All I want to think about is how desperately Peeta needs medical attention. But all I can think about is the dying boy twenty feet below us.
I don't remember exactly how much time has passed since he fell. Maybe seven or eight hours. Maybe more. It has felt like seven or eight days. Like the entire Games could have been played again in the time Peeta and I have been sitting up here waiting for the boy from District Two to die. And Peeta doesn't have that time to spare. He needs to be treated in a real hospital. He needs medicine that I can't give him. He needs to stop bleeding from a gash that I can't clot.
I can't do anything for him here. The home remedies I learned from watching my mother aren't going to help us anymore. Only the Capitol can save Peeta now, as much as it burns to rely on the Capitol for anything at all.
The Capitol, who are the reason Peeta and I are trapped in the arena to begin with, slowly starving and bleeding out for all of Panem to jeer at. The same people who ripped us from our families and threw us into the arena are the only ones who could keep Peeta from succumbing to injuries he got inside of it. There's some kind of irony in that, I'm sure. It was the Capitol's latest, cruelest joke. We put you here. We tried to kill you. And now, only we can save you.
I'm sure someone was having a good laugh about it somewhere. Maybe if I'm lucky, President Snow will choke to death on his laughter and we could all go home and try to forget this nightmare ever happened.
Haymitch wouldn't dare drain our sponsors' wallets one last time, not with us so close to the end. The Games were already won. He's probably already drunk somewhere, celebrating with the rich Capitol citizens who picked the right teenage murderers to gamble on. Lucky them. Lucky him. Lucky us. Peeta and I have won the Games. And because of that, there is no help coming. Not until the screaming boy below us dies.
I try to close my eyes to block out the sound. All we need is for the Gamemakers to stop torturing the boy and let him die. The only thing standing in the way is the boy from District Two.
Cato, I force myself to think. His name is Cato.
Brutal, bloody Cato. Once my only real enemy in the arena, reduced to a whimpering mess at the foot of the cornucopia. Not long ago I believed the only real fight of the Games were between me and him. Like everything else was just buildup, just a distraction. I thought there would be more satisfaction in watching him fall. But there was none at all. The second he cleared the ledge, he was no longer an enemy I had to defeat. He was just a scared boy falling into certain death. As he fell, I hoped for his sake that it would be quick.
It was anything but quick.
The mutts worked away at him in slow motion, prolonging the gore as long as possible so that the Capitol citizens got what they paid for. Peeta and I are complete hostages listening to the boy get torn apart, his agonized sounds echoing in my brain. Screaming, yelling, howling. Moaning, crying, bawling. It goes on and on and on, for hours, for weeks, for years. The sounds consume my mind and render me unable to think of anything else. After a short while, I don't care who he is or what he's done, all I want is for his suffering to end.
Another hour passes, and still no cannon fires. I try to distract myself by looking to Peeta, only to realize how much he has worsened. There's almost no blood in his face. He looks back at me and smiles tiredly, and I can tell he knows what I know. He's running out of time. He has maybe two hours left if I do nothing. The Gamemakers could drag this on for at least twice that.
I need to get him out of this place. I can't just wait around and hope that the mutts win. I have to act.
Peeta looks at me with weak curiosity as I roll on my side and press my good ear against the cornucopia, listening for the boy from District Two.
Cato, I remind myself again. His has a name. He has a life. He probably has a family. I briefly wonder where they are at this exact moment. Were they still watching? Have they turned off the screens and shut the blinds? Were they sobbing hysterically in District Two, begging for the Gamemakers to kill him? Did they hate me for what I was forced to do?
I push it from my mind. There will be plenty of time for brooding once we were out. Right now, I have to focus on what comes next.
Peeta must know what I have in mind. He's too weak to turn on his side, but he doesn't need to in order to hear where Cato is. His hearing is much better than mine at the moment. He isn't deaf in one ear.
"I think he's closer now," Peeta says grimly. In a horrible way, I can't tell whether he meant Cato was physically closer to us or closer to dying. "Katniss, can you shoot him?"
"My last arrow's in your tourniquet."
"Make it count," he says, unzipping his jacket. I free the arrow from his tourniquet and zip his jacket back up. I won't lose him to hypothermia just as the Games are ending.
The air is numbingly cold and my fingers are frostbitten. I can barely feel the arrow as I place it in my bow and pull the string taut, searching in the bloody grass beneath us for Cato.
I find him near the mouth of the horn, weakly struggling against a mutt on top of him with what remains of his hands. Somehow it is the only mutt left. I can't even guess where the other mutts went. There don't seem to be twenty mutt corpses beneath the cornucopia. Maybe the Gamemakers took the rest away. Maybe Cato managed to kill them all. However the other twenty mutts disappeared from the arena, I don't know, and it doesn't matter. All that matters is that my arrow hits what it needs to.
