Chapter Nineteen

Katniss has laid out the food from the basket before I've had time to shake the water out of my hair. Rolls, goat cheese, apples, and a hot tureen that, though sealed shut, smells so good my mouth is immediately watering. Katniss opens it up and squeals - it's her favorite, lamb stew with dried plums. I can see the look on her face, though, and I put a hand on her shoulder.

"We better take it slow on that stew. Remember the first night on the train? The rich food made me sick and I wasn't even starving then."

"You're right," she sighs. "And I could just inhale the whole thing." But she pulls out the dishes and silverware that are included in the basket and serves up a small meal - a roll each, half an apple, and small serving of stew.

The small meal vanishes and Katniss and I look at each other with wide eyes. "I want more," she says.

"Me, too. Tell you what. We wait an hour, and if it stays down, then we get another serving."

"Agreed," she says. "It's going to be a long hour." She takes herself away from the food and scoots inside the sleeping bag.

"Maybe not that long," I reply, grinning. "What was that you were saying just before the food arrived? Something about me … no competition … best thing that ever happened to you?"

"I don't remember that last part."

"Oh, that's right. That's what I was thinking. Scoot over - I'm freezing." I crawl into the bag with her and let her rest her head on my arm. As I expected, everything that has happened - everything that has become tangled together - is difficult to unravel. I remind myself that all I have to do is enjoy it as it happens. My desires and the audience's (I assume) are probably about the same, right now. To relax and enjoy the romance and secretly hope that the rain outside never stops. Unfortunately … no. Well … no. But, now that the future has opened up in this unexpected way, is the thing itself still more important than the meaning …? No - I won't think about it. I won't think about it. Not yet.

"So," she says, "since we were five, you never even noticed any other girls?"

"No, I noticed about every other girl, but none of them made a lasting impression besides you."

"I'm sure that would thrill your parents, you liking a girl from the Seam."

"Hardly," I reply honestly. "But I couldn't care less. Anyway, if we make it back, you won't be a girl from the Seam; you'll be a girl from the Victors' Village."

"Oh." She is silent for a while. "But then, our only neighbor will be Haymitch!"

I laugh. "Ah, that'll be nice. You and me and Haymitch. Very cozy. Picnics, birthdays, long winter nights around the fire retelling Hunger Games tales."

She laughs. "I told you - he hates me."

"That's right. Who am I thinking of? Oh, I know. It's Cinna who likes you. But that's mainly because you didn't try to run when he set you on fire." I laugh, too. Haymitch - Cinna - Portia. We may actually see them again. "On the other hand, Haymitch - well, if I were you, I'd avoid Haymitch completely. He hates you."

"I thought you just said I was his favorite!"

"He hates me more. I don't think people in general are his sort of thing."

She laughs. "Hey," she says, more seriously. "How do you think he did it?"

"Did what?"

"Haymitch - how do you think he won the Games?"

That's a good question. I remember how he warned me against killing people. He must have had to, but I'm sure reluctantly. It's hard to imagine him with a warrior mentality. It's also hard to imagine him as an audience favorite. A Seam kid with a scowl would not have been immediately endearing to the Capitol. Katniss had Prim and then Cinna and now me to bring out her softer side. Haymitch couldn't invent Prim, but he had Cinna and Portia working to bring us together as a team before he even knew how I felt about Katniss, and his strategy advice to me was sound. "He outsmarted the others," I conclude, thoughtfully.

She nods. After a while, she squirms around and says, "I know it hasn't been an hour, yet…."

I grin. "Yeah, let's eat."

She jumps over to the basket, and as she's serving out another small plate of food, the anthem starts. I go over to the cave entrance and peer outside.

"There won't be anything in the sky," she says. "We would have heard a cannon."

But she's wrong. I blink up and feel a sharp pang - not for myself, but for the news I have to deliver. "Katniss."

"What? Should we split another roll, too?"

I glance at her; she is determined not to hear it. "Katniss."

"I'm going to split one. But I'll save the cheese for tomorrow." She finally looks up at me. "What?"

"Thresh is dead."

"He can't be."

"They must have fired the cannon during the thunder and we missed it."

