Chapter 5: Zombie
"I've got your district token here, if you still want it."
It took him several long moments to drag himself out of the mental fog. It's harder with no one around to ground me. "What? Oh, right. Yeah, I want it."
So far this morning, he'd made it all the way to the Launch Room and through putting on his tribute uniform...low-top brown boots, black pants with a belt, a long-sleeved white shirt under a dull orange rain jacket...before saying a word. Couldn't really feel my own tongue, so...
Basilia handed over a plain, worn, silver wedding ring. He slipped it onto the fourth finger of his right hand, saying absently, "It was my mother's."
"Oh. You...um, you never talk about her. Not that I've heard."
She's as subdued as Balbus today. "Not much to say. She died not long after my Games."
"Oh, goodness...I'm so sorry!"
"It's okay." And not something I usually like to talk about.
Yet, as he sat down next to Basilia on the Launch Room's couch drink some water and wait, he realized that his parents were a subject that might keep him somewhat focused for the next few minutes. "Dad lasted longer. They were both addicts...I tried to get them clean after I won the Games. Mom managed to go a few weeks at one point, forgot to start slow the next time she slipped...Dad made it longer." Five years longer. "He did slip up a few times, but kept going longer and longer without morphling...Heart attack got him, though."
Basilia looked uncomfortable, like she was struggling to find something to say.
Not surprising. Addiction happens everywhere, even in the Capitol. But they hide it better here.
The stylist finally said, "So...her ring fits you? Not your father's?"
"I have thin fingers. Besides, Dad didn't have a ring." Or, if he did, he sold it at some point.
"You...miss them? Your mom and dad?"
He let out a breath. "They weren't the best parents." They were too high too often to take very good care of me, to stop me from becoming just like them. "But they loved me. I know that. Yeah, I miss them."
He stopped talking in favor of drinking more water then, and Basilia also stayed quiet. She did reach out and give his hand a comforting squeeze, though.
The call to get into position sent shivers down his spine.
I remember this part from last time. He remembered the chill on his skin, the feeling of his heart beating frantically against the dulling effects of the morphling Linus had offered. It hadn't been enough; he'd been dry heaving as the clear tube descended around him.
He didn't feel much calmer this time.
At least my head is clear now. Mostly.
As Basilia gave him one last encouraging smile through the glass, he took the deepest breath he could manage. Find Helvius and run. Then find Haymitch and Katniss. Don't focus on anything else.
He repeated it to himself over and over again as the pedestal lifted him up into dim sunlight.
The misty sky was the first thing he noticed. Then the ground around his pedestal, covered in patchy grass. Then the Cornucopia.
Most Hunger Games Cornucopias were shiny gold or silver or even black. This one appeared carved out of gray, mossy stone. The tail was facing him.
Colt to my right, Sola to my left. If I want to run, left is the way to go.
He couldn't see Helvius.
He could see Axela, a few pedestals beyond Sola. At least she's upright for now. I can grab her on the way.
That was exactly what he tried to do when the gong rang out less than a minute later. They'd made it several yards past the worst of the chaos at the Cornucopia's mouth when Lee saw Haymitch, headed for nearby forest. That way…
Axela saw Shimmer heading for them first and wrenched her hand from Lee's. When he looked at her, all he got was a sad smile.
He didn't have time to do or say anything before she ran straight for the woman from One and tackled her.
He would have stayed where she left him, frozen until Shimmer was done and moved on to him, if he hadn't heard someone shout, "Lee!"
Hal. Seeing Helvius tearing out of the thickest fighting, he shouted back, "This way!" and started to run in the same direction as Haymitch had. He glimpsed Katniss, along with someone else, ahead of him. Hal, you'd better follow me…
Helvius actually caught up to him within a minute, but let Lee lead as they charged into the...Jungle? Is this jungle?
The time they spent crashing through the trees and vines slipped by like seconds. It could also have been minutes, hours, days, and Lee would not have been able to say for sure.
The forest did turn out to be jungle, although he didn't have time to make sure of that until he almost collided with Orla Flanagan, stopped dead in a tiny clearing along with the Twelves. "Sorry," he gasped out once they'd both regained their balance.
"Don't...worry about...it," she said between ragged breaths. Her smile was weak.
