Chapter 6: Silhouettes
Regardless of who was on watch, everyone got jolted awake around midnight, when four beams of light blazed across the sky from four corners of the Arena and collided high above, setting off a sort of fireworks display.
Green from across the jungle, blue from across the water, red and white from the other sides...What does it mean? Is it a Gamemaker trap?
The lights and noise died away within minutes, and nothing threatening seemed to follow.
Just a display, then? For the audience to enjoy? I don't think most of us in here will.
"How fancy," Haymitch grumbled. "I'm going back to sleep."
Half-draped over Lee, Helvius muttered, "This Arena is weird."
"The Gamemakers must be trying to outdo themselves. One hundred years of Games and all."
"With fireworks? They're idiots."
I think we've established that already.
The next morning, Lee woke from a surprisingly deep sleep to the sound of Katniss and Haymitch arguing.
"I'm not saying you have to share sentry duty with Glitz, but you can't plan on staying up all night every night and keep shooting straight! Orla or I can…"
"I'm fine, Haymitch!"
Lee opened his eyes to find Helvius hovering above him. "They've been at it for a while," the blond said. "Don't know how you managed to sleep through any of it. You're the last one awake."
Sitting up, Lee tried to stretch the stiffness from his limbs. Been a long time since I slept on anything but a nice bed. "I don't know, either. Did I miss anything? Besides...that." Katniss and Haymitch were still bickering, although it seemed to be dying out.
"Aoki got a present." Helvius held out a couple square rolls. "There were twenty-four of them, so plenty for everyone's breakfast and some to spare."
As he ate his share of bread and leftover meat, Lee looked around the beach. Even in the early morning, the air felt warmer than it had the previous day. Orla, boots off and pants rolled up, waded around in the saltwater shallows. Kori sat near the water's edge, cracking shells of more jungle nuts between two rocks. The Twelves, still throwing the occasional halfhearted insult at each other, returned to the tree from last night to collect more water. Helvius soon got bored of watching Lee eat and started prowling around the camp.
Lee had just finished his breakfast and accepted a full water bottle from Haymitch when screams erupted from the jungle.
Everyone in the alliance had regrouped by the cold fire pit and had a weapon in hand when a figure wearing a dark brown coat stumbled out of the trees a short distance down the beach, trailed by wisps of mist that dissipated over the sand. The person collapsed, still crying out.
Bow still loaded, Katniss sprinted down the beach, trailed by Helvius and Orla. Lee, Kori, and Haymitch followed a few seconds later. By the time they reached the others, Katniss and Orla were kneeling by a whimpering Mika Applegate, barely recognizable underneath the blisters that coated every visible inch of her skin. A few yards away, the strange mist still swirled among the trees.
"That was in the last Quarter Quell, too," Haymitch said. "Acid fog. Don't think anyone actually got caught in it, but there was a Gamemaker bragging about it to the commentators at some point."
It's horrible. Although he stayed out of the way, Lee found that he couldn't avert his eyes as Katniss and Orla tried to comfort Mika, who didn't seem able to move and whose cries grew weaker by the second. Less than forty-eight hours ago she was talking about her tributes and her grandmother. She wore a green dress covered in bright flowers.
Her cannon fired a few minutes after her appearance on the beach. The fog in the forest had vanished by the time the alliance retreated to allow the hovercraft to retrieve the body.
"She was kind," Orla said, eyes too bright. "Always so sweet with everyone...She and Annie spent some time together a few years back...Annie really liked her…"
There were some nods and subdued murmurs of agreement. However, Lee noticed that Helvius looked sick. Oh. Right. He sponsored her during her Games, contributed to her win.
He reached out his hand, and for the few minutes the alliance remained still, paying their respects, Helvius clung to it.
No one wanted to stay in the jungle more than absolutely necessary after what happened to Mika, so they kept to the beach when they started moving again. Katniss wanted to head north, back towards the Cornucopia. "The Careers are probably not there, since there's no food there. We can snag some more weapons. I wouldn't mind an extra bow and arrows."
The rest of the day was almost uneventful, with little talking and no opponent sightings. Another four-corners-beams-of-light-to-firework display went off around noon, and a cannon fired not long afterward. Late in the afternoon, they arrived at the Cornucopia to find it picked over but abandoned. Katniss didn't get her extra bow; Orla did find a couple stray arrows washed up on the nearby shore when she started looking for shellfish again.
"They must've thrown any more bows and arrows into the water," Helvius said. "To keep me and Katniss from getting any. Or any more, rather."
"Fuck." Katniss glared at the One as if it was all his fault. "I'm going hunting." She stalked off towards the jungle. "I'll run if I see any fog, Haymitch!"