She shakes her head, adamant. "Are you sure? I mean, it's pouring buckets out there. I don't know how you can see anything." She jumps up and pushes me away from the entrance. By the way her shoulders slump, I know she managed to see him before his picture disappeared. Her face is sad, and she slides down to the ground.

"Are you all right?"

She shrugs, then hugs herself tightly, as if trying to hold in emotions. Sadness - and anger - flicker in her face. She swallows and says, very carefully, "It's just that … if we didn't win … I wanted Thresh to win. Because he let me go. And because of Rue."

I can tell she hasn't said exactly what she's thinking - because she can't. This is something the Capitol will not tolerate, not for long. The Games are designed to divide us, district by district. Alliances are false - made to be broken; betrayal is built right in. This weird rule change - this one that allows for couples - is probably straining the system enough as it is. But Katniss … so, this was why she worked so hard to keep me at arms' length during training week … Katniss can't work that way. She can't help making connections and, mirroring the cross-district alliance that formed her family, she doesn't necessarily confine these to the people she is expected to. Something about Rue changed her perspective on the Game - something about Thresh solidified this perspective.

This is why they do it: keep us divided and isolated from each other. District residents never even interacting with each other, except for briefly, in the arena. Laborers kept separate from shopkeepers. Children born into families in which even love has to be measured, carefully, because of the Reapings that loom like a death sentence over everyone. Kill or be killed. The ultimate dividing line. So much easier to plan, to accept, when they are actors on TV - when they are faceless, nameless numbers in the sky. I think of Haymitch and his constant drunkenness, and know, with an uneasy feeling, how impossible it will be to escape this - this guilt of being still alive, of being happy that others are dead. So that even winning - even coming to these realizations - even feeling love blossom in my hands here ... "Yeah, I know," I say; and I realize that as Rue and Thresh changed her perception of the Games, so is she changing mine. I came in to subvert them. Now that there is a chance I will survive them, I would like nothing more than to smash them.

But this can't be said. "Eat. It's still warm." I hand her a plate and she stares down at the food.

I take the other plate, but don't eat - just watch her for a moment.

"It also means Cato will be back hunting us," she says glumly.

"And he's got supplies again."

"He'll be wounded, I bet."

"What makes you say that?"

"Because Thresh would never have gone down without a fight," she says. "He's so strong - I mean, he was. And they were in his territory."

"Good - the more wounded Cato is, the better. I wonder how Foxface is making out."

"Oh, she's fine," Katniss scowls. "Probably easier to catch Cato than her."

"Maybe they'll catch each other and we can just go home," I say. "But we better be extra careful about the watches. I dozed off a few times last night."

"Me too, but not tonight."

We finish the stew and put away the plates and the tureen.

"I'll take first watch," I offer, watching her strained face.

We settle into the sleeping bag, me sitting up holding the knife, Katniss burrowing down in the bag, with her bow and an arrow at her side. With protein in my blood again, my head feels clearer and staying awake is easier tonight. Also, my mind is reeling from the events of the day. This girl - whose backside is against my left leg - and her kisses. I still do not quite understand what is going on in here. On the one hand, if I were pretending to fall in love for an audience, I'd do pretty much what she did - compel the other person to make all the confessions about their feelings - drop into random flirtatious asides. I'm accustomed to the very closed-off expression on her face that indicates strategic thinking on her part and I've definitely seen it many times over the last couple of days.

But that is what makes the other times the more intriguing - that open look of wonder when I spoke about her father and about my reaction to her singing. That distinct look of disappointment at the end of our kisses, which I'm almost completely sure indicated a desire not to stop. Or am I fooling myself? What do I know about real kisses or false kisses?

I shake my head. It's too early to be thinking about such things. We are very close to home, now - there is no arguing that Thresh's death shifts the advantage to us - but we need to be very careful not to relax, not to let our guards down. The arena is closing back in on us.

After a few hours, I'm getting tired and my stomach has started growling again, so I climb out of the bag and dive into the basket. The knives they provided are dull, but I manage to cut an apple into ragged slices, divide a roll in half and cover each half with a layer of goat cheese and apple slices. Then I wake up Katniss, holding a roll under her nose.

"Don't be mad," I tell her. "I had to eat again. Here's your half."

A wolfishly hungry light gleams in her eyes. "Good," she says, grabbing it and taking a bite. "Mmm."

