PART THREE | THE VICTOR

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Muttations.

No doubt about it. They're mutts. They're as big as wolves but are similar stature to some sort of dog. They stand on their hind legs, with bulging muscles popping out of its skin. I can see them at a distance so most their features are blurry, dark messes to me right now and to be honest, I'm not really sure I want to see them up close.

Cato runs to the Cornucopia. Katniss follows him. I follow her, but my leg is too weak to run on properly; despite the fact that infection is gone, my leg still has a cut in it that's incredibly deep and makes it too hard to walk, let alone run. I'm trying as hard as I can, putting as much weight as I can bear on the leg, but the mutts are gaining fast on me and there's little else I can but keep trying and hope I make it to the Cornucopia before they make it to me.

Katniss' hands reach the metal at the pointed tail of the Cornucopia before she turns around to look for me and notices that I'm far behind, hobbling and being gained on. Adrenaline runs through me more and more, but it isn't enough to break through the pain in my leg to make me run any faster. Katniss sends an arrow to one of the mutts, killing it. I try to wave her, indicating she needs to get up the horn and leave me. I'm not going to make it. "Go, Katniss! Go!" I shout.

She listens and starts climbing, and I'm slightly relieved because it means that even if the mutts catch me, she could still win this. She could still live. I keep trying though, keep running and running and running. There's so much pain in me, but I can't give up. Not now. Not that I'm so close.

Finally, I reach the tail of the Cornucopia and begin to climb, but the mutts are right on my heel and nipping at me with their teeth. I yell out in pain, both of their bites but also of my leg as I stretch and bend it to get myself up the golden horn.

"Climb!" Katniss yells as she shoots the throat of one of the mutts that is trying to climb alongside me. It dies, spasming and gashing some of the other mutts beside it. Their claws are razor-sharp and longer than one of my own fingers. They leave rough, deep claw marks on the golden metal of the Cornucopia.

I reach Katniss' feet and she grabs my arm, pulling me up onto the Cornucopia. My eyes are watering from the intense pain in my leg that shoots up me. Cato then shouts, "Can they climb it?" before he goes into a huge coughing fit, blood coming from his mouth. He is doubled over with cramps of pain. Somehow, he's just as beat us as me, really. Good, I think cruelly, shocking myself.

"What?" Katniss shouts at him.

"He said, 'Can they climb it?'" I answer her.

The mutts begin to assemble at the base of the horn, raising up to stand on their back legs, freaking me out completely. They sniff the horn with their snouts, scraping their claws and paws over the surface and making high-pitched barking noises. As if communicating, they assemble themselves, making room for a blonde shaggy one to take a running jump up to the horn. It lands below us, just scraping its landing on the horn, allowing me to get a good look at it. It's canine for sure, but the eyes are unmistakeably human and it sends shivers through my spine.

Katniss shrieks beside me. Despite her shaking aim, she hits the creature straight in the throat. It's body twitches and falls to the ground. Her eyes are wide and wild. "Katniss?" I say, gripping her arm.

"It's her!" she screams.

"Who?" I ask, confused as I watch her snap her head from side to side as she watches the muttations. "What is it Katniss?" I say again, shaking her shoulder.

"It's them. It's all of them. The others. Rue and Foxface and... all of the other tributes," she chokes out, almost crying.

I scan the mutts, taking in their differences. It doesn't take long for me to see it. Rue's dark bushy hair and her almond eyes. Cato's short black hair and her ruthless eyes. All of the mutts have a collar on with their number, their District, I realise. I gasp in recognition. "What did they do to them?" I say in shock. "You don't think... those could be their real eyes?"

Katniss can barely speak, her eyes switching between all of them unbearably. The mutts begin a new assault on the horn as we're taking them in. They use their powerful legs to launch at us. A pair of teeth bite out, almost catching Katniss, but then they catch me. I cry out in pain as the teeth sink in, trying to drag me off the Cornucopia and pull Katniss with me. If it wasn't for my grip on her arm, I'd be on the ground and being ripped apart by all of them.

