Katniss and Rue moved down the stream, careful not to pick their now numb feet up above the water. They listened for the splash of a fish in the gurgling, Katniss keeping her bow aimed down at the lazy current.
"So do you know where the career's base camp is?" Katniss asked.
"Yes. They are with all the supplies by the lake."
"Wow, freaking campers. So they have haven't needed to hunt for food at all?" Katniss looked down her arrow.
Rue shook her head.
"Man, even in this place I get to do the hardest possible thing," Katniss said, "We need to get rid of those supplies. I have a plan. You'll be the bait and run around lighting fires so they'll leave their camp, and then I'll go over there and get rid of their supplies."
"How?" Rue asked reasonably.
Katniss shrugged. "I'm sure the answer will present itself to me once I'm over there."
xxx
Foxface danced her way to the mountain of supplies, removed some food, and skipped back out stepping in her footprints.
"I'm kind of rooting for her now," said Backpacky.
"What was that?" Katniss asked, perplexed by the strange routine.
"It's the landmines. They dug them up somehow, and re-set them."
"I should've thought of that," Katniss unshouldered her bow, "That would've been hardcore."
"Sure. Whatever. Just throw some junk over there and set them all off."
"Mmm, are you sure that would work?" Katniss stuck out her tongue and took aim with her bow.
"Well yeah, if she had to freaking parkour her way to the supplies then they're close enough together that one explosion would set them all off."
"Or," Katniss released an arrow toward the pile that snagged across a bag of apples, "I could do this."
"Katniss that is a ridiculous waste of arrows."
"No, it'll probably only take one more," a second arrow flew at the bag and it ripped open a little bit further.
"Katniss you're an idiot."
"No look, this is it, right here," Katniss squinted down her arrow.
"You might want to back up. This isn't like the movies, where you can walk away while things explode behind you. If you are this close when all of those high-powered explosives go off, you're probably going to have a concussion and die."
"Backpacky, you are for holding things," Katniss twanged her shot away.
There was a brilliant flash and a thunderous noise. Katniss fell back into the brush and was showered with debris. Staggering to her feet, she barely registered the smoking pile of charred, useless survival supplies. A red spot blured her vision, and she realized it was on the tip of her nose. Shaking hands felt around her head until they found the source, which was a bloodied ear. She snapped her fingers next to her head.
"I'm deaf!"
Backpacky spit dirt out of his mouth. "So was Beethoven, you don't have an excuse."
Katniss stared at her hand, skin stained crimson.
"You know who else had issues with explosions?" inquired Backpacky.
"Wh-who?" Katniss fell back to the earth, clutching the side of her head.
"Your Dad."
Hearing the footprints of the careers with her functional ear, Katniss crawled behind a bush as blood leaked out between her fingers and Backpacky cackled.