Peeta's POV
Gao throws his hand out toward the remains of the plane and angrily spouts off about the dangers of anyone finding me on the farm. As much as I want Cai, Gao and Min to help me survive, I know Gao is right. My presence puts all of them in terrible danger. I drop my head sadly. Fortunately, this field appears rather remote. No structures of any kind dot the horizon, and I haven't even seen a place where Cai's family might live.
Deciding the only matter I have any control over is minimizing the danger, I tell Min I'm ready to try and walk again. By getting out of sight I hope to make us all a little safer. I also push my hand forward to try to demonstrate what I mean to say just in case I haven't said it correctly. It's a technique I'm finding useful to make myself understood.
Gao looks annoyed at his monologue being interrupted but does approach me again. Hauling me up roughly by my arm, he maneuvers himself to support my weakest side while Cai simultaneously takes over Min's former role of supporting my other shoulder. She falters just a little, and my broken leg touches the ground abruptly as I try to take some of the pressure off of her body. I gasp, and her dark eyes mesmerize me for just a moment when she looks over to figure out what's happening. Her dark, straight hair brushes against my cheek as she lowers her gaze once more. Gao suddenly pulls me forward, and slowly we begin our awkward, shuffling walk.
Min runs ahead, and I see her approach what looks like a small outcrop of rocks in the otherwise flat landscape. She uses the shovel to push aside a few rocks, revealing the mouth of a small cave. I look to Cai curiously, wondering if my long wait in the field alone had something to do with preparing this hiding place. Cai's still looking down. I can feel the muscles of her shoulder, neck, and arms straining under my weight as I tire. I try to avoid leaning any more of my weight on her than is necessary. She's small, but strong.
The last of my energy reserves finally fades completely, and I struggle to keep my broken leg off the ground for the last few yards of the journey to the cave. I can feel myself beginning to lose my balance when Cai puts her tired arm around my waist to try and steady me. My teeth clench as I try to push myself to make it just a little bit further. With no warning, Gao suddenly releases the arm that he'd been supporting, letting me go. Since I was already preparing to lower myself to the ground I don't fall. I see Cai look up and glare at Gao while she kneels to assist in lowering me down to the ground as gently as she can without Gao's help. She thanks Gao for his assistance despite his sudden abandonment just before he indignantly turns away.
Even I know Gao's actions are impolite at best. I sense an undercurrent and want to ask if everything is all right, but that's not my business and would probably make Gao more irate. The intricacies of an interpersonal disagreement would likely escape me if somebody explained them to me in Chinese anyway.
Cai (Katniss') POV
Gao continues to infuriate me constantly, and I wonder if he's doing so on purpose. He appears angry with me but he has no right to be. He's the one breaking our engagement even though I've been promised to him since we were too young to understand what that even meant. He can pretend he is angry with me for assisting a foreigner, but that isn't our greatest disagreement.
I remember the first time I saw Gao, his serious demeanor obvious even at the age of ten. He was supposed to be the answer to my family's dilemma, our hope, and my future. His gangly arms and legs didn't convince me that he could be so important. In fact, I remained stronger than him and of more use on the farm for several more years. He did possess one obvious quality that I did not, however. He was male.
Our fathers had been great friends before and after they had families. As the years went by my father became increasingly distressed that our family had no male children, so Gao's father eventually promised Gao to be our family's male heir as well as my husband. My parents then raised Gao in our home for those purposes. At the time of marriage we'd simply assume our new roles in my family's home as opposed to me entering the home of his family as his wife. This tradition dates back many generations, and was appropriate in our situation. But Gao doesn't respect the old ways.
So the first day I met Gao was the day his father brought him to live in our home. I asked, "Who is that boy, and why is he here?"
My mother tried to explain his presence in a way an eight-year-old would understand, "Your father promised you to him when you were a baby. When you are old enough, he will be your husband," she said.
"Like you and father?" I asked with a nervous gasp as my eyes grew wide with fear.
She answered quickly, "Someday like father and me. For now he will be something like Min is to you."
Gao didn't act like Min, though. Being two years older and unhappily living with the family of his betrothed, his anger often boiled over.
Of course, Gao wouldn't inherit money or land from a poor family like ours, but he would be respected. He'd have a place as the leader of our family in our community, a community built around our landlord and his tenant farmers. In his own family Gao was one of several sons, but in our family he was incredibly valuable. We gave Gao the best of what little we had. He has repaid us with disloyalty, telling me that our engagement continues an old and outdated system that should be abolished. So, we remain unmarried. He considers being promised to be my husband and our male heir a humiliation of some sort, whereas I see it as an honor.
