Chapter 34- Cass Oceansong
"Get up. We need water." I startle awake in the early hours of dawn. It's the third day already. Willow's already ready to go. "How's your side?" I test my bandages and wince; it hurts almost as much as it did yesterday. "It's painful, Willow."
"Well, it's either get up and go or dehydrate to death. Your choice." Willow swings down from the tree and lands silently on the forest floor. She's a funny ally to be sure, and I'm not too certain that she's not going to leave me behind or kill me. But she's the only one I can trust at the moment. So I carefully get down from the tree, wincing all the way down.
"Let's not go back towards the Cornucopia. That's just asking for trouble," Willow says. I nod. I feel a bit lightheaded. "You ok, ocean girl?" Willow asks me, looking at me suspiciously. "Yeah, I'll be fine." I will, won't I?
Willow is quiet, but I walk ungainly over the leaves and the tree roots, tripping constantly. "You have to be quiet Cass! Shush it!" I try, but I'm not any quieter. She stops altogether and takes me by the shoulders.
"You listen here, Cass. Unless you hush your footsteps, every tribute in this arena is going to come after us. And we're allies, but I'm not going to hesitate to save myself. Got it?" I nod, and I start to walk slowly and carefully over the leaves. Willow sighs but says nothing.
It takes two hours by my account, maybe more or less, before we finally find water. By that time the air is heavy with heat and we're panting. We finished the water in my water bottle ages ago. I gratefully dip the bottle in, and Willow drops the right amount of iodine into the water. Then we wait awhile and drink, then do it all over again.
The birds start to sing, and it's a peaceful place we've found by the pond. Willow whistles back and forth with a robin that's sitting on a bush nearby. I'm just about to whistle back at it too when it coughs once. A robin who coughs? The next thing out of its beak is not birdsong but a sizzling stream of poison that lands on Willow's arm and blisters it immediately.
Willow screams and flails her arm, whose skin almost seems to be melting off it. "The pond! Put it in the water!" I scream, grabbing a rock and hurling at the mutt robin. It continues to spray its acid, melting the grass and the log I was sitting on just a second ago. I dodge its poison and finally grab my knife; I hit the robin with it, impaling it, and pin it to the ground where it twitches once, then stops moving. I leave the knife in the mutt when I go to Willow.
She's sobbing on the ground, her arm still in the pond. "Let me see Willow! Take it out, let me see!" "It hurts!" she sobs. I gingerly help her ease her arm out of the water, and I almost faint. The acid has burnt her arm down to the bone. It's not even bleeding; the bone shines white beneath the dark skin. Willow glances down at it and sobs again. "It hurts, Cass! It hurts!"
I have no words for my ally. We're sitting ducks at this point, both of us injured. My side aches and sends stabbing pains into me. Unless someone else is faring worse, we're the two weakest tributes in the entire Games.
"I'm going to help you, I promise. Let's try putting a bandage on it." "There's nothing to bandage, Cass! There's nothing!" Willow who was so stoic this morning has reduced to nothing but hysterics. I don't blame her. I take a deep breath in, then release it.
"We have to move. The others could catch us at any time now, we've made enough noise. Stop crying, Willow, we have to be quiet." Willow takes shuddering breaths in her effort to stop. Probably everyone in the arena knows where we are now. "Come on, let's go." I grab the water and the supplies and I grab Willow and we start off again, tears pouring down her cheeks. I avoid looking at her arm.
We haven't gone ten yards before I hear something. "Get up. Get up in the tree," I hiss, pushing Willow up into the closest one. Still crying, she climbs with her one good arm. Wincing I climb up after her. Not a moment too soon either; the pack of tributes from 1 and 2 and the girl from 9 go by down below. I listen, terrified, while Willow's tear's drip on me from above and she continues to take her shuddery breaths.
