It turns out to be quite the challenge, running. Katniss and Peeta both more focused on helping the other that they are constantly tripping on things.
"You should not be running!" he bellows at her.
"What am I supposed to do then, Peeta?" Katniss screams at him as they keep running. "I stop and we all die, one family completely gone because of poisonous killing fog! That's no way for any of us to die!"
"Okay!" he yells as he trips over a branch and yanks Katniss to the ground beside him. "Ahh! Are you okay?"
"I'm fine," she gets to her feet again unsteadily. "Keep moving!"
"I'd appreciate it if you two stopped yelling at each other!" grumbles Finnick loudly from several feet away. "It's not going to help anything, and it's not going to help your breathing or anything, so shut up and run!"
"Fine!" they shout in unison.
As they continue to run, the terrain gets more and more difficult to navigate, eventually Peeta crashes to the ground and Katniss falls to her knees beside him. Tugging and pulling at him to get up, it is only now that she realizes that half of his face has begun to sag, as if the poisonous fog was eating away at the nerves in his face. "Peeta-" she pleads and he doesn't move. Glancing up at the fog rapidly approaching, tears form in her eyes, "Peeta please get up." No movement. Checking briefly to make sure he's still alive, she starts to shake him. "Come on Peeta!"
He reaches up and hauls himself onto his feet, but his running is sporadic, and his leg is twitching, he falls one final time and now Katniss cannot get him to move anything and the pain on her skin so severe that she's not sure what she is capable of. Finnick comes crashing back through the jungle towards them, telling Peeta to get up, and Katniss that they need to keep moving.
"He can't move," Katniss cries. "He needs to be carried, and I obviously can't do that!"
And then so quickly that no one can even grasp what is happening, Mags dismounts Finnick's back, gives him a kiss on the lips and walks straight into the fog. "Mags!" Finnick hollers after her, but it's too late, nothing can be done now. She's gone.
Katniss takes one step in the same direction when the cannon blasts and startles her. "Finnick?" she looks around to discover that he has already continued down the hill towards the Cornucopia with Peeta draped over his shoulder. Fumbling through the jungle behind them she can see as they eventually collapse, neither moving, but because of the way in which she is propelling herself down the hill after them she doesn't have the time to stop before she reaches them and instead turns slightly so that when she trips over them, she lands on her back. No one moves, and just when Katniss is ready to accept defeat, knowing that there's nothing she can do now, the fog is stopped by some invisible barrier.
"It's stopped," she croaks. "It's stopped."
Peeta rolls off Finnick and for several minutes they all lay there, twitching because of the poison, completely unable to move. It's not until some time later, that Peeta points up into the sky at one of the trees and utters, "Mon-hees," that anyone notices their surroundings. Slowly the three crawl down the slope to the water.
Once they've reached the edge of the water, some of it splashes up on Katniss' face, and a feeling of intense pain comes over the area where the water has landed. While the water is painful, there is another sensation as well, as if the salt water surrounding the Cornucopia was drawing out the poison, and while it hurt there was also a sense of relief from the pain.
Katniss strips down to her undergarments to allow her skin to breath and despite how excruciating it is, Katniss forces herself into the water. Peeta does the same. But Finnick remains face down in the sand. Before they go to drag Finnick into the water, since he will not move, Peeta grabs Katniss's wrist, "is she okay?" he inclines his head to her stomach.
"She?" Katniss asks panicked.
Peeta clasps his hands over his mouth.
"It's a girl?" tears well up in her eyes.
Peeta nods guiltily, hands still clasped over his mouth.
Katniss looks down, taps her stomach and receives a kick in exchange, "Ow!" she glares up at Peeta, "yeah she seems fine."
"I'm sorry," he barely pulls his hands from his mouth.
"Come on," she gestures towards Finnick. "This is going to hurt him a lot too, but we're gonna need him."
"Right," Peeta nods, dropping his hands to his side and walking over to Finnick. "I'm sorry Katniss. I know you didn't want to know."
"It's fine," she wipes the tears from her eyes and squats to grab Finnick.
