Chapter Twenty-Three
I stand up in confusion. The voice I heard can not be the voice I heard.
"Prim!" shrieks Katniss, from within the trees. Then I realize. This is another trap.
"Katniss, no!" This is Finnick.
"Oh, shit," I say, leaping toward the jungle.
Katniss' shrieks recede further into the trees. "Prim! Prim!"
"Katniss, no!" I pant. Johanna catches up with me, overtakes me as I stumble over the vines. Then, abruptly, she stops and falls back, knocking me underneath her.
"Shit!" says Johanna, rubbing her elbow.
I extricate myself from her and start forward.
"Watch it!"
Then I hit it, too, the invisible wall. It's not a force field - just a solid and completely invisible barrier in front of us. I can feel it under my fingers - there's no give to it; I might be touching a window, but an impenetrable one. I feel along it - down one side, and then another. Finally, I try bashing it with my knife, both with the blunt hilt and the sharp blade.
"You know that's not going to work," says Johanna wearily.
My heart is pounding. Where is she? Where is Finnick? Where was she lured, with her sister's screams?
Beetee comes walking up behind us. He touches the barrier and says, "Well, that's an impressive feat of engineering."
"How do we get through it?" I snap at him.
"Probably when the hour is up," he says.
"So, I guess we found the four o'clock wedge," says Johanna.
"Lucky us," I say, angrily. If I had gone with Finnick, as I should have insisted - what would they have used to lure me into the jungle? The only person I fear - really fear - being torn from me is Katniss, and she's already here. But for Katniss - this has hit her in one of her few vulnerable spots. I grind my teeth - I've been useless to her so far. Honestly, useless.
"There they are," says Beetee, and my heart jumps.
We see them now, racing toward us. They are covering their ears as if what they hear could destroy their minds. We can't hear anything - the barrier cuts off sound, as well. I hold my palm up, shaking my head, no, no, no. Willing them to stop. But they both hit the wall, Finnick face first. I look at nothing but Katniss, whose face is twisted in terror. She pounds against the barrier and I show her - how the knife won't go through it. Johanna even tries hitting it with her axe. Finally, Katniss understands that she will be trapped there until the end of the hour, and the realization dawning on her face is one of the more truly awful things I have ever seen. I put my hand on the glass, and she puts her hand up to meet it on the other side.
"Katniss, Katniss, keep looking at me," I say, although I know she can't hear me. "It will be OK. This isn't real. It'll be over soon."
Finnick curls up in a ball, his fingers stuck in his ears. Katniss suddenly looks behind her, and then I see it, too - a flock of birds has settled into the trees above her.
"Jabberjays," says Beetee.
Oh. The muttation. I squint at the trees to get a look at it - the bird that was twisted into a spy by the Capitol to listen to and repeat rebel plans. Then discarded when the rebels caught on and used the jabberjay, in turn, against the Capitol. I have nightmares about the mutts, yes - jackers and wolves, of course, the creatures that injured me in the first arena. Yet - I have some measure of pity for them, now, and of fellow feeling; I, too, am not what I once was. These birds an object of additional curiosity, this bird - a link between the old rebellion and the new one, through its unintended progeny, the mockingjay. I finally appreciate the poetry, the symmetry of it, and I fully understand, I think, why Katniss is the one who ...
Katniss, who, at this moment, turns abruptly around and starts shooting the birds with her arrows -1, 2, 3, 4 - as quickly and seamlessly as she did in the training center. Pragmatic and competent, and ever so much more than a symbol. And I need to get a grip on myself. I will never see the ending of this tale - will never know if Katniss is the catalyst to end the oppression, or just the next stage in a series of stages of resistance. I am only here to see that she gets to the end of this arena. That's it. And I haven't really been doing my job, so far.
The birds drop around her until every arrow is spent, but more come and, eventually, she gives up on this exercise and mimics Finnick's fetal crouch, stopping her ears with her fingers. She will need comfort and reassurance when this hour is over. One thing I can do. One thing at a time.