Around the time Gao and I could have married we found ourselves just inside the tree line of the most distant field gathering wood. Suddenly I felt a soft brush against my shoulder and turned around to find Gao staring at me, an odd expression on his face. Without warning he bent down and pressed his lips to mine. His strong hands wrapped around my waist. His bold actions stunned me, but I accommodated them. Gao's lips continued to move awkwardly against mine. He pulled me closer, and I felt my body tighten with apprehension as his seemed to relax.
This must be the time, I thought, the time when he sees me for what I will be to him for the rest of our lives.
Feeling both frightened and happy I smiled against his mouth. The realization that he saw me as a woman, not the little girl he'd met years ago, settled pleasantly into my chest. Gao's hands moved to the small of my back, and I leaned in just a little, wondering what would happen next. Then all of his efforts stopped as suddenly as they'd begun.
"We could run away. You and me, we could make it. Find another life," he said.
The intensity in his voice overwhelmed me, but I knew that intensity had nothing to do with the moment we'd just shared. He rested his forehead on mine gently, but his eyes remained tightly closed as if he couldn't bear to look at me as he said what he needed to say.
"What…what are you talking about? We would starve, sentencing mother and Min to the same fate," I answered once his meaning sunk into my addled mind. "Why would you even want to run away?"
Gao took in a shuddering breath and opened his red and swollen eyes before continuing, "So we could choose who we marry. Don't you wish you could choose?"
"No," I answered angrily, knowing then that his intentions were to avoid marrying me and to deny our family children by him. He'd hinted at such intentions before but never stated such rebellion outright.
"Terrible things are happening all around us, Cai. You just don't understand. I don't want to tell you because they are so terrible. Much worse things than starvation are happening. Running is a chance we should take," Gao swallowed hard. I sighed.
"You can tell me whatever you want. I can handle it," I replied.
"No. No I won't. All I'll say is that worry about those kinds of things happening closer to us is keeping me up at night, worrying about you…all of you," Gao squeezed me with his fingers where he still held me. "I want to go to Yunnan. That's where everything is happening. People there want to make changes. They can save China, Cai. They can stop these awful things from happening to our people. If they can win, our lives will be better. We can marry who we want, and we'll be given land to farm. The land won't be a nobleman's property. They can stop all the foreigners. All of them. Even the Japanese. Do you have any idea what the Japanese are doing? Do you?" He stared at me, blinking. Then he continued, "We can make it to Yunnan…"
"I don't even know where that is. What good could we do there? If that's where everything is happening then that's exactly where we shouldn't be," I screamed. "You shame me and shame yourself! You need to stay here and marry me. We have to keep our family alive. Don't let them starve over this idea you have. If you want to protect us then stay here. Let the soldiers fight their war, and we will fight the one we must fight right here," I grabbed his forearms and pushed his hands away from me a little more forcefully than I should have.
Gao looked off to the side, quiet and enduring some obviously painful emotion that I couldn't even identify. Nor did I care to identify it. My family had invested in him by housing and feeding him for a decade, relieving his larger family of another mouth to feed. But Gao refused to take his place as my husband despite it all: tradition, honor, and friendship. With both of our fathers dead there was little we women could do to convince him otherwise.
Then the conversation turned more personal. Gao looked at me, a certain sadness edging into his expression. Then he looked down before he whispered, "Nothing stirs inside me for you, Cai." The wind rustled the leaves in the trees that formed a canopy above us. "Not even just now while I touched you." He backed away. I stood straighter, outraged and resentful of his rejection. My brow furrowed, not understanding what he thought should stir. Only anger stirred in me.
But now as I watch this strange light-haired man before me, I wonder why something strange stirs in me for him. Maybe it is only mercy. One thing is certain; you cannot choose who rouses these stirrings. If I could have avoided feeling them at all then I would have.
As I place my arm across his waist to help steady his walking a shiver runs through me. I imagine his pale hands on my waist the way Gao's once were, pulling me closer to him until we touch. A strange want and need begins to overtake my thoughts. Suddenly I fear him, not because he dropped from the sky or is what some would call a "foreign devil," but because being near him makes my body irrepressible. This must be what Gao meant by a stirring inside of a person for another. But who has Gao felt this stirring for if not me? How did he know what it was? Would he ever feel it for me? Would I ever feel it for him? Gao and I are still my family's future, if we have a future at all.
