Katniss looked down sourly at the jumpsuit she was dressed in. It was black and silver, lightweight with knee and elbow pads. The material stretched to her hands and wrapped around the webbing of her fingers. Good for keeping a grip on a bow, she reasoned. Cinna adjusted the pants at her feet, making sure they were securely tucked into her boots. If he could feel Katniss's body trembling he said nothing, simply standing in front of her and appraising the material between his fingers. "There's not much protection from cold or water."
"Sun?" Katniss asked, stretching her limbs to loosen the uniform. Cinna glided around to her back and began braiding her hair.
"Possibly. If it's been treated." It didn't take him nearly as long as it took her mother to weave her hair into the braid she had worn since grade school. When he was finished he stepped around to analyze her, his delicate fingers rubbing his chin. Unlike most people, Katniss didn't feel nervous beneath his amber stare. Not only because he had a sense of ease about him, but also because Johanna trusted him. "Oh, I almost forgot." He withdrew Johanna's mockingjay pin from his pocket and affixed it to the strap of her suit. "She asked me to give you this."
"Her token." Katniss swallowed down the lump in her throat. Johanna was the Mockingjay, not her. But it was a piece of Johanna and Katniss was glad to have it. "Thank you. For everything."
Cinna gave her a tight-lipped smile. "Do you want to sit down?" Katniss nodded and he took her hand and led her to the bench to await the countdown. Her arm throbbed where the doctor had injected the tracker into her arm. "Do you want to talk?"
"Not really," Katniss replied apologetically. There was nothing to say, other than that she hoped to see him again. Of course, there was no place in the Capitol or the Districts for someone like Cinna and someone like her to live together. Cinna was like Johanna or Gale; he could hold the fate of Panem in his hands and be comfortable. She didn't have room for the entirety of Panem in her arms, because she could only hold what she could reach. Johanna, Prim, Gale. Her mother, too, if she stretched far enough. Katniss wasn't sure she could ever handle more than that.
The robotic voice above their heads instructed them to "prepare for launch." Katniss stood up and positioned herself on the platform. The glass cylinder cut her off from Cinna, who gave her a short wave and watched stoically as the platform lifted her up and out of the Launch Room. The breeze hit her hair and she squinted in the harsh sunlight. All around her was water. It lapped at her feet on the platform. Katniss could smell the salt in the air. There were strips of land every two tributes in between the water, leading to the Cornucopia in the center.
She had only sixty seconds to gain her bearings. To her right was Chaff from District 11, about as far away as the strip of land to her left. Gale was out of sight, possibly on the other side of the big steel horn. She'd have to dive into the water to make it to the weapons. Not many kids from 12 could swim; she was thankful her father had brought her to the lake before he died.
The gong sounded and nearly all the tributes took off into the water. Katniss lost sight of them as she plunged into the seawater, trying to open her eyes but found the salt abrasive to her eyeballs. Blindly she reached the Cornucopia, heading straight for the bow and quiver. She pulled the quiver over her back and placed one arrow on the bow, readying it for an attack. Gale stormed around the corner, tucking a sword into his belt. Finnick was on his heels, a trident in her hand. Katniss aimed the bow at her but Finnick held up her hands.
"I'm on your side, precious." Katniss looked to Gale who nodded in affirmation. Katniss slowly lowered her bow, but kept the arrow at the ready. The Cornucopia seemed to clear fairly quick. Maybe because they were mostly victors, they knew better than to go straight for the weapons. Katniss was surprised to see only Les in the water, paddling towards shore. If he were from any other District, his old age would've meant immediate drowning. But being from District 4, he kept afloat. "Let's get to shore before the Careers come back."
The three of them, and Les in the rear, got back to the shore on the edge of the jungle. Katniss looked up at Gale, who was slightly out of breath from the swimming. "Did you make any secret deals with anyone else?" she sassed, narrowing her eyes at him.
Gale smirked and adjusted the quiver on his back. He had grabbed a bow, too. That was good. Gale was probably decent with a sword, but he was almost as deadly as she was with a bow and arrow. "Finnick was not a secret deal. Johanna told you."
"Of course she did," Katniss dismissed. "Whatever. We should get off this beach, I'm sure the Careers will be coming back shortly to take out anyone still around."
"We have to wait for Les," Finnick said, looking back at the water where Les was doggedly making his way toward them. "He's one of the few people that actually likes me."
Gale nodded. "Katniss wanted Les the first day," he lied. Not entirely untrue, Katniss thought. She didn't care about having Les when Gale mentioned it, she just didn't want Finnick.
"Katniss has remarkably good judgement." Finnick grinned and waited for Les to make it to shore. Once he did, she scooped the old man in her arms and over her back like he weighed less than a pup. The three of them, Les on Finnick's back, made the uphill trek into the jungle. Finnick looked over her shoulder at Katniss about 300 yards in and smirked. "Not gonna sink that arrow in my back, right Twelve? We square, kid?"
"We'll see," Katniss replied evenly. She heard Gale chuckle from ahead of them as he hacked at the jungle's thick vegetation with his short sword. "Wouldn't want to miss and hit Les." Both Four natives gazed back at her, smiles on their faces. The jungle seemed to stretch on forever, and though Katniss's entire body was damp, her mouth was dry. "We need to find water. There's enough game to live on." Katniss eyed the moist little rats in the trees. "And I saw some nuts, I think. But without water, we're done."
