There was no asking this time where anyone had been or why they came back. Haymitch was too confused with wrapping his head around the fact that he now owed Brutus his life and District 9 owed Brutus their tribute's body. Had Brutus not intervened exactly when he did, Haymitch would have dropped Sickle and left him to the slug and Cobalt might have dropped Haymitch. The Career whose death he had been plotting since the beginning had made himself an ally at the worst possible moment.
Then there was the awful, lingering death of Sickle replaying like a broken recorded image in Haymitch's mind. The scream as the slug began to eat him alive, the convulsion of his body, the acidic poison in his eyes, and the expression that said, I am not ready for death, but it's come for me all the same. Had Haymitch gotten to the wall first and took up the root position so that Sickle and Cobalt could scale the cliff before him, might it have been he, Haymitch, who the insects devoured? Would Brutus have still come back then? So many factors might have changed if Sickle had not chosen to remain at the bottom.
Cobalt had a hand on Haymitch's back, making him walk, but not with unkind force. Brutus lumbered ahead, cutting a path for them with a double-bladed axe he had acquired from somewhere since his spear had been washed away in the beach flood. They didn't have a clear destination; they were just walking to have something to do, to take their mind off of Sickle's final moments and get as far away from his death site as possible. The hovercraft had come in to claim his body long ago but Haymitch didn't watch it. Eventually Cobalt stopped guiding him and let him walk on his own and Haymitch trudged along beside him, feet dragging and arms limp at his sides unless he had to push a branch out of his way if Brutus didn't manage to hack it to shreds ahead of him.
His hand gripped a fistful of leaves to hold a branch so that Cobalt could pass when he saw the red stains on his bruised, scraped knuckles—and this was not from the blood rain.
"May I have that back?" he asked Cobalt suddenly, nodding at his knife which Cobalt had neglected to give back to him since taking it to puncture Sickle's skull.
Of course the request had to sound suspicious. Here they were in relative acceptance of one another in no mood to fight and out of the blue Haymitch asks for his knife back. What would he do with it? Why did he want it? Was Cobalt in danger if he handed it over, or would Haymitch use the blade on himself?
But Cobalt gave it to him, perhaps out of sympathy. Maybe he suspected that Haymitch would try to commit suicide and that it would save them both the trouble or, on a more understanding note, maybe he respected that after losing yet another friend, Haymitch could no longer bear the Capitol's injustice. Either way, he relinquished the knife and Haymitch muttered something about needing to use the restroom in private. He hiked uphill for a good five minutes and then came to a standstill in an open space where he could clearly see the sky, still overcast, still dark.
Sickle's blood made strange patterns on his hands like spider webs with numerous unidentifiable victims caught in the webbing. Haymitch touched his fingertips to his hair, his greasy, muddy, blood-stained hair…
Feeling himself begin to hyperventilate, he hacked at the matted tangles atop his head which had layers upon layers of filth. He went at it with the fervor of a desperate man, choking on his own breath in an attempt to free the stains from his body and soul. Clumps of blonde fell to the jungle floor around his feet. Finally, when he could grab no more hair to cut through he started trying to shave his head but since he had no view of what he was doing, he felt razor thin cuts open up on his scalp as he missed his mark and went too deep with the edge of his knife.
This was how the Careers found him minutes later and Cobalt wrestled the knife away from him before he could do anymore damage.
"What the hell was that?" asked Brutus, staring at the piles of hair around Haymitch's ankles.
Haymitch had no explanation but the arrival of the two reminded him that as much as Sickle's death devastated him, as grateful as he was to Cobalt and Brutus for banding together to defy the Capitol, Katniss was still the ultimate goal and that even their temporary alliance could not save them from the fact that they still had to die. They all knew it, even if they were temporarily ignoring it, and if Haymitch continued to show weakness, they would do away with him while he wallowed in grief.
"The smell," he said with a brave stab at revulsion. "The smell was getting to me."
"Mud doesn't have much of a smell," said Brutus.
"The blood, you idiot; you wouldn't understand because you're bald."
"And now so are you," Cobalt pointed out.
"That is not helping," Haymitch snarled.
"I'm just pointing out an additional fact to your statement."
"No one asked you to!"
"Don't make me wish I had let both of you go over the edge of the cliff now shut the hell up!" Brutus hollered, hands pressed over his ears. "You two sound like an old married couple and I'm not putting up with it; not while there's people still left to be sorted."
His statement brought their little escape from reality to a grinding halt as they remembered that they were indeed still a part of the 75th Hunger Games and that they still had to get through seven people to win—or at least, Haymitch had to make sure seven other people died besides Katniss. As if sensing what they were thinking, Brutus launched into his elaborate scheme to murder Katniss by the end of the day.