Peeta's POV
Cai crawls into the cave and then pokes her head out, gesturing for me to follow her. I have to keep my leg out straight in front of me and slide in backwards by scooting on my rear end. The process takes some time. Once I'm inside I find a flat area in the middle of the small space where they've laid out a blanket that must be for me. Tears well up in my eyes, this time for entirely different reasons. Exhausted, I lie down and turn toward the wall of the cave to let the tears fall unseen. I can hear the girls talking softly to one another as I doze off, feeling a little more secure in the relative safety of the cave.
/
I wake up to an older woman shaking my shoulders. She looks remarkably like Min, but she has wrinkles at the corners of her eyes and a stern expression not characteristic of Min at all.
"…our mother," Min explains.
The older woman searches my eyes, watching them carefully for more than a minute. She reaches her hand to my chin and pulls down, encouraging me to open my mouth. Oddly, she says nothing. At first I wonder what she's doing. Then she lifts my hands, turns them over, stares at them, and turns them over again. My clothes are still soaking wet and filthy with mud. The woman unbuttons my shirt and pulls down the sleeves to reveal my chest, arms, and shoulders. I start to realize that she's looking me over for injuries as well as taking off my wet clothes. In another minute or two she's efficiently removed the splint on my leg also and ordered her daughters to turn away.
She's brusque but seems to know what she's doing as she examines me. She points to the belt on my uniform pants. I look behind me to check that Cai and Min have obeyed their mother. Both are dutifully staring at the cave wall. The older woman nods impatiently as I turn my attention back to her. I wonder why she's in such a hurry. Is she so busy that this examination needs to be done so quickly? When I finally allow her to remove my pants and fully examine my leg my attention quickly shifts from potential embarrassment to ways to conceal my reactions to the pain that even the slightest manipulations of my leg bring. When she moves my leg more abruptly I gasp audibly.
Oh, God that hurts. I just want to go home, back to before all of this happened.
Gritting my teeth is no use. I end up cursing and crying out anyway. There's rustling and movement beside me, but I don't even look back. As if she's suddenly gotten all the information she needs, the older woman quickly covers me from just under my neck to my feet with the blanket. She leaves my injured leg mostly uncovered. Then she whispers to Cai and Min as I work to regain my composure. I watch as she tosses my filthy uniform toward the mouth of the cave.
Cai's mother turns her head awkwardly and stares at the gash on the inside of my injured leg. I look down to see what's so interesting. The reddened skin seems stretched too thin. The swelling makes the wound difficult to see from my angle, but I can see some blood. I can't feel any running down my skin, though. Maybe the bleeding has finally stopped. Cai's mother's hands feel ice cold when she touches the reddened skin above the cut.
Understanding Cai's mother is more difficult for me, especially since she's in such a rush. She mumbles to her daughters, but I only catch some a few words, "watch…give…time…water…Gao...tea…die." While she talks she re-ties the splint over my bare leg.
As she finishes I tug at the blanket so it covers all of me, even my injured leg. I watch as Min crawls out of the cave, dragging my uniform along with her. Her mother follows, still mumbling. I should have paid much more attention during my grandmother's Chinese lessons.
Cai moves closer and into my view, and I wonder if she plans to stay with me. My grandmother once told me that some people in China believe that if a person dies alone they will remain alone and sad in the afterlife.
"Some of them were afraid of a lonely ghost haunting them, Peter," she told me. "So we had to make sure the ones that were afraid of that got to stay with their sick loved ones at the hospital. Otherwise, they wouldn't come to see us."
Could Cai believe such things? Perhaps not. She left me alone last night. China is a big country with many people and beliefs.
"Min says your name is Peeta," Cai says softly, touching my forehead with cool fingers.
I turn my head to get a better view of her.
"Yes," I say.
"You are in a lot of pain," she adds, and I nod.
"I'm going to take care of you, Peeta." she replies.
Cai 's (Katniss') POV
Min told me his name. It would have been easier not to know his name. As he cried out in pain at my mother moving his leg my heart clenched in my chest. I wanted to run away, but I stayed. Abandoning him again would have been just like killing him. Yes, it would have been better for me not to know his name, but whether I knew his name or not, I couldn't have left him.
Mother says he's my responsibility since I'm the one who decided we should go back for him. To distract myself I read the message sewn into his jacket again. My father made sure I learned to read. He didn't care that others said I didn't need to know.
I was leaning over tending to plants in the middle of the field when the earsplitting boom startled me so badly that I fell to my knees. I covered my head and shook with fear. Daring to look up moments later, I saw a giant plane falling out of the sky. Thick black smoke billowed out from behind it. A man suddenly fell from the plane and through the sky. A shudder of revulsion ran through me at the thought of his body colliding with the ground.
