Chapter 19 – Day 12 – 6 Tributes

When I wake up, Billee has prepared breakfast for me. Some berries and stale bread that I assume he had from when the Careers were moving the Cornucopia stuff. I eat it quickly and we gather up our things, the lighter included. We don't talk in the process.

There are times throughout the morning when I question Billee's fidelity. After all, I did leave him to die at the Bloodbath. What reason does he have to forgive me? It's so late in the game to start bringing in an ally, even if they're from the same district. Why now? Did it have to do with the circumstances? He could have killed me easily when we ran into each other yesterday. Is he playing me off? Is he using me as an advantage to help kill Portia and Munstead only to kill me later? My only options are to trust him now and see where we take things, or to not trust him, and perhaps even kill him while I still have the chance. I keep these thoughts consistently revolving across my mind. He has no reason to be nice to me; he owes me nothing. I don't know what kind of trick he could be trying to play, though.

"Atala." he says, breaking my anxiety.

"Yeah?"

"You ready?"

"Yeah." He's looking at me like I'm crazy. I look down and see my right thumb's cuticle is bleeding. I must have been picking at my fingers while thinking.

"Here," he reaches into his forest green book bag and hands me a small, round container the size of a quarter.

"Don't use a lot," he warns me. "A little can go a long way."

I look at the container and twist open its cap. Inside is a dab of thick, white cream. I look back up at Billee.

"It closes wounds." He informs me.

I stick my pointer finger in the container and manage to get the slightest bit of it. I look up at him one more time for reassurance and he nods his head. I rub what seems like nothing on my thumb and after a few seconds the bleeding stops.

"Good?" he asks. I toss the container back at him.

"Yeah."

As we stand up to leave, Billee takes his nylon jacket off and tosses it on the ground.

"Aren't you gonna need that?" I ask him.

"No, it's gotta be like 80 degrees out."

And, sure enough, when we step outside of his little house and into the woods, it's hot out. I still have my jacket on, but I decide not to go leave it back in the shelter. For some reason I feel like if I did go back in to take it off, Billee would either judge me or decide to sneak up on me and stab me, so I ultimately choose to leave it on.

Billee leads and we walk in the recognizable direction of the house. We walk slow, though. Slow enough for the four-mile walk to take two hours.

By the time we reach the house, the sun is high in the sky. It's about noontime, and we hide behind one of the boulders near the house. The front porch is in clear sight. I can see they've covered up the shattered front door window with boards of wood, all nailed up on top of another. We're about forty yards southwest of the house. Billee sits down with his back against the rock but I can't help but look over the boulder constantly to check if the Careers are coming.

At one point, the Careers do leave the house from the back door, out for hunting or gathering or whatever they feel like doing. Now's our chance.

"Here's the deal." Billee says. "You're going to run into the house and set three or four sticks of dynamite, all in different rooms on the lower level of the house. That way, if they do blow up a lot, they'll damage the lower level and the upper level might cave in. Kill-two-birds-with-one-stone kind of a thing, right?"

I completely disagree with his plan. Why is he making the girl go into the house? Is this his way of revenge, his way of getting me killed? I want to refuse his idea, tell him to go in there. I don't know a way to ask him, though. Then, I think of it.

"How will I even get in there quick enough?"

"You told me you knew a way to climb up and get in through the attic."

"Yeah but that's not quick."

"So go through the front door."

"It's locked, you idiot."

"Use this, then." He reaches into his bag and takes out a crowbar sort of device.

"And do what?"

"Break the planks of wood covering the door's window. Or just use it to break the door's lock, I don't know."

"And what are you gonna do to make this plan foolproof?"

"I'm gonna keep watch."

I still don't agree with his plan, but I adhere to it anyway. He gives me the sleek lighter and I peer over the rock and wait until the Careers are no longer visible through the trees. Then, I run for it.

When I make it to the front door, I try and shove the crowbar between the wood planks in the window and it doesn't quite work, so I shimmy it between the door and the doorframe and then push the crowbar to the right. Within seconds the lock splits and the door is thrust open. I walk with a heavy stride through the front hallway and hang a left into the room of weapons and supplies. There, I look around for a second, forgetting where the sticks of dynamite were, and then I find them. They're all colored black with gold and silver strings. One foot long each. I take about ten of them and lay three of them in the middle of the room. All of their strings are about the same length but I compare them anyway and choose the longest one. Then, I look at the label on the dynamite, which is written in white.

DYNAMITE. APPX. 4 MINUTES OF STRING.

I have four minutes to light all of them. This should be easy.

I light the one stick of dynamite (the others should blow up with the explosion of the first) and head to the room across the hallway where Delly found the flowerpot. The room is completely empty besides a few rugs and a bookshelf. I place three more sticks of dynamite in the middle of the floor and quickly light one of them without checking to see which had the longest string. Then, I head down the hallway to the kitchen and lay the last four down and light one of them. I have about two minutes to get out and as far away as possible. I stand up and head out of the kitchen and when I begin to walk down the hallway, I hear the back door open behind me. I turn around and find Portia and Munstead standing there side by side. Munstead is holding a tight grip on a long sword that I know could tear me to shreds.

