The alliance is over. Finnick and Johanna must have had an agreement to turn on us tonight. I knew we should have left this morning. I don't know where Beetee stands. But I'm fair game, and so is Peeta.
Peeta! My eyes fly open in panic. Peeta is waiting up by the tree, unsuspecting and off guard. Maybe Finnick has even killed him already. "No," I whisper. That wire was cut from a short distance away by the careers. Finnick and Beetee and Peeta—they can't know what's going on down here. They can only be wondering what has happened, why the wire has gone slack or maybe even sprung back to the tree. This, in itself, can't be a signal to kill, can it?
I don't know. I don't know. I only know that I must get back to Peeta and keep him alive. It takes every ounce of will I have to push up into a sitting position and drag myself up the side of a tree to my feet. It's lucky I have something to hold on to because the jungle's tilting back and forth. Without any warning, I lean forward and vomit up the seafood feast, heaving until there can't possibly be another oyster left in my body. Trembling and slick with sweat, I assess my physical condition.
I lift up my damaged arm, which is pouring blood, and dry heave. Trying not to look at the mess of flesh, I scrabble around on the ground for something to wrap around the wound. I settle on some moss and wrap it tightly around my arm. Better. Definitely better not to see it. With a shaky breath, I touch the back of my head. There's the lump the size of an egg but not too much blood. My vision flickers. Obviously I've got some internal damage but I don't seem to be in danger of bleeding to death. At least not through my head.
Not wanting to pitch forward and knock myself out, I sling my bow across my chest and start crawling up the slope. It won't be very quiet but at least I'll be able to hide easily.
Peeta. My dying wish. My promise. To keep him alive. My heart lifts a bit when when I realize he must be alive because no cannon has fired. Maybe Johanna was acting alone, knowing Finnick would side with her once her intentions were clear. Although it's hard to know what goes on between those two. I think of how he looked to her for confirmation before he'd agreed to help set Beetee's trap. There's a much deeper alliance based on years of friendship and who knows what else. Therefore, if Johanna has turned on me, I should no longer trust Finnick.
Just as I reach this conclusion, I hear someone running down the slope towards me. Neither Peeta nor Beetee could run at that pace. I flatten myself on the ground being some waxy shrubs just in time. Finnick flies by me, leaping through the undergrowth like a deer. He reaches the sight of my attack, must see the blood. "Johanna! Katniss!" He calls. I stay put until he continues down in the direction Johanna and the Careers took.
When I'm sure he's gone, I continue crawling. It's slow going, painstaking, but it's better than being upright. I try to take deep breaths. My head throbs from the pain and my arm starts to bleed through the moss so I lift it up and continue on three limbs. Everything in my body screams for me to lie down and fall asleep but I have to keep going. I have to get to Peeta.
The boom of a cannon pulls me up short. Someone has died. Breathing hard I pull myself to my feet with the help of a nearby tree. The jungle swims before my eyes. I start running as fast as I can up the slope, tripping and stumbling, surely making too much noise. In the distance I see the tree. I'm almost there. Go. Go! A voice deep in my head seems to yell at me. I squint. At the base of the tree lies a body. No, I think, It can't be—
It is. I reach the tree at the same time as I realize it. Peeta lies on the ground—unconscious? Or dead? I don't know. I fall to my knees before him and press my ear to his chest. A heartbeat. It's unmistakeable. He's alive. Relief crashes over me until I realize that it must be nearly time for the lighting to strike the tree. "Peeta?" I say, shaking his shoulders, softly at first. "Peeta, wake up." I start to shake him harder when I notice his arm. It's been cut in the same place as mine and is oozing blood. I frown at it, puzzled. What's going on? There's no way that Johanna could have gotten up here in time to do this, not when she was being chased by the Careers. Could it have been Finnick? Why would they have done this, knocked us out individually and mutilated our arms? I shake my head to clear it but instantly regret it. A ringing overpowers my thoughts and I try to block it out with my hands, to no avail.
Peeta. I have to get him up. Get him away from this tree or he'll be burnt to a crisp. Wincing, I do the only thing I can think of. I reach up and slap him hard across the face. With a start and a moan, his eyes open, but I can tell he's having trouble focusing them. "Got hit," he says blearily. "Can you stand?" I ask quickly. "Yeah," He says. I hold out my arm and help him up. We're about to hobble away when I trip on something soft on the ground.
