Chapter 12 :
On the sixth day, they reached the end of the world.
Or at least, Haymitch thought that was what the end of the world should have looked like : water as far as the eye could see.
"Oh my!" Effie breathed in, next to him.
They were standing on a cliff. Trees had begun to clear and space out the day before and Haymitch had guessed they were about to exit the woods and that it was time to turn north again but… He hadn't been quite expecting that. They had left the dogs and the hovercraft behind two days ago, whoever was after them did think they were heading towards Thirteen apparently. Haymitch and Effie had glimpsed the hovercraft in the sky from time to time but it was far enough that they didn't worry about it.
"Want to bet it's salty water?" he joked bitterly.
The further they went east, the less snow they found. They had been rationing themselves for days but they were almost out of water and they were definitely out of food. He had placed some snares and had tried to put the crossbow to good use but Haymitch wasn't a hunter and all he had to show for his efforts were some plants he thought were edible.
"Of course it's salty water." Effie said "Don't you realize where we are?"
He realized they'd have barely survived cold and Peacekeepers to die of exhaustion and hunger if they didn't find food and water soon. The view was beautiful though, breathtaking even. It looked like Panem was throwing itself into the ocean or, rather, as if the ocean was desperately trying to devour Panem. Waves crashed at the foot of their cliff with so much strength it was a miracle the stone resisted.
"Let's go." he told her. The stone could resist all it wanted, in the end time and erosion would get to it. "We should follow the coastline northward. We could try fishing."
He had never done it but he knew the theory. It couldn't be that hard.
"Alright." she agreed quietly, tearing her eyes away from the endless shimmering blue horizon with some difficulties.
Haymitch led the way and pretended really hard he didn't see how sluggish her movements had become or how pale and exhausted she looked. It wasn't just that she was tired – he was tired too – she was beginning to lose hope they would ever get to Thirteen. She had stopped asking him if he thought they would make it, she had stopped lecturing him about how being in the woods and cold to death wasn't an excuse to go without manners and proper behavior, she had stopped talking except when it was strictly necessary for her to do so – and he had come to learn that when Effie was concerned, quiet wasn't good – she was slowly giving up and that worried him. He had watched enough Games, saw enough victors and mentored enough losers to know why her behavior was dangerous. Once you started giving up, you were already dead. He thought it would be better if he could just find food. She wasn't used to starvation, she wasn't used to feeling weak and tired… Her weeks fleeing from District to District didn't count faced with a lifetime of getting refined food with a click of her fingers.
They were slower than he would have liked but he didn't dare push her harder for fear she would break. She wasn't a tribute. She had shown extreme resilience but she wasn't a tribute and she might have been a survivor but even survivors died at some point.
"Haymitch?" Her hand fell on his shoulder, effectively stopping him.
He was so engrossed in his own anxiety he hadn't realized she had been calling out to him for the past five minutes. "What's wrong?" His eyes scanned the edge of the woods and the sky, looking for enemies – and maybe they should have stayed under the trees and not walk in the open like they were doing but he had seen enough woods those past few days to get claustrophobic – and finding none.
"Look." She pointed to a slope going down the cliff and closer to the sea line.
"It's salty water, it won't help…" he started but she squeezed his arm, her eyes shining with excitement.
"No, look." she insisted. At first, he didn't see anything. And then it dawned on him. All the graying or reddish mounts, rocks and cliffs he could see from where they were standing… The water was licking at them with passion but… It wasn't stone, stone didn't have that dangerous glint, it was metal. Old, rusty and very, very near collapsing metal. "Ruins." she said. "These are ruins. We need to get down there."
"Or not." he retorted. "It could be dangerous." He was sure those things would collapse as soon as they would put a foot down there.
She looked at him like he had grown a second head. "Don't you understand?" she asked. "It might predate the Dark Days! It might even be from before Panem was…"
"Sweetheart, we're not getting down there." he cut her off. "I don't care how old those things are or how curious you are, it's not worth our lives."
She started to argue but he refused to relent and in the end she agreed that it would be unsafe to try to reach sea level just to get a closer look. They started walking again and he had to tell her at least four times not to get so close to the edge because she was eager to see everything she could. She started talking about her parents' house and its particular architecture, he didn't care that much truth be told but he was so relieved to hear her prattling again he even asked a few questions. Architecture, as a matter of fact, seemed to be a passion of hers.
They headed back to the woods in mid-afternoon because the coastline kept on going east and they needed to go north. She fell silent again once the big tower shaped metal structures were out of sight and he was almost glad when he tripped upon a rock that wasn't a rock. The next ruins weren't that hard to spot and they were relatively well preserved. It had probably been a village or a town rather than a city. Wilderness had reasserted itself as the only master of the place. There were skeletons of houses stabbed by trees or branches, relics of shelters covered in moss…
"That's unbelievable." Effie sighed, slowly twirling on herself to take everything in. "It's so beautiful…"
If there was beauty in the landscape, Haymitch wasn't seeing it. All he saw was death.
