I wake with a start, gasping for air feeling the soft grass around me. Everything starts to come back to me and the last thing I remember is dropping that tracker jacker nest onto the careers. Everything after that is blurry, but I think I remember Sawyer being there at one point, although I can't be sure if he was a hallucination or not.
I'm still wearing my backpack and thankfully, I haven't lost the bow and quiver. At least now I had something I was confident I would use. My burn was still pretty bad, although significantly better than before, and the tracker jacker stings are huge and swollen. I was only stung a couple of times and it was still this bad. I wonder if the others died from their stings.
First things first though, I needed to get my strength back up. I still had a little bit of water left in my bottle but not enough so I drank the few sips that were left and ate the rest of the dried beef strips and some bark from a nearby tree. It's not great taste-wise but it would do until I could hunt something. I recognize the clearing I had found myself in and I'm able to navigate my way back to the spring, filling up my bottle and taking a moment to cover my burns in more ointment.
I'm excited to finally have access to a bow and I eagerly draw an arrow, ready to catch some fresh meat. It doesn't take me long to take down a fat bird, and I figure that will be enough for now. I didn't want to carry around too much and it would take too long to cook all of that at once.
I use the matches to start a fire, knowing I'll be safe to do so for a little while longer while the sun is still out. I pluck the bird and grab some sticks to cook it over the small fire when a rustling in the bushes catches my attention. I'm quick to drop the stick I'm holding and nock an arrow but it's unneeded.
I scan my surroundings and it seems like I'm alone, but I spot the unmistakable hair of a little girl hiding behind a tree to the far corner.
"El?" I call out her name and she peeks half her face out from behind the tree but doesn't move. "I won't hurt you," I promise, thinking that must be what she's afraid of. "You know, they're not the only ones who can form allies."
Her big brown eyes go even wider, reminding me a bit of Dani. "You want me as an ally?"
I nod. "You're smart. You helped me up in that tree. Why wouldn't I want someone like you? Will you come out? You can trust me." I know my words don't mean much, not in here, but I hope she believes me.
Thankfully, it seems like she does and she slowly approaches me, standing awkwardly a few feet away.
"Where's your district partner?" I ask her. If I recall correctly, the boy from her district was a large boy who could most likely snap me in two without a second thought if he wanted to. He seemed pretty fond of little Elm during the training sessions.
"Gus thought it would be best if we split up. I don't think he wanted to be responsible for me. He said he's a bigger target and didn't want to make me one too." That made sense. It was definitely easier to look out for just yourself.
"Are you hungry?" I skewer a fresh piece of meat and hold it out for her to take. I smile as she eagerly sits next to me, sticking the bird in the fire, watching it as if it can't cook fast. She must not have eaten in a while. I pick up the cooked skewer I dropped, dusting it off until it's clean enough to eat. I offer it to her, reaching for the still raw one in her hand and trading our sticks. She looks down for a moment, then back up at me, her eyes lingering on my neck.
"I can help you with your stings," she offers.
I furrow my brows. "You can? How?" Then something occurs to me. "You didn't get stung did you?" I'm worried the effects would be much worse on someone her size.
She shakes her head, and digs in the pack she carries and pulls out a bundle of leaves. "We have a bunch of nests where we work out in the fields. They go left there so there's the occasional sting and we use these."
"Oh, right. Eleven. You're Agriculture," I say. "Orchards, huh? That must be how you fly around across those trees like you've got wings." El smiles and I know it's something she's proud of. "Well, go on then. Fix me up."
I raise up the end of my shirt where I had been stung on my side. To my surprise, she tosses a leaf in her mouth, chewing it up and spitting it out before pasting it onto the large bump. Immediately, it feels like all of the pus and poison is being drained out and it feels great.
"Oh wow," I sigh. "Do my neck! And my hand!" I practically beg,
El giggles and the sound is music to my ears and I watch her take care of the rest of my stings. Once I'm all patched up, sits back down, picking her meat back up. I notice a long burn on her forearm which she must have gotten the same way I got mine
"I have something for that," I tell her, rubbing ointment onto her arm. She immediately relaxes and I can see how much it had been bothering her.
"You have good sponsors," she says.
"Have you gotten anything?" She shakes her head. "You will though. Watch. The closer we get to the end, people will see just how clever you are."
"You weren't kidding? About wanting to be my ally?"
