A/N: Whoa. I'm wayyy late! Sorry about that! This chapter's a bit longer than the others, I worked pretty hard on it, and I found out that action is a lot more fun than I had thought! As always, let me know what you think about it! I write for me, but the reviews give me so much help and encouragement.
Her eyes flutter open after far too long, even if I couldn't bring myself to wake her. She yawns and stretches. "Any sign of our friend?"
"No, he's keeping a disturbingly low profile," I reply, thinking that it really is strange that we've heard nothing from him all this time.
"How long do you think we have before the Gamemakers drive us together?" So she was on the same thought process as I was. Hopefully she didn't have the torturous mental images that I did.
"Well, Foxface died almost a day ago,"-I shudder inwardly, still disgusted with myself-"so there's been plenty of time for the audience to place bets and get bored. I guess it could happen at any moment."
"Yeah, I have a feeling today's the day. I wonder how they'll do it."
I have no answer. I try to focus on her face, shoving the awful thoughts out of my mind.
Katniss looks like she's collected her thoughts, controlled the emotions that she barely displayed. "Well, until they do, no sense in wasting a hunting day. But we should probably eat as much as we can hold just in case we run into trouble." I nod, still unable to say anything. I'm fighting back tears. Today could be the day that I lose the only person worth living for.
I gather our things together and pack them all securely into the backpack as she assembles our food, laying out a relatively big meal of rabbit, roots, greens, and Capital rolls. I eat, but I'm still numb, struggling to get over the idea that I will have to make sure that Cato dies today, struggling to get over the idea that I will probably take another life today, that I will rip apart a family. Don't make me, I plead to the Gamemakers. Why do you make any of us come here and kill people? How can you enjoy this?
I hesitate at the mouth of the cave for just a moment, just long enough to know that I will never return here. Katniss pats the rocks affectionately, and I know that she's thinking the same thing: we will either be going home, or we will be dead tonight. No, no wait, she won't die. She won't.
We reach the stream, which isn't a stream at all anymore. It's a ribbon of dirt, streaking through the forest where the water used to be. "Not even a little damp," Katniss remarks gloomily, straightening up after having just knelt to test it. "They must have drained it while we slept."
"The lake. That's where they want us to go." And that's where they want Cato, too. They want us to kill each other there. Will I be drowned in a few hours?
"Maybe the ponds still have some," Katniss tries optimistically.
They wouldn't have overlooked that, would they? But I still can't stand the thought of facing him, so I go along with it. "We can check."
I'm right. There is no water here. From now on, we will be walking to death, be it ours or Cato's.
"You're right. They're driving us to the lake," Katniss says, accepting it. "Do you want to go straightaway or wait until the water's tapped out?"
"Let's go now, while we've had food and rest." There's no use in dragging this out; even if we waited, they would drive us there with some other disaster. "Let's just go end this thing."
She takes a deep breath and nods, and, before I know it, she starts shaking. I don't think she's even aware of it, but I know that she's so scared, and that she's thinking that, hours from now, she will either be home, or dead. But I won't let her die here. I take her in my arms, holding her against me, because there is nothing that I could possibly say.
I try, because otherwise we will never move on. "Two against one. Should be a piece of cake."
"Next time we eat, it will be in the Capitol." She stops shaking.
I wish I could believe that. I'm losing my faith. I say what I don't believe. "You bet it will."
My arms remain wrapped around her, as if I could protect her from everything that could hurt her, and we stay like that, appreciating the last guaranteed place that we will have each other. I take in her scent, even if it's slightly covered by the muddy forest smell, and lock it into my mind as the memories rush over me. I see her, walking up in place of Prim, spinning in her beautiful dress, finding me in the mud, kissing me, lying in blood, waking up…And I know then that, though I had started to become unsure, I refuse to let anything happen to her. If it's the last thing I'll do, and it very well could be, I will get her home.
I exhale softly into her hair, and we break apart and turn, heading for the lake. I want to take her hand in mine, have some part of her to hold as we walk into what could turn into the end of my life. I love you. Don't ever forget it. I love you so much.
We keep walking, passing painful reminders of earlier days in the Games, sites of the deaths of other tributes, memories that will never leave us. The sun is just beginning to sink on the horizon when we make it out of the forest and onto the plain. We circle around the Cornucopia to make sure that Cato isn't hidden, and we find no one. We make our way over to the lake obediently, knowing that each step takes us closer to Cato, though he isn't in our view right now.
I'm purifying the water in the containers when she speaks. "We don't want to fight him after dark. There's only one pair of glasses."
"Maybe that's what he's waiting for," I suggest without looking up. "What do you want to do? Go back to the cave?" That seems to be our go-to escape. Is that good? Or is it cowardly?