Lee turned to Helvius and found himself unable to get another word out through the tightness in his chest. I'm no endurance runner...
Helvius seemed to understand his look all the same. "I'm fine," he said, adjusting the quiver of arrows over his shoulder. He held a black bow in his left hand and had a long dagger tucked into his belt. "You?"
Lee just nodded. Not the time, not the place.
For a minute, all five Victors simply stood under the towering trees, catching their breath and listening. Nothing except bird calls.
Katniss was the first to speak. "Haymitch, what the hell are they doing here?" She pointed at Lee and Helvius.
"I told you...I'd take care of getting allies." Slumped against a tree trunk, Haymitch waved his hand halfheartedly. "See? Allies."
"I agreed to Orla, and I don't mind Lee, but the One?" She looked at Helvius with undisguised revulsion.
"Hey, I didn't agree to this either!" Helvius snapped. "Lee, what are we doing here?"
Haymitch rolled his eyes. "Katniss, I don't like him much either, but he can shoot almost as well as you and isn't in with the other Careers. Lee and I worked it out."
"Worked it out?" Helvius turned to Lee with a look of betrayal. "I thought it was going to be just us! Why this? Why didn't you even tell me?"
I can't even give him a completely honest answer. "Strength in numbers. Also, I didn't tell you because I know you."
Helvius looked like he wanted to argue, but ended up just shaking his head. "Fine. You may have a point."
"He does?" Katniss's gaze flickered between them.
"About the strength in numbers. The Careers hate me. Honestly, I'm shocked Shimmer didn't go for me first."
"No, she went for me." Suddenly, an image appeared in Lee's mind. An image of the last thing he'd seen before Helvius's call had pushed him into action. Shimmer was...Axela, she…
The next thing he knew, he was on his knees, vomiting up whatever he'd had for breakfast and gagging on bile. No no no why did I have to remember...
As the ringing in his ears faded, he started hearing Orla's voice, feeling her hand on his back. "It's okay, Lee, just get it out…"
The embarrassment rose up as the nausea faded. He forced himself to stand up, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. "I'm sorry." Why is Helvius standing all stiff and staring at me like that?
Orla gave him a comforting smile. "Hey, it's a rough day for everyone. I've seen much worse reactions from new sailors on their first fishing trip."
"Thanks." Fuck, I'm bad at...this. All of it.
He was about to ask Helvius if he was all right when Katniss abruptly reached for an arrow to load her bow. "Someone's coming."
Helvius also had his own bow drawn and ready when a sixth disheveled person came stumbling into the clearing, carrying a thick coil of wire in one hand and a machete in the other, moving at a much slower pace than the rest of them had been.
"Beetee's dead," Kori Aoki said before anyone else could get a word out. "Is this everybody?"
"Guess so," Haymitch said after a pause. "Kori, I'm…"
She cut him off. "We should get moving."
No time for condolences, I guess.
Six cannons fired as they worked their way deeper into the jungle, Kori leading and sometimes hacking open the way with her machete, followed by Katniss, Haymitch, Orla, and Lee, with Helvius taking up the rear. Lee saw Katniss keep looking back at the One as if she expected an arrow in her back at any moment.
Apparently there hadn't been anything in the Cornucopia besides weapons. Katniss had grabbed a knife for Haymitch along with her bow and arrows, and Orla had made it out with a trident. At one point, as they stopped to rest and Orla suggested veering west towards a body of water she thought she'd seen from her pedestal, Helvius slipped the dagger out of his belt and handed it to Lee. "Just in case," he said. Other than that, he was oddly quiet.
Is he angry with me?
This jungle wasn't particularly warm, but it was humid. Vines hung off almost every branch and lay in tangled masses across wide swathes of the forest floor. The occasional brightly-colored insect or amphibian could be seen scurrying away as the alliance moved by.
Lee started to have trouble keeping himself present again. The realization that everyone's raincoats were apparently color-coded by district gave him something concentrate on for a bit.
Olive green for One, light brown for Three, dark blue for Four, orange for Six, black for Twelve. He understood the logic behind Four and Twelves colors. Railway and hovercraft landing signs are often orange, so maybe Six's color makes sense, too. No idea about Three and One.
