Chapter 11: If, Then

We hear another cannon during the night. Though they have decreased in frequency as the number of tributes has begun to dwindle, I don't even jump at the sound anymore. Though I still hope that Beech has lived to fight another day.

Just as dawn breaks the next morning, Haymitch and I come upon a thick, towering hedge, which seems to span for miles in either direction.

Stepping right up against it, Haymitch peers at it, then appears to reach towards the think coils of leaves before thinking better of it. I am relieved he caught himself in time; we can never forget that everything in this arena is still poisonous.

"These brambles… they're too thick. And it's not like we can climb over – we'll get pierced by thorns and probably drop dead of the poison that would seep in, if blood loss didn't take us first."

"Why don't you toss me over to the other side?" When he glances back at me, perplexed, I shrug, granting him a small smile. "You did say I've lost a bit of weight." My cheeks flush. "I'm light, easy to carry."

Haymitch can't help it – he smirks too, even lets out a little chuckle, though he shakes his head.

"Even if I did, how could I follow you safely? Or you get back over to me?"

I make a sweep of the hedge again, hissing through my clenched underbite, stumped. "Maybe… this is where it ends," I shrug.

"Naw…" Haymitch is shaking his head. "No way. The Capitol has way too good technology for them to border an arena with some stupid hedge!"

"Oh, indeed," I grin back. "It would be an insult to all their design sensibilities… unless, of course, the gardener has Antonia's instincts." I imagine the audience is getting a great chuckle out of this. I shift one strap of the backpack I'm carrying off my shoulders, wincing at how it weighs down on me.

That's when I get an idea.

"Hey! You know that weird contraption we got from the Careers?"

Haymitch blinks. "Yeah. What about it?"

I swing the backpack the rest of the way off my shoulders and to the ground, grunting as I lift the machine out of the pack that it barely fits in. "It spits fire. Maybe we can burn the hedge away."

Haymitch's eyes light up. "We'd have to make it a controlled burn," he cautions. "If we lose command over the blaze, the whole forest could go up! We're tributes, not Gamemakers." He is smirking devilishly, and I grin back at him.

"What, you think I'm not careful?"

I don't quite catch what he mutters in response, but it's something about 'yesterday.' I feel my cunt clinch, but will the urges away.

The torch-thing has straps to go across your back (which makes me bemoan why we've even been carrying the thing in another backpack to begin with), with a tube that sticks out and is mounted with a trigger. Taking aim at where Haymitch points, I squeeze.

I feel the heat on my face as the plume of fire jets out at the hedge, causing it to go up. Snarling, I squeeze the trigger harder until I can see the fire is burning the leaves away, creating a hole in the foliage.

"That's enough…. Ease up, ease up!" Haymitch has to bellow it nearly in my ear over the roar, and I stop, halfway shrugging the torch off my back. Pausing, I decide to leave it on – carrying it by hand would be harder. And who knows – it would be quite the way to defend against an attacking tribute.

My naginata in one hand, my blowpipe in the other and the torch across my back, I am flat equipped as I step through, ready for anything. Haymitch follows me, his knife out and poised to strike if need be.

The trees are thinner here, and after approximately another twenty paces, we emerge onto a grassy plateau. The plain peters off about ten yards beyond that into cliffs, which give us an immaculate view of…

Jagged rocks below. Haymitch and I halt at the edge of one cliff, beyond which is a one hundred foot drop. Even if we wanted to climb down, we couldn't – there are no handholds or footholds in the rock that I can see. I glance to my left: there's another outcropping jutting out at a weird angle and overlooking ours; a walk of about thirty yards would lead us to an even steeper incline, but we'd have to climb to reach it.

"That's all there is, Haymitch." In all honesty, it's a nicer and more logical edge to the arena than some silly hedge. Regardless, there's no point in attempting to traverse any further.

Haymitch doesn't move. I side-eye him, biting my lip. "Shouldn't we go back?"

"No. Let's camp here, for now."

I acquiesce, though warily. I don't know what he thinks he's missing. Maybe it really is as simple as this is the edge of the arena, and the Gamemakers don't want us to go any further.

I sit on the rocky cliff, the naginata and blowpipe across my knees. If Haymitch insists on staying here long enough, I may not have a choice but to break off the alliance. There's only five of us left: I don't want the Top Two coming down to me and him, or even a Top Three with possibly Beech in the mix, if he still lives.

A clattering of rocks falling, followed by a strange sizzling sound, captures my attention from where I've been staring off into the distance, back the way we came. And then Haymitch whoops.

"Maysie! Maysie, you gotta watch this! I think I found something!"

"NOOOOOOOOOO!"

Just as I'm scrambling over to my district partner, a scream shatters the heavens nearby for the second time since we've been in here. Over the canopy of the trees, there is a twittering and a flock of birds takes to the air.

Even Haymitch is distracted enough from whatever he's been doing. "That's new," he mutters almost blandly, and without any further discussion, we gather our weapons and race towards the sound. My heart is in my mouth – the scream clearly sounded like a man. Is this how Beech has finally met his end…?

