A/N: Hey, guys. I hadn't realized it had been almost two weeks since I last uploaded a chapter. Things got away from me a little. I've been busy getting my girls back to school amidst all this COVID chaos, plus trying to plan a distance-friendly baby shower for my sister-in-law, who is due with my FIRST niece or nephew in t-minus 30 DAYS! I'm so excited! Anyway… Sorry about falling behind! But here's the next chapter. We've only got four more after this and then it's the end! But we'll talk more about that later… Enjoy, my lovely readers!
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Chapter Twenty Five: Nightlock
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Now it's my arm she's clutching, as I feel all the blood drain from my face.
She's your kill… Your kill…
My legs, weak before, now feel entirely unable to support my weight, and I crouch until I feel the solidness of the forest floor beneath me. Slowly reaching up, I clutch my spinning head between my hands.
"What?" I finally breathe, uncomprehending. "I haven't even seen her since the first day. How could I have killed her?"
Katniss is kneeling in front of me, and she holds out her handful of berries in answer.
I let out a long, shaky breath, trying to make sense of this. "I don't… I don't understand…"
"Remember when I told you about how she figured out the supply pile trap? So she could steal food from it before I blew it up? I think she was taking just a little bit at a time, enough to stay alive, but not enough for the Careers to suspect anything."
I nod woodenly.
"She must have been even hungrier than we were," Katniss goes on. "She wouldn't have questioned the safety of the berries, since it looked like we were getting ready to eat them ourselves."
But something about the picture doesn't make sense—something niggles at the fringe of my memory, something I can't quite grasp.
"I wonder how she found us," I croak numbly, unthinking. "My fault, I guess, if I'm as loud as you say."
"And she's very clever, Peeta," Katniss says soothingly, stroking my back. "Well, she was. Until you outfoxed her."
"Not on purpose," I say pleadingly. It was an accident—just an accident! I didn't mean to… "Doesn't seem fair somehow. I mean, we would have both been dead, too, if she hadn't eaten the berries first." I jerk my head up, remembering. "No, of course, we wouldn't. You recognized them, didn't you?"
"We call them nightlock," she says. "They're extremely poisonous. They'll kill you in seconds. My father used to say you'd be dead before they reached your stomach."
"Even the name sounds deadly…" I shake my head again. "I'm sorry, Katniss," I say, my voice cracking. It's sinking in now, the reality of what I've done—how close I came to killing the both of us. Stupid, stupid creature! "I really thought they were the same ones you'd gathered."
"Don't apologize. It just means we're one step closer to home, right?" she asks, repeating my words from earlier, meant to soothe, but they fall short.
"I'll get rid of the rest." I stand, gathering up the sheet of plastic so that the deadly fruit is all gathered in the pocket in the middle, and then turn back toward the forest.
But Katniss stops me, pulls out a familiar leather pouch that I realize belonged to Marvel, and takes a handful of berries from the sheet, funneling them into the purse. "If they fooled Foxface, maybe they can fool Cato as well," she suggests. "If he's chasing us or something, we can act like we accidentally drop the pouch and if he eats them—"
"Then hello District Twelve," I say, unable to summon any inkling of celebration in this moment.
"That's it," she encourages, not having noticed my lack of enthusiasm as she clips the pouch to her belt.
The only part of her statement that really sticks is the mention of Cato, and I automatically scan our surroundings. At least he's as loud as I am in the forest. "He'll know where we are now. If he was anywhere nearby and saw that hovercraft, he'll know we killed her and come after us."
Her eyes glint with sudden, malicious intention. "Let's make a fire. Right now." She spins away from me, stooping to gather branches and dry kindling.
But I can only stand there, rooted to the spot, stunned and—honestly—slightly repulsed by this awful, bloodthirsty side of her. Maybe it's only my trauma from my very fresh first kill. Maybe this is all easier on her, being a hunter. I don't know.
"Are you ready to face him?" I ask her.
"I'm ready to eat," she says. It's only then that I notice the discarded quarry by the bag. A rabbit and two squirrels. "Better to cook our food while we have the chance. If he knows we're here, he knows. But he also knows there's two of us and probably assumes we were hunting Foxface. That means you're recovered. And the fire means we're not hiding, we're inviting him here. Would you show up?"
"Maybe not," I reply honestly, examining the zealous expression on her face, the prepared set of her shoulders, the bow slung across them. "I'll just… Get rid of these, and then I'll come back and help make the fire."
I take the berries back down to the stream, shaking them into the water.
