Sorry for the really long waiting period I'm going to try and not let that happen again. Updates should be reoccurring more regularly now.

Chapter 34

Katniss pov

Katniss awoke with a start, and she almost fell from her tree. Her leg brushed against a twig and she bit her palm to keep from howling in pain. She quickly checked her surroundings to make sure she was alone before examining her injury again. It looked no better than before. In fact she was pretty sure it was starting to look infected. She couldn't shake the image from her head of the night before. That girl from district one. The smell of blood in the air, the blood curdling scream, the unrecognizable grisly face that was left behind. She probably had family that would have to look at that. Katniss tried to reason that she signed up for this, and that it was her choice, but that did little to comfort her. Neither did the fact that it could have just as easily been her. She'd have to be smarter if she wanted to win the games. She couldn't just charge into the career pack without back up and a plan.

With that set aside, Katniss reached for her water jug to take a sip. She cursed herself for forgetting to use the iodine last night after filling her jug with lake water. She put the proper amount of drops in and decided to hunt for some breakfast while she waited. She collected some berries and plants from the surrounding brush while keeping clear of the nightlock innocently dispersed with the edible plants. She wondered if anyone else knew how poisonous that plant was. She had learned about it from her father. That it could essentially kill you in an instant if digested.

She decided to take some anyways to keep in her bag, so if anyone tried to steal it they'd find a little present left behind.

When Katniss made it back to camp, she was carrying a fowl along with the berries she'd found. She gathered some wood and lit them with one of her matches. She figured she'd be pretty safe from the careers beings as though they were probably resting after their failed hunting excursion last night, so she wouldn't have to worry too much about the smoke from her fire.

While waiting for her bird to cook, Katniss noticed a rustling of leaves above her head that were slightly too violent to be caused by the wind. Without looking away from her bird, Katniss's hand slowly crept towards her bow a few feet away. When she was close enough Katniss lashed out for it as quick as possible. She notched an arrow and scanned the tree directly above her for the target. A sudden eeek gave the person away, and the branches started shaking. Soon the tree next to it started shaking as well. Then the next tree. They were shaking in a wave, and Katniss realized she was jumping from tree to tree like she'd seen squirrels do back in the woods in district twelve. Katniss made a split second decision to race after her, but decided not to waste any arrows until the tribute was exposed enough to get a clean shot. It was uncanny how fast this girl could race from tree to tree. She was just as fast in the trees as Katniss was on the ground. As Katiss was looking up at the tribute racing above her, she failed to notice a tree root sticking up from the group and her foot tripped over it.

Katniss cursed as she tumbled in the dirt. Her leg flared up in pain as her burn scratched against a twig. The tribute noticed and stopped as well. Katniss found this odd. It was as if she was trying to bait Katniss. If Katniss had been thinking rationally she would have figured that the girl was most likely luring her to her death, but by this point Katniss just wanted to catch this girl. When Katniss had gathered herself, she looked to the trees to see that the branches had started shaking again. Katniss kept the chase as long as she could but she started slowing down much more quickly than her prey. Luckily they had reached some part of the creek and had run out of trees. Katniss realized this before the girl and watched as she attempted and failed to keep herself from falling out of the tree and into the creek.

Katniss notched an arrow and locked onto her target. The tributes eyes widened in fear, and her voice caught in her throat. Katniss recognized who it was at the last second and redirected her arrow. It whizzed past the girls face and flew harmlessly into a tree trunk. It was the little girl, Rue from district eleven.

"Wait!" the girl found her voice again, "I know where your district partner is."

"Oh… um huh?" Katniss wasn't sure whether she heard her correctly.

"We can possibly help him if we hurry but he probably won't last much longer," the girl said cautiously.

Reading through comments, I've noticed that there's been some confusion as to Percy's achilles curse. It was hinted at that it was wiped away several chapters ago at the creek. The story will go further into this in depth later, but I decided to say that now to avoid confusion when reading.