"Kill it, Peeta! Kill it!" Katniss is shouting, making me remember the knife that's just been sitting glued in my hand. I stick it in the creature, over and over and over, trying to avoid seeing which tribute it is. I don't think I could kill it if I knew. It finally relents and dies, falling off me so that Katniss is able to pull me back onto the Cornucopia horn.

It's the first time we're able to really face Cato now that we're on top of the roof. He hasn't regained his feet, but he is regaining energy in his breathing. He'll be recovered soon enough. I try to get my breath back too while all we an do is wait for him to as well. Katniss arms her bow again, but she takes out another mutt who gets to the side. Just as she does, Cato gets me.

He grabs me, jerking me into his grip, in a headlock of some kind. His arms are cutting off my airways and I'm struggling to breathe, clawing at his arms but I'm losing too much air to have any impact whatsoever. Katniss aims an arrow at Cato's head, but he just laughs. "Shoot me and he goes down with me." he says.

It's a stalemate, and I'm losing air quickly. I feel myself beginning to pass out, patches of black blossoming in my vision. I feel blood rushing down my thigh, the wound has opened up again badly through all of this. Even with my blackening vision, I try to tap my forefinger on the back of Cato's hand, telling Katniss shoot here. He'll let go, and I could breathe.

Katniss takes my idea. She shoots the arrow into his hand, crying out and realising me. I can barely stand through the lack of breath, but Katniss manages to catch me before Cato topples off the horn and into the hoard of mutts below.

I breathe deeply, taking in every breath of glorious air that I can. We hear Cato land on the floor, the mutts attacking him. I hold onto Katniss for dear life. I won't feel like this is all over, like we've actually won, until the cannon blows.

It doesn't happen yet. The Gamemakers hold back on sending it. All Katniss and I can do is hold each other, listening to the snarls and the growls and Cato's cries of pain. Hours pass, and there is still no cannon. I can't think about what pain he is feeling as they kill him slowly, but some sick pain inside me reels, thinking of how he made me try to die slowly.

The flow of blood from my thigh won't calm down, and I'm losing blood quickly. My face pales, my head hurting. Katniss rips off her jacket and takes her shirt off, then whips the jacket back on quickly. She uses the shirt to try to make a bandage, but it's clear it isn't enough. I'm losing blood too fast and it's pretty sure I'm going to bleed out soon. Maybe I'll even die quicker than Cato.

No, no. I've come this far. I can't do this. I can't lose now.

Katniss tries to make a tourniquet from an arrow, and I clench my teeth in pain. She bandages the rest of my leg with the shirt and lies down with me. There isn't much else she can do.

"Don't go to sleep," she orders to me. I can feel the fear in her voice. I know that I'm going to hold on for her, hold on for us. I can't lose this, I can't lose the love we have. I've waited for this my whole life. I'm going to do this, I'm going to do this.

"Are you cold?" I ask after a little while. The temperature is dropping rapidly for some reason, ice forming on the metal of the Cornucopia. I take the jacket and wrap it round the both of us. She squishes into me further, and I try to hold onto her as tightly as I can. I keep repeating to myself that I can do this, I'm going to do this...

"Cato may win this thing yet," Katniss whispers.

"Don't you believe it," I say, shaking.

Hours and hours pass. Cato is begging and whimpering to be let go from life, to end the pain. It is more torturous to hear than the cold is to feel.

"Why don't they just kill him?" Katniss asks.

"You know why," I say, pulling her even closer.

It goes on and on and on. Eventually, all I can think of is Cato and his cries. I begin to doze off slightly, but Katniss keeps shouting at me every time I close my eyes. I keep trying to fight it, fight off the blackness for her, but it's hard. I can see in Katniss' eyes are desperate, desperate to keep me alive. My fingernails dig into life, willing for it to keep me here, just a little longer, just a little longer...

I point out the shifting of the moon. Time is passing. The sun rises after a long, long while. Katniss opens her eyes against the pale light. Still non cannon has fired.

"I think he's closer now. Katniss, can you shoot him?" I ask. I can't listen to it any more. I can't hold onto life much longer, either.

"My last arrow's in your tourniquet," she says meekly.

"Make it count," I say, unzipping my jacket. I smile at her softly.