Haymitch and Helvius, both looking displeased, went back to sifting through the weapons pile, and Orla returned to the saltwater while Kori went to replenish the water bottles. The Three was still carrying her spool of wire wherever she went.
Avoiding the spot where he'd last seen Axela, Lee circled the flat grassy area around the Cornucopia. South is jungle, west is ocean...sort of... To the north, the ground soon sloped upward and the grass turned icy; the hills beyond were white with snow. To the east, a downward slope led into a valley of black rock shrouded in smoke, dotted with some distant glowing pools that Lee thought might be lava. Haven't seen that in an Arena for a while…
Katniss soon returned with another rat-like animal and enough wood for a small fire, which she started inside the entrance of the Cornucopia to better hide it from unfriendly eyes. Orla brought back another pile of clams. Two parachutes came down, the first marked with a 1 and carrying a braided loaf of sweet, buttery bread sprinkled with almonds, the second bearing a small basket of six perfect red apples.
Helvius can't send me gifts this time, but I guess he made me memorable enough for others to want to.
As they divided up the food, a fragmented memory returned to Lee. "There was an apple in the first food parcel I got. Back in my Games."
"I think I remember that." Helvius passed him a chunk of the bread. "Was it good?"
"It was the first fresh apple I'd ever eaten. Didn't get around to having any in the Capitol before the Games…" He trailed off. Lower-class children of drug addicts don't get to have fresh fruit in Six.
Dinner was almost over when yet another parachute arrived, this one for Kori.
"We're getting a lot of gifts this year," Katniss observed as Kori unpacked four slim chocolate bars.
"What else are Panem's richest going to do with their money?" Helvius said with a snort.
Lee suppressed a grin and bumped their shoulders together. He's one to talk.
The death recap interrupted the chocolate eating...It's strange and yet not so strange, how easily we're all sharing...and Orla's attempt to teach Kori a sea shanty. Before Mika, Alder Sawyer's portrait was projected into the sky.
So sixteen left, and two districts eliminated...Eleven and Five…
It struck him abruptly. Darien Lopez is dead . He went into the Games in order to rile up Panem, this Quarter Quell twist might very well be his fault...and he died in the Bloodbath. Just like that.
He glanced across the fire at Katniss, who was staring into the smoldering coals. Of those who were top priority…
He thought it was fortunate that she and Helvius hadn't fought too much so far. He just needs to stay alive and near her long enough…
Then he remembered what Helvius had said that one night back in the Training Center.
"You could make it."
That's not the point, Hal, and I can't tell you why.
Maybe they could both make it long enough.
But if the Careers or mutts swarm us at the wrong time and someone needs to slow them down…like Axela did with Shimmer…
He was that person, the one who would need to be left behind. Not Katniss, not Haymitch, not Kori, not even Orla. Not Helvius.
Closing his eyes, Lee leaned against Helvius's shoulder. Orla and Haymitch were talking quietly, Kori was moving around outside of the Cornucopia, and Katniss was off in her own fiery world. "Promise me something, Hal," he whispered.
He felt Helvius's arm settle around him. "Anything."
"No leaving the alliance until I say so."
"...Okay."
"You're not going to argue?"
"I'm trusting you to know when we should leave. You set all this alliance shit up, after all."
"You weren't happy about it."
"No, and I'm still not, but...You're not stupid, Lee, and like I said before, you had a point about strength in numbers. I don't know if I protect you if this current batch of Careers managed to jump us all at once."
"So you promise?"
He felt Helvius's breath through his hair. "I promise."
The rest of the night was quiet, besides the lights and booms in the sky at midnight.
Kori spoke up during their breakfast of leftovers from the night before. "I have a plan."
"And that is?" Haymitch prompted when she didn't immediately continue.
"Those beams of light. I watched last night...They're coming from the ground. Probably from near the Arena's edge. And they're not firework rockets, any actual fireworks are up in the...anyway, the beams, they're electric initiators of some sort." She reached out and tapped her wire spool. "If we can find the source of one of the beams, of the electricity, I can probably tap into it. Set a trap for the pack."
Breaking the pause that followed, Helvius said, "No offense...If I recall correctly, you didn't win your Games by setting a trap."
She shrugged. "Kiro...my brother...and Beetee...They taught me some things over the past few months." She patted the spool again. "The wire was meant for Beetee. But I think I know how to use it."
I don't think she means just to fry Careers.
The Twelves, Orla, and Lee agreed without much further discussion, and Helvius followed Lee's lead with little reluctance. "I don't know about this," he said quietly to Lee while the others were deciding what supplies to gather. "She's no tech genius; she said so herself before her Games."