When the plane hit the ground it exploded into a ball of fire. The ground trembled under my knees. The wave of heat from the fire caused me to crawl backwards to distance myself from the heat, and even though I had covered my ears when I removed my hands they were still ringing. Then the man caught my eye again. He hadn't fallen to the ground yet. In fact, he was suspended in the air by ropes and a gray fabric that spread out over his head. He floated down to the field like a bird, but his landing lacked a bird's grace. He tumbled into the field with a splash. I saw him move and knew he was alive.
My mother would have told me to run away even though pilots are respected. But I could tell by the markings on the plane that it did not belong to Japan. The man was looking away when I approached him, his arms still moving around in the gray fabric that surrounded him. Then he turned his head toward me. I'd met a few other people like him before, but he looked different than them. His hair was the color of wheat when the evening sun shines through it, and his eyes reminded me of a darkened blue sky. His hands looked pale as they gripped the gray fabric.
His chest rose and fell very fast, and I started to turn away and run. Just then his fear-filled eyes seemed to finally focus on mine completely, as if he hadn't even seen me before that moment. I couldn't look away from them. I leaned over him to touch his golden-colored hair, and his breathing slowed and deepened when I dropped my hand to his head. And suddenly I became afraid. I imagined that he could grab my wrist and hurt me, but the look in his eyes was so gentle that I didn't take my hand away. Instead I ran my fingers through his hair. He shivered.
His jacket fell open, and I noticed some writing inside…Chinese writing and other writing. As I grasped the jacket with my free hand the man flinched. I stopped and looked in his eyes again before I ran my fingers along the white fabric of the sign on which the character were written. It had been sewn inside the man's jacket with small uneven stitches. The sign depicted the flag of China…our China…China free of Japan. Beside it was another flag that I assumed was that of his country, but it had the same colors as the Chinese flag. My heart began to beat even faster knowing that he was indeed on our side. The written message was simple. Any literate farmer could decipher it, and my father made sure I learned to read despite the fact that I am a girl.
"I am an American airman," the message read. "My plane is destroyed. I cannot speak your language. I am an enemy of the Japanese. Please give me food and take me to the nearest allied military post. You will be rewarded."
No, I thought, we will not be rewarded. We'll be killed before we can get him to his people.
I watch the man now, just as I watched him then, just as confused, conflicted, and frightened as I had been then. But I know I can't leave him.
Peeta's POV
Cai lays her hand on my shoulder. Soon I'm drifting off to sleep again, my head rolling just a little so my cheek rests on her hand. Her hand feels cold, but comforting. I feel weaker when I wake up. Cai is there when I wake, encouraging me to sit up and boosting my shoulders up a little with her hands. I try to raise them off the cave floor. Min kneels in front of me, encouraging me to drink water from a metal cup. I only manage a few sips before dropping my swimming head back down to lean against Cai's shoulder. She feels cool and soft. I want to touch her so much, something I can't quite explain and feel rather guilty about. How can I be so captivated by this girl I met yesterday? I must have hit my head awfully hard, or maybe I just need her comfort. Something about her soothes my fears. Her concern for me is obvious, despite the fact that it's partially hidden behind a harsh veneer of self-protectiveness. Min is more clinical in her interactions with me and reminds me of my grandfather. I'm dizzy and nauseous again, probably from trying to sit up. I lay my head down and stare at a single speck on the wall, drifting off as Cai and Min whisper about me.
A little while later, I hear someone moving the rocks at the mouth of the cave and instinctively scoot back a little further into the darkness. Not knowing what kind of dangers I face even here in this cave has been unnerving. The sounds indicate only one set of hands moving the rocks and no real hurry to get inside, though. Still, I can't help but be afraid at hearing something moving outside the cave. Earlier what I think must have been a small animal kept me feeling on edge for a long time by scratching around on the rocks above me.
I watch as Cai crawls through the opening of the cave and replaces the rocks behind her. She must be planning to stay for a while. I can't understand the first part of what Cai says to me, but the sentence ends with something about "food." She offers me a small bowl of soup. The bottom of the bowl looks like it has rice in it. The smell of food turns my stomach, but I don't want to seem ungrateful.
"Thank you," I tell Cai in the most polite way I know how.
Since my grandfather is a doctor and helped teach me the Chinese I am able to speak, I actually know a few words about medicine and illness. After staring at my meal of rice and broth for a few minutes as Cai hold holds it in her delicate looking hands, I try to explain that I can't eat right now.
Cai frowns and sits down beside me.
"You need to eat," she tells me. She looks down at the bowl, and I wonder if she prepared what's in it for me herself.
