Haymitch POV
Seeing her hurt did horrible things to him. He hadn't slept a full night since the games began. He would never forgive himself if she needed him and he wasn't there. She was already hurt, with that burn and those stings. He couldn't fathom what was passing through her mind right now to take that boy with her. He had to trust her though.
She didn't deserve this treatment, and yet she seemed to be really good at what she is doing. It didn't make since to him, but he wasn't complaining. He just needed her to come back to him. Sitting here in the mentors viewing area, he had already gotten the notice. It sat beside him. They were going to be making some changes, and he didn't know if it was a good thing, or a bad thing. He just knew that his little fire was going to make it through this, because her spark was too far from being extinguished.
Once inside of the cave I ended up taking care of Peeta. He was very hurt, and I needed him to wake up, to answer my questions. I don't know what I was thinking of doing, seeing as Peeta would probably try and take me down when he woke up. I had my axe with me but every time I thought of just taking him out, and not asking any questions, I was reminded of all of those days with Peeta just talking, or sleeping.
That would never happen again. I would never sit with Peeta. When I get out of here, Peeta wouldn't be there with the rest of my family waiting on me. He'd be in a box in the ground by then. For now I'd tried to make him comfortable. I've placed his head on top of the bag and beside me I had the axe, with the knife in my pocket.
I didn't trust him here alone, by himself, or with my things. So I had to wait. Really, I should be getting food, or setting up traps but instead I was waiting for this traitor to awaken. Stabbing him when he came through the trees would have been a better idea, but also a hasty one. Doing anything without all the facts is never a good idea, because you're taking a gamble.
Movement. Peeta was waking up. I grabbed my axe in one hand and laid it across my knees as he came to. His wounds were bad, he hadn't been treated right away, but they should be fine by now, after all it had been half a day. I couldn't imagine what was happening in the rest of the ring, seeing as most of the time they'd have started something already. It's possible that my stunt might have gained me some leeway.
As soon as Peeta's eyes fluttered open my hands clenched around my battle axe and he met my eyes. It didn't take him long to try and jump up, only to fall against the other side of the alcove. "Fir?" Peeta questioned. "I can explain." His eyes were wide in panic, and he was glancing all around the cave, looking for any hidden traps that I might have installed. I hadn't not out of not wanting to, but because I thought it would only hinder me in this small space and cause my own death.
"You had better start. Now." I ordered, tapping the axe. Peeta's Adam's apple bobbed as he swallowed.
"I had a plan. I was infiltrating the Career pack. I was going to turn on them when we found you. I wouldn't betray you like that." Peeta looked into my eyes. I didn't believe him though.
"That is a stupid excuse." I bluntly told him.
"Please, you have to believe me. I was th-thinking that maybe you would be killed, so I didn't have to do it." He said, and his hands went to the assorted stings on his body.
"Don't worry about them, I treated them. You'd best worry about my axe." I threatened, lifting the large axe, with only one arm in use.
"I had the details and everything. We can band together, and defeat the career pack. After that we can go after the others until it's just us. When it's just us we can agree to wait a certain amount of time before going after each other." Peeta pleaded sitting and clutching his pants. I pursed my lips in thought.
"How can I trust you, Peeta? You betrayed what little faith I had in you. We never lied to each other. People like us, in the lower Districts, never pack with the careers. You are a disgrace." I got angry, standing as best I could with my axe in my hand and the ceiling of the cave made my head bend.
"Katfir, remember that time, when it was Prim's first time in the reaping? You were to busy trying to calm Katniss down about it, that I had to talk Prim down. Remember when you saw her again because she was so calm? I told her how you and your sister had a one in a thousand chance of being chosen. I told her that no matter what, that my family and I would always be there for her." My anger flickered, and died. Prim. Katniss. My eyes watered but I grimaced.
"Don't bring my family into this Peeta." I warned. "Get to your point."