He would know; she was his second choice of tribute to sponsor. He'd ended up sending money for the Eight girl instead, the one who had jumped into an abandoned mine shaft with next to no warning. Kori used that same girl's spear to win after that. "I'm still for her plan. Maybe it'll work and we'll have fewer Careers to worry about. What do we have to lose, anyway?"
Deciding on a direction turned out to be relatively easy. No one wanted to risk going too deep into the jungle again, so south was out. West there were plenty of shallows between the scattered islands that Orla said might be navigable; however, she also pointed out, "I'm pretty sure I saw shark fins further out when I was gathering clams yesterday. We don't want to mess with shark mutts. And if we have to swim, mutts or no…"
"Not all of us know how," Katniss finished for her.
After hearing distant screams to the east, followed by a cannon, the valley of fire was also ruled out. "Cold is manageable if we keep moving," Katniss said. "We can bring some wood in case we really need a fire. And we could melt snow to drink. Unless it's poisoned or something."
That's a pleasant thought.
Also unnerving was Haymitch's, "The Careers will be able to track us easily in that snow. Good, as long as we stay ahead of them until the trap is set."
They split up briefly to gather what they could. Kori was put on water duty again, Orla found more clams and speared a couple fish with her trident, Katniss went hunting and shot another rat-creature and some kind of tropical pheasant, Haymitch gathered wood, and Lee and Helvius found more edible nuts and berries. Their collection of parachutes substituted for backpacks, and when they all returned to the Cornucopia, they found another, emblazoned with a 12. It had brought a box of matches.
"This will make the fire starting much easier," Katniss proclaimed. She looked up at the sky. "Thanks, Effie!"
Twelve's escort. Some of them will step up as mentors of sorts if no Victors are available. Lee assumed Balbus was doing the same. Maybe I should've thanked him last night…
Many of the tribute escorts could be truly awful, like One's Alexandrine. Yet the ones who stayed with "undesirable" districts for a long time, the ones who never got promoted…
They aren't so bad. Six's Balbus, Twelve's Effie Trinket...If the Capitol weren't the way it was, if it weren't for the Games…maybe someday...
He pushed those thoughts away. Not the time, not the place.
The alliance members mostly stayed quiet during the trek north, through snow-covered hills and past scattered outcroppings of jagged ice. The air grew more chilly as they went, with the occasional icy breeze slipping past.
It's still beautiful, in a strange way. He tried to use that to focus when his mind kept slipping off into the nameless fog again.
Sometime after noon and the expected Gamemaker display, Lee was walking next to Helvius, a little behind the others, when the One said, "I haven't shown you my token, have I?"
"I don't think so." He'd glimpsed what the others had over the past couple days; no one had been hiding them. Katniss has that mockingjay pin, Kori has a copper necklace, Orla has a trident pendant, even Haymitch has a gold bangle for some reason. "Did you even have one last time?"
"No, didn't see the point. Cashmere helped me out this time." Helvius slung his bow over his shoulder and reached both hands up to undo something from around his neck, under his layers of clothes. A few moments later, he handed an oval-shaped, golden pendant with no markings.
It has hinges, though, Lee realized. A locket. "There's a picture of me in this, isn't there?"
"Who else?" Helvius smiled wryly. "I wanted to have a picture of Miriam, too, but I thought of it too late and Cashmere couldn't track one down soon enough…"
Miriam. The closest thing to a decent parent he ever had. "I should probably be flattered. That this is your token of choice."
"You're wearing your mom's ring, to remember someone you love. What's different about this?" Helvius took the locket back and refastened it around his neck. "I'm still trying to save you, Lee."
"I know." I love you for it even if it's never going to work. Not the way you're thinking, Hal.
Another cannon went off not long after they lapsed back into silence.
Tion Weaver and Colt Tanner's faces were in the sky that night as they sat around the tiny fire Katniss had gotten started with the wood they had brought.
Fourteen gone.
Everyone paired up to sit back-to-back to conserve heat as most of them tried to get some sleep, with Orla offering to stay awake as sentry first.
Lee dozed off here and there, awoken just as much from rising waves of panic than from the biting night wind. Before long, he had to get up to relieve himself and left Helvius mumbling to find a spot a few yards away.
He encountered Kori, on her way back to the dying fire from presumably doing the same thing. "You setting that trap tomorrow?" he asked, pushing back the swells of emotion that were threatening to choke him.
Her response was quiet yet firm. "That's the plan."
Tomorrow, then.
He'd just returned to Helvius when the beams of light lit up the sky again. He watched them, and the scattering of colorful sparks that followed, shivering from more than the cold.
This ends tomorrow. It has to.