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Rekindling

Chapter Eight

Peeta and I let the stream take us along a mile or so, which gave us time to rest and let Peeta's arm soak in the water. Once we were far enough away from the trail of footprints we left behind, we decided to get out on the opposite side of the stream. Peeta stayed in the water once we got to the edge and did his best to push me out of the water over the steep bank. When I was kneeling sturdily on the ground, I pulled Peeta up next to me by his good arm. He lay next to me when he was no longer in the water and reached his hand over to the wound on his arm. He couldn't see it, which was a good thing, but when he touched it he was clearly assessing the damage.

"We should get that cleaned," I said to him, standing from my spot near the water.

He followed me a few yards into the woods and sat down against a fallen tree that looked like it had been there for years. It was covered completely with green moss and small flowers were growing on it, closed in the darkness, waiting for the sun to rise. I was happy to see that wading in the water hadn't ruined the supplies in my backpack since the bag was waterproofed. I left Peeta with water to drink and some food to eat as I peeled the fabric away from his arm, which was sticking to his skin with blood.

Unlike in the Games, we had almost everything we needed in our bags. There was no need for parachutes with supplies that would save our lives. No one would be able to send anything anyway since our every move wasn't being watched by cameras like we were used to from the Games experiences. I wiped the gash on Peeta's upper arm off with a wipe drenched with disinfectant.

Peeta clasped his hand over his mouth, keeping an exclamation of pain from giving our spot away just incase another Peacekeeper wannabe was roaming around. I whispered an apology, but blotted it again with a new wipe. I wrapped gauze tightly around his arm until the blood was no longer visible seeping through the fabric and tied it off right above the cut so that maybe it would cut off some of the blood flow. When I was done, Peeta handed me the water and looked at me.

"Too bad today wasn't closer to our anniversary. This could be fitting," Peeta whispered, patting the bandage on his arm.

"Of all the things you could be thinking right now, you're thinking about our anniversary?" I asked him, drinking water and eating.

"It was the best day of my life…" Peeta said, laughing in a whisper.

I rolled my eyes at him because he was always so corny about everything when it came to me. He knew I didn't think I deserved it either, since of all people he could have loved, he loved the girl who did almost everything wrong and everything for herself since the moment we met.

"We both got lucky, you know," he said, wrapping his arm around my knees, which were bent in front of me, and pulling me closer to him.

"I know," I said, rubbing my hands over his, trying to warm them up from their time in the water. "Hopefully our luck runs a little bit longer."

He nodded, and for a few minutes we just sat there, looking at the trees in front of us and listening to the noises behind us.

"Do you think we'll ever forget the Games? Like, never have to go to sleep hoping not to see them in our dreams," I asked him after a long time of being quiet. Sitting on the damp ground in the middle of the night, listening for any approaching threats had images flashing in my head of the Games. All I could wonder was if Peeta was remembering the same things.

"No," Peeta whispered, lacing his fingers in between mine. "But we can make the rest of our life so spectacular that we won't have to waste a minute talking about the past."

I hoped we'd have a life ahead of us to live. The idea of our lives ending in these woods, away from our family and home made my stomach hurt. I rested my head against the log behind me, and thought about what our life would be like if we both survived.

Peeta kept his eyes focused on the tree directly in front of us for a few minutes, taking a particular interest in it when I finally had to ask what he was looking for.

"Do you think you could climb that tree?" he asked when I asked about it.

"I haven't climbed a tree in years," I said, observing the low branches from my spot on the ground.

"You might be able to see something that will tell us where they are," Peeta said.

"Help me up there, then," I said, standing up from the ground.

I left my backpack next to the log and secured my sheath over my shoulders and kept my bow in my hand just in case I had to use it from the top of the tree. Peeta crouched to the ground, steadying himself on the tree, and I stepped on his shoulder, holding onto the tree as he stood up. I wrapped my arms around the first branch and then swung my legs over it so that I was sitting on it.

"You okay?" Peeta asked me.

"I'm okay," I whispered down at him.

He stayed at the bottom of the tree as I worked my way up. I was out of breath after only tackling three branches, and had to rest while I hugged the tree trunk for dear life. After a second pause, I climbed up a few branches, catching myself when my foot slipped by swinging on the branch above me. Peeta whispered my name when a dusting of bark fell on him from my slip, but I shushed him.

When I reached the very top of the tree, I looked out across the woods, trying to spot something that would give us an indication as to where Caesar Flickerman and his men were camping out. I could see the gap in the trees from where they lined the stream, and just when I was about to start my descent through the branches when I saw nothing, I caught a whiff of smoke. At first, my heart pounded and my first instinct was to get out of the tree and run since the last time I was in a tree and smelt fire, I was nearly killed by the Gamemakers' attempt to liven up the Games, but then I saw the thin line of smoke from a campfire coming up through a space in the trees.

I made my way quickly down the tree, not being as careful as I knew I should have been, but I needed to tell Peeta. My hands got scrapped by the bark of the branches each time I lowered myself down to the next lowest level of the tree. Peeta was still waiting for me once I got to the last branch, and he took my hand so that I could jump to the ground.

"Did you see anything?" Peeta asked me once I was on two feet.

"Well, I do know one thing is for sure," I said to him as I collected my backpack from the ground.

"What's that?" Peeta asked, watching me.

"These people are idiots."

Even in the darkness I could see Peeta's grin, and I couldn't help but smile with him.

"They have a fire going," I explained to him.

"Rookie mistake," he said, still smiling.

I grabbed his hand in mine and squeezed it. I don't know why I was so happy, because really we had just found the spot where we'd kill a lot of people, and maybe even get killed ourselves to ensure that these people never bothered anyone again. Something just felt satisfying about it though. Maybe it was the fact that Peeta and I, after all these years still had our survival instincts in tact, and that we really weren't rookies anymore. But our enemies were. Rookies, I mean. They didn't know that making a fire at night was a bad idea. Or that we were so close to them, stronger because we were together. And they didn't know who they were up against, so for that, I tugged Peeta along, heading straight for them.

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unknownbyhim22