The anthem begins, but there are no faces in the sky tonight. The audience will be restless, thirsty for blood. Beetee's traps holds enough promise, though, that the Gamemakers haven't sent any other attacks. Perhaps they are simply curious to see if it will work.

At what Finnick and I judge to be about nine o'clock, we leave our shell-strewn camp, cross to the twelve o'clock beach, and begin to quietly hike to the lightning tree in the moon. Our full stomachs make us more uncomfortable and breathless than we were on our morning's climb. I begin to regret those last dozen of oysters.

Beetee asks Finnick assist him, and the rest of us stand guard. Before he even attaches any wire to the tree, Beetee unrolls yards and yards of the stuff. He has Finnick secure it tightly to a broken branch and lay it on the ground. They stand on either side of the tree, passing the spool back and forth as they wrap the tree. At first it seem arbitrary, then I see the pattern, like an intricate maze, appearing in the moonlight on Beetee's side. I wonder if it makes a difference, or if this is merely to add to the speculation of the audience. I bet most of them know as much about electricity as I do.

The work on the trunk's completed just as we hear the wave is begin. I've never really worked out at what point in the ten o'clock hour it erupts. There must be some buildup, then the wave itself, then the aftermath of the flooding. But the sky tells me it's ten-thirty.

This is when Beetee reveals the rest of the plan. Since we must move swiftly through the trees, he wants Johanna and me to take the coil down through the jungle, unwinding the wire as we go. We lay it across the twelve o'clock beach and drop the metal spool, with whatever is left, deep into the water, making sure it sinks. Then run for the jungle. If we go now, right now, we should make it to safety.

"I want to go with them as guard," Peeta says almost immediately. Not that I blame him, the last thing I want is to be split up from Peeta.

"You're too slow. Besides, I'll need you on this end. Katniss will guard," says Beetee. "There's no time to debate this. I'm sorry. If the girls are going to get out of there alive, they need to move now." He hands the coil to Johanna. I don't like the plan any more than Peeta does. How am I supposed to protect him at a distance? Grudgingly, Beetee's right though. With his leg, Peeta is to slow to make it down the slope in time. Johanna and I are much fastest and most sure-footed on the jungle floor. I can't think of any alternative. And if I trust anyone here besides Peeta, it's Beetee.

"It's okay," I tell Peeta. "We'll drop the coil and come straight back up."

"Not into the lightning zone," Beetee reminds me. "Head to the tree in one-to-two o'clock sector. If you find yourself running out of time, move over one more. Don't even think about going back onto the beach, though, until I've been able to assess the damage."

I give Peeta a kiss for good luck. "See you at midnight?" I ask, not wanting to prolong this encounter any longer.

"Midnight." Peeta says.

I begin to walk away with Johanna. I shot one backward glance at Peeta before we exit the clearing, and we both have the same look on our face. This is a bad idea, but from the look on Johanna's face, when I turn to look at her, is that she is no happier than I am about being partnered together. But we're already caught up in Beetee's trap.

"You guard, I'll unwind. We can trade off later." she says.

Without further discussion, we head down the slope. In fact, there's very little discussion between us at all. We move at a pretty good clip, one manning the coil, the other keeping watch. About halfway down, we hear the clicking beginning to rise, indicating it's after eleven.

"Better hurry," Johanna says. "I want to put a lot of distance between me and that water before the lightning hits. Just in case Volts miscalculated something."

Doubtful, but okay. I think. "I'll take the coil for a while," I said. It's harder work laying out the wire than guarding, and she's had a long turn.

"Here," Johanna says, passing me the coil.

Both our hands are still on the metal cylinder when there's a slight vibration. Suddenly the thin golden wire springs down at us, bunching in tangled loops and curls around our wrists. Then the severed end snakes up at our feet.

It only takes a second to register this rapid turn of events. Johanna and I look at each other, but neither of us has to say it. Someone not far above us has cut the wire. And they will be on us any moment.

My hand frees itself from the wire and has just closed around on the feathers of an arrow when the metal cylinder smashes into the side of my head. Next thing I know, I'm lying on my back in the vines, a terrible pain in my left temple. Something's wrong with my eyes. My vision blurs in and out of focus as I strain to make the two moons up in the sky into one. It's hard to breathe, and I realize that Johanna is sitting on my chest, pinning me at the shoulders with her knees.

There's a stab in my left forearm. I try to jerk away but I'm still too incapacitated. Johanna's digging something, I guess the point of her knife, into my flesh, twisting it around. There's and excruciating ripping sensation, and a warmth running down my wrist, filling my palm. She wipes my arm down and coats half my face with my blood.

"Stay down!" she hisses. Her weight leaves my body and I'm alone.

Stay down? I think. What? What is happening? My eyes shut, blocking out the inconsistences of this world, as I try to make sense of my situation.

All I can think of is Johanna shoving Wiress to the beach. "Just stay down, will you?" But she didn't attack Wiress. Not like this. I'm not Wiress, anyways. I'm not Nuts. "Just stay down, will you?" echoes around inside my brain.

