Let Me Fly
by FanficAllergy & RoseFyre
oOo
Chapter Four: Into the Woods
oOo
Last Time in Let Me Fly:
"What can I do to make you trust me? I won't tell, I promise. I swear on everything I love, everyone I love." He looks at me oddly before continuing, "I won't betray you. I'll swear on whatever you want. Just let me go."
"No can do, Mellark, we can't take that chance. You're coming with us."
oOo
Gale motions for me to slip under the fence while keeping his knife trained on Peeta. Once I've gotten to the other side, he tells my mother, Rory, and Prim to join me. When they're clear, he says, "Now it's your turn, Mellark."
Peeta doesn't move. "Come on, Hawthorne, you don't need an extra mouth coming along with you."
"You're right, I don't," Gale growls, running his fingers along his hunting knife. "But Katniss doesn't want you dead for some reason, and I'm gonna respect that. But if you're gonna live, you're going to do so on my terms. Got it?" He jabs the blade in Peeta's direction to emphasize his point.
Peeta just nods and shrugs. I notice he didn't actually agree to Gale's terms, he's just refusing to argue right now. Probably smart of him.
It's best solution I can see. We can't leave Peeta alive in Twelve. I know he says he won't tell on us and part of me wants to believe him. But I can't. We can't. There's going to be a manhunt and rewards posted when it's discovered that we're gone. It's happened before. Someone tried to run about two years ago, the Peacekeepers tortured their friends and family and offered a pretty sizable reward for information. Someone came forward and the man was caught and hung. It's what happened to our first Victor as well.
I wish I could be sure of Peeta but I can't. But I can't let Gale kill him either. I owe him my life. I can't take his. Only if I didn't have another choice, like in the Games, would I even consider it. Even there, I'd try to find a third option.
I'm jerked out of my thoughts when first Peeta, then Gale, wriggle under the fence.
"So now where are we going to?" Peeta asks.
"Rory's with Katniss, the rest of you are with me," Gale states then turns to me. "We'll meet up at our place, Catnip."
I nod.
Rory and I quickly make our way through the woods to collect my bows, arrows, and the other supplies we've stored there. Once we have everything, we head to the blackberry bramble.
When we get there, Prim is helping my mother sort the supplies into piles while Gale guards Peeta, whose hands are now tied in front of him.
It seems to be a recent development because he asks, "Are you planning on keeping me bound the whole way?"
Gale shrugs. "I'm thinking about it."
"Well that's just stupid. Look, I can carry some of this for you. I'm strong. And you've got a lot of stuff here." He's looking at our piles of supplies. He's not wrong. It's also clear he's trying to convince Gale and the rest of us to keep him alive and unbound.
My mother looks up. "He's got a point," she says to Gale. "I'm carrying the next heaviest pack after you, and I'm not sure I'll be able to handle it." She holds up the small hatchet from the Hawthornes and the head of a shovel. "And unless we lighten our load somehow we're going to have to leave stuff behind."
Gale makes a face. He looks at me. "What do you think?"
I consider it. We deliberately planned to be overburdened for the first few days, knowing that a lot of the weight is food and we'd be eating it along the way. I don't want to leave anything behind and knowing my mother, she'd insist we leave food behind, which I can't do. I look at the various piles, taking inventory. The axe I got from Haymitch is leaning on Gale's pile along with the majority of our carpentry and gardening tools. My mother has most of our other raw materials. We might be able to leave some of our extra clothes behind, but I'm reluctant to do so. We don't know how to tan leather and it's likely to take us a while to learn. We do have an extra bag and I've seen Peeta carry hundred pound bags of flour with ease. If Gale or I could have a significantly lighter load, it would free us up to use our bows, either for hunting or protection, which is what I tell Gale.
Gale grimaces again. "Fine. But I'll be keeping my eye on you, Mellark."
"I wouldn't expect anything else, Hawthorne. But I think you're going to have bigger worries than me," Peeta shoots back.