"Trust me like Prim does, please. I want to make it up to her. I can't be there for her, but I can make sure you are." This time Peeta and I's eyes locked. Could I trust him? He looked so sincere and I slacked. This was the Peeta that I remembered.
"I still can't trust you yet Peeta." I told him but I stuck my hand out. "If you shake my hand, and go back on your word, I will make every second of your death as painful as taking a spear four inches from the heart." Peeta hesitated but shook my hand. I breathed out and slumped down.
"Great. That's over with." I announced. "Note, please don't bring my family up again. I'm trying not to think about it." I told Peeta. He noted, relaxing a little bit at a time. "What now?" I asked, looking to Peeta. He looked lost.
"My plan was blown already." Peeta cautiously told me and I rolled my eyes. I didn't need to trust him to be this way with him. I was good right now, I had my axe and I was good with hand to hand. He couldn't kill me, and if it was just him that I managed to kill then there would be fewer questions down the road then had it been someone else, who hadn't betrayed me. I couldn't imagine what it was like for people watching. Especially Haymitch. How did he feel, watching me in the games. I was suddenly thankful that I did not remember his games.
I turned to the point of the cave when I heard a noise and I slowly rose from my place on the ground, holding my hand out to Peeta, to keep him still. It was all for naught. The only thing it was, was the rain. I sighed and looked around me. I needed to disguise this place.
"Come on. You can help me get some vines, do something to keep this place hidden." I told Peeta, motioning him out. It took him a minute because he wobbled on his feet but he should be just fine. True, he was. We managed to gather vines, and Peeta actually worked his camouflage magic only had, as his weapon a small dagger. He gained a bit of my trust back with it as he mushed pieces from nature together with the handle to make paint, and then camouflage everything.
"What do you have to eat?" I asked Peeta now as we sat in the cave trying to dry out. "We need to think of something." I took out my resources. I barely had any food left. "We'll divide it up, in case we get split up." I told Peeta, taking hold of my own amount, and giving him a fair amount. I was going to trust him, to an extent but if he stepped one toe out of line I swear I'll cut him to pieces, no matter how much of a friend he was to me in District 12.
"How many are left? I know Glimmer, and the girl from District four are out." I asked Peeta, munching on a cracker while Peeta tries to eat. I can't imagine what horrors he had seen in the midst of his tracker jacker fueled hallucinations. What had happened to him in the career camp? Now that I think about it logically, they wouldn't have just accepted Peeta with open arms. It had been proof enough when he'd walked away to kill that girl, and I'd heard them bad mouth both him and me.
They were such sick beings, hunting us that can't do anything, but that would probably be how I would do it if I was them. I couldn't bear to think what I would do to them, and I can't sympathize for them, even if it is the Capital's fault that this happened.
In the end Peeta and I both decide that in the dusk of night we can manage a fire, and that I can beat the others off. I trust Peeta enough to stay in the cave as I take my things and go hunting, catching some kind of bird that looked as if it was a turkey. That is the first moment that the viewers can see my deadliness with an axe. The bird had been fifteen feet away and I'd just heard it before I reared back and threw the axe, chopping its head straight off of its shoulders. It felt good to be able to hunt with an axe again. A few minutes later I have a rabbit as well.
I took my time plucking and fixing the bird when I returned to the cave. The rabbit didn't take long to skin and fix either. Peeta was there, and he tried to keep up conversation but it was half-hearted at best. There was too much to think about, too much to worry about really.
"Tell me something." Peeta cut into my thoughts. I looked away from the food to him. My conscious hadn't been there for a long time.
"What?" I asked him, looking back down at the food.
"I don't know. Something you've never told me before." Peeta said, shuffling in his little spot by the burning coals. We'd set food onto the coals already and now we were only waiting on the bird to cook. It shouldn't take much longer.
"I've told you everything. You were my best friend, Peeta." Neither of us comments on the past tense. I didn't mean to bring up his betrayal again, but it was hard not to when I'd known him for so long and he'd still done it.