"We haven't had a plan since that damned Beast ran us down and killed Cashmere, but I've had some time to think and I figure it's time we start doing the hunting instead of letting the arena hunt us out. We got lucky with the morphling and Chaff walking right into us, luckier that the old woman died on her own, and then I got two of them last night at the Feast. The braniac and the weakling shouldn't be a problem, but it's Finnick I'm concerned about up to this point. If he's teamed up with her, he'll want her alive until the end so that he can double cross her and he's—I hate to say it—a worthy opponent. As for Tilly, well, she could go either way."
"So your plan is to walk around the jungle in circles looking for them, expecting that they won't be anticipating us finally coming to kill them?" said Cobalt skeptically and Haymitch had to admit that when phrased just so, Brutus's plan sounded stupid.
"I think the Gamemakers and the audience have had enough of the arena picking us off for the time being," said Brutus pridefully. "They saw me take down two victors; they'll want more manslaughter. And right now the bets have to be rolling as to who takes on who. The Brutus versus Finnick battle is one hundreds have been wanting to see since the reaping."
"Ah, yes, I can see the scoreboards now, matching up the top two male contenders," said Cobalt, staring off into the middle distance with overly dramatic gesturing. "And only second to them comes Katniss Everdeen, the Girl on Fire, the sweetheart of the Capitol. Trailing closely behind her is…no one. The audience is vying for three people to win and by the looks of how things keep going on our end, you're not likely to be a finalist, old boy. Katniss has more people who are loyal to her and to her cause, even if two of them have zero battle experience, but take into account what we each have. We, the three of us here, have you, the heavy weight, the alpha male, and the most likely survivor, assisted by the half-cripple from District 5 who is now along solely for the ride and the town drunk from District 11, Katniss's mentor, and someone who must be throwing the audience for a loop. He may be useless in combat, but Haymitch is the brains of our operation. Now consider that Katniss is skilled in all methods of survival and is not afraid to kill any of us. She has Tilly who the Careers underestimated the first time in her own reaping and look how they ended up. Katniss has Beetee, the cleverest bastard to ever step foot in the Games, Finnick, the deadliest assassin ever to step foot in the Games, and Denno, the luckiest coward ever to step foot on the earth. Katniss has better resources, more allies, and more sponsors. You have an axe. You are not going to win."
It sounded less like a challenge to Haymitch and more like a dare. Cobalt was subtlety telling Brutus that he was better off biting the proverbial bullet now than dying in humiliation against a teenage girl with false hope that the Capitol and District 2 might band together to save one of the most brutal and savage players in the Games.
Here it comes, thought Haymitch. Blood is going to be spilled in the next five seconds. And when it did, he had two options: he could either attempt to stab Brutus (if he got the chance to snatch his knife back from Cobalt before Brutus went for the loud-mouthed traitor) while Brutus was busy killing Cobalt, or he could run his ass out of there and go looking for Katniss.
"You're forgetting one thing, big-mouth," said Brutus, stepping close enough to Cobalt so that the latter had to crane his neck up to look the giant in the face. "President Snow wants that girl dead. The whole reason we're here, the reason your lover died, was because President Snow tore up the original card for the Quarter Quell and made a new one that was designed so that Katniss Everdeen would have to come back into the arena. He wants her dead because she gives people hope; she's a rallying point and without her, the stirring rebellion dies. Even if she makes it to the final two, Snow will force the Gamemakers to make her lose. Even if she's standing above her opponent as that opponent lies on the ground dying, Snow will see to it that she dies. So what if the people need a victor? He'll make them believe that it's better to not have a rebellion than to have a victor for 75th Hunger Games."
Cobalt said nothing, but Haymitch realized he had underestimated Brutus. The man wasn't as stupid as Haymitch originally thought because Brutus had figured out Snow's plan, just as Haymitch had—not that it stopped Haymitch from trying to save her. And if Brutus had pieced together Snow's plan, others had as well.
"So, Sparky, I think I have a pretty good shot at winning this," Brutus finished.
Haymitch knew Cobalt no longer cared about living or dying in this arena, but he figured that his former friend did not want to go out at the hands of Brutus since Cobalt always had to have the last word. What would happen next depended on Cobalt's actions, his words.
A cannon fired.
A ripple shot across the sky as if it had fleetingly turned to liquid and Haymitch recognized it instantly. Someone had activated the force field. Someone had touched it or used it just as he had in his first Games.