Footsteps coming. Two pair. Heavy, not trying to conceal their whereabouts.

Brutus's voice. "She's as good as dead! Come on, Enobaria!" Feet moving into the night.

Am I? I drift in and out of consciousness looking for an answer. Am I as good as dead? I'm in no position to make an argument to the contrary. In fact, rational thinking is a struggle. This much I know Johanna attack me. Smashed that cylinder into my head. Cut my arm, probably doing irreparable damage to veins and arteries, and then Brutus and Enobaria showed up before she could finish me off.

The alliance is over. Finnick and Johanna must have had an agreement to turn on us tonight. I knew we should have left this morning. Then the part that tries to make a rational sense of the whole situation struggles to arise. If she wanted me dead, why did she wait until for Brutus and Enobaria to make their move? I'm not exactly sure where this leaves Beetee. But if I'm fair game, so is Peeta.

Peeta! My eyes fly open in a panic. Peeta is waiting up by the tree, unaware and off guard. Maybe Finnick has already killed him. "No," I whisper. That wire was cut a short distance away by the Careers Finnick and Beetee and Peeta—they can't know what's going on down here. They can only wonder what's happened, or why the wire has gone slack or maybe even sprung back to the tree. This, in itself, can't be a signal to attack? For Johanna's attempt on my life, which was averted by the Careers, and then go back and finish off Peeta?

None of this makes any sense, but what I do know is that Peeta unware of this turn of events. So I must get back to him, and keep him alive. Be it from the people I built a temporary alliance, or the Careers. It takes every ounce of will I have to push myself into a sitting position and drag myself up the side of a tree to my feet. It's lucky I have something to hold onto because the jungle's tilting back and forth. Without any warning, I lean forward and vomit up the seafood feast, heaving until there can't possibly be an oyster left in my body. Trembling and slick with sweat, I assess my physical condition.

As I lift my damaged arm, blood sprays me in the face and the world makes another alarming shift. I squeeze my eyes shut and cling to the tree until things steady a little. Then I take a few steps to a neighboring tree, pull some moss off, and without examining the wound, tightly bandage my arm. Better. Definitely better not to see it. Then I allow my hand to tentatively touch my healing wound. There's a huge lump but not too much blood. Obviously I've got some internal damage, but I don't seem in danger of bleeding to death. At least not in my head.

I dry my hands on the moss and get a shaky grip on the bow with my damaged left arm. Secure the notch of an arrow to the string. Make my feet move up the slope.

Peeta. My dying wish. My promise. To keep him alive. My heart lifts when I realize he must be alive because no cannon has fired. Johanna's actions are still up for debate, and whether Finnick is with her or not, well the jury is still out on that too. Although it's hard to guess what's going on between those two. I think of how he looked to Johanna for confirmation before he agreed to help with Beetee's trap. There's a much deeper alliance based on years of friendship and who knows what else. Therefore, if Johanna has turned on me, Finnick is probably not far behind.

I reach the conclusion when I hear someone running down the slope toward me. Neither Peeta nor Beetee could move at that pace. I duck behind a curtain of vines, just in time. Finnick flies by me, his skin shadowy with medicine, leaping through the undergrowth like a deer. He reaches the site of the attack, and sees the blood. "Johanna! Katniss!" he calls out. I stay put until he goes in the direction that Johanna and the Careers took.

I move as quickly as I can without sending the world into a whirl. My head throbs with the rapid beat of my heart. The insects, possibly excited by the smell of blood, have increased the clicking until it's a continuous roar in my ears. No, wait. Maybe my ears are actually ringing from the hit. Until the insects shut up it will be impossible to tell. But when the insects go silent, the lightning will start. I have to go faster. I have to get to Peeta.

The boom of the cannon pulls me up short. Someone has died. I know with everyone running around armed and scared right now, it could be anyone. But whoever it is, I believe their death will trigger a kind of free-for-all out here in the night. People will kill first and question their motives later. I force my legs into a run.

Something snags my feet and I sprawl on the ground, and I close my eyes upon slamming into the ground. I do a quick mental check of what it could be while I will myself not to dry heave. I feel it wrapped around my feet, entwining me in sharp fibers. A net! This must be one of Finnick's fancy nets, positioned to trap, and he must be nearby, with trident in hand. I flail around for a moment, only working the web more tightly around me. As I open my eyes I catch a glimpse of it in the moonlight. Confused, I lift my arm and see it's entangled in shimmering golden threads. It's not Finnick's net at all, but Beetee's wire. I carefully rise to my feet and find I'm in a patch of the stuff caught on a trunk on its way back to the lightning tree. I slowly disengage myself from the wire, step out of its reach, and continue uphill.

On the good side, I'm on the right path and have not been so disoriented by the head blow as to lose my sense of direction. On the bad side, the wire reminds me of the oncoming lightning storm. I can still hear the insects but they are starting to fade?

I keep the loops of wire a few feet to my left as a guide as I run but take care not to touch them. If those insects are fading and the first bolt of lightning is about to strike, then all its power is going to coming surging down the wire and anybody in contact with it will die.