"No, I meant it." I know Haymitch must be cursing me wherever he is for teaming up with this tiny child, but she's resourceful and I trust her. Not to mention she reminds me of Dani. Surely he understands.
She sticks out her hand. "Okay." We shake on it. "It's a deal."
I know it can't last forever, but for now, I'm glad I can be here to protect her.
"How did you catch a groosling?" She asks, looking at the stick in awe.
"Is that what this is?" She nods. "I just shot it with the bow. You should eat." I nudged her, wanting so badly to fatten her up even just a little bit. She's much too small.
"I've never had a whole leg to myself before."
I'm sure she hasn't. It probably wasn't easy to come by anywhere in the districts, especially in the outer parts.
"Here, take mine," I offer her the rest of my wing, thinking she needs it more than I do. She eys it hungrily but still has the decency to look unsure. "Go on," I encourage and she eagerly takes it with a small 'thanks.'
"So, how long have I been out?" Based on how I felt when I woke up, it must have been a while.
"Two days," El says. "The girl from one and the girl from ten are gone. There's only eleven of us left." I knew about Lucilla, but only one other person in two days, I hope the audience isn't getting too bored.
"And what about the other careers? Do you know where they've gone?"
El sits up and I can tell she so desperately wants to be helpful. "They're on the other side of the spring. They've got all the supplies from the cornucopia piled up. They've been camped out there since you dropped the nest. They weren't doing so well and it's taking them a while to recover," she says.
"They just left it out in the open? Something doesn't feel right about that," I say, thinking about why they would do such a thing.
"And the boy from my district?" I ask, unable to help myself. If what I saw was real, then Sawyer risked himself to save me. "Is he with them?"
"Not anymore. I don't know where he went." She pauses, glancing over at me with the same twinkle in her eye I recognize in my sister. "Do you like him."
"El!" I'm embarrassed she would ask me that in front of all of Panem and I can't answer her. "Shouldn't you think boys are gross or something?"
El takes another bite of the groosling, hiding her smile. "But you don't"
"That's not for you to know." I reach up and brush a small piece of groosling she has stuck to her cheek. "Come on, we better put out this fire if we want to get settled for the night. We have a big day tomorrow."
"We do?" El looks confused as she helped me gather up all of our supplies.
"Yup," I grab her hands, helping her up. "We are going to steal some of their precious supplies."
"But we have our own," El pointed out, digging out some nuts and berries from her pocket as if to prove a point.
"Sure. But if we take from them, then they have less. If we can get rid of their supply somehow, we'll weaken them."
"Willow, even if you could get to the food, how would you get rid of it?"
"Burn it." My first thought. "Dump it in the lake. Soak it in fuel." I lightly tickle El in the belly, like I would with Dani. "Eat it!" She giggles, trying to move away from me. "Don't worry. I'll think of something. It's a lot easier to destroy things than to make them."
We spend the rest of whatever light we have left gathering roots and berries, strategizing in hushed voices. She even shows me how to use the weird glasses inside my backpack. Apparently they're night vision goggles. I also get to learn more about the girl too, like how she's the oldest of six, and how she signed up for tesserae and gives her food rations to her younger siblings, who she's just as protective of as I am of Dani. This little girl who, when I ask her what she loves most in the world, replies with "Music."
"Music?" It's not something I've found the luxury for outside of hearing my mother sing to us or when Dani asks me for a lullaby to help her sleep. "You have a lot of time for that?"
El smiles. "We sing all the time at home. And at work too. Helps pass the time and keeps everyone's morale up. Do you sing?
"Not in public," I tell her. "Pretty much only for my sister."
"Would you sing for me?" Her eyes shine with hope and I can't deny her. But it also feels like something too private to do here, where we're being watched for sure. "I love when the mockingjays sing with me."
"Maybe later," I say and she accepts the answer.
We pick a tree with a branch that is large enough to hold the both of us.
"How have you been sleeping, El?" I ask, knowing that it was terribly cold at night. If she didn't stay warm she would be in danger of hypothermia.
"My jacket's been enough," she says, but I know she's lying.
"How about we share my sleeping bag. It'll be warmer if we're both in here."
"Really?" I nod, unzipping it just enough so she can slide in first and I can cover her with my body to keep her warm. Once we're both in, I tie us to the tree tightly, securing my backpack, my bow, and her sack to our front.
"Goodnight, Willow," El wraps her thin arms around me, burrowing herself into the bag.
"Goodnight," I whisper, closing my eyes and letting sleep take me.