Chapter Eighteen
Katniss' reaction is not immediate flight, but actually to relax, for a moment, her bow and arrow. She looks around at the assembled squad and says, calmly, "Whatever it is, it's after me. It might be a good time to split up."
"But we're your guard," protests Jackson.
"And your crew," says Cressida.
"I'm not leaving you," says Gale.
She pauses for just a second. "We have to arm the crew, then. Finnick, give one of your guns to Castor. Gale, take Peeta's gun, load it with a real cartridge and give it to Pollux. Then we need to give our guns to Cressida and Messalla."
I anxiously strain against my handcuffs while I watch these arrangements transpire. At long last, with the camera crew armed - and given brief instructions on how to fire their weapons - we take off.
Katniss and Pollux lead again, their time together with the Holo earlier this morning paying dividends as we swiftly cross the Transfer and duck into a large overflow pipe. This leads to an abandoned stretch of railroad tracks. We're running along the tracks when we hear the choking screams, coming from somewhere behind us. This is a sound I know well.
"Avoxes," I say, pushing into Gale, who has slowed to a walk. "That's what Darius sounded like when they tortured him."
"The mutts must have found them," says Cressida.
"So they're not just after Katniss."
"They'll probably kill anyone," says Gale impatiently. "It's just that they won't stop until they get to her."
Katniss stops abruptly, guilt and anger on her face. "Let me go on alone. Lead them off. I'll transfer the Holo to Jackson. The rest of you can finish the mission."
"No one's going to agree to that!" says Jackson.
"We're wasting time!" shouts Finnick.
"Listen," I hiss, as the echo of Finnick's voice fades away. The screams have stopped and we can again hear the urgent hissing whisper. Katniss.
At the sound, we all break out in a run again. At the end of the track there is a hole with a ladder leading down. Katniss stops to check the Holo, and then she starts gagging.
"Masks on!" orders Jackson.
This is - among other things - a maneuver I have not been trained on. I watch Finnick extract a mask from the jacket of his uniform and just copy his movements, but Katniss is holding up her hands. "No, it's not poison - it's not."
Then I smell it, too - a strong sweet scent coming from below us – and vaguely troubling and familiar. Roses, but powerfully strong; like someone had spilled the contents of a hundred bottles of rose-scented perfume, cloying and vaguely warm.
Katniss lurches away from the scent and runs to the right, instead. A small alley leads us right back to the Transfer. It's wide and empty, but we know that won't be for too long. Despite the urgency, Katniss again orders us to wait. "Pods," she chokes, stuffing the Holo in Pollux's hands and pulling out her bow and an arrow. She aims it into the street; her arrow triggers the descent of a nest hidden in the beams above; its explosion upon impact destroys it. "Follow me! There's a pod at the next intersection!"
But the instant we start forward, something strange and horrible happens. Messalla, who is running in front of Gale and me, is suddenly stopped by a beam of light descending from the ceiling. Gale aims an arrow toward the ceiling, the hidden source of the light, and shoots it, then another. But the arrows just fall back to the ground and there's nothing we can do.
"Katniss!" cries Finnick, forcing her to halt and look back.
Inside the beam, the heat - or whatever power it is - melts Messalla's flesh right off of him. I won't watch this, won't add another horror to my memories … I push Gale ahead, and we catch up to Katniss.
"Can't help him! Can't!" I shout, pressing her shoulder.
She turns and runs - fast - then comes to an abrupt halt at the next intersection. She arms her bow and looks around for her target. Then gunfire from behind us announces that we have company at last.
Katniss pushes me behind her and aims her weapons at these new targets. She's as quick as ever with her bow, and Gale has some kind of rapid-fire crossbow; Jackson, Homes and Leeg 1 are all accomplished shooters. Without a weapon - without even the full use of my hands - the only thing I can do is try to find any sign of the pod Katniss was looking for earlier.
"Mutts!" screams Katniss.
I look down the Transfer and see them, pouring out of the side alley that we had just run down ourselves. At first I think they are really just more Peacekeepers - they are tall, long-limbed and white, about the size of a person. But then I see the tails - as they crawl up over the bodies of the Peacekeepers, whether alive or dead. Then I see the long jaws - as they attack the remaining Peacekeepers with them, clamp onto their necks with their teeth and rip off their heads. Screams come from all sides now - Peacekeepers, mutts, us.
"This way!" screams Katniss. "Do exactly what I do!" She hugs the wall and rounds the corner of the intersection. I'm right behind her now, and she pushes me ahead of her again, after I've followed her around the corner. She waits for the rest - Pollux, Finnick, Castor, Gale, Leeg 1, Jackson and Homes - and then fires her arrow into the intersection. Big mechanical teeth rise up from under the street and start churning, crunching, eating up the tiles.
"Forget the mission!" she shouts, grabbing the Holo from Pollux. "What's the quickest way aboveground?"