I bring the arrow to my eye. I take aim. I pray that my arrow finds its target and ends this ritual once and for all. Cato manages to find my eyes and he mouths something that I think is please. My hands are too cold to feel what I'm doing, but I trust my instincts.
I close my eyes. I release the arrow. I hear it cut through soft flesh and I hear Cato's whimpering stop.
What I don't hear is the cannon. I cautiously open my eyes and silently scream when I see what I've done.
I hit the mutt. It lays dead at the foot of the horn. But Cato is still alive. His face is too mangled to properly tell, but I assume he's just as shocked at what I've done as I am.
"Fucking hell," I whisper. It's a lot calmer than the storm of things I'm currently shouting in my head.
"Did you get him?" Peeta asks. I'm too ashamed to answer. I suppose the lack of a cannon tells him what he needs to know. He nods slightly, but I can tell he's disappointed. "That was your last arrow?"
"Yes," I sigh, sitting back down next to him. I turn my attention back to Peeta's leg, desperate for a distraction. Cato would die on his own soon enough. Maybe all he wanted was to go in peace without having to fight off a mutt as he did. Maybe now that I've given that to him, he can die already.
Peeta's leg shows no improvement and his face is only getting more pale. There's nothing more I can do for him. I could give him what remained of our water, but that's a temporary solution. He needs an actual doctor in an actual hospital. The longer it took Cato to die, the longer it would be until Peeta could get to one. The thought suddenly makes me furious at Cato all over again.
Five minutes pass, then ten. Still no cannon has fired. In an odd way, the silence drives me insane more than the moaning and howling did. It's almost too much to bear. The Games, the deaths, the unfairness of it all. The only thing that keeps me from crying is the knowledge that all of Panem is still watching.
I wonder if the cameras are on me. How many people are watching. It isn't uncommon for the Districts to put the workday on hold so that citizens could watch the last few minutes of the Games wind down. Is every last person in Panem watching Cato die right now? Or are they watching me, the coldhearted killer?
"He's still alive," Peeta says quietly. It feels like a reminder.
"Wait here," I say, getting up. Peeta clings to my arm as I do. "No, you stay. Sit down. You can't put pressure on your leg."
"I want to watch," Peeta pleads. "To make sure you're okay."
"I'll be fine," I say. "There's not much you can do if it all goes wrong, anyway."
Peeta nods. I wish I had something more comforting to say as I turn away. I gently tossed my bow to the ground before carefully sliding down the edge of the metal cornucopia and onto the grass. I immediately turn around in case there are any stray mutts hiding, but there aren't any.
There are only three living things left in the arena. And only two will get to leave it.
The ground is damp and marshy. It reminds me of the grass on the outskirts of District Twelve where Gale and I would hunt on rainy days. But this isn't rain. This is some awful mixture of blood from Cato and twenty-something mutts. The smell is awful, but I'm able to keep my composure. I had to look strong and brave for the cameras. It was probably my first real close-up since the bloodbath began. I haven't missed the feeling of cameras on my face. I hate the cameras now more than ever.
Cato seems distantly aware that I am now on the ground and not on top of the cornucopia, but is too weak to move his head. I am suddenly unable to picture him as the tribute blinded by rage as he snapped the neck of the boy from District Three. I can't remember what he looked like as he climbed that tree, sword in hand, ready to split my head open like a coconut. All I can picture is his awful screams.
I stop within ten yards of him. The mutt is still there, untouched by the Gamemakers, and my arrow is still in its eye. I would have to walk past Cato to retrieve it. I would have to confront my last opponent in the arena.
I sigh. The Gamemakers couldn't have scripted a more dramatic ending.
As I slowly approach, I feel obligated to say something.
"I'm sorry this happened to you," I say as I walk in an arc around him. I won't give him a chance to grab at my ankles. If he's even strong enough to at this point.
"You . . . didn't send . . ." he manages to say, and then trails off. He doesn't look at me. His eyes point aimlessly somewhere at the sky. It seems his own hatred for me has faded as well. Like the mutts tore out every piece of his personality.
"I'm not talking about the mutts," I say. He nods slightly and then quiets. We both know what I mean, even if we can't say it out loud. Not with all of Panem watching. Not with President Snow hanging on our every word.
I pull the arrow out of the mutt's eye, and it occurs to me that the metal I hold in my hand will be the final word in the story of the 74th Hunger Games. I wonder what will happen to it once this is all over. Knowing the Capitol, it might end up in a museum somewhere. Rich Capitol morons will pay for the privilege of holding it. I shudder at the thought as I walk a few yards into the field, away from the mutt and the cornucopia. I look for Peeta on the top.
