Chapter 12: All's Fair in Love and War
The sudden knocking at the wooden door jolts me out of sleep. I whine like a small child and snuggle closer to Peeta, feel him place a kiss to my temple.
"I have to go," I whimper, slowly rising off his chest.
"Sweetheart, wait." When I turn back, he takes his face in my hands and kisses me, his tongue slithering its way into my mouth. I close my eyes and kiss back, humming in pleasure.
"Go," Peeta whispers when we break apart. "I'll meet you in there. Find you someway." A pause: "I love you."
"And I, you," I smile sweetly, before slipping out of his chambers to meet Effie.
After some prepping from my stylists, Cinna escorts me to the hovercraft, promising to meet me before I am launched into the arena. Placed in my seat, a Capitol attendant injects the tracker into my arm. Wouldn't want to lose a tribute.
A short flight later, I am hustled underground into a room resembling a holding cell, where Cinna waits for me. For the first time, he gets a good look at my arena garb.
"Jacket, sweatpants... but not too heavy. I'd guess some kind of tundra with chilly nights, but not freezing," he guesses. He seems to remember something. "Oh! And there's one more thing - to complete the look."
He fastens something small and golden to the front of my jacket. I realize it's the Mockingjay pin Prim gave to me. The Capitol had taken it from me when I arrived, and I assumed I would never see it again. I search Cinna's face, wanting to ask how he...
He only puts a finger to his lips, shaking his head. However he got it, he must have done so without anyone's permission or knowledge. My eyes fill with tears.
"Thank you," I choke out in a whisper. I unexpectedly hug him - a display of affection I had only previously reserved for my family, and more recently, Peeta.
"As a stylist, I'm not allowed to bet. But if I could, I'd bet on you." Cinna means every word he says, that much is clear. He gently escorts me to the launching pod, as an intercom gives a ten-second warning. Moments later, the glass seals around me. I look back to Cinna; now cut off from him, I allow myself to reveal fear for the very first time. Cinna only nods solemnly. Then, the pod is elevating me up, up, up into a natural and yet unnatural world...
When the sunlight finally ceases in blinding my vision, I can observe that I am in what looks like the clearing of a large, foresty wilderness. The sight heartens me, as it almost tricks me into believing I am at home on a hunt. Observing the other tributes around me keeps me grounded as to where I actually am and what my task will be, but even this is only a small rattle. Trapped in what are actually my most natural surroundings, just with other people, I recall words Gale spoke to me about killing tributes versus killing animals. How different can it be, really?
Beyond me lies the great metal horn known as the Cornucopia, containing all the supplies and weapons we tributes will fight over. And there, a few yards from the mouth, I spot it - a bow and arrows! If I can get to it and then turn tail...
I perform another sweep of my competition, and I now finally spy the love of my life. Peeta. He's about four tribute pedestals to my right, and when our eyes meet, he gives an almost imperceptible shake of his head.
More than a year of close friendship, romantic relationship and sleeping together enlightens me instantly to what my lover is silently telling me. He's seen the bow, and knows I have too. His message is clear:
Don't go for it, sweetheart.
I furrow my brow in confusion, pinging a silent message back to him. What do you mean? I need a weapon. We need a weapon...
And I've missed it! I've missed my chance! For the minute of waiting on our pedestals is up; the gong has sounded. The Games are on! Tributes spring off their pedestals and charge for the attaché surrounding the horn. Peeta is right with them, though I am confused and dismayed to see that he is running away from the fight and to the trees beyond, utterly defenseless.
I gather my wits and try to make up for lost time, sprinting for an orange backpack that isn't too far ahead of me. Unfortunately, another tribute - the boy from 9, I think? - gets there at exactly the same time I do, and we grapple for the prize.
All at once, the boy coughs hot, thick, blood right into my face and goes down. I see the knife in his back before I do its owner, the vicious girl from District 2 named Clove.
Who now hurls a projectile at me.
Reflexively, I block the attack with the backpack I have now won by default. There's no time to get the bow; I have to get out of here! Scrambling to my feet, I turn tail and run for the trees. I don't make it very far into the treeline before the ground falls out from under me as I cross over the edge of a steep embankment. I roll clumsily through the leaves, landing in a heap at the bottom of the slope before I pick myself up and keep going.
I judge myself to be about a mile or two away from the fighting when I finally pause to rest. I got out of there alive, with nothing but the clothes on my back, an orange pack with contents still unknown, and a knife as my only weapon.
The sound of cannons interrupts my thoughts. The bloodbath must be over! I reach twelve before the booms halt.
Half gone. As a ratio, it's pretty standard for any Games. About half of the tributes - mostly the weaker ones with one or two surprise exceptions - die the first day, leaving the stronger ones to fight it out over the following weeks.
All right, Katniss. You know where you stand. Time to focus now.
Setting up snares keeps me calm, though I admit I would feel more at ease if I had a bow in my hands. But with what I have to work with, I manage to catch a rabbit and skin it for a late lunch/early dinner. The sun is setting by the time I finish my meal, and I decide that my safest strategy for now is to burrow in a tree for the night. It's a fairly good bet to think that most to none of the other tributes know how to climb trees, or at least, know how to climb them as well as I do. Plus, I have discovered a coil of rope in my backpack that will be perfect for an anchor; I can now go to sleep with little fear of toppling out of my natural sanctuary.
