We head off to the Cornucopia because I want to make sure. If this is our new plan, we might as well make sure it actually is happening. Everyone agrees and we head down the sand. I'm slightly nervous about this idea, considering this is normally the Careers' camp. However, they've probably already started their hunt. No one is there when we emerge out of the bushes.
"Clean it, will you?" Peeta asks Wiress. He's much nicer about it than Johanna would've been. I think it's just to distract her while we do our work. She starts singing, and I know how this will go over.
"Oh, not the song again. That went on for hours before she started tick tocking," she sighs, right on cue.
"Two," Wiress points. Katniss follows her. I see fog lifting up from where she pointed. "Yes, look, Wiress is right. It's two o'clock and the fog has started." Katniss explains.
"Like clockwork. You were very smart to figure that out, Wiress," Peeta says. I look at Johanna, rolling her eyes. Peeta is soft, this everyone knows. Johanna doesn't deal well with those type of people. She also doesn't deal well with people who will stand up to her, so Katniss. I realize that the only reason she has to stay around is me. That increases my need to stay alive.
"Oh, she's more than smart. She's intuitive. She can sense things before anyone else. Like a canary in one of your coal mines," Beetee adds in, the first in a while.
"What's that?" I ask Katniss. My memories of 12 are small, just a lot of gray and dirt.
"It's a bird that we take down into the mines to warn us if there's bad air," Katniss explains. It's interesting, I guess.
"What's it do, die?" Johanna asks.
"It stops singing first. That's when you should get out. But if the air's too bad, it dies, yes. And so do you," Katniss says. Then, she draws back. Conversation over. I drag Johanna over to the piles left over of weapons. "Let's find something."
Johanna finds lots of axes and Katniss manages to find some bows. Tridents even are everywhere. We also grab some knives. Peeta calls us over.
"Look how the Cornucopia's positioned," he says. He points to the drawing he made in the sand.
"The tail points toward twelve o'clock," Katniss says.
"Right, so this is the top of our clock. Twelve to one is the lightening zone." Peeta draws the ones we know in. "And ten to eleven is the wave." Katniss adds.
"Did you notice anything unusual in the others? I guess they could hold anything," Katniss asks Johanna. They just shake their heads. Just blood.
"I'm going to mark the ones where we know the Gamemakers' weapon follows us out past the jungle, so we'll stay clear of those. Well, it's a lot more than we knew this morning, anyway." Peeta sighs, finishing his drawing. It falls silent.
Wiress – the singing has stopped.
Katniss loads her arrow and aims at Gloss, leaning over Wiress. She's dead. I step in front of Peeta, catching his knife in my thigh from Enobaria. I toss a trident at Brutus, catching his spear out of the sky. Cashmere is dead, I can see that from the ax in his chest. We run after Brutus and Enobaria, just me, Johanna, and Katniss. I don't expect Peeta to follow. He knows his place.
Suddenly we are thrown to the side and we start spinning. I feel my stomach rise, it's like a carnival rise. This is much worse than motion sickness. I try to grab onto something, but it's just sand. Thankfully, the spinning stops. I don't have much time to get my head on straight though.
"Where's Volts?" Johanna asks. We all jump up, but he's gone. Peeta's alive. The bodies are gone. I spot Beetee out in the water, teetering to keep afloat.
"Cover me," Katniss says. She throws her weapons to the side and jumps into the water. She's heading the other way, so I jump into the water for Beetee. I cross the water, which has some odd things in it, in just a few strokes. I pick up Beetee, who spits out a little bit of water. It takes longer to get back onto shore. I lay him on the sand while I pull myself up. He's starts spewing out water, but he'll be fine. Katniss hands him the wire. That must've been what she went in for.
"Let's get off this stinking island," Johanna says. I agree.
I hate finals. For many reasons, but this one especially. So that's the reason I haven't been writing as much, but this weekend I have no homework (what?!) so I should have plenty of time to hopefully get another chapter up. Thanks for reading and make sure to review!