"You think that thing would collapse on us if we went in?" he asked her, his eyes on the better preserved house he could find. It was nothing grand; in fact, it had probably been a shed rather than a house. The roof was mostly gone but the walls were still standing and that would mean shelter when the wind started roaring. So close to the shore it would get cold pretty fast.
"We should try." she suggested before wincing. "I don't think I can go any further today."
It was still early, three or four hours of daylight to go before nightfall but Haymitch only nodded his assent. It would give him time to hunt – or try to hunt at the very least. The door of the shed fell down when he pushed it open but the walls stayed up which he counted as a victory. It wasn't big but it would do for the night.
He left his bag with her and instructed her to look for a stream around their campsite but not to wander too far and then he went hunting for their dinner. Hunting wasn't fun for him, never had been and never would be, all the more so now that he had been cast in the role of the prey one time too many. He sucked at hunting. He put up snares and he was waiting for a stupid rabbit or whatever to show up when he heard the familiar noise of the engine.
The pine trees weren't close enough to provide a good cover so he jumped in the bushes instinctively. His heart was racing in his chest and, as always when he reached that level of stress, he felt the deep pulsing longing for the burning taste of alcohol. But there was no liquor to be found in that place. No liquor, food nor water.
The hovercraft passed over his head and continued his way north-east, right where Haymitch had left Effie. He almost started running when he realized it was heading her way but he forced himself to stay put and think. What if they spotted him and he led them to her? Would Effie react quickly enough? What if they spotted her? What if they caught her?
It felt like forever before the hovercraft disappeared from view. He ran back to the campsite, as fast as he could. Wilderness was the only thing to greet him. "Effie!" he shouted, looking around frantically, half-sure they had found her and taken her away. "Effie!" He checked the shed, she had left their bags there but that was the only sign of her presence. Where was she? He ran out and called her name some more, his heart was beating so fast he could swear it was going to break right out of his chest. He couldn't do any of this without her, he didn't want to. He needed her, his mystery girl seeking shelter from the snow, and if they had taken her… He would go to hell and back to find her again. "Effie!" The fear was making him dizzy.
"Haymitch!" he finally heard back. She emerged from two bushes, looking worse for the wear. She had twigs in her hair and mud on her face. Relief flashed in her eyes when she saw him but he didn't lose any time in explaining. Relief wasn't a strong enough word to express what he felt. He rushed to her, grabbed her face and kissed her hard, harder than he had ever kissed her probably. He barely registered the loud thump of whatever she was carrying hitting the ground.
"Where were you?" he asked breathlessly, before kissing her again. He wanted to be angry but he didn't have the energy for that. Not when he had thought…
"I was hiding." she explained in a rushed whisper. "I slipped and I fell and… I found water."
"Water's good." he mumbled against her lips, tangling a hand in her knotted hair to tilt her head further. He couldn't stop kissing her. He couldn't think, he couldn't feel anything but relief, and he couldn't stop kissing her. "Don't do that again. I thought they got you."
There was a shift in the power dynamics. He had been kissing her but at that moment she took control of the kiss and there was no coming back from that. Hands were everywhere: tugging at their clothes, roaming on the newly exposed skin… He wasn't sure how they got back to the shed and their bags, he wasn't sure of much, to say the truth, except for the fact he was high on desire. They had never gone that far before. Kisses and hasty touches were all they had allowed themselves because it wasn't clever to lower your guard that much when you were on the run but Haymitch didn't think he could stop if he'd tried. Being clever or prudent were the last things on their mind.
He quickly fashioned a makeshift nest with their jackets, unable to keep his lips away from her skin long enough to do a proper job of it. Given a choice, he would rather have offered her a bed of feathers or whatever it was Capitol girls enjoyed but he had nothing else to give. Clothes flew everywhere as they became more desperate to touch, to taste each other. She knew what she was doing but he could tell she was still relatively new to this and it had been a long time for him so he tried to take it slow.
He was very busy kissing every inch of her breasts when she tugged on his hair to make him look at her. "Twelve." she whispered breathlessly. "You love me."
He didn't even hesitate before kissing her, crushing the words he didn't want to say. Everything he loved was ripped from him and he wasn't about to let that happen to her. And yet there was so much hope and understanding in her blue eyes he couldn't help himself. "You need to find a thirteen, now, sweetheart." he kissed her throat slowly, nibbling on the soft skin of her shoulder.
"You never gave me a twelfth point." she reminded him, locking her legs around his waist to urge him closer. She was driving him crazy.
"Twelve is you love me." He propped himself on his forearms to look at her properly. "Twelve is you will never leave me again. Twelve is… you made me start running."
She wasn't expecting that much. Her grin was contagious and he smirked back at her. He laughed when she switched them around so she was the one on top, a rain of kisses fell all over his body and he couldn't stop laughing with genuine happiness and an intoxicating sense of freedom. She was his jail-free card. She was his second chance.
And he loved her so, so much.
I hope you liked it! We're 3 chapters away from the ending =)