"Yeah," Gale agreed from the front of the pack. "Maybe there's a spring somewhere." Finnick shrugged her shoulders and they continued upward into the jungle. The trees were rubbery and tall, unlike anything Katniss had ever seen in 12. The tiny gray tree rats scurried about on the limbs of the trees, snuffling their long snouts deep into the tree and startling colorful birds Katniss couldn't recognize either. Who even knew if they were edible? Tributes like these - rebels, victors, unhappy family members - Snow probably wanted these Games over as fast as possible. The Games where tributes starved to death didn't go over well, though. No, the Capitol surely had some horrors in store for them.
About two hours into their journey they paused to take a rest in a small clearing between the tall, slim trees. Katniss was silently impressed at how Finnick managed to trek the humid, hot jungle with Les on her back. Finnick didn't even seem tired, the rest was more for Les than for her. Katniss used the pause to scale one of the more rubbery trees to gain some perspective on how far they were from the Cornucopia.
To her surprise, there was almost no one in the arena near the water. There was a small pod of people on the beach, but they weren't fighting. They seemed to just be standing there, as if deciding what to do, or possibly even making a camp. Behind them was nothing but more jungle with no stream or body of water in sight. Katniss climbed back down, greeted by Finnick who had propped Les up against a tree.
"What's the deal?"
"No spring as far as I could see," Katniss replied. "And the others... there's no fighting. I heard a cannon or two go off before, but I don't see anyone. It's quiet. No blood, nothing."
Finnick eyed Gale for a moment before shrugging. "Doesn't matter. The Careers will come hunting us tonight. We need to find water and get undercover before night."
"Is there any way to drink the sea water?" Gale asked, raising his eyebrow.
Finnick looked to Les, then shook her head. "Not unless we have a pot, a cup, and a source of heat to cook it." Gale and Katniss both looked at her quizzically and she shrugged again. "You put the cup in the pot, pour the saltwater around it the cup. Then the lid of the pot helps to drip the non-salt water vapor into the cup." Both pairs of gray eyes continued to stare blankly at her, like she was speaking in tongues. "It's complicated and we don't have the materials. And it's either that, or a converter. Chances of them sending one of those to us in a parachute is ...not gonna happen."
"Okay. So what do we do?"
Gale gave a look around. "These animals I keep seeing, they must be getting water from somewhere."
"Well we need to find it quickly. Between the heat, the humidity, and the climb, we're all gonna dehydrate," Finnick said. Her green eyes looked briefly to Les who had begun to crack and eat the nuts Katniss had seen. Finnick seemed to be truly worried about the older man, Katniss realized. But she must know practically that he won't survive the arena. Still, it slightly improved Katniss's perception of the sultry victor. At least for now.
A small silver parachute flitted down from the treetops and Katniss grasped it before it hit the ground. She opened it and spread the silk mat on the ground. A note and a small metal instrument were placed in the center. The small, white card read: Thirsty? - J. There was a brief pang in Katniss's heart as she ran her thumb over the printed text. Katniss tucked the note into her jumpsuit and took the metal clamp out of the parachute. "What is this?"
"A spile," Gale answered. Katniss could see the gears working in his brain as he tried to figure out why they would send one. "It's like a spigot." His eyes traveled around them, up the sides of the trees and into the vegetation. "Where would we put this?"
Katniss followed his gaze and finally settled on the trees. "The trees!" she exclaimed, pointing. "That's where those rat-like things were. That's probably where they're getting the water. Rodents don't usually live in trees."
"Have a lot of rodents back in Twelve?" Finnick teased as Gale began using the hilt of his sword to pound an awl Les had fashioned from some driftwood into the trunk to make way for the spile.
"Not all of us get to live out our days in the lap of the Capitol," Katniss shot back.
Finnick rested the trident over the back of her neck and hung her hands on either side like she was in stocks, rotating left and right to stretch her back. "Calm down, Everdeen," Finnick replied with a roll of her eyes. "I'm not attacking you. Not the enemy, remember?"
"Yeah, we'll see about that," Katniss grumbled, waiting behind Gale as he let the water just released from within the tree drip into his mouth. After they had all taken turns with the spile, Finnick unhooked it and tucked it into her suit. They continued into the jungle until Katniss recognized the edge of the force field because of Wiress and Beetee's help back in training. She casually tossed a nut at it to make sure, and the nut crackled and landed on the soft dirt. She hoped the District 3 natives made it out alive; that's who she wanted for allies - not the mermaid and the kindly old man. "So that's it?"
Gale shrugged, wiping his sweaty forehead with his equally sweaty arm. "Might as well make camp here. It'll be night time soon and we need to rest and eat. Especially if we're going to take turns being on watch."
Finnick and Les wove mats from the nearby vegetation to protect them from whatever was going to slither along the jungle floor at night, and fashioned nets to hang over their heads. It would help in camouflaging and shielding them from any incoming attacks as well. Katniss took her bow and hunted for the ugly rat-like creatures, bringing two of them back to the camp. Gale made quick work of skinning them and tossed them against the force field to cook them in lieu of starting a fire that would attract attention.
After eating their sorry meal and getting their fill of the warm, but fresh water from the nearby trees, they sat in their makeshift tents and waited for sundown. Les curled up high on the hill near the force field, his exhausted little body succumbing to the heat. "I'll take first watch," Gale announced as the sun began to dip beyond their vision.