"I've got him," Peeta nods towards the water. "You just get in there deep enough so you can keep his head above the water when I get over there." She nods and retreats back to the water. Peeta hoists Finnick into the air - though not as steadily as before - and places him slowly into the water as he thrashes around in pain. Eventually there's just his head remaining. Peeta convinces him to submerge his head into the water.
"I'm going to tap a tree," says Katniss as she fumbles with the spile.
"Let me make the hole first," says Peeta getting to his feet. "You stay with him. You're the healer." With a smile and a kiss to her forehead he walks back into the jungle. There's a moment of panic from Katniss but it is quickly overcome by Finnick's being submerged under the water for a lengthy period of time. Finally his head pops up.
"Don't do that," Katniss scolds him.
"What? Come up or stay under?"
"Either. Neither. Whatever. Just soak in the water and behave," she says. "Or if you feel this good, let's go help Peeta."
Upon entering the jungle, Katniss and Finnick become acutely aware of the mass of bodies in the air and jungle surrounding them. Not just five or ten of the monkeys they saw before, but scores of them, weighing down limbs of the trees. The previous ones were perhaps just the welcoming party.
"Peeta," Katniss says as calmly as possible. "I need your help with something."
"Okay, just a minute. I think I've just about got it," he says, not taking his focus away from the tree. "Yes, there. Have you got the spile?"
"I do," she says slowly. "Only move toward us quietly so you don't startle it."
As he recognizes the tone in her voice he starts to walk back, "Okay," he says. For a brief second he looks up and the monkey's fly into attack mode and converge on him. Thankfully, he brought his knife with him so that he is able to defend himself, but Finnick and Katniss tear through the remainder of the jungle separating them from him. Katniss stands at the ready and shoots two arrows into two of the monkey's.
"Mutts!" she screams as the gravity of their situation begins to sink in.
Arrow after arrow, swing after swing, kill after kill. For awhile they all work well together and are able to fend off most of the monkeys, but in a split second of bad judgement, Katniss finds herself immersed in the water, still being attacked by a mutt. For the first time she's not worrying about herself, she's not worrying about Peeta...she's worrying about her daughter - her daughter, she'd not allowed herself to think of it until this moment, the thought alone nearly knocks the wind from her lungs - and the mutts scratching claws.
How long the attack lasts she doesn't know, but suddenly the mutt attacking her goes still and slides away from her, Peeta yanks her from the water. "Get. To. The. Beach!" he screams at her. She nods in agreement.
As the trio is retreating to the beach Katniss runs out of arrows. Scared to death she won't be able to defend herself, she remembers she had two quivers of arrows this morning. One she kept for herself and one she, "Peeta!" he turns his head briefly. "Your arrows!" He wretches them from around himself and tosses them to her, and in the split second it takes the arrows to start their movement and have just barely left his grasp, that is when the mutt charges him.
Katniss hurls her knife at the mutt, but he somersaults and misses the weapon aimed at killing him. Katniss now stands defenseless, watching in horror as Peeta is pursued ruthlessly by a mutt. Her first instinct is to rush forward to hurl herself between the two, but she knows she'd never make it in time, so instead she watches in shock as the monkey is descending, and that one of the morphlings from District 6 puts herself between Peeta and the charging mutt and takes the brunt of the attack.
Peeta sinks the knife into the monkey's back, stabbing it over and over again until it releases the morphling from it's clenched jaw. Katniss now having Peeta's arrows, a ready bow, and Finnick at her back. "Come on, then! Come on!" shouts Peeta in rage. But instead of attacking the monkeys retreat back into the jungle. The attack over. As if the Gamemakers have told them that what they've done is enough.
"Get her," Katniss tells him. "We'll cover you."
Peeta gently lifts up the morphling and carries her the last few yards to the beach while Finnick and I keep our weapons at the ready. But except for the orange carcasses on the ground, the monkeys are gone. Peeta lays the morphling on the sand. Katniss cuts away the material over her chest, revealing the four deep puncture wounds. Blood slowly trickles from them, making them look far less deadly than they are. The real damage is inside. By the position of the openings, certainly the beast ruptured something vital, a lung, maybe even her heart.