"I swear I heard someone screaming," says one of the boys; I'm pretty sure it's the one from 2, the skinny one. "We all heard someone screaming, idiot, but we didn't hear a cannon. That means they're still out here. Probably injured. So let's find them and kill them." That's the girl from 2.
"So let's go then!" "Shut up Glow! We are!" "Don't sass me, Curia. You know I could take you in a second." "Try me." It gets silent for a second, then the girl from 1 speaks up. "Come on, we're wasting time. Quit fighting." "Shut up, Silver." But they carry on, not even trying to be quiet. When you have that many allies, I suppose you don't have to be quiet.
I turn my attention back to Willow. She's pale and shaking; I don't think she's going to be alright much longer. "Hang in there, Willow. Okay?" She nods vaguely. She sways once, then she faints off her perch and crashes to the ground. I stay frozen, my hand over my mouth. My ally isn't going to be okay. I can already hear the pack shouting and coming back.
Trembling, I call down to Willow, "Wake up! Wake up Willow!" I don't dare come down. She stirs a little bit. They're getting closer. "Run! Run Willow!" She comes to her senses a bit more, then flips over and starts to run, haphazardly, weaving in and out before she leaves my sight. I can't help her now. Burying my head in my hands, I wait. They storm by down below, excited and gleeful.
Willow would have left me. I don't think I could forgive myself if I left her, though. Slinging my supplies on my back, I drop down from my tree and start to run after the pack. I'm glad I grabbed my knife from that stupid, stupid robin mutt.
Willow saved me from Sanguin. I have to at least try. I owe her that much. Even though I know she isn't going to live, not with the amount of damage done to her arm. But I can't let them kill her, I can't. But I can't go that fast, not with my side. I'm being stabbed with a thousand daggers with every step I take.
I catch up with the laughing. Then a scream. They've got her. I get behind a tree right before a clearing, and that's where the tall tribute from 1, Glow, has Willow's arms behind her back, twisting them, and she's screaming, tears pouring down her cheeks. The girl tribute, Silver, looks sick to her stomach, but she stands by while Curia laughs at Willow's agony.
"So you're the one we heard shouting. Not very smart, are you? Too bad you only made it to day three." Curia ignores her allies as she walks up to mine, fingering her dagger. Then, without hesitation, she plunges her knife into Willow's stomach and pulls it out, leaving a dark stain spreading across Willow's abdomen. I cover my mouth and will back my tears. Glow drops Willow and she collapses like a doll, white shining from her arm, red shining from her stomach. And Curia laughs.
"Let's go find some more tributes. Come on!" she urges. "Shouldn't we wait for the cannon?" the pretty girl from 9 asks. "She's as good as dead. Let's go!" Stomping and laughing they leave the clearing, ignoring me behind the tree.
I slip into the clearing, to where Willow lies gasping for air. Kneeling next to her I take her one good hand in mine. She turns her eyes towards me. "I'm sorry I couldn't save you, Willow. I'll kill them. I'll kill them all, I promise." Her breathing becomes more labored. I can't do anything for her but watch her die.
"Tell me about the ocean again, Cass." Tears run down my face. All I can see is the beautiful, gentle girl I first saw on the screen of the reapings, the girl who partnered with me during training. Who could do the most amazing camouflage. Who spoke about how much she loved her little sisters, her sisters that will never see her again. I ache for her family.
"It's like a lake or a pond, but thousands of times bigger. The color changes from dark blue to black in a storm, and in sunshine it sparkles like a million diamonds on the water. Sometimes the waves are small, other times they can be ten feet high. And we have our boats that we sail in, to catch the fish and the crabs and the lobsters that the Capitol likes to eat. When it's calm out I like to swim in the ocean, and it's like a whole other world down there, with fish and coral and seals."
All the while I'm talking Willow fades away, bit by bit. On her lips, one last word: "Home." Then my ally's black eyes stare aimlessly up at the forest canopy. Her hand that had clenched mine so tightly loosens its grip, and I lay it down. Willow's cannon fires. And I am alone.