"You sure?" Finnick asked, but Katniss could tell the girl was exhausted. Her beautiful blond hair was tousled and matted against her head, sweat pouring down her face, but she was still insufferably good-looking. She shucked off the forearm sections of her uniform, tossing them away from her. Gale nodded and Finnick laid down on the mat, her head resting on one arm, her other arm snaked around her trident.
"Sleep, Katniss," Gale urged. "I'll wake you up in a few hours." Katniss agreed, but how would she possibly get any sleep? The jungle was alive, pulsing around them, and Johanna was far from her arms. Hopefully pure exhaustion from the day would be enough to lull her into sleep. She needed to be on her guard because even though Gale trusted Finnick, Katniss was still wary of her.
"Catnip," Gale called gently, nudging Katniss in the arm. "Time to wake up." Katniss sleepily rolled over on her grass mat and looked up into the gray eyes of her friend. Her heart constricted as she realized, again, how nightmarishly far from Johanna she still was. Katniss nodded and rose to her feet slowly, brushing the dirt and grass from her uniform.
She looked beyond Gale, up the small hill toward Les. "What's that?" Katniss asked, pointing behind the taller Twelve native.
Gale turned around and narrowed his eyes. "I don't know. Fog? It's been so hot and humid all day, and now it's cold. Makes sense I guess?" Even as he said the words, Katniss knew he didn't believe them. Nothing in this arena was an accident. They both stood still until the fog began moving, uniformly, toward the sleeping form of Les.
Before they could speak, the man sat upright against the tree he was sleeping near, shaking his head and sniffing the air. "Les, move!" Katniss shouted, waking Finnick who had been sleeping a few yards to their left. Katniss didn't know what was in that fog, but it was moving too quickly and precisely to be natural.
But Les couldn't move. His name died in Finnick's throat as the blonde victor leapt to her feet; the fog enveloped Les and took him down to the ground. His tiny body twitched and convulsed, and Katniss could just barely see the beginnings of large boils erupting on his face and hands. Finnick started to take off toward him but Katniss grabbed her by the shoulders. "Let me go, Twelve!" she ordered through her teeth, trying to wrench free of her grip.
"The fog is poison!" Katniss shrieked back at her. "We have to move! He's gone, Finnick. Come on!" To prove Katniss's point, the cannon boomed above their heads. Gale was busy prying the spile from the tree and the rest of them gathered their weapons as fast as they could. The fog began barreling toward them, touching their backs and searing their flesh through their uniforms. Katniss felt the back of her neck and her hands sting with pain, as if she had just dipped her flesh in acid.
The fog was outpacing them but all three tributes persevered until the pain overcame them and they dropped into the ground, sinking into the mud. Katniss slogged forward, extremities twitching, until a cool breeze swept over her skin. This is it, she thought, this is how I die. Hundreds of miles from home. Hundreds of miles from the warm, loving embrace of Johanna. The cold touch of poison fog would take her down. People would visit this site when it became a tourist attraction, years from now, and point out that this is where that "girl who volunteered" died and left her sister with a broken mother, and left the love of her life alone.
But it wasn't fog creating the cold breeze she felt. As Katniss turned herself over, she saw the fog billowing upward and condensing, as if it had hit a transparent wall. The cool breeze was coming off the lake in the center of the arena, since they were now only a few feet from the beach. Gale stumbled forward until he splashed into a nearby pool of water, rolling on to his back and groaning in pain.
"The water," he croaked, wincing as he sat up. "The water... helps with the burn." Katniss lifted herself to her hands and knees and crawled toward Gale, submerging herself in the cool pool. The water was salty, like the lake that surrounded the Cornucopia, but it did seem to be exfoliating the burning sensation off her skin.
"Finnick," Katniss called to the motionless girl in the mud. "Finnick, come here." Finnick didn't respond. Gale moved forward and turned the girl on to her back, leaning down to press his ear near her mouth. "Is she alive?"
"Yeah. But she got caught in that fog pretty bad." Gale slid his arms underneath Finnick's and dragged the girl to the water, laying her down in the shallow pool. All at once her skin began to sizzle and she slowly came back to life. Gale helped rub the small boils off Finnick's skin as she moaned incoherently. All Katniss could decipher was "Les" and the name "Annie."
"At least we know where it ends," Katniss said, nodding toward the invisible barrier where the fog had halted and evanesced. "I wonder if all the areas are like that."
"There was a thunderstorm while you guys slept," Gale informed, sitting up against a nearby tree. Off Katniss's quizzical stare, he shrugged. "Cannon went off, too. Not too far from where we were, but I didn't see a cloud in the sky. Seemed to go on for nearly an hour. I'm sure that's some other horror."
"We should get into the water," Katniss instructed, pulling herself to her feet. "This isn't enough water to leech out the poison."
"I second that," came Finnick's raspy reply. The blonde braced herself on Gale as she shakily got to her feet. Her beautiful face and skin was spotted in ugly boils. Under other circumstances it might be funny to see the beautiful Finnick Odair so ugly, but Katniss realized she was actually sad to see the victor hurt. The trio of them trudged to the beach, submerging themselves in the water and letting the milky substance from their wounds mix into the crystal blue waters, now turned an eerie shade of gray from the moonlight reflecting on the surface.
