21: Escape Plans

Gale POV

All of the careers dead. That's a relief. They are the last risks to Katniss, aren't they? After all, the other victors are in the rebellion, they're for Katniss. From what I've seen so far, they're willing to risk their lives, give up their lives to save her. If it wasn't for Finnick and Mags, Katniss would almost certainly be dead now.

But why are they waiting? If they were willing to go to those lengths to save her, why aren't they just killing themselves now? There's no way that they can all get out alive now. I look at the screen displaying the tribute list. A few moments ago it listed ten tributes, but only five are left now- Katniss, Haymitch, Finnick, Johanna and Beetee.

I feel somebody poke my shoulder and turn around. It's one of the rebellion mentors. I can't remember her name. She has dark red hair and blue eyes, I think that's District Seven. Johanna's mentor. "What do you want? A mentors alliance?" Haymitch told me about mentors allying, I guess I've sort of had it with Annie so far, but neither of us have exploited it.

"Come with me," she says.

She walks out of the room, not waiting to see if I follow. I hurry after her. If it can't be discussed in the mentor room, it's probably to do with the rebellion. Good news or bad news though? Why isn't she talking to any of the other mentors about this? Maybe it looks too conspicuous for us all to go at once.

"Who are you?" I blurt out.

"You've been in the same room with me for around a week and I'm risking my life for your uprising, I would think that you would know my name," the woman says pointedly. "It's Harriet Ranger. District Seven mentor and one of the coordinators for the revolution."

"And you need to tell me something about the rebellion? Is it about Katniss? Will she get out alive now? The other victors aren't committing suicide like I thought they would. Because they kept risking their lives for her, you know. Was that all wrong?" I ramble. Finally, a chance to get some information on what's happening.

"You were partly right. Katniss is our priority in the arena and she will get out, but the other tributes won't need to die. We're taking them out of the Games in our hovercrafts."

"What about the force field? It goes all the way around the arena and.."

"Beetee will break it," she interrupts me. "Don't worry. It's all taken care of. That doesn't matter to you. What matters is our own escape."

"Escape?" I ask. "Why are we escaping?"

"Idiot. Once your girlfriend and her allies break out of the Games, do you think that Snow is just going to say well-played and let us all go back to our Districts to stir up rebellion? Are you really that naive? Or do you think that he's going to take us all to his torture chambers and have his interrogators get as much information out of us as possible before executing us?"

"The second one," I admit. That was stupid. These aren't more Games that I'm playing now, this is a real war. Snow is allowed to keep me here and execute me if he thinks that it will benefit him. There's nothing that I can do about it. "So how are we going to escape? There are peacekeepers all over the place and none of us are armed."

"That's why we're here." Harriet pulls out a dusty cardboard box that I hadn't noticed from under one of the shelves with brooms. It looked like it might have contained cleaning equipment, but now I know better. "I have a contact who's provided us with weapons, one each, and ammo."

"Who is the contact? Is he trustworthy? How do you know that he isn't working with Snow?" I demand. "Do you even know who he is? Where is he from?"

"I know that he's trustworthy," Harriet says. "Do you remember Seneca Crane? Did you know that they were going to hang him last year?" I nod my head. Katniss and I found him starving in the training room with a bowl of nightlock and set him free to pay our debt to him. "He escaped and joined us. Do you really think he'll be working with the man who tried to execute him?"

"No. Is he still in the Capitol then?"

"I won't tell you his location. If any of us get taken, they'll be given enough torture to make them glad to betray all of their allies. We can't afford for an information to get out. Things are being done on a need-know basis."

"And I didn't need to know until under a day before they'll all going to break out of the arena and we're going to break out of the Capitol. With guns and shooting people? You didn't think that that was necessary for me to know about? What about Katniss? Does she know any of this? Or did she not need to know either?" I shout as loudly as I dare.

"Shut up," she barks. "Just shut up and listen to the plan. No, Katniss does not know. There's no way to give her such information when she's in the arena and I didn't know that this was going to happen until a few days ago either. You may be special, but that doesn't mean that everybody risks their lives to give you information."

"How are you even going to break through the force field anyway?" I ask. "And what about the trackers? We can't have the gamemakers tracking Katniss to wherever we're escaping to and just bombing that place to the ground. It's inside her, you can't just take it out."

"That's exactly what we're going to do," Harriet says. "Finnick Odair will cut the tracker out of her arm. Beetee will use his wire to blow up the force field and are hovercrafts will take them to our base. I'm telling you this do that you won't go crazy on us when he attacks her."

"How does Beetee know what to do?" I ask. "If he gets it wrong, Katniss will be the one getting captured and tortured. And she won't have any information to give them. If she gets captured, I'm making a trade with the Capitol," I threaten. "Do we have hostages? Is there any trade we could make?"

"Beetee designed the force field. It has always been a vague plan to get you all out, make a gesture that the Capitol can't even control one arena, but it was unsure until recently. The suicide plan was our second choice. And no, we don't have hostages. For starters everybody important in the Capitol is well guarded and we also want them to believe that things are dying down so we have the element of surprise."

"And our escape is going to happen at the same time as this, isn't it? So they'll be busy trying to deal with the arena exploding and won't notice us getting out." A sudden thought occurs to me. "Will this be dangerous for Katniss? The arena blowing up and having her tracker taken out."