My mother and I supervise the redistribution of the packs. We give Peeta the heaviest load, but we make sure that none of our essentials or any weapons are in his pack. Gale would have a fit if we gave Peeta something he could use against us.
My mother comes up to Peeta. "Is it okay if I go through this?" she asks, holding up his bag.
"Do I have a choice?" He sounds resigned.
She shrugs and looks over at Gale.
"No, you don't," Gale says, motioning for her to go through it.
"Of course not," Peeta snaps. "I'm just your prisoner, aren't I?"
I sigh. I hate having to be the diplomat. I'm no good at it. Still, I try. "I'm sorry about that, really I am. You have to understand we just can't take the chance that you might slip - I know you wouldn't say anything on purpose, but something might come out."
"I'd never betray you, Katniss. Never!"
His vehemence shocks me a bit and I distract myself by looking at what Peeta had with him. There's not a lot in Peeta's bag. He has a few herbs he must've gathered before we stumbled across him, a notebook, pencil, eraser, small knife, and gardening trowel. In addition, he has a paper bag full of stale bread and rolls and a smaller one with several broken and burnt cookies.
My mother frowns at the cookies. "Matz hasn't burned anything since we were teenagers," she says.
Peeta looks over at her. "That's because he didn't bake them. My brother, Rye, did."
"That doesn't sound like Matz. His father didn't let Matz bake cookies until he'd mastered the ovens with less costly pastries," my mother presses. "I can't see Matz allowing you boys to bake the cookies until you got all of the burning out of you."
"You think we wanted to burn the cookies? You think we didn't know we weren't ready? My father didn't let my brother do anything! My father is dead."
We all stop what we're doing and look at him. His grief is visible on his face.
"I'm sorry," my mother says. "I didn't know."
My sister moves to comfort him and I struggle to figure out what to say. 'I'm sorry' just doesn't seem good enough. I liked the baker. He was a kind man who always gave me a little extra when I traded with him.
I reach out to pat Peeta awkwardly on his shoulder when his voice stops me. "Just - just leave me alone. I'll be fine. I don't need any false pity." He stops and scrubs at his face with his bound hands.
"Well, you're in good company," Gale says. "I'm sorry about your dad. But we still can't let you go."
"Yeah, I know that." He sighs. "Fine, I'm in. At least on the bright side I don't have to go home to my mother's horrible cooking."
oOo
With our packs redistributed, Gale unties Peeta and shoves the pack at him. Peeta grunts a bit at the force of the pack hitting his stomach, but shoulders the heavy bag easily. That settled, we head off toward the northwest so we can skirt the edge of District Twelve. Eventually we'll want to turn more north and east but only once we've gotten clear of the area.
I'm in the lead followed by Rory and Prim. My mother and Peeta come next with Gale heading up the rear. We're lucky it's a sunny, if cold, day. Not only can we navigate with ease, but Gale can also see what tracks we're making and do his best to camouflage them. The ground is soft from the recent snow melt and spring rains so his job is harder. What we really need is a good hard rain to wash our boot tracks away, but not right now. Not while we're so close to Twelve.
I don't need my bow but I keep it out anyway. Nothing crosses our path. We are making way too much noise. After Gale, my mother is the most adept at moving through the woods, which surprises me a little. I wonder if my father taught her. But Rory, Prim and Peeta make up for it, stepping on what I swear is every dry leaf and twig. If I were out hunting, I'd be about ready to shoot them all, but for travelling it doesn't matter.
We set a fairly grueling pace. We need to get as far away from Twelve as possible. We make decent time, stopping only long enough to relieve ourselves or refill our canteens at fast moving streams.
I call a halt around midday. We all sink to the ground, shrugging off our packs gratefully. None of us is used to carrying that much or walking that much. My mother makes us take off our boots and socks to check for blisters.
Everyone is fine, other than Rory. The poor boy is wearing new boots that are too big and apparently didn't pad them properly.
My mother sighs and rummages around in her pack for some witch hazel and instructs me to dig up a few dandelions. She needs the fresh sap to apply to the skin.
