Chapter 12
My heart leaps in my chest. I look down at my feet immediately, careful not to alert the others that I have seen something up above. Fortunately, they are still engrossed in an argument about the girl by the fire and are paying no attention to me. But at any moment, Cato could let his eyes wander upward and see Katniss hidden in the tree through his night glasses. If she makes even the slightest sound, it'll all be over. I have to get the group to clear out, quickly.
"We're wasting time!' I interject loudly. "I'll go finish her and let's move on!"
"Go on then, Lover Boy, see for yourself," says Cato. I wasn't sure if they'd just let me go off on my own. But apparently they are either too lazy to do it themselves, or I'd built up more trust than I had realised. Maybe a little of both.
I hurry back the way we came, leaping over logs and pushing through the branches as quickly as I can. I'm so fixated on getting there fast and on my fear that Katniss could be spotted that I don't prepare myself for what is about to happen.
The girl is lying in the same position where we left her, her body resting awkwardly in the dirt. At first I think she is in fact dead, but as I draw closer, I notice the slight rise and fall of her chest as she breathes. Thank goodness she's not conscious. I don't know how I could do this if she were awake.
Without wasting a second, I go over to kneel down beside her. Trying to convince myself that it somehow makes a difference, I look at her pale face, wipe the blood from her mouth, and whisper that I am sorry. Then I pull the knife from my belt and run it across her throat as firmly as I can. Not daring to look, I remove my glasses and turn to face the smouldering fire. After about 30 seconds, I check her pulse. Nothing. Job done.
The others are talking in hushed voices that quickly cease upon my return.
"Was she dead?" asks Cato.
"No. But she is now," I say. Just then, the cannon fires, as if to confirm my response. "Ready to move on?"
To my great relief, they agree and Cato sets off at a run once more. Katniss is out of danger, for now.
With my night glasses on, I don't notice that dawn has already broken until I hear the chatter of birdsong among the trees. The emerging daylight prompts complaints of fatigue from the group. Cato, who looks pretty tired himself, concedes and makes the call to return to the lake.
The journey takes a couple of hours, giving me more time than I would like to process the events of the evening. I see the face of the girl, the flicker of flames reflecting in her terrified eyes as Cato raises his weapon. Did that brute of a tribute feel anything as she pleaded with him? As he plunged his sword into her chest? He certainly didn't show it if he did. The kid seems intent on not just winning, but enjoying every moment. Relishing in his talent for killing.
Well I wish he was in fact as skilled as he thinks he is. Then I would not have had to do what I did. I killed someone. A little girl. Sure, she was already dying, but it doesn't prevent the guilt from seeping in, pressing down on me like a crushing weight. The only way I can bare it is to keep reminding myself that I'm doing this for Katniss. I'm doing this for Katniss.
Katniss. She was close enough up in that tree to hear our voices and see us in the torchlight. She now knows that I am travelling with the Careers. What must she be thinking? Does she know me well enough to realise that I would never have joined them willingly? Does she think I would try to help them find her? What would she make of my volunteering to go back and finish the girl? She is smart but also sceptical about the good intentions of others. I'd be fooling myself if I thought she figured out that I was actually trying to help her. No, even if I were her, the conclusion I would probably come to is that the Games have changed me. That I've transformed into a brutal, arrogant killer just like the rest of the Careers. That I've become exactly what I said I wanted to avoid, back on the roof the night before.
She must be utterly disgusted with me. She'll probably spend the evenings looking up at the night sky, hoping to see my face hanging there. Or maybe she's even plotting to off me herself. No, she's not that vindictive. But I wouldn't blame her if she was. If I were her, I'd want to totally destroy me for allying with these vicious, arrogant killers.
It makes me feel physically sick to imagine what Katniss must be thinking about me. The thoughts go around and around in my head, forcing their way in every time I try to push them out again. I can barely stand it. I'll never get the opportunity to prove that I had merely been trying to help her. Let alone show her that I truly am in love with her, as Haymitch and I had discussed. I'm going to have to accept that I will die with her thinking of me as a traitor and a ruthless murderer.
At least my family and the rest of the nation back home will know the truth. It would have made for riveting television to have seen the Career pack at the base of Katniss's tree. The cameras will no doubt have captured the moment when I spotted Katniss and then seen how I urged the group to move on quickly.
By the time we reach the camp, we are all completely exhausted. The Careers are so confident that no one will attack them at base camp during the day that they don't even bother making someone stay awake to keep watch. Even Felix is allowed to sleep, although he's not granted the luxury of a tent. Having now been awake for two nights in a row, my body falls in a heap and I'm out to it in a second.
I'm the last to wake up. It looks to be late afternoon by the time I emerge from my tent. The others are all sitting casually by the fire munching on food from the supply stack. They don't say anything to me as I arrive but seem to accept my presence without protest. I'm still not exactly sure where I stand. I have not been entirely invited into the gang, but they are at least beginning to see me as a useful resource. For now. It's as good as I can expect really, and it should be good enough to allow me to continue keeping them off Katniss's trail.
"What's over that way?" Clove asks, gesturing to the area on the far side of the circle.
"A field," Marvel says. "I chased Thresh into there yesterday. But he disappeared among the tall grasses. I wasn't about to go in there and track him down when he had such good cover."
"Well, he can't stay in there forever. He'll have to come out for food and water," says Drusa. "And when he does, we'll be waiting."
The afternoon soon rolls into evening and the Careers start building up to another night of hunting. The nightly recap in the sky reveals only the loss of the girl by the fire, who was apparently from District 8. Right now they will be broadcasting in gruesome detail Cato's attack and the cut I made across her neck that ended her life. I shudder and try to push the images out of my mind once more.
