributes left in the arena, five of them Careers. Even sponsors who like to bet on the underdog shouldn't be betting on me. All I've done is wander around and get chewed up by some squirrels. Dolly or Beulah probably stands a better chance of winning.
But the fact is, someone did sponsor me. Actually, since this medicine was probably pretty expensive, chances are that a lot of someones have sponsored me. Maybe they think I'm funny. Maybe they're curious to find out what I'm planning to do when I get through the hedge.
If I was smart, I'd do like Larvina told me back in the Capitol. Don't squander it. But I've never been one to take a gift blindly, and this one has more than just parachute strings attached.
I've never liked the idea of sponsor gifts. The gifts make sponsors think they're a part of the Games when they've got no place in here. They rip children away from their families and drop them into deadly arenas, all the while claiming justice for crimes they can't even remember. That's bad enough. But then they dress us up and parade us around like buffoons, and if we're entertaining enough, they send us scraps of their enormous bounty and feel like they've done something brave and kind.
Bile scorches my throat and I swallow hard. I hate them. I hate every last one of them, but most of all, I hate the ones who pretend not to hate me. Because who could do this to someone they didn't hate? What kind of monster sends kids to their deaths and then teases them with gifts that make them feel like they might get to live?
If I use this gift, then every second I stay alive in here is a second that some Capitol slugs think they gave me. I will not die owing them.
I sit there, wrapped in my sleeping bag, turning the pot of ointment over and over in my hands.
Birds start to sing in the woods behind me. The sun rises, and I see that the hedge looks just as solid as it did last night.
Once it's late enough that I figure people are watching, I look into the forest, hoping I'm near a camera. I hold up the tub of ointment and smirk.
"Thanks, but no thanks," I say. I hurl the medicine into the woods and start breaking camp.
