Chapter 6: Hunted
Given her unfortunate encounter with the careers the night before, Katniss did not expect a reunion so soon. But she should have known the unnatural fire engineered by the game makers was not just an innocent fire. Damn Seneca Crane for pulling the fire on her, the capital audience must be laughing at the irony, Katniss Everdeen, the girl on fire.
She could hear the cheering from the alliance gaining upon her, she can't outrun them with the burn on her thigh, she has to get to somewhere they can't get too. Her eyes search for a good tree to climb and soon she found one with sturdy branches that thins out at the top. She wastes no time and begins her ascend, heart thundering as the careers behind her get closer and closer.
Cato is the first to reach the base of the tree, but she's already a good 10 feet above the ground.
"Fancy seeing you up there fire girl, why don't you join us down here?" Ignoring his words, Katniss continues to climb, wincing as she uses her bad leg to push herself up.
"Is something wrong now fire girl?" Cato asks, probably noticing her slight flinch as she straddles the branch.
The rest of the careers slows to a walk, seeing Cato has her trapped, Peeta is the last to join the group.
"I think I'm good up here, it's a bit warm down there for my taste, why don't you join me?" Deciding to answer Cato's first question, Katniss finally dares to look down at the group. The feeling of being hunted returns as she meets his ocean blue eyes, the same feeling she got watching him fight Marvel in the training center, the same feeling she had in her youth, being chased by the wolf. Except this time, she's being chased by an entire pack and her father won't be her knight in shining armor.
"Think I will" Cato answers before stepping forward from the group.
"Here Cato, use this." Clove said, handing Cato a knife from her belt and taking the large sword from Cato's hand.
The group cheers as Cato begins to climb up, gripping the knife in one hand. Katniss panics as he got higher and higher, the branch shouldn't be able to hold his weight at the height she's in, but it's not breaking yet. Maybe she chose a tree too sturdy, Katniss thought absentmindedly, while reaching for the knife in her belt. One identical to the one Cato is holding, one that is also from Clove. They are only 7 feet apart now, if she throws, she can make it, not a killing blow perhaps, but she could definitely land it somewhere on his body. Their eyes locked for a brief moment as she raises her hand to throw, the way he taught her to. She could see the determined glint in his eyes, the same as it was at the tribute parade. She realized at that moment what he meant the night on the roof, it really wasn't anything personal. To him, her death is only a necessity.
Before she could let go of the knife, a sickening crack sounded, and in the blink of an eye, Cato is back on the ground. He groans in pain, as he rolls over to stand, revealing the grazed skin on his left palm.
"You okay Cato?" Clove immediately moves to help him up, "Ugh! You were so close to getting fire girl!"
Katniss hates the way Clove is talking, as if this is all really just a game, a sport, as if she's not there to hear her.
"Let me do it!" Glimmer says, stepping forward with an arrow knocked on the string. From the way she has her bow raised, Katniss just know the arrow is going to miss her going too far on the right, but just to be sure, she pressed herself tighter to the tree. She feels the wind as the arrow flies past her, it was close, but not close enough.
Glimmer raises her bow again, but is stopped by Cato's scoff "Save your arrows Glimmer, she's too far for you."
Glimmer glares at Cato indignantly, but it was Marvel who stood up for her "At least she got a hell lot closer to her than you did."
Katniss could see the muscles on Cato's arm bulge as he grips his sword, this alliance really is fragile compared to the ones she's seen on screen from the previous years. But perhaps the camera crew just chose to not show the bickering between the careers.
"Shut up Marvel, it's not like you do anything useful." Clove sneers at Marvel's words, "Plus, Cato's right, even Glimmer manages a hit, it's not gonna be fatal. Fire girl is mostly hidden by the trunk and the leaves."
"Well, do you have any useful suggestions Clove," Glimmer scoffs, but puts down her bow anyway, much to Katniss' relief.
"Let's just wait her out, she can't stay up there forever." To Katniss' surprise, it is Peeta who steps in to break the career's predicament. She's almost forgotten about his place within the alliance since he remained quiet the entire time when the chase started.
The tension in the atmosphere diffuses, as the careers from 1 and 2 separated to set up camp at the base of the tree. Katniss breaths out a sigh of relief before finally settling into her place on the tree. The pain on her thigh becoming more prominent as her attention shifted away from the careers beneath her.