"Yes. And as long as we get to Katniss in time- which we will- there's nothing to worry about. Hell, even the Capitol will be able to get to her before she would bleed out. It would take at least fifteen minutes, probably more seeing as her blood will clot. You just worry about our escape. Katniss can take care of herself."

I nod. It isn't too satisfying, there's still danger of the Capitol finding her, but at least she won't bleed to death. I turn my attention to the box of guns and pick one up. It's heavier than I would have expected, but it fits nicely in my hand. I put another hand underneath to steady it.

"You've never used a gun before, have you?" Harriet asks. I shake my head. The only people who had guns in District Twelve were the peacekeepers and they don't exactly hand them out for Seam kids to practice with. She adjusts my grip so it feels more steady. "Semi-automatic," she says. "Pull the trigger once, one bullet. The safety's on now, keep it on until we attack."

"Safety?" I ask.

"That button there." She points to a switch near the top of the grip. "Those things at the top are the sights, they show you where to aim. This gun won't make too much noise, the contact gave us suppressors to go with it. Hopefully it'll be quiet enough not to attract any more peacekeepers."

Harriet shows me how to aim through the sights. "This is important. Always shoot to kill, we don't want the peacekeepers getting help and telling everyone that we're leaving. Most parts of the peacekeeper suits are bulletproof now, so you need to get every bullet into the clear plastic of their face masks."

"How many shots do I have?"

"Six before you need to reload. Twelve in all. If all goes well you won't need to use them all."

"How many peacekeepers?"

"Six outside the mentor room. Another one at each flight of stairs, so that's another six. Two outside the door. They'll be killed by the people coming to pick us up, and maybe some of them on the stairs as well. There'll be three of us shooting- me, you and Boson- that's Beetee's mentor. I don't trust Annie with a gun."

"She'll be coming with us though, right?" I ask.

"Of course. Finnick would betray us for Annie just as you would for Katniss. Much as I dislike to have a crazy person coming with us when we break out, it has to be done."

She straps a holster for the gun to my waistband and inserts the handgun. "Practice drawing a few times," she orders. "You don't want to be fumbling around with drawing while the peacekeepers fire at you."

I try to draw and holster the gun a few times. It's harder than I thought it would be to draw from the position it's concealed in quickly and smoothly, but as long as it doesn't snag on anything it should be fast enough. We'll be surprising the peacekeepers anyway and after that I can just keep it out. I put it back into the concealed position.

"How do you know so much about this?" I ask her.

"Because the rebellion has gone on for much longer than since you pulled out those berries and almost every victor is a part of it. We've all been trained in weaponry and self-defence, including your old mentor Haymitch."

I can't imagine the Haymitch I know being able to fire guns or do much self-defence aside from throwing good punches, but that's the drunk Haymitch. I think back to his Games. Haymitch was so cocky and also pretty skilled back then, the Haymitch that could have first joined the rebellion would have probably been pretty good at training.

"The plan will happen at six o' clock," Harriet says. "Be ready. The signal will be lightning striking the tree in the arena."

We each take another magazine from the box to put in our pockets and push it back under the shelf. I would never have guessed that it was filled with guns. Would never have thought of Seneca either, although it makes sense seeing as Katniss and I did save his life and Snow tried to kill him. I hadn't thought of him for a while though, almost forgot that he existed.

We enter the training room again and we sit down. Only four of us left here now- me, Annie, Harriet and Boson. I should have done more networking with the other victors whilst I had the chance, I think to myself. Maybe then I would have been told about the plan as soon as it was known instead of a few hours before it will go into action.

I glance across at Boson. He seems strong enough and I probably able to use a gun much better than I can. I try to spot it under his clothes, but the holsters conceal our weapons well. Thank god. The horrible thought occurs to me that Snow might already know our plans and have guard posted everywhere.

And then he would have an excuse to kill me. The gun rests heavy on my hip. I'm going to kill people today, and not just people who would have died anyway like in the Games. These kills will me completely mine and they won't even be of truly evil people like Snow is. These will be people doing their jobs, like Darius did in Twelve. He used to buy turkey from me back in days when hunting didn't mean people.

Soon, I try to change the subject in my mind. Soon I'll be back with Katniss and we'll both be out of sight from the Capitol. We'll be in some rebellion base doing proper work for our cause. We won't be stuck playing these Games anymore. Finally we'll be able to live on our own terms. They need us.

I glance towards the screen. No more deaths. Good. I wouldn't put it past one of the tributes to pretend to be part of the alliance and then backstab at the last moment to go back to having an easy life in Victor's Village- they'd probably get an extra reward from Snow for killing Katniss as well.

Not Finnick- he's saved Katniss's life before, even if he did punch her in the face after Mags died. Nor Johanna, she's too proud and too hateful to ever take a deal from the Capitol. Haymitch was willing to volunteer for me, so it definitely won't be him. But I know almost nothing about Beetee? Does he have a reason to hate the Capitol? The plan hinges so heavily on him.

We're all too reliant on each other. If even one of us betrays, we all go down. There's no room for any mistakes, because mistakes can get us all tortured then killed. I get a palpitation at the thought of Snow's goons beating and torturing Katniss for information that she won't have. Everybody has the info except for her and I have no way to get it to her.

I guess I'll just have to wait a few hours and hope that everything goes according to plan. It never has in the past.

xXx-X-xXx

Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed. Thanks to everybody who has reviewed, followed and favourited, I really appreciate it. Only five chapters left now..

-MoonOfPluto