"I can't," I tell her sadly.
"Try. You must eat and drink."
I close my eyes, swallow, and wonder how I can possibly explain that I'm going to be sick if I eat the food or even drink anything. I suddenly realize that I'm wearing my uniform again. One of the women must have washed it for me because when I look down at my chest most of the mud is gone. It's dry. I wonder with a shiver who dressed me because I don't remember doing it myself.
Cai nudges my shoulder to gain my attention and kneels beside me, lifting my head to help me eat more comfortably. As I stop daydreaming I notice that she's offering me some of the rice and soup with a spoon. I must look bewildered because she shyly smiles at me. She's doing something only my own mother has ever done for me. Even my mother only did it when I was very young. I can't tell Cai "no" anymore because I'm afraid she be even more upset and worried if I don't eat. So, I try. I hold my breath, open my mouth, and swallow the food. It's doesn't turn my stomach as much as I thought it would.
After a few bites I repeat, "Thank you," and put my hand up to try to politely refuse more. Cai keeps offering spoonfuls of rice, though. I fight back the nausea until I've eaten almost all of what's left in the bowl, but finally I start to gag a little with each bite. I lift my hand and gently push the bowl away while repeating how grateful I am. Cai nods. Then she begins to eat what's left of the food. That doesn't really surprise me. I don't know exactly how much food Cai's family has, but based on the fact that they are all quite thin it can't be that much. I suspect they have to give someone else, maybe a land owner, most of the rice that it appears they grow. They probably don't waste a grain of rice, which is one of many reasons I hope I don't get sick.
"I have a name like yours," Cai says quietly as she finishes the bowl of rice and sits it down beside her. Although I don't know them well I have gathered that Cai doesn't talk that much. Min's the talker.
"Oh? What's your name?" I ask self-conscious about how weak my voice sounds and how bad my Chinese probably is. Again I wish I had paid more attention to what my grandparents taught me, but it never seemed very relevant at the time. Even though my grandparents told me they thought that learning Chinese was important I didn't know many people who spoke Chinese in the U.S., and the ones I did know were my grandparents' friends who usually spoke English as well. As a kid I mostly used Chinese as a secret code with my brother when we wanted to play tricks on our friends. I don't know what Cai means by a name like mine, but I want her to tell me.
"An English boy called me 'katniss.' He said I was 'prickly,'" she explains as she looks down at her hands where they nervously tug at the hem of her shirt. Her dark hair falls down around her ears a little. I want to reach out and tuck her hair behind her ear. God, she's beautiful.
"What does that mean?" she mumbles.
I shake myself out of the trance of watching her, but I don't know how to answer her question. Cai says the boy called her "prickly," and it doesn't sound like a compliment. "Katniss" is just a water plant. I don't understand why he'd have called her that. I decide to focus on the boy himself so I can figure it out.
"An English boy? Here?" I clarify.
"Yes. Years ago. He called me 'katniss' and said I was 'prickly.' What's 'prickly?'"
I lift my hand and dig my thumbnail into the pad of my index finger and say "prickly." Then I pull the blanket down from my chest and run my hand along my shirt up and down like I'm sewing the seam with a needle and thread. I push my thumb and index finger together like I'm holding a needle and bob my other index finger over what would be the top of the imaginary needle.
"Prickly," I tell her.
Then it dawns on me. The boy must have been saying "cactus." He was saying Cai was "prickly" like a "cactus." She's right to frown and look sad. That isn't a compliment.
She looks confused and maybe a little hurt. This isn't a good memory.
"But 'katniss' is a plant. Like a flower," I tell her. Cai lifts her eyes a little. Her eyes are so beautiful. I've gotta' stop thinking of her like this.
"I think you are like a flower," I blurt out, before I can stop myself. Then I wince. That's not the kind of statement that's going to discourage my growing fascination with Cai.
The edges of Cai's lips turn up just as she casts her eyes down. Her efforts don't hide the blush across her cheeks. I could tell her about the cactus part, but I feel bad enough that I explained "prickly" to her. Hopefully she won't think about that very much.
"You can call me 'katniss,'" Cai says. "I…I like it when you say it."
I'm pleasantly surprised, so much so that I can feel my cheeks burn. I hope she doesn't notice.
"Yes. I'd like that," I reply. Honestly, the boy is right. Cai is a little "prickly," but I don't think she means to be that way.
She smiles. She still isn't making eye contact. She's being polite, but to me she looks shy.
"Katniss," I say. She looks at me. "Thanks for the food. I feel better. You were right. I needed to eat."
She lifts her eyes a little more, looking satisfied with herself.