Not long after I burrow myself on a branch, the Panem anthem begins to play. And with it, the faces of the dead appear in the sky, which I observe through a gap in the tree canopy.
The first to appear is the girl from 3. The boy from 4. The boy from 5. Both from 6. Both from 7. The boy from 8. Both from 9, which includes the boy I fought for the backpack.
There should be one more, and I panic, thinking of my romantic partner for the first time. Is it Peeta? Oh, God, please, no...
But it's not. It's the girl from 10.
Deflating in relief, I sink against the trunk of the tree and fall asleep at once.
A sudden scream in the night wakes me up with a start. Glancing about wildly, I spy the faint glow of a small fire a short distance away. I want to snort. Whatever idiot girl (I could tell that much from the scream) thought lighting a blaze in the middle of the night was a good idea, she must not have wanted to win that badly. I soon hear laughter from her likely murderers.
"Thirteen down, and ten to go!" someone crows, and I stiffen, my body pounding with adrenaline and blood. The Careers. The most powerful tributes in the Games and they are yards away from my hiding place. Even with the tree's height advantage, if they spy me, I will be a sitting duck. They will stop at nothing to bring me down.
Indeed, my anxiety grows as the band draws closer, laughing and cheering. Then, when I judge them to be just below my tree, they stop. Oh, Jesus. Have they discovered me?
"What gives? Where's the cannon?" and I can tell the indignant inquiry comes from Cato. In fact, if I turn my head just right, I can see his head through the bramble. If only I had a bow... a shot to his temple would be oh so easy...
"Maybe that means she isn't dead," another male voice - the boy from 1, probably - hypothesizes. It's a stupidly obvious conclusion.
"She's dead. I cut her myself," Cato protests, his outrage growing.
"There wasn't a cannon, Cato! Don't you know the rules?"
"I said she's dead!"
A shouting match nearly ensues, when a third male voice cuts them all off. "We're wasting time! I'll go finish her and let's move on!"
I am safely anchored to the tree, but I nearly fall out of it anyway. For I know that voice. It is the voice that has whispered to me in my bed when I'm awake and haunted my dreams whilst I'm asleep.
Peeta.
I have no power with which to think, as a brief silence reigns while Peeta goes back for the girl. All too soon, I hear footsteps returning, then the long-awaited cannon.
"Ready to move on?" my lover asks nonchalantly, as if he has just returned from snapping a photo of the scenic view.
The Career pack takes off at a run, but I can just observe Cato and Glimmer, the girl from 1, hanging back.
"Are you sure we shouldn't just kill him now?"
"Nah," and Cato almost seems to be flirting with the blonde bimbo. "He's our best chance of finding her. Let's go."
Their departure finally gives me time to process all that I have witnessed. And to sort out what it all means.
The obvious factor is Peeta. Suddenly, it all makes sense. His distancing himself from me. His request to be coached separately. His silent warning to not go for the bow and then leaving without me.
He planned to team up with the Careers. He planned it all along. How he managed to succeed, I don't know, though I figure his show of strength in the Training Center may have given him an opening.
Though his declaration of love at his interview, and our making up afterwards, seem counterintuitive to all this, I am able to twist it to fit the narrative falling into place in my head. These late displays of affection were probably feigned, to throw me off his scent.
I want to cry. For my suspicion in the middle of training had been right all along. Our beautiful love affair is over. Whatever Peeta and I had, it's gone. He means to hand me, the now-former love of his life, over to the Careers.
My eyes glistening with tears I am not willing to shed, least of all for the Capitol's entertainment, I go back to sleep.
I wake up to the sound of BOOMs. Is it more cannons? No, there's a grating WHEESH preceding each explosion.
I yelp when I see the tree opposite me literally explode in flames from a flying fireball.
I hurriedly drop out of my tree with my things, and run for my life. Fireballs pelt the ground all around me, and I dodge them as best I can. Suddenly, one of them hurtles straight at my face, and I dodge out of the way just in time, rolling down another embankment just to avoid it.
Standing from my tumble leaves me momentarily vulnerable, and a fireball grazes my thigh. I cry out in pain, and now limp to a small rocky outcropping that provides some cover.
The fireball has singed a hole in my pants, and is well on its way to burning my skin, though the flames itself have been put out. A likely artificial Gamemaker trap such as this one will not be alleviated by natural remedies. I need medicine.
Haymitch's words on the train echo back to me: And those things only come from sponsors.
If my mentor has seen my plight, he will likely be working the circuit, trying to get me relief. But that will take time. Right now, the best I can hope for is to numb the pain with herbal leaves that my mother has used for burns. Or...
Water!
I spy the river just a few yards from my refuge and stagger into the currents. The healing is not complete, but still significant so that it will do for now.
A sudden whoop jars me, and I turn, horrified, to see the Careers coming up the rocky slopes further downstream. And they have spotted me!