"We make a goat cheese and apple tart at the bakery," I say.

"Bet that's expensive."

I finish up my roll and lick my lips. Such a luxury in this small, dark, rainy place. "Too expensive for my family to eat. Unless it hasn't sold and has gone very stale. Practically everything we eat is stale." By the look on her face, I've shattered some misconception of hers - why does she think we buy her squirrels, anyway? I duck back into the sleeping bag next to her and drop off to sleep.

The early sun is shining into the cave when Katniss shakes me awake. Her face glows with it. Impulsively, sleepily, I pull her head down and kiss her for a long time - just our lips together, our breaths together. She breaks the kiss, but only after a while.

The sun! I blink at the unfamiliar light.

"We're wasting hunting time," she murmurs.

"I wouldn't call it wasting," I tease her, stretching my arms and sitting up. "So, do we hunt on empty stomachs to give us an edge?" I add, eyeballing the basket.

"Not us. We stuff ourselves to give us staying power."

"Count me in." To my surprise, she divides up the remainder of the stew and rice and hands me my half. "All of it?" I ask, nervously.

"We'll earn it back today."

The stew is cold, which makes the lamb pieces a little tough and gamey, but I'm never going to be particular about food again, if I ever was.

Katniss, who already did know not to take food for granted, wolfs it down, then scrapes off the gravy with her finger. We're struck by the same memory at once, I guess, because she grins, "I can feel Effie Trinket shuddering at my manners."

I laugh and toss my fork away. "Hey Effie, watch this," I say to the invisible cameras. I lick the gravy off my plate, and finish by blowing a kiss to the air. "We miss you, Effie!"

Katniss giggles, but she reaches over and covers my mouth. "Stop! Cato could be right outside our cave."

I pull her hand away. "What do I care?" I say, kissing her once, twice. "I've got you to protect me, now."

She's half blush, half exasperation when she pulls away from me. "Come on," she says.

But as we pack, I feel a sense of dread overcome me. Yes, the rain has been wearisome, and the hunger that preceded the basket horrible, but now we have to go back into the arena, where lighthearted flirtation and kisses have no real place.

"He'll be hunting us by now," I say solemnly. "Cato isn't one to wait for his prey to wander by."

"If he's wounded-."

"It won't matter. If he can move, he's coming." I look down at the small knife I have - one of Clove's, Katniss explained; a near-miss from the Bloodbath - and feel inadequate to the task. But I'm going to have to stay especially alert, because it is Katniss he will target first.

Outside, the world is drenched, and so green I think I must never really have seen the color before. Down below us, the stream has risen several feet. We fill up the water bottles, and Katniss checks some snares she set days ago, when I was still out of it. They're empty. She nods as if she expected it.

Clambering down the rocks made it clear we are both still pretty weak, and my leg still isn't one hundred percent. I'm shaking as we stand next to the stream, and Katniss - still bandaged up just in case - looks paler than she should. As we walk upstream, Katniss points out that the place she found me has been swallowed up and cleared away by the water, so we can come back to the cave, if we need to, as long as we're careful not to leave traces now.

After a while, we've left the rocky part of the stream and we're back in the woods. I follow Katniss curiously, while she sniffs the air and her eyes dart everywhere, with the arrow pulled back on her bow. But after a few paces of this, she stops and turns to me with a frown.

"What?"

"You've got to move more quietly. Forget about Cato, you're chasing off every rabbit in a ten-mile-radius."

"Really? Sorry, I didn't know." I'm not sure how to fix this, so I try not to shuffle my feet as we walk, but I'm still favoring my left leg, so my right does come down with extra weight.

"Can you take your boots off?" she asks me.

"Here?"

"Yes, I will, too. That way we'll both be quieter."

I stare at her while she starts taking off her boots. This is a change from when she was so sarcastic and trying to hate me during the training week, but I'm not sure I like being patronized any better. Nonetheless, I pull off my boots and socks, stuff socks into boots and tie the bootstrings together so I can sling them over my shoulder. This makes walking even more off-balance and - I'm not sure she understands, she's so light and maybe she's used to walking barefoot, but every little rock and twig I step on causes a sharp pain and for my tread to be even harder to control. And I don't want to be concentrating on my feet when I'm trying to keep an eye out for Cato. There are only so many things I can do at once. I try to walk a little farther behind her.