Did I truly think I'd get through these Games without having to make a kill myself, as unintentional and 'clean' as it was? Not in the beginning; but as time went on, I suppose I'd allowed myself to settle in to this idyllic fantasy. As I watch the berries float away, I try to focus on that one skittering thought, evading me through the fog of grief and guilt. When it comes to me, it's shocking. It comes to me as a loop of film, just a few seconds or so. It was back in training, on the second day after lunch. We'd been waiting to use the Plant Identification Station, but Finch had been occupying it, and I remember being amazed at her ability to fly through its pictures with no apparent effort. She'd aced that test… Aced it. So why… Why had she died by plant poisoning? Had she simply been driven insane by malnutrition? Or had she come to the conclusion that she would be unable to win the Games, and taken her fate into her own hands?
I shake the disturbing thoughts from my brain and rinse my fingers in the stream, then return to Katniss. She's already cleaned the animals, so I start a fire while she builds a spit to roast the meat on, and wraps the roots in leaves. While the food cooks, we take turns foraging and guarding, but Cato doesn't end up making an appearance. I'm not sure how I feel about this, as midday fades into late afternoon, wondering if he'll assume his usual way of night hunting. When the food's finished cooking, Katniss packs most of it up, excluding two of the rabbit legs, one of which she hands to me.
She stands for a minute, looking into the deeper shadows of the forest. "I think we should go further in," she finally says, "Find a good tree to sleep in."
But I shake my head right away. "I can't climb like you, Katniss, especially with my leg, and I don't think I could ever fall asleep fifty feet above the ground."
"It's not safe to stay in the open, Peeta," she argues.
"Can't we go back to the cave? It's near water and easy to defend," I reason.
She exhales, and I prepare myself for an argument. But then she surprises me, stretching up on her tiptoes to plant her lips on mine, just for a second, but it's enough to send a jolt of what feels like static electricity through my body.
"Sure," she says. "Let's go back to the cave."
"Well, that was easy."
She smiles as she extricates her arrow from the tree trunk, carefully so she doesn't break it. "Not everything has to be a fight," she says.
We throw the rest of our wood on the fire to keep up the appearance that we've remained here, and then turn back in the direction of our cave. Katniss suggests we walk back in the water, noticing that it's dropped, the current slow and easy. I agree, not wanting to argue over anything else, but by the time we get back to the cave, my leg is complaining loudly. Not only am I exhausted and shaky, but sore and stiff as well. The muscles in my leg feel bruised and rigid from the exertion, and all I've wanted to do for the last couple of hours now is lay down. She divides our spoils from the day between us, but try as I may, I just can't keep my eyes open. So I beg off and crawl into the sleeping bag, vaguely aware of her lips on my forehead before sleep envelopes me.
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When she wakes me, I'm surprised to see the sky lightening outside the entrance to the cave, and I jerk upright.
"I slept the whole night," I gasp, heart pounding inexplicably. "That's not fair, Katniss, you should have woken me!"
Her eyes are heavy as she snuggles down into the bag. "I'll sleep now. Wake me if anything interesting happens."
Within minutes, she's snoring softly, her expression again peaceful and completely wiped of trouble. I wish I could say the same, but I am filled with a disturbing sense of foreboding. It's just the three of us now, and without anyone else to hunt, I can't distract myself anymore. It's only a matter of time before Cato finds us, no more thunderstorms to force us into seclusion, no more illness or injury to delay us. Sooner or later, the Gamemakers are going to drive us together so the audience doesn't get impatient.
I just hope they let Katniss get some sleep first.
My stomach is twisted in anxious knots, but I force myself to eat my meal from last night anyway. As much as it frightens me to do so, I imagine all the ways this final showdown could happen, so that I'm prepared. If we do get the chance to climb a tree, that would be our best shot at taking Cato out, but it wouldn't be very exciting for the audience or the Gamemakers. No, probably they'll force a different occurrence upon us. Most likely they'll corral us back toward the Cornucopia or—the hair on the back of my neck prickles—into the void on the other side of the field, where Thresh hid in the long grasses. Knowing he remained there for so long tells me he had to have found somewhere safe to hide, but the unknown still frightens me.
Morning passes without any excitement, but my anxiety doesn't fade. When Katniss wakes, it's just past mid-day.
"Any sign of our friend?" she asks.
I shake my head. "No, he's keeping a disturbingly low profile."
She sits up and takes a drink of water. "How long do you think we'll have before the Gamemakers drive us together?"
Does she know I've been pondering this very thing for the last few hours? "Well, Foxface died almost a day ago, so there's been plenty of time for the audience to place bets and get bored. I guess it could happen at any moment." My stomach gives a violent, uneasy flop.