The sun was almost at the horizon when they broke out of the jungle and onto a white-sanded beach. The calm blue water, stretching out to the horizon and dotted with tiny green islands, glittered with fiery colors where it reflected the sunset.
Orla crouched down by the water's edge and breathed in deeply. "Saltwater," she called over her shoulder.
"Well, shit." Katniss glanced at Haymitch, who had been visibly struggling to keep up for the past few hours. "Might as well stop for the night, anyway. Water's not in the jungle, either."
No sooner had she finished speaking than a silver parachute came floating down and landed on the sand near them, a number 12 emblazoned on the material. A pair of empty plastic water bottles hung from it, clicking together along with a small faucet-like metal object.
They all passed the metal thing around for a minute before Katniss spoke up. "I think it's a spile, like for getting maple sap except...Oh." Her expression twisted. "They put water in the fucking trees again." With that, she grabbed the spile from Orla's hands and the knife from Haymitch's belt, then marched off towards the nearest tree.
Helvius blinked. "Um... again?"
"They did the same thing during the last Quarter Quell. That clock arena? I'm sure all of you have seen some reruns...The entire place was a jungle." Haymitch grimaced. "As mentors, we found out about the water thing early, but me and Katniss didn't end up using that information ourselves…for obvious reasons…" He walked off to join Katniss.
Before long, Katniss had coaxed a thin stream of water out of the tree. While everyone got a drink, Orla offered to see if she could find some seafood.
"Good idea," Katniss said. "Kori, help her. Lee, you and your boyfriend can fill up the water bottles and see about finding edible plants after that. I'm going hunting."
"What about me?" Haymitch demanded.
"You're going to rest." Katniss gave him a stern look and went to retrieve her bow and arrows, seeming to miss Haymitch's returned glare. She slipped off into the jungle without another word.
While Orla and Kori moved off along the beach and Haymitch grumbled his way over to another tree to lean against, Lee picked up the water bottles and went to start filling them.
He'd just screwed the cap on the first one and was going to put it down and grab the second one when Helvius said, "What happened, Lee?"
"What?" The water from the spile trickled onto the ground behind him as he faced Helvius. "What are you…"
"At the Cornucopia. You said Shimmer went after you, then you threw up. What happened?"
Lee turned back to the tree, throat tightening. "Axela. She...she went for Shimmer. Got in the way. To buy me time."
A few seconds later, the second water bottle dropped from his hand as Helvius gripped his shoulder and pulled him around into a tight hug. "I'm sorry," the One whispered. "I'm so, so sorry…"
"It's not your fault," Lee managed to say, but leaned into the taller man.
"She went after you because of me."
"I was cannon fodder to her and most of Panem long before that." Lee pulled away, gently. "Come on; we've got work to do, Hal."
"Fine." Helvius rubbed his eyes. "You're not cannon fodder, Lee."
"Well, not with you watching my back, right?"
They finished with the water bottles, removed the spile from the tree and stopped up the hole with leaves, then started scouring the edge of the jungle for potential food. By the time Katniss emerged from the wood with a pair of dead, large rat-like creatures, Lee and Helvius had tracked down some nuts and tart purple berries they recognized from the edible plants station in the Training Center. Around the time the Twelve got a small fire with little smoke going, Orla and Kori returned from up the beach with a pile of clams carried in the sponsor parachute. Another parachute arrived shortly afterward, marked with a number 4 and carrying a small pot of spicy sauce to go along with the clams and a fish-shaped loaf of green-tinted bread.
"Thank you, Finnick and Annie! I love you!" Orla called to the sky.
Even split between six people, it all made a good meal by Arena standards. Lee didn't taste it much.
The fire had been put out, darkness had fallen, and a crescent moon had appeared when the anthem began to play.
"Time to see what competition is left," Helvius muttered as the seal in the sky was replaced by a portrait.
Beetee Latier. Sola Vesper. Darien Lopez. Axela. Lee felt Helvius's hand close over his. Bonnie Springfield. Chaff Fallow.
"I'll take first watch," Katniss said as soon as the music died away. "Since the sun went down, I've been hearing weird clicking in the trees. So let's stay on the beach."
No one, least of all Lee, found anything in that worth arguing over. Haymitch seemed to already be half-asleep.
Six gone, eighteen left, with how much longer left to go?