But we go a couple of hours without seeing any animals and when we stop to drink water, I come to a difficult decision. "Katniss. We need to split up. I know I'm chasing away the game."

"Only because your leg's hurt," she says kindly.

I decide not to argue and accept her attempt to help me save face. "I know. So why don't you go on? Show me some plants to gather and that way we'll both be useful."

"Not if Cato comes and kills you."

I laugh at that - that of course was once exactly my way of being useful. "Look, I can handle Cato. I fought him before, didn't I?"

She gives a slight, almost imperceptible shake of her head. I'm torn between delight in her concern for me and frustration by her lack of faith in me. "What if you climbed a tree and acted as a lookout while I hunted?" she suggests.

I roll my eyes. "What if you show me what's edible around here and go get us some meat? Just don't go far, in case you need help."

She sighs and takes me over to a clump of grass. They look like normal grasses to me, but when she pulls them, the roots are thick and bulbous. "These," she says shortly. "Can you whistle?"

"Yes."

She whistles a couple of notes. "Repeat that."

I do, and we whistle back and forth for a bit.

"That's our signal," she says, sternly. "Periodically, just whistle out - and I will too - and we'll know we are both still OK."

I put on my socks and boots again, double-knotting the frayed laces while she watches me with a dubious expression. She leaves me with the pack and in a few paces she turns back to me and whistles - I answer her back - then, with a worried look she continues on.

I shrug, trying not to be worried about us calling out to each other in the woods, and finish digging up the roots. I pull out the plastic sheet from the pack and lay them out, then head back to the stream - maybe I can catch some fish, or something. Down by the stream, some berry bushes are growing right next to the water. They look like fat purple blueberries. I smile to myself, thinking of the "sugar berries," then start picking them. I have nothing to transport them with, so I have to carry a handful at a time, back and forth to the sheet. On my second trip back, I realize I haven't heard a whistle in a while, and I pucker my lips, but the sound dies when I hear a rustling in the brush behind me. I freeze, gripping my knife, but no one appears, so I walk cautiously back to the stream.

I've just gathered a full hand of berries when I hear her crying out. "Peeta! Peeta!"

I run back up and, as I approach the place where we separated, an arrow flies past me and lodges into a tree just behind me. I jump back and the berries fly everywhere. "What are you doing?" she screams at me. "You're supposed to be here, not running around in the woods."

My heart is racing from the near-miss, but I try to remain calm. "I found some berries down by the stream," I explain, rationally.

"I whistled. Why didn't you whistle back?"

"I didn't hear you. I guess the water's too loud." I go up to her and put my hands on her shoulders - she's trembling.

"I thought Cato killed you!"

"No, I'm fine," I say, hugging her. But her arms stay at her sides, still trembling.

She pushes away from me. And in her face - all anger and fear, no strategy - I find the answer to my questions. She cares for me - and this is real. "If two people agree on a signal, they stay in range. Because if one of them doesn't answer, they're in trouble, all right?"

"All right," I agree, reeling from my realizations..

"All right. Because that's what happened with Rue and I watched her die!" She turns away from me. "And you ate without me!" she adds, grumpily, poking around inside the pack.

"What? No I didn't!"

"Oh, and I suppose the apples ate the cheese."

"I don't know what ate the cheese, but it wasn't me," I say, smiling at her behind her back. "I've been down by the stream collecting berries. Would you care for some?"

She doesn't say anything, just goes over to the plastic sheet and picks up a few of the berries. She straightens up suddenly - and the cannon sounds.

I jump, and she whips around, looking frantic. We're frozen in place, staring at each other, then a hovercraft appears, just a hundred yards away or so. It reaches down to the ground and picks up a thin body. Foxface's long red hair streams out below her as she's lifted away.

This is it! I realize suddenly. I grab Katniss' arm, force her to her feet. "Climb! He'll be here in a second. We'll stand a better chance fighting him from above."

She stands her ground. "No, Peeta - she's your kill, not Cato's."

I stare at her, wondering if her wound has started bleeding again. "What? I haven't even seen her since the first day. How could I have killed her?"

Katniss holds out her palm, and the berries roll around them.