She lies on the sand, gasping like a fish out of water. Sagging skin, sickly green, her ribs as prominent as a child's dead of starvation. Surely she could afford food, but turned to the morphling just as Haymitch turned to drink. Everything about her speaks of waste — her body, her life, the vacant look in her eyes. There is nothing to do. Nothing but stay with her while she dies.
"I'll watch the trees," Finnick says before walking away.
Peeta crouches down on the other side of her and strokes her hair. When he begins to speak in a soft voice, it seems almost nonsensical. "With my paint box at home, I can make every color imaginable. Pink. As pale as a baby's skin. Or as deep as rhubarb. Green like spring grass. Blue that shimmers like ice on water."
The morphling stares into Peeta's eyes, hanging on to his words.
"One time, I spent three days mixing paint until I found the right shade for sunlight on white fur. You see, I kept thinking it was yellow, but it was much more than that. Layers of all sorts of color. One by one," says Peeta.
The morphling's breathing is slowing into shallow catch-breaths. Her free hand dabbles in the blood on her chest, making the tiny swirling motions she so loved to paint with.
"I haven't figured out a rainbow yet. They come so quickly and leave so soon. I never have enough time to capture them. Just a bit of blue here or purple there. And then they fade away again. Back into the air," says Peeta.
The morphling seems mesmerized by Peeta's words. Entranced. She lifts up a trembling hand and paints what must be a flower on Peeta's cheek.
"Thank you," he whispers. "That looks beautiful."
For a moment, the morphling's face lights up in a grin and she makes a small squeaking sound. Then her blood-dappled hand falls back onto her chest, she gives one last huff of air, and the cannon fires. The grip on my hand releases.
Peeta carries her out into the water. He returns and sits beside Katniss. The morphling floats out toward the Cornucopia for a while, then the hovercraft appears and a four-pronged claw drops, encases her, carries her into the night sky, and she's gone.
Finnick rejoins them, his fist full of arrows still wet with monkey blood. He drops them on the sand beside Katniss. "Thought you might want these."
"Thanks," she says. By the time Katniss returns to the jungle to gather some moss to dry her weapons, all the monkeys' bodies have vanished.
"Where did they go?" she asks.
"We don't know exactly. The vines shifted and they were gone," says Finnick.
A little later Katniss suggests, "Why don't you get some sleep Finnick? I can watch."
"No, Katniss, I'd rather," says Finnick and Katniss doesn't have the heart to deny him his request, especially when his eyes are splotchy and red and he looks like he could start crying at any moment. She'd nearly lost Peeta, and he did lose Mags, she owed him some time alone.
"All right, Finnick, thanks," Katniss says retreating to where Peeta is laying on the beach.
"Do you think he's going to be okay?" asks Peeta rubbing her shoulders.
"I hope so," she shrugs. "But I don't know. You nearly died and I couldn't breath, I couldn't think, all I could do was sob and hope that Finnick wasn't killing you. Mags died...you came back. I owe him some time to himself."
"What is with this, you owing people for this thing or that?" Peeta shakes his head and then leans back pulling her carefully down with him. "You don't owe anyone anything. I don't understand why he brought me back, or why the morphling died for me-"
"That's unusual isn't it," she glances up at his face. "Why have other people died for you? Clearly, Finnick could have just let you die, twice. He could have left you on the ground, grabbed Mags and ran away, but he didn't, and Mags died. The morphling threw herself in front of you when that monkey was perfectly poised to kill you. What is going on here Peeta?"
"I don't know," he shakes his head. "But you should get some sleep. And that's not a suggestion."
"Okay," she nods wrapping an arm around him and one protectively around her unborn child. "But wake me if there's trouble."
"I will," he kisses her forehead and she falls asleep.
Waking several hours later, Katniss walks over to where Finnick sits on the beach and takes a seat beside him. Scratching the patchy sores left by the fog, "Don't scratch! You'll bring on infection." Finnick nods to her arms. "Oh." There's a pause before she looks up into the sky. "Hey Haymitch, if you're not too drunk, we could use something for our skin." Then almost as if he'd been waiting for the command, a parachute drops from the sky. Finnick at this point is faster and Katniss doesn't mind not moving. "About time," she mutters.