Johanna and Beetee murmur softly behind me - something to be wary of. Finnick saved my life the first day of the arena and again at the cornucopia. And Johanna follows Finnick. What on earth can be their strategy here?
Now - together, they would be hard to beat, if it was just me or just Katniss. I think, strength for strength, I match either of them - this was not the case last year, between me and Cato, but I'm actually better matched to Finnick. He's quick and nimble with his weapon, but I would have a chance. Johanna is very much the same. But - two on one and I probably don't survive that confrontation. Katniss, however, has a very different set of skills. If she gets the chance to hide - to climb a tree and lie in wait - she could take them both down easily - 1, 2. So … I probably would be the one that they would attempt to keep alive longer.
The question is - do they wait until after the Careers are gone to make their move on us? Can we take them - two on two? It is time to start seriously planning out the end game.
When the barrier disappears, I all but fall down on top of her. I pick her up and, though she is as light as ever, her rigid limbs make her hard to carry gracefully. But I take her out of the jungle and back to the beach. Sit down and adjust her on my lap. "Katniss, Katniss, it's OK, it's OK now. It's over now, it's OK."
I rock her back and forth, like a child, and barely notice the others return, Johanna leading a dazed-looking Finnick by the hand. Eventually, I can feel her muscles relax against me, and then she starts trembling.
"It's all right, Katniss."
"You didn't hear them," she chokes.
"I heard Prim. Right at the beginning. But it wasn't her. It was a jabberjay."
"It was her. Somewhere. The jabberjays recorded it."
I anticipated that she might come to this conclusion. "No, that's what they want you to think. The same way I wondered if Glimmer's eyes were in that mutt last year. But those weren't Glimmer's eyes. And that wasn't Prim's voice. Or - if it was, they took it from an interview or something and distorted the sound. Made it say whatever she was saying."
"No, they were torturing her. She's probably dead."
"Katniss, Prim isn't dead. How could they kill Prim? We're almost down to the final eight. What happens then?"
"Seven more of us die," she says flatly.
I close my eyes and kiss the top of her head. "No, back home. What happens when they reach the final eight tributes in the Games?" I lift her chin and force her to look into my eyes. "What happens? At the final eight?"
"At the final eight?" she swallows. "They interview your family and friends back home."
"That's right. They interview your family and friends. And can they do that if they've killed them all?"
"No?" she responds, uncertainly.
"No. That's how we know Prim's safe. She'll be the first one they interview, won't she?" It's a thin sort of logic, I know, but it's all I have. Katniss' uncertain look starts to show glimmers of hope, but she is clearly wavering. "First Prim. Then your mother. Your - cousin, Gale. Madge. It was a trick, Katniss. A horrible one. But we're the only ones who can be hurt by it. We're the ones in the Games. Not them."
I feel her body relaxing into mine, the trembling fading away. "You really believe that?"
"I really do," I say, smiling in assurance as I bend down to kiss her nose.
She looks over at Finnick, who I see now is staring at me in rapt attention. "Do you believe it, Finnick?"
"It could be true," he says uncertainly. "I don't know. Could they do that, Beetee? Take someone's regular voice and make it …"
"Oh, yes. It's not even that difficult, Finnick. Our children learn a similar technique in school."
Johanna snorts. "Of course Peeta's right. The whole country adores Katniss' little sister. If they really killed her like this, they'd probably have an uprising on their hands." At the word 'uprising,' the rest of us stare up at her with dropped jaws. "Don't want that, do they?" she shouts up to the sky. "Whole country in rebellion? Wouldn't want anything like that!"