To my surprise, she doesn't veto it right away. "Either that or find a tree. But let's give him another half hour or so. Then we'll take cover."
So we finish restocking our water and purifying it, and we sit at the edge of the water in the swiftly departing sunlight. The mockingjays sing in the dusk, letting their voices fill the air, and Katniss begins to sing, too. It's only four notes, but four notes that I will always remember. The mockingjays pick it up, harmonizing, and the music swells on the plain.
"Just like your father," I remark with a weak smile.
"That's Rue's song." There's a catch in her voice. "I think they remember it."
She closes her eyes, and I know she is remembering her little ally. Thank you, Rue. You kept her alive. You helped her. I'm sorry that you couldn't make it this far.
And it stops. Gradually. Painfully. It sounds like each note is taken, thrown to the side, and each mockingjay is left with utter silence, without music. We leap to our feet, weapons in hand.
And Cato appears out of the woods. Staggering. Running. Fleeing. An arrow flies into him, hits his heart, but it bounces off. "He's got some kind of body armor!" Katniss shouts to me as he crashes towards us, past us. We turn back, away from him, and see at the same time what he is running from.
Wolves. But they aren't wolves at all. They are unnatural. They are creations of the Capitol. They are muttations.
I turn to run and see Katniss yards ahead of me. Keep running! I think. If they catch me, it'll buy you time!
As if she can hear me, she turns, fear and panic etched into her face as she shoots an arrow at a mutt near me. "Go, Katniss! Go!" I shout, pulling my leg and running as quickly as I can. She shoots up the Cornucopia, meeting Cato at the top. Don't hurt her, don't hurt her, don't hurt her!
I reach the base of the great golden horn, and I try to climb, but I have a knife in my hand and a lame leg. I scream as the wolves close in on me, sure to finish me off. "Climb!" shrieks Katniss. She launches an arrow at the wolf closest to me. I pull myself up on the burning metal, and Katniss yanks me up as soon as she can reach me.
Cato is doubled over, clutching his side, at the top of the Cornucopia. "Can they climb it?" he splutters, coughing.
"What?" Katniss barks at him. And I find it odd that we can communicate like this with our enemy, that the Capitol's effort to kill one of us has led us to team up, if only for a moment.
"He said, 'Can they climb it?'" I relay to her, staring back down at the mutts. They have grouped together, the different colors and textures of them blending into one dangerous pack that seems to me like it could leave no Victor of these Games at all. A light colored one with unsettlingly green eyes takes a running start and jumps forward onto the Cornucopia, landing too close to us for comfort, and Katniss lets out a chilling scream as she fumbles with her arrows. She shoots it, her arrow meeting its mark, and it skids to the ground. She shakes and gasps, sobbing without tears.
I take her arm. "Katniss?"
"It's her!" she shrieks, writhing away from me.
"Who?"
Her eyes rake over the crowd of the wolves, taking them all in and looking more and more terror-stricken as she looks over each one. "What is it, Katniss?" I yell, shaking her slightly, trying to bring her back to reality.
"It's them!" she forces out. "It's all of them. The others. Rue and Foxface and…all of the other tributes."
I stare down at them as it clicks into place. The light one with shocking green eyes that Katniss just killed-Glimmer. The small, dark one with a determined stare-Rue. The petite ginger-colored one-my kill. Foxface. She's right. The eyes of Foxface stare up at me. You killed me, they say. I'll kill all of you. The eyes of all of them glare at me, sending shivers down my spine. "What did they do to them? You don't think…those could be their real eyes?"
She begins to reply, but she's cut off as they reassemble into two groups, leaping up at us. Agony shoots through me as a set of strong teeth grab me, and I let out a scream that does nothing to lessen the pain. "Kill it, Peeta! Kill it!" Katniss' voice comes from far away, and I realize that I'm still holding her arm tightly, keeping myself away from the ground. She pulls me up further onto the horn, away from the powerful grasp of the mutts. An arrow shoots through the heart of a wolf as we inch to the top, where Cato is still recovering. I'm biting back screams as my calf throbs from where the wolf snapped at me, and I suddenly find myself torn away from Katniss, yanked away to Cato. Blood flies through the air, and Cato roughly jerks me into the position that he wants me in.
My air supply is cut off suddenly as his arm is wrapped tightly around my neck. I gasp uselessly, my hands clawing at him, as I feel blood pouring from the wound. The world is slowly going black, and I'm trying so hard to stay conscious, to stay alive. I can make out Katniss aiming an arrow at Cato, and feel his body rumble with laughter around me. "Shoot me and he goes down with me."