Gale's face was clearing up faster, his ruggedly handsome features returning to him once again. He plucked the awl and spile from Finnick's belt and took off toward a small nest of trees near the beach. Katniss ran her fingers through her hair, soaking the damaged strands in the salty water. She watched as Finnick slowly returned to form in the water, diving beneath the surface and propelling upward like a dolphin. Watching her swim was mesmerizing; she was like some sort of sea creature the way she corkscrewed in the water and held herself beneath the surface for longer than Katniss could imagine was comfortable.
Her little blonde head popped up next to Katniss, startling the Twelve native. Her face was still pockmarked with wounds, but it wasn't swollen as before. "Stop doing that," Katniss admonished.
"What? The diving down or the coming back up?" Finnick replied cheekily with a small smile.
"Either. Neither. Just behave in there, will you? Or, if you're feeling better, we can go help Gale. He hasn't slept yet and he's trying to get water." The girls stalked across the beach together at a brisk pace, until Katniss's fingers gripped Finnick's wrist. The jungle had only just begun at their feet, but Katniss sensed them. Monkeys. The word was foreign, just as foreign as jungle, but she knew what they were. Maybe from school, maybe from another Games, it didn't matter. They were bending the trees' limbs with their weight, silently watching as Gale slammed the awl into the trunk of the tree.
"Gale," Katniss whispered. "There are monkeys in the trees. All around you."
Gale ceased pounding away at the tree and slowly started unsheathing his sword. His hunter's instinct picked up and he stilled his movement, not looking at the prey. He and Katniss had encountered wild bears before, and they knew not to make eye contact and how to move themselves unobtrusively. "How many?"
"Too many," Katniss whispered back.
"Do they look like they're about to attack?"
Katniss gave a look at the beasts - they were half the size of a human with bright orange fur, and wide black eyes that glinted off the moonlight, their faces protruding with large, bright red snouts. They were breathing heavily and staring Gale down. "I think so. Don't make eye contact." Gale nodded and began walking backward, his eyes on the ground beneath his feet.
One of the monkeys gave an inhuman screech and Gale looked up, instinctively, and the monkeys came barreling down from the trees on him. Katniss and Finnick took off, each of them taking out monkeys as fast they could. Katniss sank her arrows into hearts and throats, aware of her dwindling arrow count. Gale slashed at them with his sword, hacking off the arms and legs of the hollering monkeys. Finnick speared them with her trident, shaking them off like they were fish.
Katniss couldn't unload enough arrows. The monkeys were at her arms, her legs, scratching down her back. The three of them made a triangle of protection, trying to get a handle on the situation but the monkeys kept coming at them. She felt one get torn away from her back and she kept on shooting, looting from Gale's quiver as she ran out of arrows from her own.
A cannon went off amidst the confusion and Katniss looked around frantically. She caught Gale's eye, thankfully, then turned to her right to Finnick, and saw her looking around confusedly as well. That's when they heard Gale's scream from beside them. They both turned, but Katniss was at a loss. She had no arrows. Finnick threw a monkey off of her back, stabbing it into the ground with her trident. She then slammed the trident at Gale, stabbing the monkey and flicking it into the air, tossing it like a farmhand tossing hay. Katniss rushed to get Gale to his feet and they began running back toward the beach, not stopping until all three of them were waist-deep in the water.
The monkeys, like the fog, seemed to stop at the edge of the jungle, heaving and screeching at them and pounding their chests. "Mutts," Katniss breathed out, trying to catch her breath. "I think they're mutts."
"Whatever they are, I'm glad they don't like the water," Finnick said warily.
"The fog stopped just before the beach, too." Gale stepped out of the water on to the sand, spinning around to look at the arena. It was tough to see into the jungle at night, even though the moonlight was unnaturally bright. "I guess it's to keep us from hiding from each other. Force us out in the open."
Finnick gave a look around. "I don't see anyone. Why don't we get some rest, just on the edge of the fog jungle again? No one's on the beach anyway. We'll be safe for another few hours. You haven't even slept yet," Finnick said, nodding toward Gale. "I'll take this watch. I can't sleep anyway."
The next morning all three were surprised to see no one on the beaches again. No more cannons had gone off during the night, at least none that Katniss had heard, and the arena seemed to be deserted. A small parachute containing a few biscuits floated in. Between that and the sea life caught by Finnick, they ate rather well that morning.
They decided against trying to trek through the other parts of the jungle for fear of what horror lay within. They had seen the tidal wave across from them that swept downward through the trees and crashed against the bright Cornucopia horn. At other times of the night they heard the loud growl of a beast, the chittering of large insects, and other ominous sounds from short and far away. The fog might have been a blessing.
Katniss sat next to Gale, prodding a stick into the beach. "I wonder what Jo's doing now," Katniss said.
"Hopefully trying to get us sponsors," Gale answered with a shrug.
The brunette stared down at the sand. "Gale, can I ask you something?"
Gale looked across at Finnick, who was sitting with her back to the beach, facing them. "Yeah, sure," he replied, looking back to Katniss.
"The video they broadcast from the Tour. The one of you and Johanna on the train." Finnick's eyebrows nearly hit her hairline but she said nothing. "What happened?"
"What do you think happened, Katniss?" he challenged, looking over at her. The two friends shared an uncomfortable silence. "And does it matter? Do you have any idea how long she's loved you?"
Katniss scrunched her nose. "What?"