"Well, tell me some kind of memory." Peeta urged. I thought for a second. It was getting dark outside now and there had been no deaths tonight, because there were no cannons.
"Okay. When Mom got pregnant with Prim I didn't know what that meant." I started, laying back a bit. "She had walked up to me and her belly was really big by that time and I asked her why. She realized that I didn't know what was really going on and she got Dad. Dad had taken me out to a quiet place and sat me down. He'd said, 'Fir, you know how we told you that your momma was going to bring us a new baby?'." I looked at Peeta. "Dad told me that Momma was blaming getting fatter on the baby, because she wanted to eat a lot. Mom found out when I tried to get her to admit she was getting fatter. Dad got chewed out for that. Momma finally just told me that she had to carry Prim in her tummy so that she'd be safe." I finished. Peeta laughed.
"That's horrible." He grinned and I smiled at him.
"You should have been there when I told Prim. She'd only been two." I laughed with him. "She was so freaked out that she couldn't look Mom and Dad in the face for two days straight." Peeta cracked up. I chuckled with him, moving the food from the fire so we could eat.
"Do you ever want kids?" Peeta asked me. I stopped moving.
"I don't know…I've never thought of it." I wondered. "I don't think I do. I've got people depending on me, and they'd never really be safe. They'd always be living with something over their shoulders, never happy." I could picture it now. Both me and Haymitch in the victors housing with two little kids, one girl and one boy and both of them living with the hate of both their parents being victors. None of the other kids would like them because they were better off. Then the fear of being in the reaping. Of going through what their parents went through. Then if they made it past that, the horribleness of having to mine every day or being stuck in a rut.
I couldn't wish that on them. I wouldn't give birth to a lost cause. I could only hope that Haymitch didn't want to start a family. The moment he would turn his eyes on me and speak the words I'd fall to his mercy and give birth to child after child. I loved Haymitch to much not to let him have it if he wanted.
"I would." Peeta said, looking into the fire. "They'd be wonderful, gorgeous if they had Katniss' looks." I startled and looked at him and he flushed.
"So you really do love my sister." I noted. "I'm sure she likes you to." I chuckled. "She's probably freaking out because I'm telling this to you but she was always asking after you. She wanted to know everything you were doing, if you were sick, or getting enough food. She definitely had a thing for you." I told him and then I turned teasing. "Why, I have no idea."
"Shut up." Peeta laughed at me.
"Nah," I bit into a piece of the turkey thing and Peeta picked up his half. We didn't need to talk about it; it was nice to have my friend back, even if I was still suspicious of him every time he moved even a little bit near my weapons.
"We should talk about what we are going to do next." Peeta said, taking another bite. I snorted.
"What could we possibly do? I've been running around trying to avoid the careers and they just keep-" My brain connected and I sat up. What if…What if we didn't try to hide from the careers. What if for once we took the initiative?
"What? What is it?" Peeta asked, looking around for something that could have stopped me from talking but I shushed him.
"Peeta, what if we didn't wait around anymore. Do you know where the Careers are? What they are doing?" I urged, scooting forward. Peeta blinked before his eyes widened.
"Oh, no. We'd never make it Katfir. We'd be killed before we even killed one of them. Even with your axe you can't beat all of them." Peeta reasoned. I deflated.
"Well. What if their attention wasn't on their camp?" I asked, trying to think up some sort of plan. "I've got an axe and a knife so if one or two stay at the camp I should be fine." I picked up everything and looked at what we had. I was so excited about this idea.
"How are we going to get their attention away from the camp? And why do we won't their attention away from the camp?" Peeta asked, trying to get in on my excitement. Maybe we weren't as close as we were, and we couldn't read each other's minds like we could.