"What are you doing here?" Munstead asks.

"I…. I…" I can't spit out the right words.

"Kill her." Munstead says to Portia. She swiftly pulls an arrow and readies it in her bow. I don't want to die so I spit out whatever I can.

"I PLANTED DYNAMITE THROUGHOUT THE HOUSE!" I scream at the two of them. Portia lowers her bow slightly and then Munstead yells at her.

"Get out!"

"But—"

"Hurry up and get out!" he shouts at her, his voice resonating through the house. She shuffles quickly and runs out the back door. I see her sprinting away from the house for a second before Munstead's huge body covers the backdoor window. He stomps towards me quickly and I do nothing to try and escape. He grabs me by the hair and puts his face inches away from mine.

"WHERE IS IT ALL!?" he roars at me.

"It's here, it's over here!" I scream, starting to cry. I point over to the front of the house and he drags me to the hallway space between the two front rooms.

"Which room is it?" he asks. Clearly he could just look into the rooms and figure it out, but I guess he wants to be more intimidating.

"They're—"

Before I can continue, the dynamite in the room to the right explodes and Munstead and I are thrown into the room on our left. Then, another deafening explosion and I blank out.

I wake up in complete darkness. Either there's nothing to hear or I can't hear at all. I'm definitely alive, though, because I can smell burning wood and flesh.

There's nothing to see. Something is impaling my arm and I know it's bleeding a lot.

I need to get out fast.

But how?

I try moving but it's no use.

I'm going to die like this.

Then, light. I begin to hear the muffled sound of wood moving, things shuffling. My eyes are blinded by the ever-growing light above me. The weight of debris on my chest becomes lighter.

"Atala?" I hear in a muffled voice. Billee's voice.

I can't speak but I guess he knows it's me. More wood comes off my body. Finally, the plank that's crushing my arm. Billee is standing right over me. He lifts me up and pulls me out of what I can see is a huge pile of debris, all charred and smoking. The explosion caused a lot more damage to the house than we had anticipated. Nothing really stood from the house except the foundation, some of the front porch, and two of the walls. The rest, all of it, gone to rubble.

While I still can't hear so well, I can see perfectly. Billee carries me through the woods and back to his little cave hut thing. He lays me down on his jacket that he left there earlier and takes out the healing solution from his bag. He rubs it all over my right arm, which I can now see is purple, nearing black, and split at my bicep. Blood. Tons and tons of blood.

Then, I black out.

When I wake, its dark. I look over at my right arm and it's scarred but no longer open and bleeding. It has a pale tinge to it but its no longer bruised purple. Whatever Billee had in his bag saved me.

I look to my left and see Billee sitting there, his legs folded and his hands resting on his lap. He smiles at me.

"Finally back to normal?"

I nod my head yes and try to sit up. He cautions me "no" and jumps forward to bring me gently back to the ground. As I lie there once more, he says to me:

"You have to get your rest. You want to be ready for tomorrow. I'm sure by now everyone knows around where we are, so we have to be ready to move. Munstead's dead, by the way. They just showed it after the anthem but I figured he was anyway."

My only response to him is:

"Why didn't you distract them after you saw them coming towards the house so I could escape?"

A simple question he has no answer to.

"I'm sorry, I—" he begins to say after a moment of thinking.

"No. You wanted me to die. You saw it as a quick way to get rid of three people. 'Kill two birds with one stone.'" I say, mocking him.

"That's not what happened, Atala."

"Bull shit." I say to him. I turn and lay on my right side so I face away from him. Nothing he can say will change my opinion. It was obvious. He was ready to let me go.

"You know what, you're right. I was trying to get you killed." This makes me look over at him again.

"Well, not initially," he continues. "I wanted to get rid of the Careers but when I saw the opportunity for you to die I thought I'd take it. I really don't want it to come down to the two of us, Atala. I was glad you ditched me at the Cornucopia. I thought it was better that we lose sight of each other before it becomes emotionally stressful. But I couldn't handle it. That's why I started looking for you in that burning rubble. Because I care about you, Atala."

I accept what he's told me without fully understanding. It might be the fact that I'm drowsy and recovering from an explosion, but I sort of understand what he means. If I were in his situation, would I have done the same? I can't make a definite opinion because my mind is already plagued with too many other thoughts. The two of us sit in silence for a little while longer.

"What do we do tomorrow?" I ask him.

"I don't know." He sounds sad, ashamed of his decisions today.

I somewhat forgive him but I don't tell him. I want him to feel bad for almost letting me get killed.

I turn to my right side again and pretend I've fallen asleep when really I lie awake the whole night and think about what I should do about Billee.