"Well, it must be monkey hour. And I don't see any of them in there," says Peeta. "I'm going to try to tap a tree."
"No, it's my turn," says Finnick.
"I'll at least watch your back," Peeta says.
"Katniss can do that," says Johanna. "We need you to make another map. The other washed away." She yanks a large leaf off a tree and hands it to him.
For a moment, I'm suspicious they're trying to divide and kill us. But it doesn't make sense. I'll have the advantage on Finnick if he's dealing with the tree and Peeta's much bigger than Johanna. So I follow Finnick about fifteen yards into the jungle, where he finds a good tree and starts stabbing to make a hole with his knife.
"Katniss, got that spile?" Finnick asks. I cut the vine that ties the spile to my belt and hold the metal tube out to him.
That's when I hear the scream. So full of fear and pain it ices my blood. And so familiar. I drop the spile, forget where I am or what lies ahead, only know I must reach her, protect her. I run wildly in the direction of the voice, heedless of danger, ripping through vines and branches, through anything that keeps me from reaching her.
From reaching my little sister.
Jabberjays.
I grab Finnick, trying to ignore the voices of my mother, Gale, Peeta and everyone else I ever cared for. He wasn't easy to tow back to the beach, he was screaming for someone named Annie.
It turned out, however, that this wedge, like the fog wedge, was cut off from the beach; which meant that, for the next hour, Finnick and I were trapped with no escape.
I know it's stopped when I feel Peeta's hands on me, feel myself lifted from the ground and out of the jungle. But I stay eyes squeezed shut, hands over my ears, muscles too rigid to release. Peeta holds me on his lap, speaking soothing words, rocking me gently. It takes a long time before I begin to relax the iron grip on my body. And when I do, the trembling begins.
"It's all right, Katniss," he whispers.
"You didn't hear them," I answer.
"I heard Prim. Right in the beginning. But it wasn't her," he says. "It was a jabberjay."
"It was her. Somewhere. The jabberjay just recorded it," I say.
"No, that's what they want you to think. The same way I wondered if Glimmer's eyes were in that mutt last year. But those weren't Glimmer's eyes. And that wasn't Prim's voice. Or if it was, they took it from an interview or something and distorted the sound. Made it say whatever she was saying," he says.
"No, they were torturing her," I answer. "She's probably dead."
"Katniss, Prim isn't dead. How could they kill Prim? We're almost down to the final eight of us. And what happens then?" Peeta says.
"Seven more of us die," I say hopelessly.
"No, back home. What happens when they reach the final eight tributes in the Games?" He lifts my chin so I have to look at him. Forces me to make eye contact. "What happens? At the final eight?"
I know he's trying to help me, so I make myself think. "At the final eight?" I repeat. "They interview your family and friends back home."
"That's right," says Peeta. "They interview your family and friends. And can they do that if they've killed them all?"
"No?" I ask, still unsure.
"No. That's how we know Prim's alive. She'll be the first one they interview, won't she?" he asks.
I want to believe him. Badly. It's just ... those voices ...
"First Prim. Then your mother. Your cousin, Gale. Madge," he continues. "It was a trick, Katniss. A horrible one. But we're the only ones who can be hurt by it. We're the ones in the Games. Not them."
"You really believe that?" I say.
"I really do," says Peeta. I waver, thinking of how Peeta can make anyone believe anything. I look over at Finnick for confirmation, see he's fixated on Peeta, his words.
"Do you believe it, Finnick?" I ask.
"It could be true. I don't know," he says. "Could they do that, Beetee? Take someone's regular voice and make it ..."
"Oh, yes. It's not even that difficult, Finnick. Our children learn a similar technique in school," says Beetee.
While Johanna collects water and my arrows, Beetee fiddles with his wire, and Finnick takes to the water. I need to clean up, too, but I stay in Peeta's arms, still too shaken to move.
Peeta switches from rubbing my arms or my back to playing with my hair as he talks comfortingly to me, occasionally stopping what he's doing to kiss me.
A cannon blast brings us all together on the beach. A hovercraft appears in what we estimate to be the six-to-seven-o'clock zone. We watch as the claw dips down five different times to retrieve the pieces of one body, torn apart. It's impossible to tell who it was. Whatever happens at six o'clock, I never want to know.
Peeta draws a new map on a leaf, adding a JJ for jabberjays in the four-to-five-o'clock section and simply writing beast in the one where we saw the tribute collected in pieces. We now have a good idea of what seven of the hours will bring. And if there's any positive to the jabberjay attack, it's that it let us know where we are on the clock face again.