Haymitch and I round a bend in the plain and pull up short at the sight of a tribute, bloodied and thrashing in the grass. He is in no shape to fight or otherwise be a threat to us, and we drift closer.

One look at him, and I know it isn't Beech: it's the boy from District 5, the sneaky one who I picked out on the train as we re-watched the Reapings. His eyes are wide and frightened, the muscles in his arms twitching as blood gushes from his neck.

There is clearly no hope for him, but blinking back tears, I kneel down in the grasses and clutch his hand. After a moment, Haymitch copies me on his other side.

"We'll stay with you. I promise."

The boy looks like he's trying to say something, but he's choking and can barely get the words out.

"One…."

"Huh? What's that?" I bend my ear close to his lips.

"Girl from One….. she's a demon…. K-killed her own ally…. girl, D-district F…"

BOOM.

He's dead.

I lift my head from the dead boy's chest, letting out a shaky breath as I think over what I've just heard. The boy from 5 saw something – he saw the last two Careers go into melee early, which must explain the cannon we heard late last night.

And that means….

"Beech is still alive."

"Damn it all, Maysilee, tell -!" Haymitch stops mid-shout, absorbing what I just said. His face is the color of my Reaping dress. "What? How do you know? How does he know?"

"District 5 saw Opal turn on the girl from 4, then fled into the night. He… he managed to tell me before he…" A lump is lodged in my throat for some reason.

I can't believe it. District 12 has gotten three of its tributes into the Final Four.

I try to think back to other Games I've watched. Once the Final Four is set, the fights become more drawn out, more desperate, farther apart. We've been in the arena for already eight days; it could be many more before one of us – Opal, Haymitch, Beech or I – is crowned Victor. I never thought I would ever say that I've already outlived 44 other tributes, and yet here I am. The wheels turn faster and faster in my brain.

The very first Games I ever remember watching was when Kaydilyn and I were four years old, just about to enter preschool the following fall. In the 38th Hunger Games, a boy from District 12 named Argon Plainfall survived all the way into the Top Three before falling to the eventual Victor – Wonder Spicer, the ruthless Career boy from District 1. Afterwards, on his Victory Tour, I remember sitting on my father's shoulders and watching as Wonder presented a bronze medal to Argon's family. It's one of my earliest memories. Mama told me that it's tradition for the top three tributes to place with medals, in a custom going all the way back to something called the Olympics – bronze for third place, silver for second place, gold for the Victor, in addition to the Victor's Crown.

I turn to my district partner – well, one of them anyway. "Mitchy," my voice is firm. "We have to find Beech – now. Before Opal does."

He's gawping at me like I've just suggested we go for another roll in the grass. "And do what? Band together so we can take down Opal?" His eyes widen with new horror as he realizes that's exactly what I'm proposing.

"Mitchy, don't you see?" I chide gently. "If we can take Opal out of contention…. District 12 will have a Victor, guaranteed. The first one in forty years! And we'd make a clean sweep of the medal placings – gold, silver and bronze would all go to us!"

"Beech could be anywhere! Either of them could be!" Haymitch pauses in his ranting to take a deep, cleansing breath. "OK, let's say that we find Beech alive, take him with us and bring down Opal. Let's say we manage to do all of that – what then? It's a Top Three filled with district partners, and the alliance would break – we'd have to turn on each other. Could you do it? Could you kill Beech?" His eyes soften. "Could you kill me?"

I gulp, throat dry as a bone. I consider digging out one of our water bottles or the last of the apple cider and just chugging it down, but that wouldn't be helpful. "You say that as though you know I'm going to."

"No one's predicting anything," he shakes his head firmly. "Now, answer the question, goddamnit – could you kill two people from your own district and be willing to face our people again?"

"I…. I don't know," my voice is soft. I cast my eyes down into my lap. "Should… should we break it off now?"

Haymitch sighs. "No," he decides at last. "It might be a flat-fucking insane plan, but it could give us a Victor. And do we really want a Career to win the whole Quell?"

I smile weakly, flooding with hope. "Definitely not."

The wind has started to pick up, and I look to the skies: a hovercraft is floating lazily above us, impatient. Haymitch hustles me away around the bend in the trees, and we watch as the plane takes the District 5 boy's body away.

He turns to me. "We camp here for the rest of the day. If we hear no cannons between now and the morning, we go looking for Beech. Deal?"

I smile at him warmly, balancing on my tiptoes to brush my lips softly against his. "Deal."

He doesn't reciprocate, not that I expected him to.

The girl from 4 and the boy from 5 appear in the sky that night.

Day Nine in the arena dawns humid. Haymitch and I awaken an hour or two after first light, having spelled each other to keep watch during the quiet hours. We de-camp quickly, preparing to go out and find the other two remaining tributes.

I never considered that the Gamemakers would instead bring them to us.

Just as I'm slinging the blowtorch over my shoulders, a howling noise makes both Haymitch and I snap to attention. I hold a staff in each hand, taking a defensive stance. Crashing is coming from the underbrush in the direction of the hedge. Cries, growing closer and closer….

Finally, with a burst of noise, Opal comes pelting out onto the plateau, shrieking in fear and glancing back at the panther-like mutts coming to a halt at the treeline. Snarling, the fierce creatures slink back into the forest, their task complete.