I can't see him, so he must not be able to see me. I hope he can hear me. To know I'm alright.
"How?" Cato says, his voice a whimper. I turn my attention back to him. He's in terrible shape. His chest rises and falls with considerable effort. I can barely make out the features of his face, but his blue eyes are still clear. How could I have never known he had blue eyes? For all the effort I spent viciously hating him, have I never actually looked closely at his face?
"How what?"
"Eleven," he says softly. I twitch uncomfortably. Is this what the Careers are trained to think about as they die? Is this what haunts him in his final minutes on Earth? All the ways I'm better than him? As much as I want tell him exactly how it happened, I know I can't in front of the cameras. Not when it makes the Gamemakers look weak. I can't risk pissing off the Capitol to appease a dying boy's curiosity. The Capitol has the power to make my life a living hell when I return to District Twelve.
More than it undoubtedly already will be, anyway.
"I impressed them with my bow," I say, and leave it at that. It's all I can say and it's not technically a lie. It seems to satisfy him. He nods weakly, his dazed eyes still staring off into space.
"Supplies," he chokes out. I twitch again. All he seems to care about is all the ways he had failed.
"Rue and I blew them up," I say. "I shot an arrow through a bag of apples. They fell on the mines. Rue lit the fire as a distraction to draw the rest of the Careers away."
That seems to satisy him, too. He doesn't notice the way my voice cracked slightly to say Rue's name.
"Careers?"
I suddenly realize that it's the first time he had ever heard the term. I don't imagine Peeta used that word to their faces when he was allied with them. The Careers had been trained for the Hunger Games since before they could remember. I don't think they've ever thought of it as a career the way the rest of us did back home. To them, this is just what life is. A glorious childhood with a brutal end.
"The tributes who are trained from a young age to volunteer," I answer, glancing back up at the cornucopia. Still no view of Peeta. "The ones like you. The ones you were allied with."
I can't tell whether Cato likes the term or not. His face is too disfigured to tell.
"Clove," the boy says. I don't know if it's a question. I don't know if he's expecting me to say something.
What I do know is that the longer he keeps talking, the longer it would be until Peeta gets treated. The longer he asks questions about all the ways his strategy sucked, the longer he would lay on the grass in pain and bloody waiting for death to grab him.
"Thresh hit her with a big rock."
The boy says nothing. Maybe my reply was too blunt. Maybe he wasn't expecting me to say anything. I wonder how well he and Clove knew each other before they came to the arena together. I wonder if they were excited at the idea of leaving together when the rules were changed.
"Mutt?"
Peeta is running out of time. I'm starting to reach my limit with the dying boy. At any moment, the Gamemakers could open a pit of lava beneath my feet when they decide that me talking to Cato is too boring for the paying citizens of the Capitol.
"I was trying to hit you. I missed."
"Thank . . . you," he says, his voice near gone. His breathing is audible even from where I stand. With the last of his energy, he manages to turn his head to me and finally finds my eyes. And suddenly I'm face to face with the boy from District Two.
"I'm sorry," I say again. I don't know what else to say. Everything has been said. And I'm out of time to say it. "I have to give them what they want now."
Cato nods as firmly as he can and closes his blue eyes. The ball is now in my court. And the realization that I am about to become a victor of the Hunger Games is eclipsed by the realization that I am going to have to kill a scared human child with my own bow and arrow. This isn't shooting animals in the woods with Gale. This isn't launching an angry shot at undeserving Gamemakers. This isn't firing a desperate arrow toward Rue's unknown killer.
This is murder.
And it's the only way Peeta will get treated. It's the only way I will be allowed to leave the arena.
I place the arrow in my bow and pull the string taut. The cold still bites at my hands, but this time I'm determined not to miss. I bring the arrow to my eye and take aim at the boy twenty feet in front of me. He doesn't open his eyes. If I didn't know better, I'd say he's smiling as best he can with the remains of his face. I close my own eyes for the cameras. For the close-up. For the drama.
Once again, I am reduced to a performer as I take a human life.
I release the arrow.
This time, I don't miss. The cannon fires.
I turn away. I don't look at what I've done.
I lower my bow with a sinking feeling in my stomach.
"I got him," I say to Peeta, though the cannon already gave that away.
"Then we won, Katniss," Peeta says hollowly.
"Hurray for us," I manage to say, but there's no joy of victory in my voice.
A/N: Several quotes have been taken directly from The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. All rights belong to her. And sorry about the weird use of present tense/past tense; I can't do it as well as Collins can. (Current cover art is hopefully only temporary. Expect a real one soon!).