I imagine the scrambling going on in the Gamemakers' editing room. Surely, as the alternative "career pack," featuring both the girl on fire and the sex symbol of Panem, we must be on camera nearly all the time. I think back to the years I was in the audience - watching on TV (which seems like an inordinately long time ago). There were always quick cuts between tributes, sometimes shots of the arena and replays of exciting moments that had already happened. I wonder how many times those long lost tributes had done or said something - like this - some last, frustrated sound of defiance - that we never saw. Suddenly, I have to believe it is true. I have to believe that some spark of defiance has always existed among the districts. Even if they were throwing sparks into emptiness, I need them to be with me now, the ghosts of their yells of rage carrying me on to the final sacrifice - and this time, there really are uprisings. There really could be a rebellion.
Johanna just shrugs. "I'm getting water," she says, picking up the shells.
"Don't go in there," pleads Katniss, irrationally. "The birds -."
"They can't hurt me," says Johanna coolly. "I'm not like the rest of you. There's no one left that I love."
Johanna brings Katniss water and then goes back into the jungle to collect her arrows. I watch her retreat into the trees and the horrible dilemma of the Games settles down on me. There's no way - no way - I can stick around and watch her die here - let alone be the one to kill her. Same with Finnick, really. And Beetee. This is just horrible. It's exactly like last year, when I kept putting off the moment of betrayal, the moment of confrontation with the Careers - there was always an excuse to wait, while my plans constantly shifted. I need Katniss to survive, but I can't pile tributes around her in order to make it happen. If I was Gale … maybe even if I was Haymitch - maybe - I would turn on all of them, now. Three more down, four to go. We'd have the jungle on our side to help pick off the rest. And then suicide would be fucking easy. My options are numerous - drown in the lake, stick my knife in the force field, walk back into the poisonous fog.
Remember who the enemy is. That was Haymitch - to Katniss. I'm the enemy. I'm the one for whom she clings to this allegiance to the point where it's getting painful. To the point where it's getting dangerous. She hasn't even let me take a watch, yet, as if it couldn't possibly matter how much sleep she gets, as long as I get as much as I possibly can. And why is this? Because she is still determined that I will be the one to leave the arena, and apparently either Haymitch didn't convince her - or he actually sided with her.
I internally shake myself. No. No. Haymitch may have been free to play his games last time, but the stakes are too high now. It's deliberate and I know this - Cinna's dress, transforming Katniss into the living symbol of the mockingjay. They are pushing her as the inspiration to the districts on the verge of rebellion. Perhaps it was accidental the first time. After all, we were twinned at the beginning. But it was Katniss who caught everyone's imagination, including my own. She must be the one to go on. And this has to do with so much more than my personal need to keep her alive.
Why, I wonder, would she think that Haymitch would choose me? She has been very reluctant to take on the mantle of rebel leader, that's for one thing. First, she agreed to mute the impact of the outcome of the last Games by doubling down on her affectionate manner toward me. And again, during the Tour. Then, when this failed, she wanted us to flee. It was when Gale refused to leave - and was immediately punished - that she changed her mind. But this was brief. From the time of the Quarter Quell announcement, she has thrown herself into the Games, and I've only been able to fool myself for brief moments that it was in order to win again. I have known from the beginning that she intends me to win. Never mind what she has told Haymitch. What has she told herself? To justify this course of action?
She stirs in my arms, huddles against me as if she would burrow into me if she could. I bury my thoughts, because she has been so adept at reading my mind, lately. "Who did they use against Finnick?" I ask, looking at him as he takes to the water.
"Somebody named Annie."
"Must be Annie Cresta," I say.
"Who?"
"Annie Cresta. She was the girl Mags volunteered for. She won about five years ago."
"I don't remember those Games much. Was that the earthquake year?"
I realize - that was the summer after her father died. The summer after I threw her the bread. When we rewatched all the games this spring, I skimmed over this one, remembering it well and knowing how little good information we could get from it. "Yeah. Annie's the one who went mad when her district partner got beheaded. Ran off by herself and hid. But an earthquake broke a dam and most of the arena got flooded. She won because she was the best swimmer."
"Did she get better after? I mean - her mind?"
"I don't know. I don't remember ever seeing her at the Games again. But she didn't look too stable during the reaping this year."
