Chapter 19
We remain where we are, sizing up the other two.
The boy from 6 is holding his war hammer over his shoulder. His backpack slung over the other. His companion wears her pack over both shoulders. She doesn't hold anything in her hands, but I notice that she's slowly reaching for the sickle at her side.
"Well this one's a looker," says the boy, nodding at me. He leers and actually licks his lips. I suddenly feel uneasy.
"Why have you been keeping her all to yourself, Twelve?" he continues, clearly talking to Haymitch. This causes his partner to laugh. It's not a particularly pleasing sound.
"He's not half bad himself," she comments. Haymitch and I continue to stare at them in silence.
"Oh, don't be like that, baby," the boy from 6 says. "What do you say to ditching that lame ally of yours and coming with me?"
He looks at me, waiting for a reply. I don't give one.
"Unlike him, I bet I can show you a really good time," the boy persists, glancing me up and down perversely. He's practically undressing me with his eyes, the sleazebag!
"What about you, darling?" the girl asks Haymitch. "Lose the tramp. I'll do things you wouldn't even believe." She winks seductively at him.
I frown at being called a tramp. Taking a step forward, I glare at her. "Back off."
Suddenly, and without any warning, the boy charges forward. He screams and raises the hammer over his head. He charges towards me.
I draw into my bag for my blowgun, that weapon being able to effectively work over a long distance. I'm too slow, though. The war hammer would've hit me square on the head, crushing my brain, had Haymitch not tackled him to the side. I see the war hammer fly out of his hands. The two begin fighting.
Finally holding the blowgun, I look up to where 8 is standing. She's gone. Only her pack is on the ground, evidence that she was there at all.
I look around frantically for her, not wanting a surprise attack. Hearing a noise in the tree, I look towards it in time to see the girl from 8 jumping down. She's brandishing her sickle, thrashing it about like a madman. I would have laughed at the mere sight of it, had the situation not been so dire.
Quickly raising my blowgun, I aim it at her. The dart would've hit her in the neck had she not knocked it away with her sickle. She aims the sickle downwards on me. I have just enough time to deflect the attack with my blowgun. She knocks the gun out of my hands. Now without that weapon, I back up against the tree. She follows; a manic look on her face.
And I thought the Careers were insane. These two are exactly like them.
She sees the look of fear in my eyes and laughs hysterically. When she reaches me, she places the sickle against my exposed throat.
"I'm going to enjoy killing you," she says sweetly. "You District 12s are nothing. Just like that little girl. Even with the two from 11 with her, she still died easily."
My head swims as I take in what she's saying. Then I'm furious.
I stamp my heel onto her foot. Then I knee her between the lungs. She screams as I do a quick spin, getting around her. I kick her in the back before she can turn. The sickle falls to the ground even as she's still falling. I kick it into the bushes where she can't see it.
Now weaponless, she gets up and turns to me, fuming with pure rage. I look around for my blowgun even as she's charging at me, assuming, like her, that I don't have another weapon.
I pull out my knife and throw it at her. It buries itself in her shoulder. It would've hit her heart but she dodged it in time. Amazingly, she's still running as though a knife isn't protruding from her shoulder. Looking around, I resume my search for that blowgun. I finally find it several feet behind me. Turning on my heels, I run for it. As I get close enough, I go into a dive. As I slide on my stomach, I quickly grab the gun. When I stop sliding, I turn over, still on the ground, and fire another dart at her.
This one hits the mark. The mark being her neck.
She suddenly comes to a halt. Then she's falling to her knees and hacking up blood. After half a minute of this nonstop coughing, she falls to the ground, dead. A cannon goes off right on time.
My blood still pumping with adrenaline, I look to where the fight between the other two is still going.
The boy from 6 has Haymitch pinned to the ground. In his hand a small cutting knife.
Haymitch is struggling beneath him, his knife nowhere to be seen.
Judging from the cuts on his cheeks and arms, the boy from 6 has been playing with him, teasingly giving Haymitch little cuts.
Suddenly bored, he holds the knife in two hands and starts making stabbing motions, aiming at Haymitch, who avoids the attacks as best he can while being pinned down.
I've been holding up my blowgun but District 6 is moving around too much now, and I don't want to risk hitting Haymitch. Frantically I run to the dead body of the girl from 8 and pull out my knife from her shoulder.
In the time I went to retrieve my knife, Haymitch managed to get the other tribute off of him and knocked away his knife. Now Haymitch is the one pinning down 6.
He gets in a few good punches, but without a weapon isn't able to end this fight.
"Haymitch!" I yell, tossing over my knife by their feet so that only he can reach it.