"So who's left then?" Clove asks the group.
"Apart from all of us, there's just five," I say.
"I didn't ask how many, I asked who! I know how to count," Clove snaps at me. I don't respond, deciding it's best to keep my mouth shut.
"There's the cripple from Ten, who knows how he's still alive, Thresh, and that little girl from Eleven," says Drusa.
"Then it's just the redheaded girl from Five and Katniss," Marvel adds.
"Might be a short Games then," Clove says with a smirk.
It's so strange. Seeing them talk like this about who's left. They must all be acutely aware that even though there are only five out there, they still have each other to worry about. Felix and I are no contest, unless we manage to escape. But even then I doubt they'd be too concerned about taking us out. That still leaves five Careers. They seem to be oblivious to the fact that, at some point, they will turn on each other and fight to the death. But they're not oblivious, of course. Each of them will be carefully plotting how and when they are going to make their attack. They probably even made plans about it with their mentors before entering the arena.
Cato talks us through the plan for the evening. "As Drusa said, it's better to wait for Thresh to come out of the field for now. There could be all sorts of traps and wild animals hidden in the grasses, and he can use that to his advantage if we go after him in there." The others nod in agreement. "So let's do what we did last night and focus on finding the other four. The cripple won't be too hard, and there's a good chance the redhead and the tiny girl will be hidden in the trees, so don't forget to look up."
Darn. I wish there was some way I could warn Katniss. She doesn't know that Cato has night glasses and will be able to see her in the dark cover of the trees.
"So that just leaves Katniss," Cato says. "Who will by now have built herself a shelter on or under the ground somewhere. Be on the lookout for anything unusual in the patterns of the woods. The only thing is…" He pauses, looking at me carefully and narrowing his eyes. "We need to know how she got that eleven in training."
I knew this question was coming, and I've been dreading it. "I wish I knew. Haymitch told her not to tell me or anyone else," I try to say casually.
"Liar," says Drusa. "If you two are actually lovers, she'd have told you. Tell us, Lover Boy!"
"We're not lovers. I've liked her all my life but I don't even know if she likes me," I defend. Of course, I know for sure that she doesn't have feelings for me, but I don't want to let the audience in on that fact. They need to believe that the romance goes both ways.
"But you guys did everything together. You dressed the same, sat with each other at lunch, trained together. You even held hands during the opening ceremony. So don't lie and tell us you don't know!" Drusa says, her voice growing in frustration.
"I don't. I tried to get her to tell me but she wouldn't. I figured that even if she did like me, she knew that only one of us could survive. If she had to be the one to kill me, she wouldn't want me to know what her secret was," I say.
There's a brief silence while they try to figure out whether or not I'm telling the truth. Then Marvel, who seemed to have taken a strong disliking to me from the start, lurches forward and grips the front of my shirt with both hands, causing me to stumble onto my back. "Look, Lover Boy, if you don't tell us right now, I'm gonna kill you. Slice you up bit by bit until you bleed slowly to death." He's leaning right over the top of me, his face so close to mine that I can feel his breath on my cheek.
"I said I don't know! What else can I tell you?" I cry out, the fear in my voice is palpable.
To my surprise, it's Felix who speaks up. "He's telling the truth."
"Oh? And what would you know?" Marvel shouts at him, refusing to look away from me.
"I figured out how to set up the mi… I mean protect the suppliers didn't I? Well I'm good at figuring people out too," he says. "The whole reason why you decided to keep him alive was because you knew that if he wanted to save his own life, he'd help you find Katniss, right? Plus, it doesn't make any sense that he'd join you guys but then withhold just one piece of information."
Marvel loosens his grip a little and turns toward the others, looking for backup. "But he didn't choose to join us. I caught him and then we made him come along with us," Marvel argues.
"True, but since then, he's had plenty of opportunities to escape." Glimmer says. "He could have just run off instead of killing that kid from 8, or even while we were sleeping. He might not have wanted to join us at the beginning, but it doesn't look like he wants to leave now either."
Hearing the girl from his own district seems to have a soothing effect on the enraged boy. He lets go of me and sits back on his heels.
"Okay then, Lover Boy, I guess it's possible you don't know. But if we find out you've been lying, you are going to regret not telling us. I won't kill you. No, I'm going to torture you so bad you're going to want to kill yourself," he says, a sinister smile forming across his lips. "Oh, and if Katniss is still alive by then, I'll make you watch as we do the same to her."
This is all just a scare tactic to frighten me into telling them what I know. But there's no real way they'll be able to find out the truth. Katniss would have to tell them, and I can't imagine it coming up in conversation. Even still, Marvel's words really do send a chill down my spine.
Cato instructs us to fuel up with food before we head out for the hunt. He doesn't want us taking breaks to eat. I fill the water bottles and ready all the packs with basic supplies. We each grab the same weapons as the night before, and Cato leads us out once more.
But the night ends in frustration for the Careers when we don't find a single victim. The woods are dense and there are so many good hiding places that we don't even catch a single sign of another tribute.
The next two days follow the same pattern. We come back to sleep and refuel during the day, and hunt at night, finding nothing. It's not a good sign. Three days with no action. The audience will be getting bored, and boring is one thing the Games cannot ever be. The Gamemakers will be forced to intervene to get things moving again. They will either do something to drive us together or change something in the arena to make things more interesting. More deadly. On the return from our third night of hunting, just before dawn, they decide to do both.