"You're so oblivious sometimes," Gale replied wistfully, shaking his head. "You have no idea, do you? Johanna's probably the only person who's loved you for longer than I have."
Katniss was genuinely perplexed. Gale loved her? Since when? And she thought Johanna's feelings for her began around the time of her Games, she had no idea they'd extended beyond that. "I don't understand."
"Of course you don't," Gale responded good-naturedly. "Jo's been in love with you probably since the day you met. You grew on me," he added with a grin. "But she's always been crazy about you. I can name about five other people who've been interested in you, but I never thought any of them were competition except for Jo. She's always had a hold on you that I couldn't touch. Even when she was in the home and you and I hunted without her, I always knew I was second." he stabbed the ground with a short knife. "The Games complicated that."
"Because you fell in love with her for real," Katniss filled in.
Gale shrugged. "It doesn't matter. It never mattered. Her heart was never on the table. Neither was yours. And now?" He gazed up at the sky. "None of that matters anymore."
Finnick twirled long leaves in her hands, weaving small knots. "So, you're both in love with Johanna, hm?" she asked suddenly, looking up at them. Gale and Katniss shared a look. "Trust me, it's pretty obvious. During the Games, I wasn't sure. Looked like bullshit. But during the Tour..."
"It was staged, for the cameras," Gale insisted, staring down at the sand.
"Was it?" Gale lifted his steely gray gaze up at Finnick. She looked at Katniss. "Then you come in and volunteer for her, saying you love her in the interviews. Was that staged?"
Katniss shook her head. "No."
"Let me get this straight," Finnick began, tearing at the biscuit in her hands. "You're all friends. You, Katniss, and Johanna. You two," she motioned between them, "get close back home, so Jo probably thinks she's got no chance with the girl. Then Gale gets reaped with Jo, and they get together. Start having feelings. Get back home, somehow, Katniss and the girl get together." Finnick chewed on the bread slowly, then swallowed it. They exchanged wary looks between them. "What the fuck is in the water in Twelve? Is Johanna the only good looking girl in the district? 'Cause I don't believe that. Katniss is hot."
Katniss blinked. "Thank you?"
"You're welcome. And then, neither of you are into the boy? Look at him! Big, strapping gentleman like that?" Gale rolled his eyes at the compliment and shrugged his shoulders, turning his attention to his bread. "You'd have made a killing in the Capitol. But, sucks to be you, right? The two hottest girls in your district, both of them friends with you, end up into each other?" She reached forward and patted him on the knee. "Don't worry about it, big guy, there'll be someone for you."
"I don't care about that."
Finnick scoffed. "Well, you should."
"Sorry, between working 18 hours a day to feed my family, and hunting the only day off I had, and getting reaped for a Hunger Games, worrying about love is far down on my list." Katniss could feel the heat rising in Gale's blood. "Twelve is not like Four."
Finnick chuckled. "You're right and you're wrong, handsome. You're right that Twelve is not Four. I saw how crappy your district is on my Tour, and I saw how disadvantaged you are in your pitiful tributes every year. But the one thing you have, is the choice to love and get married. Some districts don't, you know. People get bred like cattle to make good tributes. Why do you think Cash and Gloss look like they do?" Finnick let her statement hang in the air before continuing. "I'm just saying, Games or not, you've got to find something to fight for."
"Survival isn't enough?" Gale asked ironically.
"No, it's not," Finnick answered honestly. "Surviving isn't just being alive. You gotta live."
Mid-afternoon the loud thunderstorm raged again, but seemed to be contained to the wedge next to them. Midway through it, two figures came stumbling out of the jungle. "Gale," Katniss warned. The two Twelve natives loaded their bows, now stocked with arrows taken from the dead monkeys.
"Wait." Finnick put up her hand. "Cash?" she yelled to one of the forms.
A head snapped up. "Odair?"
"Cash!" Finnick began running toward the figures, and Katniss and Gale followed suit. Once they reached them, Katniss recognized the person on his hands and knees in the sand as Beetee, clutching what looked like an oversized spool of metal thread. No sign of the other woman from his district, Wiress.
"It started raining," Cashmere complained. "I thought we were safe. I thought maybe, it would be water," she mused ironically. "Turns out, it was blood. Hot, sticky blood." She grimaced, her classically beautiful face painted in the red liquid. Katniss could just make out the white and blue of her eyes and the two rows of white teeth in her mouth. She was downright frightening.
Gale kneeled down to tend to Beetee, and helped the older man to the water. Finnick walked with Cashmere, who stripped out of her uniform and washed it and herself in the salty sea.
Once everyone was cleaned and Beetee's small wound tended to, they returned to the trio's camp near the poison fog. Cashmere gratefully drank the water Gale had retrieved for them, passing the cup to Beetee. They sat in a small circle, all of them cross-legged and haggard. "We lost Wiress in the tidal wave, across from here," Cashmere began, pointing behind her. "And Gloss in the insect portion of the party."
"We had one of the tributes from Seven with us as well," Beetee elaborated. "We lost him in the tidal wave, too."
Katniss narrowed her eyes at them. "So no one was killed by someone else?"
Beetee eyed her over his glasses. "No. It seems like the arena has done an excellent job taking care of us all on its own. At my estimation, it's only the five of us, both tributes from Two, and maybe three other tributes, tops."
Cashmere looked up. "What about you guys? Les?"