As fast as my injured leg will allow, I wade out of the river and search for a tree. I try to stay as relatively calm as possible, even as the Careers' taunts float towards me.
"Where you going? Where you going, baby?"
"Whoo! She's ours now!"
Ignoring the hurt, I scramble up a trunk of decent height, climbing higher, higher, higher still. By the time I am roughly fifteen feet up, the Careers - and Peeta - are just arriving at the tree's base, circling like wolves.
The tree does not seem to deter Cato, so he must at least know how to climb one. Divesting himself of his weapons, he resolves to scale up after me and kill me with sheer muscle. How arrogant of him.
"I'm coming for you!" he grins evilly, growling as he begins the ascent. Below, his allies holler encouragement. Interestingly, Peeta is the only one remaining respectfully silent.
"Kill her, Cato! Just kill her, Cato!" Clove's impatience over my wanted demise makes her jump up and down like some kind of little imp.
When Cato is about five feet up, there is a sharp CRACK as the branch he rests on gives out from under him. He tumbles to the earth, swearing like a fiend as he embarrassingly staggers to his feet. Whether his curses are aimed at the tree's effrontery or mine, I cannot tell.
"Oh, forget it! I'll gut her myself!" and I barely have time to register the horror over my own weapon of choice being used against me before Glimmer aims an arrow my way. Thankfully, she doesn't seem to know how to use the thing, as her projectile shoots skyward and misses me by a mile.
Even the boy from District 1, probably the most subdued member of the group after Peeta, loses his patience; he stamps his foot like a little child who has been refused a cookie. "Now what?"
"We wait her out," and the Careers turn at Peeta's outburst, visibly surprised by its assertiveness. Evidently, someone else (likely Cato) is usually charged with calling the shots. My former lover just shrugs. "I mean, she's gotta come down at some point; it's that or starve to death."
His suggestion is approved, if only tepidly, and the Careers begin to gather firewood. Peeta lingers for only a moment, gazing up at me in the tree before nodding his head once.
The gesture is so surprising, I forget to glower at him. But this second silent signal, plus the look in his eyes, leaves me confused. What does he think he's playing at? What are his motives, allowing the Careers to hunt me down? I thought I had the answer based on last night's small slaughter, but now I'm not so sure. All I can do is anchor myself to the tree again as night falls.
When I wake up the next morning, I nearly slip off my branch when I spy a pair of eyes - human eyes - observing me from the tree just next to mine. As I peer closer, I realize the eyes belong to Rue, the little girl from District 11 who is like Prim except for darker skin. Seeing she has my attention, she points down.
I follow her gaze. Below, the Career's fire is nearly out, its last smoky tendrils mingling with the early morning mist. What is more, every single one of them is asleep, even Peeta, who was apparently supposed to take watch per Cato's orders.
My eyes return to Rue's. Now she's pointing up. Once again, I follow along, this time observing a nest of tracker jackers.
And with just two silent motions, Rue has helped to form a plan in my head. I have the knife from Clove's attack at the start of the Games! Cut the nest free with it, and the tracker jackers will fall right on the Careers and their camp.
Silently, I go out onto a limb - literally. The one with the nest on it. Working as quietly as I can, I begin to saw the nest away from the branch.
As the morning grows later, I can sense the Careers beginning to stir. Come on... come on... I'm almost done! I pause for the briefest instant near the end of my task and look down to Peeta's dozing form. Unbidden, a thought of regret appears. Peeta, I'm sorry.
I cut the branch free. The nest plunges to the earth and shatters open upon impact, the tracker jackers attacking the first things it sees as responsible for disturbing their home.
Screams split the air as the Careers awaken and blindly try to evade the surprise attack. They make for the lake that lies in the distance near the Cornucopia. But not all of them get the chance. The tracker jacker's stings claim two lives: Glimmer and the girl from 4.
The camp now deserted and my path clear, I jump from the tree. Seeing that Glimmer's bloated corpse is still clutching the bow, I work to pry it free from her grasp before the hovercrafts come to collect the dead.
Unfortunately, such a task leaves me vulnerable to lingering tracker jackers. I get stung once, then again. I finally work the bow and arrows into my hands just as a third sting finds its mark.
As I begin to stumble away, I hear cries.
"Katniss, go!" Peeta is suddenly in front of me. "What are you doing? Get out of here, go! I'll come find you!"
What does he mean, he'll come find me? But I cannot voice this, for Peeta suddenly takes me in his arms and kisses me full on the mouth.
"MMMMMMMMM!" Remembering that I am supposed to hate him for his betrayal, I squeal in outrage at his advance. I would slap his face, but something seems to have gone wrong with my one arm thanks to the tracker jacker venom.
My other arm is fine, though. I could... kiss him back... then maybe... knife him...
Before I get the chance, Peeta releases me and pushes me into the trees. My opportunity gone and already feeling weak, I stagger away as quick as I can. My head feels like it's roaring, and only one clear thought stays in my mind: a recollection of commentary by Caesar Flickerman, from a previous Hunger Games. Wait... there he is now, strolling blithely through the trees! How is he in the arena?
"Not only are tracker jacker stings filled with poisonous venom, they also induce powerful hallucinations..."