Haymitch manages to grab my knife and, with a few quick moves, finish off the boy. Another cannon sounds.
Haymitch gets up and hands the knife back to me. "Thanks."
"Let's get out of here before other tributes start showing up," I say, cleaning my knife on my shirt and putting it back in its sheath.
Quickly we rummage through the packs of the now dead tributes.
Together they had two respirators, two goggles, a vinyl sheet, a funnel, one completely empty water bottle, several juice boxes, four mint cookies, and two packets of potato chips.
We easily divide the juice boxes, mint cookies, potato chips, respirators, and goggles between the two of us.
"This'll come in handy if another eruption occurs," Haymitch says, handing me a respirator and goggle. Briefly I wonder if that is how they had survived the volcano.
Seeing as I have two water bottles, I tell Haymitch to keep the empty one. That way we both end up with two bottles each. I keep the funnel and he keeps the vinyl sheet.
As I inspect the body of the girl, I realise she wasn't completely weaponless after all. She has a leather sheath strapped to her right thigh. Inside is a hunting knife. Thinking that it might be useful, I take it.
Lastly, Haymitch retrieves his weapon. He finds his knife buried in a tree. I decide to just leave the darts where they are. I still have eighteen left, after all.
"You should put some Capitol cream on those scratches," I advice as we're moving on.
His cheek drips blood from the places where he got cut. As do his arms. His right knuckle is also bloody and split from where he punched.
"Let them heal on their own," Haymitch brushes it off.
Rolling my eyes, I let it go.
As we are walking, I notice that Haymitch seems to have trouble walking properly. His breathing sounds a bit laboured too.
Thinking that it will eventually pass, I let it go without comment.
After some long hours have passed and there is no improvement whatsoever, I decide to finally say something to him.
"Haymitch, maybe you should rest," I suggest.
"Can't stop," he says, sounding feverish. "Not yet."
"Why? There's clearly something wrong with you."
He ignores me and keeps persisting on.
"Fine!" I snap like some rabid animal. "If you don't care about your own health, why should-"
Haymitch suddenly collapses to the ground. Immediately, I knee by him, shaking him by the shoulders.
"Haymitch, can you hear me? Haymitch! Say something," I demand.
His eyes are closed and his breathing short rapid breathes. I feel his forehead. It's burning up quickly. Alarmed, I begin searching for a place we can use for shelter. Miraculously there's a formation of massive boulders. Pushing one of the smaller ones out of the way, I peek in and amazed by the sheer size.
There is more than enough room for two people to stay in comfortably.
Next, I laboriously drag an unconscious Haymitch to the newly discovered shelter. By the time we're there, I'm sweating bullets and huffing like I've just run a marathon. I drink a mouthful of water. Then I lift Haymitch's head, which had been resting on his pack, and pour some water between his lips. Lastly, I rip and wet some paper from the roll before pressing it on Haymitch's forehead and wondering what to do next.
I finally decide to examine his body for bites or any other signs that might give an explanation as to what caused him to become so ill. It doesn't take long. The recent cut marks on his cheeks is an angry purple. It looks infected. Nothing like I've ever seen before.
Checking where he was cut on the arms, I see that they display the same symptoms as those on his cheeks. The symptoms for what, though, I cannot say.
Hoping it would help, I clean the cuts and dig around in his bag for the cream he has. I apply them onto his cuts, careful not to miss any.
Sitting back, I anxiously wait to see if the cuts and wound will clear up.
It doesn't.
Maybe it just needs more time.
So for the next three hours, I carefully monitor Haymitch, who still hasn't woken up yet. Amazingly, I begin to see the wounds heal around the two hour mark. With renewed vigour, I replace the crude towel on his forehead with a new one. I also use this time to attend to Haymitch's right knuckle.
First, I clean it up before applying some cream. Then I carefully wrap the knuckle up in some improvised bandages of toilet roll paper.
I look out at the opening of the rocks and see that it is night out.
Deciding that staying here is a must until Haymitch recovers, I go back outside.
My next move is to find something to cover the opening of the cave that the rocks create. There are several fallen branches still with plenty of leaves on them. I pick the thickest one and cover the entrance after crawling back inside.
Feeling hungry and deciding to pass the time waiting for Haymitch to recover by eating, I help myself to some more raccoon.
The meat's cold, but that doesn't bother me.
Then I eat half a drop biscuit, putting the other half to the side for Haymitch.
The anthem plays loudly, and I poke my head out to watch the death recap, despite knowing who I will see in the sky tonight.
First is the boy from 6. His face is soon followed by that of the girl from 8.
She brings my total kill count to four.
Now Districts 6 and 8 are both out of the running.