Katniss bites her lip and glances over at Finnick, looking unhappier than ever.
There's a cannon blast, and we jump up. Despite everything I just berated myself about, I'm relieved that Johanna comes out of the jungle, fists full of arrows, still alive. A hovercraft appears just a few sections of the clock away from us and the claw goes down five times to retrieve the bloodied pieces of a single body.
"What would you say that is - six o'clock?" I ask, thinly, bending down to retrieve my leaf map. I draw the labels for jabberjays at four and, after some consideration, beast at six.
"Well," says Finnick, still pale but looking more like himself. "If there was a benefit to the jabberjay attack - we didn't lose anyone, we know where we are on the clock again, and we now know - what? - seven of the twelve hours on the clock."
And then, as evening falls, we all settle in as if everything was perfectly normal. Beetee plays with his wire. Finnick pulls grass and vines and starts weaving baskets and nets. Johanna sits apart from us, buries her feet in the sand and watches the sun melt into the water. Katniss goes into the water and splashes around; emerging dripping wet and half-smiling, she comes over to sit next to me, unbraid her hair, and put more ointment on. I watch her - try not to stare.
Finnick dives deeper, with his freshly-made net, and after disappearing for a while, emerges with a pretty good haul of shellfish. The moon is rising as he empties the contents of the net into his new baskets. As we eat, the anthem begins, and we watch the sky. After everything that has already happened, it's hard to believe that this is only our second night in the arena. The rest of these Games might be measured in mere hours, not days.
Cashmere and Gloss. Wiress and Mags. The female tribute from 5. The morphling. Blight. The male from 10. Eight more dead - sixteen total. Eight left.
"Who's left?" asks Finnick quietly. "Besides us five and District 2?"
"Chaff," I say, heavily. I have to say, I was almost hoping to see his face, because I don't want to have to be involved in killing Haymitch's friend.
We're distracted by the descent of a parachute. As I have each time so far, I go to collect it. I find more bread - not a loaf this time, but a bag of small rolls. I sniff. Buttermilk, I think. I hold them out to Beetee. "These are from your district, right Beetee?"
He peers into the bag, without taking it, his expression difficult to translate. "Yes, from District 3. How many are there?"
Finnick pours them into a basket. He counts them in an odd way, turning them over in his hands, as if looking for some message written on them. "Twenty-four," he says.
"An even two dozen?" asks Beetee.
"Twenty-four on the nose. How should we divide them?"
Johanna laughs shortly. "Let's have three each and whoever is still alive at breakfast can take a vote on the rest."
Katniss returns the laugh and Johanna looks at her as if finally considering her an ally.
"It's almost ten," says Katniss, as we start talking about setting up tonight's watch. "Once the wave comes and goes, let's go to that beach. It will be free of traps for twelve hours, then we can set up two or three watches."
We do as she suggests, taking care to count the spokes in the darkness and watch the jungle warily. We have to walk half the circle to get there, and by the time we do, it is apparently after eleven and we can hear whatever is in that sector - a cacophony of clicking sounds, like large pincers. Whatever it is, we do not see anything come out of the trees, and we camp near the far end of the ten o'clock sector, well out of range of whatever waits in there.
"I want to take a watch tonight," I tell Katniss.
"Yes, you and me - first watch. I think we're the most rested."
I expect some objection from Johanna and Finnick, but they're both too tired to argue. Too trusting. Too secure in the knowledge that neither Katniss nor I will do what we need to do. Johanna goes to sleep immediately. Finnick not long after, though his sleep is restless. Beetee drifts off quietly.
Katniss and I sit side by side, hips together, but facing opposite directions. She watches the water and the cornucopia, I watch the trees. After a few minutes of just listening to the clicking in the eleven o'clock sector, I feel her head rest on my shoulder. I put down my machete and touch her hair with my fingers, running them through the soft strands. And, as if I'm on stage again, and the light has come up, and Caesar is feeding me my cue, I know that it is time.