Night befalls upon the tributes as the anthem sounded, alerting Katniss from her stupor, the day's left her completely drained of all energy. She took out a strip of beef jerky from her pack and chews on it absentmindedly as the anthem ends without showing any pictures, so no death today. But her encounter with the careers is probably enough action to keep the capital citizen satiated for the day.
Nibbling on the little piece, Katniss shifts her attention down to the careers, Cato is missing from the group and nowhere insight. Glimmer and Marvel are quietly conversing while Clove and Peet kept to themselves. The district 4 girl is already in her sleeping bag facing away from the group. She tries to think of a way out of her predicament but comes up empty-minded. She has no ally to lure them away, no weapon to scare them off, is this really it? Will she starve to death stuck in the tree or will the careers finally get bored with her and leave to pursue a different prey? For some reason, her hopes are not very high for the second possibility, given what she heard last night. She doesn't believe the reason Cato gave to the rest of the group, there must be something else that prompted his strange fixation on her and it has nothing to do with her score or their conversation on the rooftop. Come to think of it though, she still hasn't figured out what he meant when he told her he knows how she got the 11. What does he know? Katniss mused on his strange words from the night before the game and his actions since the game started. He even accepted Peeta into the alliance just to find her, something is off about Cato, but she can't seem to figure it out.
A quiet chirp jostles her out of her musing, Katniss didn't pay it any mind at first, the chirping sounded again and again. She finally looks up to search for the source of the sound, it's probably just a bird, she thought to herself after finding nothing. But before she could go back to her thoughts, the chirp sounded again and she looks up to find a parachute on the branch a couple of feet above her. It's her first gift!
She quickly undid the knots around her waist, before carefully climbs the distance to reach for the container attached to the parachute. Screwing the lid open, she finds a pale cream inside the jar that smells of herbs, it must be for the burn on her thigh! She quietly mouths a "thank you" to the sky for Haymitch and her sponsor to see, because in that moment, she truly is thankful. Thankful for Haymitch and thankful for whoever it is that has become invested in her life enough to help her.
Just as she begins to climb back to her spot, the quiet chirp sounded again. Confused, Katniss whirls her head around to see what is making the noise. She thought it was from the parachute, but apparently not since the noise is still there after she opened her gift. Her eyes carefully searched through the trees around her before she finally located the outline of a small body half-hidden behind the trunk on the tree to her right. Squinting her eyes, she makes out the form of a small girl, Rue.
Katniss freezes in her spot, what is Rue doing so close to the careers. Was she there this entire time and is now stuck in the tree because of the careers that followed her here? A wave of guilt washes over her, but before she could do anything, Rue inched forwards to point at something above her before pointing down at the careers. Katniss looks up to see what she's pointing at and is shocked to see the outline of a large bees nest, but on second thought, maybe not any regular bees, its too large to be a bees nest. Katniss could only think of one type of bee that builds nest so large from the slides at the survival station in the training center, the tracker jackers. She gasps at the realization, how could she not notice something to volatile and dangerous! One sting may not kill you, but if the entire nest of tracker jackers was to notice her, the careers won't have to wait long for her death. But the nest seems unusually quiet, is it abandoned? No, it can't be, it must be the smoke from the career's fire that subdued it.
Katniss looks back at Rue, thankful for the warning, to see her pointing down at the careers and then back at the nest again, before flying away, no, not flying, Katniss squints just in time to see Rue jumps from a branch to another before disappearing from her view. Amazed at the girl's agility, Katniss wishes she could fly away from her predicament in a similar fashion. But unfortunately, she's grown too big for jumping in between trees, she remembers doing it in her youth when her father took her on hunting trips. She would sing while following her father, like a little bird, he used to say. Thank to Rue though, she now has another way out, but thawing the tree now would definitely alert the careers, she will have to wait for them to all be asleep.
Carefully returning to her original spot on the tree, Katniss applies the burn cream to her thigh, the pain from the burn is instantly relieved as a wave of coolness washes over the affected area. Katniss scoops out a liberal amount with her finger and layers it on top of the coat she just applied, it soothes the angry red marks around the burn visibly. Capital and its technology are top-notch, if used correctly, the country could thrive together. Yet, only the capital is thriving while the rest are in destitute.
Katniss screws the lid back on before putting it into her backpack. Tomorrow is going to be a rough day, but she has hope, hope to live another day in this game. With that sliver of hope, she drifts off to a light slumber.