Doing some thinking, I conclude that there is still Ruby, a tribute from 3, both brothers from 7, and of course Haymitch and me.
That means there are six of us left.
When first reaped, I never thought that I would ever make it so far. Nor did I ever imagine forming an alliance with anyone.
I look over at Haymitch, wondering how much longer this alliance will last.
He coughs, raising my hopes that he has finally woken up. Quickly he has me by his side.
"Haymitch," I whisper, "are you awake?"
No reply.
Sighing, I anxiously wonder why he hasn't woken up yet. All his cuts have been tended to.
Resting my hand in front of me, I'm surprised when it accidently lands on Haymitch.
I'm surprised, not because of the contact, but because of how distinctly wet his shirt feels.
Puzzled, I grab out the torch that managed to survive the cabin fire and switch it on.
I flash it downwards, looking at his shirt. From what I can see, nothing is wrong and there shouldn't be a reason it is wet. But then my nose takes in a dull metallic smell. It is a smell I immediately associate with blood.
Slowly, as if to prepare myself, I lift up his shirt.
On his side and abdomen are several long cuts. The blood has spread so much I can't even properly see the skin beneath all that blood.
I quickly set to work cleaning Haymitch up.
Once done, and I get a look at what I'm dealing with, I inhale air sharply through clenched teeth.
The wounds themselves, small as they are, have been closed with dried blood. But that's not the problem.
Underneath the skin around the wound, I can clearly see something like blue ink spreading across in all different directions.
I go into a panic as my immediate thought is poison. That boy from District 6 must've done something to that knife he used on Haymitch. I can only conclude that, like me, he intentionally poisoned his weapon to make it that much more lethal.
This information would be great... if I had the means of actually treating this poison.
Finding a plant or two that may help with poisons is out of the question, considering how everything in this arena is poisoned. None of the packs we have come across has an antidote either.
Briefly I wonder how long Haymitch has left if left untreated. Ignoring that morbid thought, the most I can do is tend to the cuts. And I do. Much like how I've been treating the ones on his cheeks and arms.
I completely clean away the dried blood, causing a fresh batch to flow out. Staunching the blood, I'm hopeful enough to wonder if the poison may just flow out along with it.
As the blood flow dwindles to a trickle, I try applying some cream. After I glance at it, my stomach drops. The thin blue webs of poison are still there. Sighing in resignation, I pull his shirt back down. Then I rest, leaning against the wall, having done all I can.
As I contemplate on what to do, my mind comes up completely blank.
The sound of approaching footsteps reaches my ears. Hastily I turn off the torch, which had been on and turned towards the back of the shelter. Then I strain my eyes to see through the leaves blocking the entrance.
Outside is dark, illuminated somewhat only by the waning moon. I do, however, make out two dark contours when they walk into view. As they get closer, my hand clenches around my knife.
"Not there," says a voice, "I know somewhere much better where we can stay."
"Okay," agrees a second one.
I can't see them properly, but I can almost recognise those voices as belonging to the two from District 7.
Much to my relief, they turn and are soon out of view again.
Releasing the grip on my knife, I let out a breath I wasn't aware I was holding.
It is then that I decide to leave the torch off for now. I also decide to stay up for as long as possible least we have more potentially unwanted guests, be them human or animals.
Haymitch gives another raspy cough, and I'm soon pouring more water pass his lips. Taking this time to replace that wet paper on his forehead, I do that too.
Afterwards, I resume my place protecting the entrance to this place. I place my backpack next to me and take out a water bottle whenever I'm tired or thirsty.
The night gets later and Haymitch's condition not any better. On the contrary, he might actually be getting worse at a faster pace now.
As I sit, reflecting on my current situation, I can only conclude that it looks grim.
If there hadn't been any deaths recently, and Gamemakers wanted to lure us out, I can only imagine what would happen.
Claudius Templesmith would invite us through the speakers placed throughout the arena to a feast. Those starving would be desperate enough to accept the invitation. They would go and risk their lives for food. That would serve as more than enough entertainment of the audience.
But that's not going to happen.
Haymitch and I should have provided them with plenty of entertainment during our fight with the two tributes from 6 and 8.
Now the Capitol can watch the direct result of that battle as Haymitch lies dying, his body slowly overridden by and succumbing to poison.
They'll get a real kick out of watching as I sit, completely helpless to save an ally.
My distress is surely their source of joy.
As I sit in a right foul mood, I almost miss the sound of something landing on the ground right outside. Cautiously, I push aside the branch and step out. Looking around I don't see anything out of the ordinary. That is until I actually look down.
For there, just by my shoes, is a parachute that could have only come from Konrad.