"Beetee!" I exclaim. Beetee lies on the ground, holding a knife—Peeta's knife—wrapped in his wire. It's then that I realize how close he is to the force field. "Did he knock you out?" I asked Peeta. "I…I don't know." He says, furrowing his brow. "No…It was Finnick. Beetee had asked me for my knife, so I gave it to him, and he went around here to do…something."
So Johanna and Finnick did turn on us. Well, big surprise there. I knew I should never have trusted them. What a fool I was to have left Peeta alone with an enemy like that.
Enemy. Enemy. The word is tugging at a recent memory. Pulling it to the present. The look on Haymitch's face. "Katniss, when you're in the arena," the scowl, the misgiving. "What?" I hear my own voice tighten as I bristle at some unspoken accusation. "You just remember who the enemy is." Haymitch says. "That's all."
Haymitch's last words of advice to me. Why would I need reminding? I have always known who the enemy is. Who starves and tortures and kills us in the arena. Who will kill everyone I love. Realization pours over me as I stare at Beetee's knife. Yes, I know who the enemy is. And it's not Finnick, Johanna, Enobaria, or even Brutus. I let go of Peeta, leaving him to stand on his own, and kneel down next to Beetee. With a feeling of being in a trance, I pick up the knife. The wire is wrapped around it tightly, like a fine sheath. I look up to to the forcefield and back to Beetee. What was he trying to do?
"Katniss?" Peeta says tentatively. "We should get out of here." I look back to him and hold up the knife. " What was he doing?" I ask. "I don't know," he says, coming closer. "Finnick knocked me out before I saw what he needed the knife for." He kneels down next to me and examines the knife. Was this his backup plan? If electrifying the water failed, did he mean to—
I look at Peeta, who seems to have grasped it the moment I did. "The lightning." He says at the same time that I say "The force field!" I take an arrow out and hold it, looking at Peeta. His eyes meet mine and I know we're thinking the same thing. This is bigger than all of us. We weren't their pawns in the last games and we won't be their pawns now. "Do it." He says and his eyes are hard, sure. I know he means it. I take the wire off of the knife and wrap it around the arrow. The sky rumbles overhead and I know it's almost time. I'm about to raise my bow when Peeta stops me. He takes my face in his hands, his eyes blazing, and kisses me. I kiss him back and my chest feels like it's about to burst.
He pulls away and looks at me with what seems like sadness, anger, determination, and—something else. He nods and looks to the sky. I raise my bow and aim for—what did Beetee call it? The chink in the armor. I let my arrow fly, see it hit its mark and vanish, pulling the thread of gold behind it. My hair stands on end and the lightning strikes the tree. I feel Peeta's hand in mine, pulling me away and down to the ground, as far away from the tree as he can get us.
I feel the soft, squishy ground under my shoulders and Peeta's weight next to me. A flash of white runs up the wire, and for just a moment, the dome bursts into a dazzling blue light. I feel Peeta next to me and just before the explosions begin, I find a star.
Everything seems to erupt at once. The earth explodes into shadows of dirt and plant matter. Trees burst into flames. Even the sky fills with brightly colored blossoms of light. I turn away from it all and look at Peeta. He's still conscious but looks very pale. Certainly, we've both lost a lot of blood. I take his hand him mind and squeeze it. Let him know that I'm here. He looks at me, turns on his side and takes me in his arms. I put my head against his chest to hear his heartbeat. It feels faint. I close my eyes because I feel dizzy and disoriented. My body is heavy and I couldn't stand up even if I wanted to. I think about my promise to keep Peeta alive and feel strangely proud of what we did tonight. They would never have let either of us live. We did too much damage. Soon we'll both be dead. Maybe we should have died when I held out those berries. That seems like a hundred years ago now. I hear Peeta's breathing getting more and more ragged. I hope he doesn't suffer too much.
Overhead I hear something. A soft buzzing. I peer up and see a hovercraft has materialized above us. If it had been quiet, and a mockingjay was perched close at hand I would have had warning but it was a miracle I heard anything at all over this bombardment.
The claw drops from the underside until it's directly overhead. I watch Peeta's eyes flutter closed and know that he's passed out. Maybe even dead. Good. If he's dead then they can't get to him. That was a silver lining at least. The metal claws slide underneath us and my mind is screaming at me to run, thrash, escape somehow. My vision darkens to a smaller and smaller circle and I hope absently that I'll die of blood loss before they torture me. With a clunk on cold metal, we're deposited inside the hovercraft and by that time my vision is the size of a pin, all I can see are eyelashes. Long, blond eyelashes, and then…black.