"Yeah, I have a feeling today's the day." She scoots toward the entrance and peers out. I fight the irrational feeling to grab her and yank her out of sight. "I wonder how they'll do it."
How can she speak of this so calmly? Or is she just better at hiding her anxiety than I am?
"Well," she finally says, "Until they do, no sense in wasting a hunting day. But we should probably eat as much as we can hold just in case we run into trouble."
While Katniss lays out the meal, I pack up the gear. I note that she puts almost everything out. We eat in silence—I'm too tense to speak, and I have no idea what's on Katniss's mind. But as we step out into the blazing sunshine, I see her give the rocks a pat, an oddly final gesture. We skid down the little incline toward the stream to wash the grease off our hands, and come to an abrupt halt. There is no water to wash our hands in, not even a puddle.
"They must have drained it while we slept," she says, her face and voice blank of emotion.
The message is clear. "The lake. That's where they want us to go."
"Maybe the ponds still have some," she ventures.
"We can check," I say doubtfully. We travel that way just to confirm—and maybe to put the confrontation off for just a little while longer.
"You're right," she says, leaning down to press her fingers to the dry dirt in the streambed. "They're driving us to the lake. Do you want to go straightaway or wait until the water's tapped out?"
For now, our water bottles are full, having been replenished last night on our walk back to the cave. As frightened as I am, I know it wouldn't be a good idea to face Cato dehydrated and exhausted. "Let's go now, while we've had food and rest. Let's just go end this thing."
She nods and straightens, turns toward where the Cornucopia, and Cato, must be waiting. She tilts her chin up, just marginally, and a light breeze ruffles her hair away from her face. I watch her for a minute, her bow across her shoulders, realizing how superbly powerful she looks. Swallowing down my own apprehension, doing the best I can to harness my own confidence, I wrap my arms around her, resting my chin on her shoulder—sheltering her, or maybe clinging to her for strength of my own, for the last time before the end. I can't believe I've achieved my goal—at least up until this point. I've protected her, I've kept her alive. And what's more, I'm still here. Can I possibly allow myself to believe the impossible?
"Two against one," I murmur. "Should be a piece of cake."
"Next time we eat, it will be in the Capitol," she whispers, and then she turns, burying her face in my chest.
"You bet it will," I promise her, and I kiss the top of her head.
For a while, we don't move. I close my eyes, savoring the feel of the sunlight on my skin, her arms around my waist, the unaltered, organic scent of her—no Capitol soaps or perfumes, just Katniss and the forest, the whisper of the breeze… Then she pulls away, and we turn together toward the lake.
I willingly, blindly follow her along her winding path. This part of the forest isn't at all familiar to me, and so it surprises me when we come across the dried up tracker jacker nest. As out of sorts as I had been under the influence of their poison, I must have forgotten this region of the woods entirely. I watch as she nudges the empty hull with the toe of her boot, and it crumbles to dust. She gazes around, her expression shifting between too many emotions to decipher.
"Let's move on," she finally says darkly.
Not altogether fond of the location myself, I don't argue. We keep going.
When we reach the Careers' territory, it's almost nightfall, and there's nobody else there. Even so, we hide in the bushes until we're sure, and then storm the Cornucopia to make sure Cato's not hiding inside. But it's just an empty shell. We cross to the lake; she stands guard while I fill and purify our water flasks.
"We don't want to fight him after dark," she says, frowning into the sunset. "There's only the one pair of glasses."
"Maybe that's what he's waiting for," I guess, glancing around. "What do you want to do? Go back to the cave?"
"Either that or find a tree." Of course. "But let's give him another half hour or so. Then we'll take cover."
She lowers herself into the grass and we sit back-to-back, armed and ready for Cato's appearance. For a long few moments, it's tense, and then Katniss sings out a four-note run. The melody sounds oddly familiar, dreamlike. The mockingjays, who have been twittering back and forth in the trees bordering the lake, pause, tilting their small black heads to listen. I smile in automatic reaction. Katniss repeats the strain into the silence, and then one of the birds sings it back. Another joins in, and then another, and then, suddenly, the whole copse swells with beautiful, fantastical, harmonious song.
"Just like your father."
"That's Rue's song. I think they remember it."
The melody continues, beautiful, soothing—and yet, so very sad. I'm still trying to place it, pulling at random threads inside my mind, each one coming up loose—How do I know this song?—when Katniss stiffens, and then I hear it too, the disruption in the song, the alarmed, shrieking calls of the birds.
We leap to our feet in synchronization, just in time for Cato to barrel through the trees straight toward us.