Gale shook his head from next to her. "Poison fog last night." Cashmere placed her hand on Finnick's shoulder in a consolatory gesture.
"No one finds this strange?" Katniss piped up, looking around at the victors. She realized she was the only one who had never survived a Games before. But she had watched enough of them to know that no bloodbath and no random killings was unusual. "That no one has killed anyone? I mean, what about District 2? I figured you'd be with them," she accused.
Cashmere leveled her blue eyes at Katniss. "I didn't team up with 2. 'Bar and Brutus took off after getting their weapons. I haven't seem them. Matter of fact, I haven't seen anyone. I kept this troop moving as best I could, but each time we got to a safe place, something jumped out at us."
Gale stood from the group, peering out into the arena. "Katniss, when you climbed the tree, was it a circle all the way around? The beach?"
"Yes."
"It's a clock," Cashmere said suddenly, after a long silence. "The arena, it's a clock." Cashmere leapt to her feet and grabbed a twig from nearby and drew a circle in the sand. She cut it into 12 wedges and began numbering them. "The tree, up in the jungle, the kid from 7 said it should've burned up, the way the lightning kept hitting it. But it's not a normal tree. It's 12."
"It's 12?" Katniss repeated drolly.
Cashmere ignored her. "The tree marks 12, midnight. Here, the tidal wave, that's 10. The insects were 11. The blood rain was 1. The fog is here, at 2. What was over there?"
"Monkeys," Finnick filled in. "Big, hairy, mutt bastards."
"Okay, so monkeys at 3. And -"
"KATNISS!" The voice screamed, clear as day. Katniss scrambled to her feet, looking off to her left, past the monkey wedge. "Katniss, help!"
Katniss's eyes widened. "Johanna!" She took off into the jungle, frantically leaping over fallen trees, following Johanna's screaming voice. "Johanna!" Katniss yelled again, trying to find the source of Johanna's pleading screams. She got to a small clearing in the wood and she finally saw it. A bird. She pulled her bow back and hit it, silencing Johanna's voice.
A jabberjay. Their mating with the mockingbirds was what created the mockingjay. But where mockingjays can copy notes, jabberjays can copy voices. "What?" Katniss whispered to herself. "Why?"
Finnick caught up with Katniss, looking at her with concerned green eyes. "Are you okay?"
"Yeah, it's -"
"FINNICK!" A girlish scream ripped through the forest. Finnick's head snapped so fast it was like she had been struck with a rock.
"Annie?" she called back. Before Katniss could even tell her it was fake, Finnick had taken off in search of the voice. "Annie!" She ran with Katniss on her heels until they got to another swarm of jabberjays. Finnick jumped around desperately with her trident in hand until Katniss found the bird and took it down. Another bird swooped in to take its place, but Finnick had made the connection.
"We gotta get out of here," Katniss instructed over the voices. Now the voices were added to - her sister, Madge, more Johanna, even little Posy. Plus the girl's voice she didn't recognize that called for Finnick. Finnick nodded and they both ran back to the beach. Gale, Beetee and Cashmere all stood in front of them at the edge of the jungle, waving their hands and shouting. Katniss ran smack into an invisible barrier with her shoulder, grunting as she landed on her back. Finnick hit it head first, crunching her nose and starting a stream of blood down her lips.
Finnick smashed at the wall with her trident with no luck. Cashmere tried with her own sword but couldn't break it. Katniss rocked forward to her knees, the cacophony of Johanna's and her sister's screams filling her head. She imagined Johanna strapped down in some white Capitol room, tortured and recorded just to play a trick on them. Her stomach turned and she vomited what little food was left inside her. Finnick seemed lost too, screwing her eyes shut as the jabberjays swooped near them, pecking at their jumpsuits and screaming into their ears with borrowed voices. Katniss would've given anything to hear Johanna's voice again, but not like that. Finnick curled up beside her, squeezing her hand as they both tried to block out the noises above their heads.
After an eternity, Gale's arms finally scooped underneath Katniss's arms and he held her against his chest. She didn't even know she was shaking until she felt how solid and still he was. "It's okay, Katniss. It was just jabberjays."
"How did they get their voices?" Katniss asked in a small voice, looking at Finnick. "Jabberjays copy."
"They did it to hurt you," Gale said sternly. "They didn't hurt Johanna, or Prim. They manipulated the audio to make you upset."
Katniss glanced over at Finnick, whose wide eyes were fixated on Gale. This Finnick was a far cry from the sultry victor she met before the chariots - she looked lost, and broken, and younger than her 24 years. For once, Katniss felt the pangs of sympathy toward the blonde. "Do you believe it, Finnick?"
Finnick was cradling her broken nose, eyes still wide and looking shell-shocked. "I don't know," she muttered. She glanced over at Beetee. "Could they do that? Take regular audio and ..."
"Oh sure, it isn't even that difficult, Finnick," Beetee said. "Our children learn a similar technique in school."
Katniss blinked. "So they haven't hurt Johanna?"
Cashmere shook her head. "Of course not. The precious Mockingjay? Then they'd have a rebellion on their hands," she sassed. Cashmere rolled her eyes and stepped around them, grabbing a shell and the spile. "I'm gonna go get some water."
"Wait," Gale urged, taking Cashmere by the hand. "Don't go in there. The birds."
Cashmere appeared touched for a moment, then chuckled and shook free of Gale's grip. "Don't worry about me, handsome. They killed the only person left I loved long ago." With a sad smile she stalked off into the jungle.