Do it! I want to scream. Let me die! Let him die! You'll make it back! I'll have kept you safe! But she keeps fading. I still can't breathe. The oxygen is slowly pushed from my system, and I wish I could tell her one last time what she means to me.
I can't. But I use the last of my energy to know what it will take to save us both, and, in the blood coating my hand, I lightly draw an X on the back of Cato's hand. He notices it just after Katniss does, and the arm that had been squeezing away my life releases. I gasp and swing back into him, the world coming back into focus. Katniss lunges forward and grabs me, pulling me back as Cato tumbles over the edge of the horn.
Maybe it's because of my lack of oxygen. Or blood. I don't know. But everything registers one thing at a time after he falls.
He hits the ground.
The wind is knocked from him.
The muttations of my fellow tributes gnash their teeth and snap.
They run to him, prepared to kill him.
They tear at him.
He screams.
They are killing him.
Agony is a sound. It comes from him.
There is no cannon.
The agony continues.
My breath is coming back, and so are my tears. Katniss is holding me, and I hold her with one arm, the other stemming the steady flow of blood from my calf.
He must be fighting back.
But he is outnumbered.
He will never survive.
We hold each other for eternity. Forever has passed six times over before they drag him into the great horn after he attempted to go around to the other side and climb up again. Music plays from the sky, but there is no picture of the boy beneath us in the stars. He lives in complete and utter pain, his moans the soundtrack of these Games.
The world begins to go black again. I can feel the blood draining from my face, and it seems like it goes right out to my leg and out to the Cornucopia. I'm vaguely aware of Katniss removing her jacket, then her shirt, and putting her jacket on again. She shivers uncontrollably as she ties a tourniquet for me. "Don't go to sleep," she tells me desperately, shaking and fighting back the frightened sobs.
"Are you cold?" I don't wait for an answer. I unzip my jacket, and she pushes herself against me. The combined body heat and jacket warmth seem to warm her up a little bit, but this night can only get colder. And we have nothing to aid us. She shivers against me.
"Cato may win this thing yet," she chokes out.
"Don't you believe it," I whisper.
I have never experienced torture, but I think that it must be something like this. The ice of the air around us seems to suck the life from me, from Katniss. Cato's agony continues. He seems incapable of dying. But they keep killing him, keep forcing the anguish to sound. And I want to end it, because no one deserves this. I would bring this pain on no one.
"Why don't they just kill him?" Katniss asks me.
"You know why."
I hate them. I hate the Capitol with a rage that I have never felt before. They refuse to let a boy who has been through more than they can ever imagine just die. They refuse to end it for him. All for entertainment of the fortunate. All for the pain of the unlucky.
More than ever, I want out. I want nothing to do with these murderers. Taking part in their Games was not my choice to make, but it seems that by winning-or almost winning-I have supported them. I want the people of Panem to know that it goes against everything in me to fight to the death with other teenagers, and almost-if not completely-win it all.
The fatigue hits me every now and then, and I feel my head droop, hear Katniss scream my name, and I snap awake again. I fight to keep myself awake, prove to her that I won't leave her now, but exhaustion takes its toll on me. "Peeta! Peeta!" She shrieks my name every time my eyes close, and I work to keep them open, huddling closer to her.
The night will never end. I know it. She knows it. I try to defy it, pointing out the moon to her, how it used to be farther over. "The night will end. We will go home soon." I repeat again and again, for her and for myself.
"The sun is rising," I breathe out painfully after several more centuries of torture.
We hear Cato's voice coming from beneath us in moans of defeat. "I think he's closer now. Katniss, can you shoot him?"
She agrees silently that taking his life would be kind. "My last arrow's in your tourniquet."
"Make it count," I say, unzipping my jacket so that she can retrieve it. She reties the tourniquet after removing the arrow, trying to keep it tight. I can feel the blood still draining out, little by little. I am falling. Slowly. Very slowly. But I'll fall into the darkness soon.
I hold onto her waist as she leans over the edge, aiming at who used to be our enemy. There is a soft thwack, and she leans back up, panting. "Did you get him?" I murmur.
The cannon sounds.
Finally.
We can go home.
"Then we won, Katniss."
"Hurray for us."
A hole opens in the middle of the plain, and the few wolves that are left run into it, and it closes around them again.
The hovercraft should be here. It should take Cato's remains away. There should be music, telling us that we have won.
But there is silence. Loud, painful silence that presses in on us.
CLIFFHANGER! But not really, because I'm assuming that you've read the books. If you haven't, then a) I'm sorry if I've spoiled everything, and b) sorry that I left off here. *stage whisper* you should read the books! They're much better!
But, in any case, what did you think? There is this magical button that YOU, dear reader, can press and use to let me know your thoughts. It's right down underneath this text! So don't be shy! Thanks, lovelies!