"Katniss," I say - just loud enough for the camera to pick up on the fact that something is about to happen. "It's no use pretending we don't know what the other one is trying to do." She stiffens at first, then sighs, but doesn't speak. "I don't know what kind of deal you think you made with Haymitch, but you should know he made me promises, as well. So, I think we can assume he was lying to one of us."
At this, she raises her head and I turn mine to meet her eyes. In her expression, I can so clearly see her confusion. Is this performance or confession?
"Why are you saying this now?" she asks.
"Because - I don't want you forgetting how different our circumstances are." I pause on the next words. I have rehearsed this - only because time is short, not because it's not true. But it must not seem rehearsed. This is my strength - the one unique skill set I bring to the Games; and it is also my sacrifice: turning the truth into propaganda. Everything truly intimate and loving I have ever wanted to say to her I have had to say it to Panem, instead. But also - I need Katniss to know it is time to finally make the decision - her life or mine - and to argue my side irretrievably, even if I have to spell out the rebellion's need for her directly. It's a lot of weight to put on a handful of words. "If you die," I say bluntly, "and I live - there's no life for me at all back in District 12. You're my whole life. I would never be happy again." She opens her mouth at this, but I put my finger on her lips. "It's different for you. I'm not saying it wouldn't be hard. But there are other people who'd make your life worth living."
I pull the locket off and hold it out to her. The carved mockingjay on it is thrown into deep relief by the moonlight. Again I bless whatever spirit moved Effie to choose this particular piece of jewelry, which speaks so distinctly to the two audiences at once - Capitol and rebels. Just by holding it out to her, I pledge my allegiance to her both as my lover and my leader. But between us, just between her and I, will be the indicator that our allegiance is actually finished - that I give her freely back to District 12 and give myself, finally, to death. I open the locket and show her the pictures Portia found for me. Still shots from interviews, I guess. Her mother and Prim, standing together in the kitchen of their new house, laughing. Gale, smiling. I've never really seen him before with happiness in his eyes, and I have to acknowledge that it shows off how very handsome he actually is.
Cousin. Husband. Brother-in-arms. It doesn't matter. Someone to go home to.
"Your family needs you," I tell her.
Her breathing increases, but she makes neither sound nor movement as she stares at the pictures. I try to read her thoughts through the lights playing on her eyes, but too many emotions are flitting across her face right now. She looks from the locket up to me and very slightly shakes her head. As always, she's just so very stubborn.
"No one really needs me," I conclude, matter-of-factly. It's hard to say it without self-pity in my voice, although I just about pull it off. Because, in a very real way, no one actually does. Not like she is needed.
She surprises me with her quick, fierce look - almost angry. And it settles into that old expression - the set, determined look is on her again. So familiar to me from last year, when she was determined to keep herself closed off to me. But it doesn't mean the same thing today. "I do," she says, her voice both surprised and assured, as if she has just discovered something she always actually knew. "I need you."
It is so easy for her to disarm me. I blink away sudden tears and take a deep breath, ready to continue. But she makes a sudden movement and her lips are on mine before the words have the chance to clear my throat.
Something … different about this, I think, vaguely. Something warmer and wetter than usual. Nothing staged, nothing camera-ready about the crush of her mouth against my mouth, the mingling of tongues, the tangle of lips. If she meant only to shush me, she's lingering longer than is necessary. The air is wet and every inch of my skin. And she is warm. And there is this heat - this heat everywhere inside me.
Then - a pause. My heartbeat is drumming in my ears. My blood is humming. And my eyes - everything is just a bit blurry, now. "Katniss, I … Katniss," I breathe against her lips.