After a few hours they made another camp on the edge of the jungle, away from the jabberjays. Another cannon went off at the six o'clock wedge, but the tribute was torn into so many pieces nobody recognized him or her. Finnick took to the water, gliding away in the sea, presumably to relax from the jabberjay incident. Cashmere settled in next to Katniss as Gale and Beetee spoke quietly a few yards away.
"Who's Annie?" Katniss asked, looking over at the tall blonde. She turned to her curiously. "In the jungle, Finnick screamed for Annie."
Cashmere gave her another sad smile and looked out at the water at the other blonde. "Annie Cresta. She won about five years ago."
Katniss couldn't remember an Annie Cresta. But that was around the time her father died and she, Johanna, and Gale had started hunting. All those years bled together, and the Games were such a trivial part of her life then. "Was that the earthquake year?"
Cashmere nodded. "Cresta went nuts when she saw her district partner get beheaded. The dam broke and Annie won because she was the best swimmer. Poor girl." Cashmere drew lazy designs in the sand with her finger. Katniss gazed out toward Finnick, who had stopped swimming in favor of just letting the water lap around her waist as she sat in the sand. That's who Finnick loves, Katniss thought. Not her string of Capitol lovers, but some mad girl back home. "She might be crazy, but she's one of the few decent ones. Nobody decent ever wins the Games."
"Except Johanna and Gale," Katniss reminded.
Cashmere smirked. "No bias, though, right Twelve?" she said with a nudge. Katniss allowed herself a small smile in return. "But you're right. Gale and Johanna, they're something special. He really your cousin?"
Katniss shook her head. "No, they did that for the cameras, so their relationship looked more legitimate."
"Ah." Cashmere's eyes glanced away. "And he's not, you know, with Johanna, right? That was all for the cameras?"
"So they tell me," Katniss mused. Cashmere raised a pale blonde eyebrow and Katniss shrugged. "Jo and Gale are close. But not romantically. Impending doom has a way of bringing people together."
Cashmere nodded sagely. "They have this saying in Eight that Cecilia used to tell us all the time. 'Those who are not pricked by the needle of Death, are woven together by it.'" Katniss scrunched her face and Cashmere sighed. "When death is all around you, it brings you closer to those who were affected by it as well. In the arena, that couldn't be more true. Back home, of course, we are encouraged to make alliances and break them without thought. But that's hard, you know? Being around all this death, under the microscope of the arena, makes you really rely on the person next to you. Even if you hate them."
"So what happened with Enobaria and Brutus?" Katniss questioned, tapping a twig into the damp sand.
Cashmere shrugged. "This time it's different. I don't need them to survive; I had Gloss, and I had the kid from 7 and Beetee and Wiress. I'm not a 14 year old girl."
Katniss raised an eyebrow. "Beetee and Wiress? I mean, I wanted them first day, but not because I thought they'd really help me survive."
"Because you wanted to protect them," Cashmere finished for her. Katniss blinked a few times. "So did I. We've all known each other a lot longer than anyone has known you, kiddo." Cashmere paused thoughtfully. "I meant what I said, on that stage in the interviews. I'm done killing the Capitol's slaves. And being one."
Gale and Beetee returned to the girls, both of their faces stern. Katniss had wanted to ask Cashmere to elaborate, but she knew the look on Gale's face meant that what they were about to say was important. "I have an idea."
Cashmere nodded and got to her feet, dusting the sand from her uniform. "I'll grab Finnick."
When Finnick and Cashmere returned, Beetee looked at all of them. "So the lightning strikes the tree at midnight, yes?" They nodded. "Gale and I figured we could harness the power of the tree with the wire, and embed it in the sand that will still be wet from the 10 o'clock tidal wave."
"Won't it burn up?" Finnick asked, nodding to the coil of wire.
Beetee shook his head. "No. I invented it. I can assure you it will not burn up."
"And what do we expect to happen?"
Beetee looked at Katniss patiently. "Why do you think we haven't seen the Careers?"
"Because we're out here," Cashmere supplied. "Someone has been camping near the beach for two days." Her eyes widened in realization. "But once we leave..."
"They'll come to the beach," Gale finished, nodding his head. He and Cashmere shared a small smile. "So we spread the wire along the beach. And anyone or anything on the wet sand will be burned to a crisp."
"Along with all the sea life," Finnick said with her eyebrows near her hairline. "So let's hope this works."
"There's the tree rats," Katniss reasoned, "and the nuts. Plus sponsors. I say we do it. Even if we fail, we eliminate a food source for them, too."
"That's the idea," Gale added. "And we'll be far enough into the jungle to be safe."
Without any more objections, they had another dinner of bread from the parachutes and fish caught by Finnick, and cleaned up their camp. Gale led the group across the beach and up into the jungle toward the large tree. The trek was arduous, but thankfully clear of any insects or monkeys or poison fog.
By the time they got to the tree, it was around 11 o'clock. The chittering of the insects in the wedge next door was loud enough to be heard even through the thicket of trees. Cashmere gripped her sword tighter at the noise, staring into that section of the jungle. Gale and Beetee wrapped the wire around the large trunk of the tree - larger than any tree Katniss had ever seen. Gale took the wire and nodded to Katniss. "Let's go."