I move off from the group and Gale joins me. I'd been hoping to avoid talking with him about Peeta until later. It looks like I'm not so lucky.
We find a small clearing and I start to gather what herbs and greens are available. I try to ignore Gale. But that doesn't work.
"What was that, Catnip?"
"What was what?" I counter, gathering a few wild carrots.
"Back there in the Meadow. Why wouldn't you let me kill him?" he presses.
I bend down to uproot a solomon's seal plant while I think of what to say. "Prim."
"What about Prim?" he asks, the confusion evident in his tone.
"I didn't want to have her see you kill someone. How would you feel having Rory see you slitting Peeta's throat?" I counter, digging up another plant.
He makes a face, thinking about what I said. I use the time to move away from him and further into the clearing.
There are several things here I can gather in addition to dandelions like burdock, wild onions, and daylilies. I want to wait to gather the dandelions last so that their sap is still fresh when we get back to where the others are but I'd be an idiot not to take what chance I have to augment our limited food supplies. We'd initially planned on having about two and half weeks of food with us, but with the addition of Peeta to our group we now have less than that. I wonder if we'll be able to find a place to settle before our food runs out.
Gale rejoins me. "You make a good point. I wouldn't want Rory or Prim to see that, but we could have sent them on ahead with your mom and taken care of Mellark then," he argues.
I frown. I was hoping he'd accept my admittedly weak explanation. "Yeah but then we wouldn't have anyone to spread out the supplies to. I don't know about you, but even with my lighter load I'm still feeling worn out. I can't imagine how much worse it would be if he wasn't carrying as much as he is." It's a flimsy argument and I know it.
Gale knows it too. "That's not a good reason. I admit he's a good packhorse, but we could've made it without him. And adding him means that we're gonna run out of food quicker. Give me another reason."
I struggle to keep the wince off of my face. I was hoping he'd let the subject drop. I don't like explaining myself but Gale isn't going to let it go. I try a different tack, "There would be nowhere to hide a body without it being found. Leaving it inside the fence would just be stupid, and outside the fence they'd notice the scavengers."
"And that would be a good thing!" Gale shouts. "They'd notice scavengers, find his body, and assume he left Twelve on his own. They wouldn't be looking for us, Catnip! Now they will! He's putting us all in danger. I know you know that. Enough of these bullshit stories. Give me the real reason!"
I can't tell him the real reason. The real reason is too personal and I'm not even really sure how to put it into words. But I do have one last trump card. I don't want to use it. But I have to.
"Gale," I say slowly, "how sure are you that you'd beat Peeta in a fight?"
He gives me a look. "I had a hunting knife," he states flatly.
"It doesn't matter," I say, shaking my head. "He came in second in the school wrestling competition last year. He could turn that knife against you or take it away from you or something. I know I couldn't win in a hand-to-hand fight with him. Are you sure you could?"
"I'm bigger than him."
"Bigger doesn't always mean stronger. I've seen him carry hundred pound bags of flour with ease," I pause and then bring up my final point. "Even if you did win, it's likely you'd have been injured or worse and then where would we be?"
I don't wait for his response. Instead I go over to the dandelions and start gathering them.
"You're right, Catnip," he finally admits several minutes later. "There's no guarantee he wouldn't mess me up a bit before I took him down. I guess I should say thank you."
I let out an internal sigh of relief. "You're welcome. Come on. We need to get back. Mom wanted these for Rory's blister."
oOo
We set off again after Gale cuts each of us a walking staff. We move slower than we did in the morning to try to save our strength, but it's still tough going. None of us is used to this much physical effort and I find myself calling a halt every hour or so just so that we can rest for a bit before pushing on.
A few hours before sunset, we reach a swiftly moving, shallow stream. I pause, refilling my canteen and purifying the water with iodine I procured from the apothecary. I eye it thoughtfully and when the rest of the group joins me I turn to Gale and ask, "What do you think about walking through the stream for a bit to throw off any trackers?"