But that is the last thing I attempt to say. She takes my cheeks in her hands and draws me into her again - and I submit to it. And why should I not? I have only a short time left to take whatever she is willing to give to me. As if I knew what I was doing - it doesn't matter, anyway, my body knows this by instinct - my tongue parts her lips and this time there is not a crush so much as a mutually urgent collision. As we start to lose balance, I put my arms around her, and my fingers grip her lower back. And when she moans, faintly, I realize that finally - but far too late - what she feels for me is real, and she knows it. In a hundred years, she would never kiss like this for show. She wants me. Every bit as much as I wanted her on those nights I lay next to her, watching the rise and fall of her breasts in her sleep. When she danced with me, her hips bumping mine. When she licked her fingers after breakfast, hunger still in her eyes.
This time, as desire courses through me, hot and insistent, I don't second guess it; I don't curb it. I run my hands freely up the gentle curve of her back and into her hair – her loose, soft, damp, beautiful hair. I pull her closer into me and taste and taste the warm honey of her mouth. I know – instinctively – what should come next. Where my mouth should go next. Where my body is supposed to go. And we are seconds away from the Capitol having to cut away from us for a very different reason than before …when the lightning strikes, signaling midnight, and the twelve chimes begin.
We break apart, startled. Then, I look at her and smile – I think I smile, maybe I just gape at her in awe; it's hard to tell. She doesn't return the smile at first; she looks - somewhat bemused. I wait, as if for her to answer my unspoken question. And then she smiles back. She touches my lips with her fingertip as if, despite her long familiarity with them, they are suddenly new and unexplored. I'm not sure what is about to happen - I'm at her mercy, utterly at her command; at this moment, I'd give her anything except for the one thing I know she wants to ask of me - but Finnick suddenly stirs and wakes with a cry, just as the last of the midnight chimes fades away.
He takes a couple of loud, deep breaths, then says, "I can't sleep anymore. One of you should rest." Then he stares at us, his cat-like eyes shining in the moonlight. "Or both of you," he adds, with a touch of sarcasm. "I can watch alone."
I shake my head and reluctantly pull myself out of Katniss' arms. I pick up the locket from where it fell into the sand between us, and help Katniss to her feet. "It's too dangerous. I'm not tired. You lie down, Katniss."
She mutely agrees and I lead her over to where Beetee and Johanna are sleeping and turn to her. In her face I see both relief and frustration. I close the locket and put it around her neck. Then - with a belated nod to the audience - I put a hand on her stomach, cupping it gently as if my baby was really there. "You're going to make a great mother, you know." She still hasn't spoken - not one word since she leaned in to kiss me. She's just staring at me. And I understand, now, what she has told herself. Why she has chosen me. This - finally this - is what it is means to be loved by Katniss Everdeen. It is to be protected with every inch of her life.
I give her one more kiss, a quick and distracted - a troubled - kiss.
I go over and join Finnick, but walk into the lake and sit in it up to my waist, letting the warm water swirl around me until the tension in in my body eases. Finnick keeps glancing over at me, and, as I let my elbows sink down into the sand, leaning back so I can look straight up at the night sky, he coughs lightly.
"Feeling better?" he asks.
"Yes," I answer shortly, and, in fact, it's true. Mostly. When I first understood myself to be falling in love with Katniss, I remember the sort of light and giddy pain of it all. That was before the dire circumstances closed around us and the life-or-death stakes made everything so intense. So - it's strange to experience a return of that heady feeling, here and now. Like - in these very last hours of my life, I feel startlingly alive - my skin sizzling, as if waking out of a paralytic sleep. My heart thumping, as if pumped back to life after being stopped. In fact, for the first time since hitting the force field ... no, way before - way, way before that: for the first time since I was Reaped last year, I feel basically like myself again - and more so. It's like I've rediscovered the person I had come to believe didn't even really exist before the Games. The secret to becoming Peeta Mellark? Always - always - this girl was at the root of it.
"Except for one thing," I add. Throwing caution aside, I reach down and loosen the seal of my prosthetic, and gently ease it off. I let the water tickle the skin below my knee that hasn't felt air in over two days. I close my eyes and breathe in as much of the wet, sticky air that my lungs can tolerate. Vulnerable, unwary, unarmed, and deliciously alive. For a little while, at least.