Opal is doubled over about ten yards ahead, hands on her knees, gasping and winded. She holds an axe, crusted over with dried blood, in her right palm. After a long moment, she raises her eyes to us and smiles wickedly.

"Ah…. there you are, Twelve! I've been looking all over for you." She chuckles darkly, aimlessly twirling the looped handle of the axe around on her finger. "Funny, I never thought a couple of kids from District 12 would be the last two things standing between me and a Quell Victory!"

And, hoisting the axe above her head, she lets out a battle roar and charges at me. Behind me, I can feel Haymitch moving, his knife slicing the air.

As I await my impending death, I foolishly overthink whether I should use my naginata and go for her head, or take my blowpipe and load a dart in. Except there are no poisonous flowers nearby and Opal is now ten feet from me, lifting her blade.

I do have one, clear thought, though: I've always hated it when Careers miscount.

I feel a change in the air currents to my left, as I sense a fourth figure leap from the cliff looming above us.

I never even saw it coming. Opal doesn't either.

Beech motherfucking Berryhill drops down on the final Career, holding a spear. Crashing into Opal's chest to break his fall, as she turns too late at his yell, his knees slam her down into the grass. The force of the impact causes her axe to spin out of her hand.

Beech doesn't hesitate. With a roar, he plunges the spear-tip right into Opal's heart, killing her instantly. The cannon fires. BOOM.

Haymitch is grinning from ear-to-ear next to me. "Way to go, Beech!" he hollers.

I was right: the broad Seam boy has grown painfully thinner since the last time I saw him. Though his pectorals are still broad and pronounced beneath an undershirt saturated with sweat. His teeth are bared in a snarl, his coal-ash grey eyes wild as they land on us.

And that's when I realize a couple of things: 1. District 12 has its second Victor. The heir to Lucy Gray Baird. Who that is remains up for a final decision. 2. No matter whether I live the rest of my days as a Victor or die here, now, I'll at least be getting a medal for my tenacity – the glory and honor that Brutus once spoke of. 3. This man standing before me isn't the Beech I know, for as he stalks closer, he is very prepared to kill me, his own district partner.

And 4., I realize with a jolt: I am prepared to kill him.

I unsheathe my naginata blade and charge, even as Haymitch cries out.

"Maysilee, don't!"

Beech sidesteps me with the gracefulness of a dancer, catching me just as I nearly pass him. My entire body leaves the ground, and the world is spinning, then I see stars.

Hitting the ground hard, I woozily get to my feet and see that Beech hurled me into a stone obelisk, about the width of a tombstone, though slightly taller. I hadn't noticed it before. It's a wonder the impact didn't break my back.

Snapping my head wildly back to our cliff, I watch Beech and Haymitch duck and weave around each other, snarling and slashing with their blades – Haymitch and his knife, Beech and his spear.

"NO!" I cry out, running at the fastest jog I can muster as sheer liquid fire shoots up my spine and I'm. Not. Dead. Yet…!

I'm a dozen feet away when Beech feints, ducks a wild swing from Haymitch and plunges his spear tip into the other Seam boy's stomach.

"MITCHY!"

Haymitch stands there, swaying in shock while Beech grins an ugly sneer that sends shivers through me. Backing up, he spies Opal's axe blade lying forgotten in the grass and with a bellow, sends it flying at my ally to take off his head and finish him.

Blood and his insides spilling out of his gut, the spear still in him, Haymitch sinks to his knees before the axe gets there, ducking so that it whizzes harmlessly over his head.

Now without a weapon, Beech stands there stupidly. Bizarrely, I do too. I could rush him from behind, right now, decapitate Beech and avenge the man I love, but -

Suddenly, there is a sizzle and –

The axe reappears. The axe goddamn reappears and buries itself in Beech's temple before he can scream.

Haymitch just smirks, his teeth now chillingly stained crimson. "Made you look."

BOOM.

Heart in my mouth, I dash to his side as Haymitch sways at last, catching him before he collapses to the gravel and stone. I hold him in my arms, rocking him, cradling his head in my lap, my tears falling like sweet rain onto his upturned face.

"You're OK," I sob. "You're OK…."

Haymitch weakly finds my hand and laces his fingers through them. "Go home, Maysilee."

I purse my lips to hold in another sob, shaking my head frantically. "Not without you…"

"Take the silver medal to Mom and Lacklen. Tell Indigo…. I love her."

I sob again, my eyes glassy as I dip my head and press my lips to his one last time. One last kiss. I don't give a damn if Indigo Hardy is watching. He doesn't pull away, and I breathe shakily when we break apart.

"I love you…" I choke out.

And like all those other times, Haymitch doesn't say anything, only smiles as he curls into me and grows still.

BOOM.

I throw my head to the heavens and scream. I scream and wail and wail and scream and sob, even as trumpets drown out my voice that's growing hoarse and Claudius Templesmith announces my Victory:

"Ladies and gentleman, may I present the winner of the 50th Annual Hunger Games, the Second Quarter Quell: Maysilee Donner! I give you…. the beauty from District 12!"