He considers it, pursing his mouth while he thinks. "It's an idea." He crouches down and feels the water's temperature. "It's going to be cold, though."
"We should do this sooner rather than later," I say. "It's not going to get any warmer."
"I agree," he says with a nod. "How do you want to do this?"
"I think we should take off our shoes and walk upstream for as long as we can stand it," I tell him. "If you can, I'd like you to lay a false trail so that it looks like we just crossed the stream and kept going."
"I can do that," he says. "I don't think that Prim and Rory will be able to handle it for long."
"I can do it!" Prim says, her hands on her hips. "I'm not as weak as everyone thinks I am!"
"Me either!" Rory adds, mimicking Prim's stance.
My mother just rolls her eyes and starts to unlace her boots. Peeta follows her example, rolling up his pants legs when he's done.
I just sigh. "Fine. But no pushing yourself past your limits. If it starts to be too much, you tell me! Got it?"
Both of them nod.
Gale jumps over the stream and starts laying down a false trail. The rest of us step into the cold stream.
"Fuck that's cold!" Rory exclaims loudly as he enters the water.
"Language!" Prim scolds.
We start moving upstream. "Sorry! It just slipped out," Rory apologizes.
But Prim isn't letting it go. "That's no excuse! There are ladies present!"
I turn around to glare at them and notice a smirk hovering on my mother's lips.
The two continue, oblivious to the world. "You sound like Effie Trinket!" Rory says petulantly.
"You take that back!" Prim gasps in outrage. With that tone, she does sound like our District escort, but I'd never tell her that.
Rory has no such compunctions. "No way! It's true! You sound Effie Trinket! You sound like Effie Trinket!"
"You take that back, Rory Hawthorne! You take that back right now!"
"No!"
"Yes!"
"No!"
"Yes!"
"Would you like to tone it down a little, you two?" I snap at them. "I don't think they heard you in District Twelve yet."
Both twelve-year-olds look guilty and fall silent.
Peeta laughs and comes up alongside me. "I thought it was cute."
"It's also really dangerous," I grumble. "Sound carries in the woods and someone's going to come looking for you."
"Only if my mother notices I'm gone," he says with a shrug. "She's not going to expect me back until dinner at the earliest and…" he trails off.
"And what?"
"It wouldn't be the first time I didn't come home overnight," he admits sheepishly.
That's news to me. "Where did you stay?"
"With friends, sometimes," he replies. "The Cartwrights would let me stay with them, but that ended when Delly died. Lately, I've been sleeping in abandoned houses in the Seam."
"Why?" I can't keep the question from slipping out of my mouth.
He gives me a look I can't decipher.
"Sorry. I didn't mean to pry. You don't have to tell me if you don't want to," I say contritely.
Peeta shakes his head. "No, it's alright. I don't mind telling you." There's a slight emphasis on the word 'you' that confuses me. He takes a deep breath and says, "My father was one of the first to die of the flu back in February. Things weren't great with my mother before. After he died, she got so much worse. It was almost like she was angry that my father had the temerity to die and leave her in charge of the bakery. Nothing Farl, Rye or I did was good enough for her. Then she started coming up with all of these money making schemes and when they inevitably failed she'd take out her anger on us. I mean, who wants to eat moldy bread even if it's supposed to cure the flu? Things got pretty bad."
I want to apologize, but I know that the words would just be empty platitudes. So instead, I nod my head, encouraging him to continue.
"It was Farl's idea for us to take turns staying someplace else for a few days to get away from Mother. He'd stay with his fiancee and her family. Rye was like me, most of his friends were either sick or dead and so he was the one who suggested sleeping in some of the abandoned buildings. It was a little morbid, a lot of the houses had dead people in them. I tried to avoid sleeping in those but sometimes I didn't have a choice."
My stomach churns, thinking that Peeta might have been sleeping in the same house as the one we'd hidden the Hawthornes in. "Didn't that bother you?"
"Yeah, it really did. I learned to check out the house I planned on staying in pretty thoroughly before sleeping there. I felt bad that the people had died, but there wasn't anything I could do and it was the only safe place I could stay."