The tree swims into view, its trunk festooned with gold. I slow down, try to move with more stealth, but I'm really just lucky to be upright. I look for a sign of the other. No one. No one is there. "Peeta?" I call out softly. "Peeta?"

A soft moan answers me and I whip around to find figure lying up on ground. "Beetee!" I exclaim. I hurry and kneel beside him. The moan must have been involuntary. He's not conscious, although I can see no wound except a gash beneath the crook of his elbow. I grab nearby handful of moss and clumsily wrap it while I try to rouse him. "Beetee! Beetee, what's going on? Who cut you? Beetee!" I shake him in a way that you're not supposed to shake an injured person, but I don't know what else to do. He moans again and raise a hand to ward me off.

This is when I noticed he's holding a knife, one Peeta was carrying earlier, I think, which is wrapped loosely in wire. Perplexed, I stand and lift the wire, confirming it's attached back at the tree. It takes me a moment to remember the second, much shorter strand that Beetee wound around a branch and left on the ground before he even began his design on the tree. I thought it had some electrical significance, had been set aside to be used later. But it never was, because there's probably good twenty, twenty-five yards here.

I squint hard up the hill and realize we're only a few paces from the force field. There's the tell-tale square, high up and to the right, just as it was this morning. What did Beetee do? Did he try driving the knife into the force field the way Peeta did by accident? And what's the deal with the wire? Was this back up plan? If he fail to electrify the water, did he mean to send the lightning bolt's energy into the force field? What would that do, anyway? Nothing? A great deal? Fry us all? The force field must be mostly energy, too, I guess. The one in the Training Center was invisible. This one seems to somehow mirror the jungle. But I've seen it faltered when Peeta's machete struck it and when my arrows hit it. The real world lies right behind it.

My ears are not ringing. It was the insects after all. I know that now because they are dying out quickly and I hear nothing but the jungle sounds. Beetee is useless. I can't rouse him. I can't save him. I don't even know what he was trying to do with the knife and the wire and he's incapable of explaining. The moss bandage on my arm is soaked and there's no use fooling myself. I'm so light-headed I'll black-out in a matter of minutes. I've got to get away from this tree and—

"Katniss!" I hear his voice though he's a far distance away. But what is he doing? Peeta must have figured out that everybody is hunting us by now. "Katniss!"

I can't protect him. I can't move fast or far and my shooting abilities are questionable at best. I do the one thing I can do to draw attackers away from him over to me. "Peeta!" I scream out. "Peeta! I'm here! Peeta!" Yes, I will draw them, any in my vicinity, away from Peeta and over to me and the lightning tree that will soon be a weapon in and of itself. "I'm here! I'm here!" He won't make it. Not with that leg in the night, He will never make it. "Peeta!"

It's working. I hear them coming. Two of them. Crashing through the jungle. My knees start to give out and I sink down next to Beetee, resting my weight on my heels. My bow and arrow lift into position. If I can take them out, will Peeta survive the rest?

Enobaria and Finnick reach the lightning tree. They can't see me sitting above them, sitting on the slope, my skin camouflaged ointment. I home in one Enobaria's neck. With any luck, when I will kill her, Finnick will duck behind the tree for cover just as the lightning bolt strikes. And it will be any second. There's only a faint insect click here and there. I can kill them now. I can kill them both.

Another cannon.

"Katniss!" Peeta's voice howls for me. But this time I don't answer. Beetee still breathes faintly besides me. He and I will die soon. Finnick and Enobaria will die soon. Peeta is alive. Two more cannons have sounded. Brutus, Johanna, Chaff. Two of them are already dead. That will leave Peeta with only one tribute. And that is the best I can do. One enemy.

Enemy. Enemy. The word is tugging at a recent memory. Pulling it into the present. The look on Haymitch's face. "Katniss when you're in the arena…" The scowl, the misgiving. "What?" I hear my own voice tighten as I bristle at some unknown accusation. "You just remember who the enemy is," Haymitch says. "That's all."

Haymitch's last words of advice to me. Why would I need reminding? I have always known who the enemy is. Who starves and tortures and kills us in the arena. Who will soon kill everyone I love.

My bow drops as his meaning registers. Yes, I know who my enemy is. And it isn't Enobaria.

I finally see Beetee's knife with clear eyes. My shaking hands slide the wire form the hilt, wind it around my arrow just above the feathers, and secure it with a knot that I picked up in training.

I rise, turning to the force field, fully revealing myself but no longer caring. Only caring about where I should direct my tip, where Beetee would have driven the knife if he had been able to choose. My bow tilts up at the wavering square, the flaw, the… what did he call it that day? The chink in the armor. I let the arrow fly, see it hit its mark and vanish, pulling the thread of gold behind it.

My hair stands on end as the lightning strikes the tree.

A flash of white runs up the wire, and just for a moment, the dome burst into a dazzling blue lightning. I'm thrown backward to the ground, body useless, paralyzed, eyes frozen wide, as feathery bits of matter rain down on me. I can't reach Peeta. I can't even reach my pearl. My eyes strain to capture one last blurry image of beauty to take with me.

Right before the explosions begin, I find a star.