"The careers haven't been taught to survive. They come from a rich district, where they are only taught to kill everyone in the arena, and then it's over. What if we destroy their supplies? When I left the cornucopia they were gathering everything up. Do they still have all of it?" I asked him and he nodded, listening intensely. "Well if they didn't have that they wouldn't be able to function, because they don't really know how to survive without it do they?" I looked at the fire and built on the idea. "Tonight I could go look it over and wait until dawn. You could set up some fires, close enough together that you don't have to run far between them. Then you can light them and they'll go after them. I could get the supplies then."
"But Katfir, they have the supplies surrounded, by bombs." Peeta told me and I looked at him.
"What?" How did they manage that?
"The boy from the manufacturing districts. He reprogrammed the bombs and put them around the supplies. Unless you know where to walk you won't succeed." Peeta told me. "They never told me how to do it. They barely trusted me enough to let me sleep.
"Well, I have the knife. I can think of a way when I get there. It's time for us to take the offense Peeta, and we can do it if we try." I told him, bending down in my excitement, getting ready. I knew which way the cornucopia was, this river led out to it, or Peeta said it did. "Can you set up the fires?" I asked him and he nodded, looking overwhelmed.
"But Katfir, what happens if one of us gets in trouble." Peeta asked, following me outside of the cave.
"Remember when we were little and we'd whistle through town and we'd always hear it? Try that. If you get in trouble, don't lead them back but try to make it here. I'll come as soon as I can but if neither of us is here when night comes then we're dead." I told him, and I stopped in my haste to look at Peeta.
"What now?" Peeta asked, running both of his hands through his blonde hair. He'd need to cut it when we got out of here.
"I just want to trust you on this." I quietly told him. "Don't let me down." I turned, not giving him time to answer as I began sneaking off into the distance. When I was far enough away that Peeta couldn't see I threw caution to the wind and flared my eyes open with senses unhuman like. The humans wouldn't notice the gold leaking into my green eyes with the darkness but now I could see fine in the darkness. It was a trait I'd picked up when I was younger, in a different place and with a different body.
It worked like magic. With just that slight change in my eyes I could see anything, just as clear as I could see in the daylight. The details in the leaves with my eyes like this was amazing, and I wish that I could see this well all the time, but in the daylight someone would notice my weird eyes and I'd probably get to distracted. I'd become an experiment for humans.
I snuck my way through the night, following the river which true to Peeta's word lead out into the lake by the clearing. I snuck around the trees and looked in on the careers from the high vantage point of one of the trees surrounding them. I even treated my burns, and my barely there stings now because I hadn't wanted Peeta to know that I was injured more than it was noticeable.
It was ingenious. I could just see the piles of dirt around the large mound of boxes filled with supplies. There was everything there, weapons, food, and even luxuries like a tarp. They had one tarp spread out over them, and they'd forged a tent out of it. I could see their masses sleeping already. They didn't have to worry because no one sought the career pack out on purpose. They would have to worry soon though.
It had only taken me maybe an hour to get here, so I set up camp with a little bitterness. I was in a tree again, and the last time hadn't been so fabulous. I was too excited though, scoping out the place. The cornucopia itself was left bare, probably to enclosed for them, in case they did get caught and forced into it. They'd have been killed, probably.
For the night I slept, my alarms on high just in case anything did happen.
When I did I awoke to screams of alarm from the careers. I was disoriented for a moment, nearly falling from my perch. I had the bag over me, keeping me still with my belt just like old times, except now I held the knife in my hand. My intense eyes nearly had me blinded until I closed them, letting the color, and the intensity fade. When I opened them again I was shocked to see that the Careers were scrambling around, gathering weapons.
Then I looked up and into the distance, seeing smoke coming from the piles. Peeta had started, I was late. The sun was shining, what had blinded me, and I scrambled to noiselessly, and unnoticeably get myself to where I needed to be. I knew who were left, the boy from District one, both from two and Thresh, Rue, and Peeta and I. There was also the one from District three, the one who must have rigged the bombs.