"Your mom didn't notice you were missing?"
"Not unless she wanted one of us for something specific. We learned we could stay away for about two to three days without her figuring out we were gone if we were careful about it."
"Careful how?"
"The other two would distract her and we made sure that we didn't take too much food." He snorts. "How messed up is it that my mother would register that a loaf of bread was missing before discovering that one of her sons was gone? Still, just getting a few nights away was worth the beating she'd give us when we came back if she even had noticed we were gone."
"What's going to happen when she does notice you're missing?" my mother asks. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to eavesdrop."
Peeta glances back over his shoulder. "It's okay and I have no idea. I'm worried about what's going to happen to Farl and Rye when I don't show."
"Do you think they're going to report you missing?" I ask.
Peeta shakes his head. "No. They wouldn't want to get me in trouble. They'll just assume I need the break. It wouldn't be far from the truth."
We don't talk any longer because Gale rejoins us. It's a painful, difficult trek and I'm starting to shiver a little from the cold, but we push on even though I'm starting to lose feeling in my feet. Twenty minutes later, my mother tells us we need to get out of the water.
Gale tries to protest.
But she shakes her head saying, "No arguing. Prim and Katniss are shivering and I'm starting to feel the preliminary effects of hypothermia. In fact, we're going to need to stop and make a fire so that there aren't any permanent effects from walking in water this cold."
"It's not safe to make a fire," I say through chattering teeth.
"We have to get warm. The temperature is already starting to drop and it's going to be close to freezing tonight. We don't have a choice," my mother insists.
"Fine, we can stop," Gale reluctantly agrees. "But we can't risking having a fire once it gets dark. It's too visible and we're too close to Twelve."
"How far have we travelled today?" Rory asks.
"About fifteen miles," Gale answers.
"It seems longer," Prim says.
I shake my head. "No, Gale's right. We've maybe walked that far."
We get out of the stream. I'm grateful; I've lost feeling in my feet. My mother builds a fire and instructs Rory to fill the large bucket and one of the pots that we brought with us. When he returns, she immediately starts boiling the water.
"Why are you making so much boiled water?" I ask.
"We've been hovering on the edge of hypothermia and the temperature maybe hit forty five degrees today. While we were moving, we were able to keep our body temperature up. But since we've walked in the stream and it's going to turn to night and we've stopped moving, there's a serious risk of hypothermia."
I nod, accepting my mother's explanation. I'm too cold and tired to even consider hunting or gathering any food today.
We take out our meat pies and start eating, extending our feet toward the flames. Prim offers Peeta one of hers and he gives her a few of his cookie pieces in exchange.
She smiles at him but sets the cookies aside to go take care of Buttercup. When she opens the bag, the stench of feces and urine wafts across the campsite.
"Ewwwwwwwwwwwww! Gross!" Prim exclaims.
My mother looks up from where she's using the smaller pot to make tea with the ginger roots Peeta had collected. "What did you expect him to do? Just cross his legs and hold it?"
"I don't know! I've never had to think about it before!"
"Go clean him and the bag up and we'll try to figure something out," Gale tells her. "Maybe a lead of some sort."
Prim puts on her socks and boots and takes Buttercup and the bag and heads downstream to wash them both off. We hear the cat yowl a few times. He really doesn't like getting wet.
I shake my head. "That damn cat."
My mother hands me a cup of ginger tea. "There was no way we could leave him behind. She loves that cat."
"It's really inconvenient." I take a sip of the tea, savoring the warmth.
Gale rummages through his pack and pulls out some string. He starts to braid it into some kind of lead for the cat. He shrugs and looks over at me. "We'll see if it works."
About a half hour before dusk, we put the fire out. My mother makes sure each of us has a canteen full of hot water and there's still hot water in the bucket and ginger tea in the pot. We run into a snag when we realize that we only have five blankets, and with the addition of Peeta we now have six people. My mother hands Peeta her blanket and says, "Prim and I can share."