The two take the thick dark ointment that smelled atrocious, and rub it all over their skin.
"It's like you're decomposing," Finnick jokes at the color the skin becomes.
"Poor Finnick," she laughs. "Is this the first time in your life you haven't looked beautiful?"
"It must be. The sensations new. How have I managed all these years?" he asks.
"Just avoid mirrors. You'll forget about it," she tell him.
"Not if I keep looking at you," he smiles.
"I'm going to wake Peeta," says Katniss using Finnick's shoulder to stand.
"No wait," says Finnick catching her hand. "Let's do it together. Put our faces right in front of his."
"Okay," he smiles heartily as they get to their feet, go over to Peeta, place themselves on each side of him and incline so that their faces are right over top of his. "Peeta, Peeta wake up," Katniss says in a soft, sing-song voice.
Peeta's eyes flutter open and then he jumps like he's been stabbed, "Ah!"
Finnick and Katniss fall back in the sand, laughing their heads off. Every time they try to stop, they look at Peeta's attempt to maintain a disdainful expression and it sets them off again. By the time they pull themselves together, Katniss is thinking that maybe Finnick Odair is all right. At least not as vain or self-important as I'd thought. Not so bad at all, really. And just as she's come to this conclusion, a parachute lands next to them with a fresh loaf of bread. Remembering from last year how Haymitch's gifts are often timed to send a message, Katniss makes a note to myself. Be friends with Finnick. You'll get food.
After eating and light conversation, they all notice as a giant wave creschends from a spoke directly across them. A cannon fires and have just enough time to pick everything up but their hole ridden jumpsuits which no one is very concerned with losing. "Twelve," Katniss remarks on the number of deaths so far. Half the tributes gone. While she tries to mentally gather who is left, three figures emerge from two spokes away. "There," Katniss nods in the direction, and as if some silent agreement has occurred they retreat into the shadow of the jungle and watch. Peeta, placing himself between the newcomers and Katniss.
"Who is that?" Peeta asks. "Or what? Muttations?"
Katniss readies an arrow.
Finnick faces lights up and he starts yelling, "Johanna!" and runs in the direction of the group.
"Finnick!" she shouts back.
"I guess we have more allies," says Peeta as he walks in their direction. Katniss begrudgingly follows him. She didn't want allies, and that hadn't changed, especially if those allies included Johanna Mason. "She's got Wiress and Beetee," Katniss observes aloud.
"Nuts and Volts?" asks Peeta. "I've got to hear how this happened."
Johanna's gesturing toward the jungle and talking very fast to Finnick. "We thought it was rain, you know, because of the lightning, and we were all so thirsty. But when it started coming down, it turned out to be blood. Thick, hot blood. You couldn't see, you couldn't speak without getting a mouthful. We just staggered around, trying to get out of it. That's when Blight hit the force field."
"I'm sorry, Johanna," says Finnick.
"Yeah, well, he wasn't much, but he was from home," she says. "And he left me alone with these two." She nudges Beetee. "He got a knife in the back at the Cornucopia. And her — "
Everyone looks to Wiress as she makes circles in the sand and keeps repeating the same thing over and over again. "Tick, tock. Tick, tock."
"Yeah we know, tick tock," snaps Johanna.
"She's in shock," mutters Beetee.
Wiress heads full on towards Johanna who shoves her into the ground, "Just stay down, will you?"
"Lay off her," Katniss snaps.
"Lay off her?" Johanna walks forward so fast that no one can comprehend what she's going to do until she slaps Katniss hard across the face. "Who do you think got them out of that jungle for you? You-" Finnick hoists her into the air and walks her into the water.
Peeta protectively pulls Katniss back. "What does she mean? Got them out for me?" she asks him.
"I don't know," he shakes his head, just as confused, "you did want them as allies."
"Yeah, I did."
After several more renditions of, "Tick tock" from Wiress, Katniss pulls her down into the water to wash her off. After a while the lightning begins to strike the tree again in the other spoke. Twelve times. The realization hits Katniss.
"Tick tock," she nods. "It's a clock!"
When she realizes that they are far too close to the fog for comfort, she shakes everyone awake, "We need to move."