Katniss looked around toward the other tributes. She could see the apprehension on their faces. They could run off, she reasoned, and leave this alliance behind. Plant the wire and then make for another wedge and wait for the arena to take the rest of them. But somehow, Katniss knew that wasn't in the stars for them. "We'll be back," Katniss assured them. "Make sure you guys get away from the tree."
Gale took the wire and Katniss stayed on watch, an arrow readied on her bow. "What happens after this?" Katniss questioned once they were safely out of earshot of the others. "Even if we kill Enobaria and Brutus, what about the rest of them?" Katniss lowered her bow and put her hand on Gale's arm, stilling him. "I don't think I can kill them."
The other Twelve native kept walking. "Yes, you can. You've got to think like a tribute, Katniss, not like a regular girl from the Seam. These people are not your friends. These people are the enemies."
"How can you say that?" Katniss whispered, keeping up pace with Gale's increasingly fast stride. "You've been making doe eyes at Cashmere all night. And what about Finnick, your precious ally?"
Gale stopped in his tracks, turning his intense gray gaze to Katniss. "You know what I think? I think they're another step between me getting you home to Johanna." The sound of her name off Gale's lips made Katniss's heart sink in her chest. "It's no different than hunting back home. If I don't take down the prey, my family doesn't eat. Survival, Katniss, that's what I think about."
Chastised, Katniss nodded for Gale to continue walking forward. She readied the arrow again and watched his back, eyeing the trees for any impending tributes or perhaps some Capitol menace to approach them. Gale was right - these people were not her friends. Though now, it would be hard for her to kill even Finnick.
Both of their hunters' senses prickled just before the wire went taut behind them. Gale dropped the coil and took his bow from around his back. But what was coming toward them wasn't some beast - it was people. The pounding of footfall got louder and they exchanged worried looks. "The others!" Katniss yelled.
"Let's go around," Gale said, pointing to their left. "They followed our trail. We have to get back to the tree and warn the others." Katniss ran at Gale's heels through the uncut vegetation back toward the large tree. Their plan to eliminate the Careers would have to be put on hold. If those were the tributes from District 2, they'd have a much better chance of killing them with Finnick and Cashmere at their sides.
But Finnick and Cashmere were gone. Beetee was on the ground, bleeding from the head and definitely either dead or passed out. Had they betrayed them? Had Finnick and Cashmere had an alliance all along? Katniss couldn't think about it, because the footsteps were coming nearer to them again.
Instead, she bent down and picked up the wire. She wrapped it around the arrow and looked at Gale, who sussed out immediately what she was planning. He nodded his consent and turned around, arrow aimed at the trees to take out anyone coming for them. Katniss aimed her arrow at the dark sky and let it fly.
Like a dream, the lightning hit the tree, traveled up the wire, and the arrow pierced the sky and shattered it, breaking into what looked like large chunks of stars that began falling on them. But they weren't stars - they were hard chunks of the force field and one smashed Katniss in her skull, knocking her out. If this was death, Katniss thought as she was groggily pulled into unconsciousness, then at least let Gale survive. For Johanna.
Johanna bit her lip as she waited impatiently for the hovercraft to pull Katniss out of the arena. It had taken a lot for them to allow her to come on the rescue mission, but her insistence that she wouldn't perform as the Mockingjay without Katniss had pushed Plutarch into conceding to let her go.
"We have to go," the pilot yelled back into the collection area of the hovercraft. "We have armed Capitol hovercrafts inbound. We have to go."
"Go," Plutarch instructed as the doctors descended on Beetee, just having been pulled in by the claw and still bleeding. Finnick was wrapped in a robe off to the side, Cashmere another few feet from him, being inspected by doctors.
"What?" Johanna shrieked. "No! Just let me go down there and find them! Give me five minutes," she begged, brown eyes looking wildly from Plutarch, then toward the cockpit, then to her mentor.
From off to the side, Haymitch shook his head. "We can't. If we're gonna get out of here alive we have to move. Now."
"We can't just leave them! Haymitch!" Johanna's voice rose. She turned desperate. "Please, Haymitch."
But by his expression, she knew it was useless. The door in the floor closed with a creak and the hovercraft began zooming forward. They all stuttered in their steps for a moment before regaining their balance. Plutarch exchanged a look with Haymitch, whose eyes darkened considerably. He placed his hands on either of Johanna's shoulders. "They're not down there; we can't go get them."
"What do you mean they're not down there?" Johanna shot back, struggling against his firm grip. "We left them in that bleeding jungle to die? If that's what you're saying I'll kill a crew and fly back myself."
Haymitch shook his head. "I mean," he paused and sighed. "Johanna, the Capitol has them. We didn't get there in time. They have hovercrafts buzzing around the arena 24/7 during Games - fortunately the ones for arena extraction are unarmed, but they got there first."
All Johanna saw was white, hot fire behind her eyes. She didn't feel the connect of her fist against flesh, or the steel of the hovercraft against her back. She didn't feel the slip of the needle into her skin. All she felt was the tug of the morphling lulling her into a twilight she didn't want. She didn't want sleep. She didn't want this stupid rebellion. All she wanted was Katniss.
And she was gone.
Author's Note: Howdy y'all. I'm back on track with this story, hopefully. I didn't abandon it, I promise. Thanks to each and every one of you who continue to read and fav my stuff, here and on AO3. This story and the others. :)
Shout out to Johannas-Motivational-Insults for her beta and always helpful advice.