"That way!" shouted Brutus and crashed off into the trees to locate the source of the ripple, which had come from uphill directly north from where they were.
Haymitch had half a mind not to follow. He wanted to take his knife back now and stab Cobalt in the head with it just as Cobalt had done to Sickle, though perhaps with less sincerity. But letting Brutus out of his sight was not fulfilling his role as Katniss's protector, so he ran after the giant. As he had quickly come to learn in this arena, running was treacherous on this terrain and ten times worse uphill. Brutus had longer legs and therefore made longer strides so that Haymitch was forced to double his efforts to climb and stagger after him. Not caring to look back and see if Cobalt was following, Haymitch pressed on, wishing for water. He was about to call Brutus to a halt for a breather when the hovercraft descended and its crane located the body below. The hovercraft was about a quarter of a mile off and Haymitch could make out its serial number, 1512.
The crane rose, hoisting up the dead tribute and as Haymitch squinted against the early morning light, he saw a hand and a leg.
"Looks like it could be male!" yelled Brutus over the sound of the hovercraft blowing wind through the treetops.
Hating himself for wishing it, Haymitch thought, Let it be Denno. Denno would be the hardest to kill, now that Mags was gone. He was no hero, but no coward. He was simply lost and afraid and killing him would be like killing a child. If the force field had wiped him out instead, it was a blessing, a very small blessing.
"I'm thinking the brainiac," said Brutus as Cobalt finally caught up to them, green in the face as he clutched his wound.
"Him or Denno," Haymitch agreed.
"The weakling won't be a problem, but if District 3's gone, makes it easier for us to get to Katniss. But it makes me wonder; how could the force field have gotten them?"
"They might have thrown themselves against it, just to make it quick," Cobalt suggested, wheezing.
"Beetee wouldn't have done that," said Haymitch. "Suicide isn't his style—"
"Shh!" said Brutus, flattening his hand in an everyone stop and shut up gesture.
They heard it; the sound of someone running and sobbing towards them and it was female. Haymitch listened hard, heart pounding, but as the noise came closer, he knew it wasn't her. Unflattering though it may be, Katniss sounded like someone on the verge of losing their voice when she cried and the weeping he heard was distinctly clear, almost musical.
Tilly crossed in front of them, her face streaked with ash, and as she saw them, the tears running patterns in the ash down her face froze. Brutus tucked back both of his arms, preparing to launch the axe at her—and she was so close, there was no way he could miss. Haymitch watched as he did when Brutus stood up to impale Blight with his spear. All he did was watch.
There can only be one winner, he reminded himself.
"Wait!' he cried, but Cobalt reacted first. He seized the bladed side sticking upward with his bare hands and pulled down, yanking and twisting the axe so that Brutus was forced to drop it.
"Run!" Cobalt screamed at Tilly and Brutus snarled, launching himself at Cobalt who just had time to free Haymitch's knife from his belt before the giant fell upon him. Brutus pummeled his fist into Cobalt's face, smashing in his nose so that blood began to flow from both of his nostrils. Cobalt brought his leg up to knee Brutus in the groin and Brutus howled, backing off so that Cobalt had time to plunge the knife into Brutus's thigh.
Almost as if the knife had had no effect on him, Brutus backhanded Cobalt, wrenched the knife out of his thigh, and swiped the blade across Cobalt's face, opening a cut from cheek to cheek so that it looked like Cobalt now had an extended smile. Still alive, Cobalt blindly beat his fists at Brutus's chest and then with no sympathy, no remorse on his face, Brutus positioned the blade above Cobalt's heart and slowly, painstakingly slowly, pushed it down into his chest. Centimeter by centimeter it sunk into the flesh and Cobalt's eyes widened, his mouth agape with no sound coming out. His hands had splayed out, his fingers skeletal in their positions. The knife hilt prevented the blade from going any further, but the damage was done and Brutus held it there, pressing down with all of his weight.
The cannon went off.
Pulling out the knife, Brutus wiped the startlingly dark blood off on Cobalt's wetsuit and then turned to Haymitch who had once again been petrified in absolute horror at the awful finality of Cobalt's demise. All he could think was that Brutus's name suited him well.
"I half expected you to try something while my back was turned," said Brutus casually as he stood over his kill. "Why didn't you?"
You're the smart one. Cobalt knew it and Brutus knows it. You've survived because you know when to let things be. Now say something intelligent or he'll finish you off.
"Because that would have been stupid," said Haymitch.
Then again, perhaps Brutus's inkling of intelligence in figuring out Snow's plans was the only bit of educated guessing he had in his body, because he nodded satisfactorily and handed back Haymitch's knife.