She frees the arrow, which also frees the pain. She rubs her hands together before putting the arrow into her bow and aiming it. It takes her a few moments to find wherever his body is as the mutts have dragged it into the Cornucopia itself. In seconds, the arrow flies into him, ending his misery. "Did you get him?" I whisper. In answer, the canon fires. "Then we won, Katniss," I say hollowly. The life is draining from me, blood falling out of my leg like water from a tap.

"Hurray for us," she says, joyless. The mutts disappear, bored now Cato is dead. We wait for the hovercraft to come, but nothing does. "Hey!" Katniss shouts into the air. "What's going on?"

"Maybe it's the body. Maybe we have to move away from it," I say, remembering that you have to distance yourself from the body. I have no idea how I'll be able to move, but I know I have to. I have to do this. To win, to go back home, to be with Katniss. To be with Katniss.

"OK. Think you could make it to the lake?" she asks.

"Think I better try," I say. We inch down the Cornucopia, leaving a little blood trail as I do. Katniss holds most of me, dragging me along to the lake. It's difficult, but we make it. She scoops water into my lips as soon as we get there. I feel nothing but relief when the hovercraft comes and takes Cato's body away. Now they'll take us. Now we can go home.

But there's nothing.

I don't know how much longer I can stay alive. The blackness is calling me. "What are they waiting for?" I say.

"I don't know," Katniss says.

Claudius Templesmith's voice booms into the arena a few seconds after Katniss speaks. "Greetings to the final contestants of the Seventy-fourth Hunger Games. The earlier revision has been revoked. Closer examination of the rule book has disclosed that only one winner may be allowed," he says. "Good luck, and may the odds be ever in your favour."

There's a solid silence in the air between us both. Katniss stares at me in disbelief as the truth sinks in that they never wanted us both to live. It was all a trick. Something to entertain the audience. Now won't this be a fun little kick?

"If you think about it, it's not that surprising," I say softly. I try to make it to my feet, with pain rushing through me and blood down my leg. I move toward her, taking the knife in my belt and throwing it to the lake. Katniss misinterprets my actions and gets her bow and arrow ready, pointing it at my heart. Once she realises what I meant, she slowly drops the weapon. "No," I protest, limping over and thrusting the bow back in her hand. "Do it."

"I can't," she chokes. "I won't."

"Do it. Before they send those mutts back or something. I don't want to die like Cato," I say.

"Then you shoot me," she says furiously, shoving the bow back at me. "You shoot me and go home and live with it!"

"You know I can't," I say. I love you too much, I think to myself, but I can't make myself say the words. "Fine, I'll go first anyway." I say, ripping the bandage off my leg and letting the blood flow freely.

"No, you can't kill yourself," Katniss says, desperation lining her voice as she kneels down to me and puts the bandage back on.

"Katniss," I say. "It's what I want."

"You're not leaving me here alone," Katniss says. Even now, with blackness trying to take over and blood loss making me heavily confused, I love her so much. I loved her in my first days, and I will love her in my last.

"Listen," I say, pulling her to her feet. "We both know they have to have a victor. It can only be one of us. Please, take it. For me." I beg. "I love you," I say in a small voice even though her eyes have gone distant. "I love you, and life... life without you would be nothing. I couldn't... Please, Katniss, please just... Stay alive."

But she isn't listening. She's gone into her head and she stays there for a minute or so, leaving me hanging. Suddenly, she begins to fumble around in the pouch on her belt, grabbing something from the purse. It's the nightlock berries. The ones that kill you instantly.

I grab her wrist. "No, I won't let you." I say firmly.

"Trust me," she whispers, so softly. I hold her gaze before letting her wrist go. She takes a spoonful of the berries and puts them into my palm, then gets some for herself. "On the count of three?"

I lean down and kiss her. Our last kiss. I love her. "The count of three," I stand, holding each others empty hands. "Hold them out. I want everyone to see," I say.

She spreads her fingers out. We count together. "One. Two. Three."

We put them in our mouths, but as soon as we do, the trumpets blare. Claudius' voice shouts above them. "Stop! Stop!" he says. "Ladies and gentlemen, I am pleased to present the victors of the seventy-fourth Hunger Games, Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark! I give you - the tributes of District 12!"