He tries to refuse. "No, don't worry, I'll be fine."
My mother shakes her head. "Just take it." My mother is on first watch, so she starts pacing around the campsite to keep herself warm and awake while the rest of us burrow into our blankets and try to sleep. None of us have slept outside before, so we don't really know what to expect. It's almost impossible. The ground leaches the warmth from our bodies and the rocks and twigs jab into our sides painfully.
Eventually I manage to drift off. Gale shakes me awake what feels like only minutes later. "It's your watch, Catnip."
The water is now cold but I take a drink anyway. I get my bow and quiver and peer out into the darkness. It's still several hours from dawn and without a fire, the forest is dark and forbidding.
A little bit after false dawn, I hear it. Several somethings crackling through the underbrush. I nudge Gale. "There's something out there. Wake the others."
Gale flings the blanket back and shakes Peeta awake. Good. We're going to need all the help we can get. There's more than one of them out there.
I nock an arrow and try to make out any movement in the pre-dawn light.
I don't have long to wait. I hear the unmistakable howl of a wild dog calling the pack.
And then they're upon us.
There are four of them. Medium sized but still menacing. And they charge at me, growling and snarling.
I loose one arrow and one of the animals lets out an anguished yelp. It's not a kill shot, but the animal is out of commission for now.
I nock another arrow and fire. This time my aim is better and another dog drops.
There's still two left.
I sense Peeta moving to cover my left flank. While someone else is on my right. I don't have time to see who it is when another of the dogs charges.
Peeta intercepts it with his walking stick. He's limited with how hard he can swing but he still manages a solid hit. I loose an arrow at point blank range into the dog.
It falls.
The remaining uninjured animal disengages and retreats into the woods. The person on my right, Rory I see, walks forward toward the dog I'd injured.
It's lying on the ground, whining in pain.
The twelve year old pulls out his knife and plunges it into the wounded animal's side.
It falls silent.
The attack is over.
We won.
So why do I feel so much dread?
oOo
AN:
Written: 1/29/15
Revised: 1/30/15
The title of this chapter comes from the musical of the same name. Shocked, we know. It fit.
Yes, we killed the baker. We liked him but it needed to happen for plot reasons that will become more apparent over time. We realized later that by doing this that the only person in the group who might have both parents still alive is Mrs. Everdeen.
We need to talk about survival and what will kill you. Katniss and crew, for all that they're good hunters and gatherers, are still novice survivalists. We chose deliberately to have them underestimate the environment and overestimate how much they could carry. We didn't want them to be perfect and frankly bringing Peeta along saved their asses in terms of what they can carry. He's also got other skills that will become relevant later. The thing that most people seem to forget about survival is that the most common cause of death for people in the wild isn't starvation or even dehydration, it's exposure. Hypothermia can and will kill you and maintaining a core body temperature of over 95 degrees Fahrenheit (35 degrees Celsius) is imperative. We chose to show that with both the walk in the stream which wouldn't cause frostbite but it would cause problems with lowering the body temperature and with their decision to not build a shelter or maintain a fire. They had their reasons, but they were still problematic. There will be consequences. They're lucky that Mrs. Everdeen is a healer and knows the signs, or things might have gotten a lot worse.
Now, we need to talk about Randomization. We decided pretty early on that rather than planning out EVERY SINGLE LITTLE DETAIL we were gonna use a randomizer for non-essential plot points. There is one event later on that literally is a going to be a huge deal that was totally decided by the randomizer and it took 8 different determinator rolls to get there.
Starting in this chapter, we're going to include a list of all of the events that took place that were thanks to Mr. Randomizer.
- The Blisters and who if anyone got them.
- Would Katniss hunt or gather after setting up camp?
- How long would Mrs. Mellark take to notice that Peeta is missing? (We do know how long and you'll find out later)
- How many wild dogs were there? And what time did they attack and is anyone injured and if so who?
Thank you for reading. We are currently working on chapter nine so that we can keep with this weekly publishing pace.
Please take a moment to leave a review! We look forward to hearing what you think!