I dropped to the ground to watch the Careers head out to run to what they must think are stupid people lighting fires. The first one was up, but I don't know how many Peeta lit. It came to me to wonder how he even got them lit. There is someone I'm forgetting but they aren't with the careers so I didn't panic.
"He's coming. We need him in the woods, and his job's done here anyway. No one can touch those supplies." The boy, Cato, that's his name? Didn't I know it before? I think so. He's arguing about the boy from District three.
"What about Lover Boy?" The boy from District One says.
"I keep telling you, forget him. He was useless when he was here, and he'll be useless out there. Especially if the District 12 girl gets ahold of him." He pointed at the other boy. He picks up a spear that had been laying on the ground beside him and thrusts it into the hands of the silent boy from District three. I didn't remember anything about him, his score, his interview, or even his costume. He was only the boy who had rigged the bombs but that should be enough for me to remember him now.
Then they leave, and the last thing I hear out of them is from Cato. "If we find her, I take her out. She's mine." I shivered, despite me being who I am, and being capable of what I am. That boy is psychotic, and thirsts for blood. When they are all gone I dropped from the tree and snuck into the field, making sure I was unnoticed. Just before I stepped into the field itself, and became visible, the girl with the fiery hair and the one we could never remember comes running out.
Fascinated, I watched as she jumped carefully around all of the little dirt piles, almost tripping over one before she made it to the pile. She was good, I could see her strategy now. She must have been waiting for them to leave so she could take her turn in stealing their food and making off with it. How long had she been doing that? Had she been following me and I just hadn't know it? The possibilities were endless. She grabbed things, but not noticeable amounts. She begins taking little amounts from different crates, getting cheese from a crate, apples from a net sack that hung at the top of the pyramid like structure, and even some crackers just like mine from a box.
I held my breath as she bounced back down, and carefully jumped over the planted bombs, even twirling around some of them until she was free and running through the trees again. I quietly took my turn risking my life.
When I came out, holding my axe in the ready position I passed by the medal plates that we rose up from when we first came to this arena. There was dirt that had been dug up, and then patted back down. So they had got the mines from there. The ones that were disabled after sixty seconds.
It wouldn't take a lot of pressure to activate them. My mind is slowly coming up with an answer. One year a girl dropped her token, a wooden ball that bounced mysteriously, and they'd literally scraped bits of her from off of the ceiling of the arena the explosion had gone so high.
I glanced back out. A second fire had been lit and I breathed out. I needed to hurry. I didn't know how the boy had placed the mines, but I knew that the best way to destroy the pile would be to activate the mines.
I assessed the situation as best I could but I couldn't think of everything. Trying to set one off wouldn't help, what if he placed them so that I couldn't let but one mine go off. I needed all of them to go off in a chain reaction.
My eyes scanned the area for something. Then my eyes rest on the bag of apples. They were held up by one rope. The bag didn't have elastic, not that I could see. If I could split that rope, and release the apples they would get the trick done, probably. I couldn't lose my ae though. I needed it. Then the pressure in my pocket reminded me of the knife. I pursed my lips before slowly taking it out and looking around me for any noticeable danger.
Then I took a deep breath and let it out, focusing. I forgot about how much rested on this throw and I pretended that this was just another day in the woods and that I could make this with a hand tied behind my back.
And when the knife was cast forward from my hands all I could see was the bag splitting, and the apples tumbling. I realized to late that even standing where I was, at the edge of the field, I was in line of danger.
Then the blast hit and I was slammed back.
What's up? I'm trying to finish this story so I posted this chapter. I might not split the next that I write up. I don't know. My goal is to finish this story before the weekend is up, or at the max the week. I don't want to have to worry about this over Christmas, and plus I think you deserve to get this done now. I mean how long have I been writing this story?
I have finished my JasperOC story, the first one.
Did I tell you guys that I won't be writing this story for Catching Fire, or all of the rest. I didn't read Catching Fire because I was told what happens in it. Sorry.
This'll be the end when it's done. Hopefully soon.