Finnick weaves yet another water basket and a net for fishing. I take a quick swim and put more ointment on my skin. Then I sit at the edge of the water, cleaning the fish Finnick catches and watching the sun drop below the horizon. The bright moon is already on the rise, filling the arena with that strange twilight. We're about to settle down to our meal of raw fish when the anthem begins. And then the faces ...
Cashmere. Gloss. Wiress. Mags. The woman from District 5. The morphling who gave her life for Peeta. Blight. The man from 10.
Eight dead. Plus eight from the first night. Two-thirds of us gone in a day and a half. That must be some kind of record.
"They're really burning through us," says Johanna. "Who's left? Besides us five and District Two?" asks Finnick.
"Chaff," says Peeta, without needing to think about it. Perhaps he's been keeping an eye out for him because of Haymitch.
A parachute comes down with a pile of bite-sized square-shaped rolls. "These are from your district, right, Beetee?" Peeta asks.
"Yes, from District Three," he says. "How many are there?"
Finnick counts them, turning each one over in his hands before he sets it in a neat configuration. I don't know what it is with Finnick and bread, but he seems obsessed with handling it. "Twenty-four," he says.
"An even two dozen, then?" says Beetee.
"Twenty-four on the nose," says Finnick. "How should we divide them?"
"Let's each have three, and whoever is still alive at breakfast can take a vote on the rest," says Johanna. I don't know why this makes me laugh a little. I guess because it's true. When I do, Johanna gives me a look that's almost approving. No, not approving. But maybe slightly pleased.
We wait until the giant wave has flooded out of the ten-to-eleven-o'clock section, wait for the water to recede, and then go to that beach to make camp. Theoretically, we should have a full twelve hours of safety from the jungle. There's an unpleasant chorus of clicking, probably from some evil type of insect, coming from the eleven-to-twelve-o'clock wedge. But whatever is making the sound stays within the confines of the jungle and we keep off that part of the beach in case they're just waiting for a carelessly placed footfall to swarm out.
Peeta and I take the first watch, letting the other three rest. We claimed to be better rested than them which technically wasn't true, I felt exhausted but Peeta and I wanted a bit of time alone.
"How're you feeling?" He asks
"Well fed" I reply "that fish really hit the spot" I sigh, patting my satisfied stomach.
"And how is he today?"
"Active" I shrug "sitting on my bladder…alive." Peeta smiles pulling me into him so that he could place his hands on my belly. "I've decided to just take each day as it comes" I tell him. "If I die then I die; I'm not really holding out much hope for the future."
Peeta doesn't say much to this though I know that he's doing everything he can to keep me alive. "Me too" he says and then we're quiet again. Relaxing in the other's embrace as our lips meet, bringing out the hunger in me that makes me want more.
"I wish we weren't here" I murmur against his lips. He nods, understanding what I'm saying, before deepening the kiss.
It's the first crack of the lightning storm - the bolt hitting the tree at midnight - that brings us to our senses. It rouses Finnick as well. He sits up with a sharp cry. I see his fingers digging into the sand as he reassures himself that whatever nightmare he inhabited wasn't real.
"I can't sleep anymore," he says. "One of you should rest." Only then does he seem to notice our expressions, the way we're wrapped around each other. "Or both of you. I can watch alone."
Peeta won't let him, though. "It's too dangerous," he says. "I'm not tired. You lie down, Katniss." I don't object because I do need to sleep if I'm to be of any use keeping him alive. I let him lead me over to where the others are.
Peeta pulls the chain with the gold disk from around his neck. He holds it in the moonlight so I can clearly see the mockingjay. Then his thumb slides along a catch I didn't notice before and the disk pops open. It's not solid, as I had thought, but a locket. And within the locket are photos. On the right side, my mother and Prim, laughing. And on the left, Gale. Actually smiling. He then puts the chain, with the locket, around my neck before resting his hand over my bump as he says "you're going to make a great mother, you know," he kisses me one last time and goes back to Finnick.
I watch him leave feeling so confused. I know why he gave me the locket, why he showed me those pictures; he's trying to remind me what I have back home so that I'll want to return but how could I return without him?
As I drift off, I try to imagine that world, somewhere in the future, with no Games, no Capitol. A place like the meadow in the song I sang to Rue as she died. Where Peeta's child could be safe.