As we run ahead, we can hear the hissing and the animal cries of the mutts behind us, as some of them are attempting to cross the grinding teeth. Pollux stops abruptly and yanks open a door and we run into darkness. We climb up through a slimy, stinky pipe and emerge onto a small concrete ledge, very narrow, over a river of sewage. The smell of human waste, food waste and chemical solvents spikes right up my nostrils and - despite everything I try to do to stop it - reminds me so strongly of the smell of my cell - times about a thousand, of course, but when scents are this evocative, it doesn't really matter how strong or weak they are. I start to swallow compulsively, and just try to use the last shreds of my concentration to edge along the slick, narrow pathway, following Pollux. After what seems like forever, we reach a small walkway over the sewage line and on the other side of it, there is an alcove, with a ladder leading up.
Katniss, who follows me and Pollux, turns back to wait for the rest of the party to reach the ladder. But the count seems to be off. "Wait!" she screams. "Where are Jackson and Leeg 1?"
"They stayed at the Grinder to hold the mutts back," says Homes.
"What?" Katniss lunges back toward the bridge, but Homes holds her back.
"Don't waste their lives, Katniss. It's too late for them. Look!"
We can see the mutts again, crawling up the pipe now, and spilling onto the ledge. They are not careful, and many of them slide right into the sewage river and disappear - but enough of them still come.
"Stand back!" Gale shouts. He aims an explosive arrow at the bridge and it collapses into the sewage just as the mutts reach it.
For a second, we stand there on two sides of the stinking river of waste - the eight remaining members of the squad and the crowd of hissing lizard-mutts, their snow-white skin smeared horribly with blood, their strange, almost human-like eyes rolling strangely over their lizard snouts. Then, the mutts start throwing themselves across the river - some of them sinking, but a few of them just able to grasp our side of the bank, where they are met with bullets and arrows - and the shiny tip of Finnick's trident - a sight that sends my head whirling again, back to the arena I don't remember, and the battle against the monkey-mutts.
People are screaming at Katniss to go, but she's shooting every moving thing she can - lost in some madness.
Bullets and arrows will be spent long before the mutts are dead, I think to myself. I turn to Pollux. "Go! Up!" And push him toward the ladder.
And then Katniss. I yank her up and push her physically onto the ladder. "Climb!"
"Come on - get up!" I grab the next person closest to me, Cressida, and pull her behind me as I get on the steps. I follow Katniss' boots. Up the slick metal rungs to a platform. Then a second ladder. And a second platform. As I reach this second one, I see Katniss' face peering down at me, frantic. She yanks me off the ladder, then Cressida. Then she gives a cry and starts back down the ladder again, before I can grab her.
"Climb!" I hear someone yell, and it echoes strangely around me, warped and frightening. Oh … shit … not now.
"Someone's still alive! Finnick!" screams Katniss. "Finnick!"
"No, Katniss, they're not coming…."
That might be an arena first - bringing your opponent back to life.
I can see them, as clearly as I can see Katniss kneeling over the platform to look down the ladder and wait desperately for his return. Finnick sitting across from me, sweating and smirking. Mags, sitting next to him and communicating with tiny hand gestures, making sure he is all right.
"Ally," he replies. "So - just don't pull that stunt again at the end of the game."
Nightlock. Nightlock. Nightlock.
And then an explosion rocks the platform, and bits of sewage and flesh are vomited all over us. I slide out of the memory, but not into the present. It's mutts that surround me again - the musky-scented monkeys that flew out of the trees. Their blood is warm everywhere as I stab and stab. As Katniss fires her arrows. And Finnick - effortlessly - impales them with his trident. The blood is thick, rising around us as our kills number tens and hundreds, lapping like a pool around our ankles. Hot and steaming under the sun.
"Peeta." Her voice cuts through the vision in my head. "Peeta."
"Leave me," I rasp. I can't see her, I can just feel her small hands on my wrists. "I can't hang on."
"Yes. You can!"
Flashes are coming to me now. My leg is on fire and she lifts me to my feet, urging me to move. The water of the creek comes up to my ankles, it flashes silver and I know that I won't be able to stop it – the memories sliding into each other, the mutt stalking me. I shake my head. "I'm losing it. I'll go mad. Like them."
And then … her lips are on mine. Not gently pressed there, but hard and insistent. Shivers run up and down me and when I slightly open my mouth, her tongue crushes against my tongue. Warmth, and also something cool - the smell of her hair, the taste of it. I would always wake up to it, my mouth in her fragrant hair...
I need you.
She pulls away from me, and my shivering increases. Her hands clasp my hands, and she's vaguely coming back into focus. "Don't let him take you from me."
If it could only be that simple. "No," I gasp. "I don't want to…"
She clenches my hands so tightly that the pain shoots up my arms.
"Good night."
"Don't go yet. Not until I fall asleep. … Stay with me."
Capitol or no Capitol. Gale or no Gale. Whenever she needs me.
"Stay with me."
Her voice echoes all around me and as she drifts into focus, I gasp as if air is returning to my body, like when my heart stopped in the arena. The second one. The one where she cried out for me. Where she kissed me. Where she threw herself into peril to save me. What the fuck did they do to me that I could ever have forgotten? I made a promise to her. Whenever she needs me.
"Always," I reply, looking into her silver eyes.