Welcome back! Time to see what's in store for our protagonists this time. What will transpire now that the kids have crossed paths with Nessa's team? This chapter will say it all.
Warning: an unexpected twist may or may not be waiting for us in this chapter…
The Peacekeepers' Revenge
"Everyone! It's one of the game players Rue was with when we saw her on TV!" Yuri exclaimed.
"What?" Lili shouted. "Where?"
"On the ladder we bumped into! There's a rope tied to the ladder too, but I can't see the other end of it!"
The girl on the ladder gasped. "Who are you? How old are you?! What are you doing driving this…this…"
Yuri eyed her nervously. "Um…hi. I'm Yuri. And I'm five years old."
"Five?!" Now the girl looked even more scared than she had when he'd first spotted her shortly after hearing her scream, which was how he and his friends had discovered her presence. "That's way too young to be driving a rocket ship, or any kind of vehicle!"
"Well, not when you have a Big Big Friend," admitted Yuri. He then perked up in realization and asked, "Oh! Have you seen my friend's best friend? Her name is Nessa, and she swapped bodies with a woman named Effie Trinket."
The girl's already-wide eyes widened even more. "You're one of Nessa's friends? From America?!"
Yuri gasped. He quickly nodded, and then turned toward the open trunk door leading back inside the rocket. Next he shouted, "Lili! The game player on the ladder knows Nessa!"
"My name's Sonia," the girl clarified, still clearly scared. On the other hand, unbeknownst to Yuri, she felt the tiniest hint of excitement. Nessa had told her about Lili back in the arena. She was her best friend, the person she was looking forward to reuniting with the most, and now here she was, about to meet her in person! If Sonia wasn't riding on a rocket ship from the outside and holding onto half of the hovercraft's ladder for dear life, she would have been very delighted.
"She does?!" Lili shrilled.
"Yeah," said Astilbo. "Nessa was the woman who wanted to get Rue and the others out of the arena. All the tributes knew it was her. I know we should have told you that sooner, but you were so mad at Matt, and we didn't want any of the other districts' Peacekeepers to find us—"
Soon Lili was climbing onto the rocket's roof too, and the moment she saw her and Yuri officially introduced both girls to each other, Sonia moaned uncomfortably (for she now knew there were two young kids inside this rocket) and asked, "How many of you are in there?"
"You'll find out once you get in," decided Lili. "Come on! Then you can show us where Nessa is!"
Sonia nervously glanced over the two kids' heads at the suspenseful scene going on behind them. She could see the hovercraft she and her allies had hijacked was chasing after the rocket as it flew forward, and the abducted vehicle was picking up speed and therefore gaining on them. What remained of the hovercraft's ladder was now descending from the vehicle, and Sonia understood that Geolo was just as determined to collect her as Nessa's American friends were. However, at that moment, she began hearing some clanging noises coming from down below, and instantly realized that a troop of Peacekeepers was targeting her and the rocket. Luckily, the soldiers' weapons (which were fortunately not explosives of any kind) only succeeded in hitting the bottom of the rocket, which was apparently strong enough to easily resist every attack that came its way. Due to this, the Peacekeepers didn't open fire for too long, for they realized they would have to try something else. Yikes—she had to get these kids to safety before that something was tried!
"Actually," Sonia quickly said, "Nessa's in that giant hovercraft that's coming toward us. I can help you find her once we're close enough to its ladder, but one of you will have to stay in the rocket. If no one's driving it, it's probably going to crash, and that will just make it easier for the bad guys chasing us to catch up."
Lili frowned in what Sonia had to admit in surprise was a snobbish kind of way. "I know exactly who should stay in the rocket." She then peered into the rocket's exit and demanded, "Matt?"
Another young boy's voice was immediately heard from inside the rocket. "Me? No way. It…should be…Fern."
"What?!" exclaimed the voice of a slightly older girl from inside the rocket. "You know, I was just about to volunteer in your place until you said that. You can just forget about it now!"
Suddenly, all at once, Sonia forgot all about how scared she was to be in her current position. A certain memory from back in the arena was coming back to her: a particular piece of the quiet conversation she'd had with Nessa and Foxface right before they'd first invited Geolo into their team.
Flashback - "Three Days & One Reveal," but this time through Sonia's POV
"No," murmured Foxface, "it is too late to recruit him. He is already on the Careers' team…and he sounds happy about it."
"Maybe he's just pretending to be happy," suggested Nessa. As soon as those words came out of her mouth, a wave of sadness seemed to come over her. Sonia jumped a little when she noticed this, but before she could even open her mouth to ask why her ally's mood had suddenly changed, she was inadvertently interrupted.
"Pretending to be happy as in, pretending he wants to be the Careers' ally when he would rather be ours?" Foxface asked.
Another wave of sadness came over Nessa, and Sonia frowned. "Uh, Nessa…are you implying that you've gone through something like that yourself at one point?"
Nessa only shook her head and steered the subject back to the boy from District 3.
End of flashback
It was LILI. She was the reason why Nessa had experienced that short moment of sadness seconds before their first conversation with Geolo. The kind of behaviour she was currently displaying just wasn't the kind of thing real friends did—Sonia knew that. And yet Yuri wasn't calling her out on it despite clearly not liking what she was doing? If Nessa hadn't called Foxface out for referring to her as an idiot, she most likely hadn't called Lili out for throwing another friend of hers under the bus (and prompting him to do the same to another friend of his) either. Even though it was wrong and needed to stop. All it took were those thoughts, and just like that, everything made sense.
Sonia gritted her teeth, and slowly, her eyes narrowed. It was as if Nessa was Geolo, Lili was Glimmer, and Yuri and the friend Lili had just addressed—Matt, she'd called him—were Tally and the other tributes. Nessa was a very sweet person! She had such a young personality along with no experience whatsoever with violence and tragedies; and yet she had saved her from at least one Career several times and was risking everything to make sure as many tributes as possible didn't have to die in the arena. Out of all the people currently in Panem, Nessa deserved this kind of treatment the least. And to know that the person putting her in the same mentally painful situation as Geolo was none other than her best friend, whom Nessa had a large amount of respect for despite her attitude…well, that wasn't something the tribute was about to let go unnoticed.
Meanwhile, Yuri, Lili, and the kids inside the rocket were still arguing over who should stay in their vehicle. By this point, Matt had thrown Fern's apparent twin sister Iris under the bus after Fern herself had refused his request, and then Iris had bluntly decided that Lili should stay behind instead, since she was the one who'd started pointing fingers in the first place. Now Lili was clenching her fists and barking, "WHAT? Just because I said Matt should do it doesn't mean I'm the one who should do it!"
"Will you guys be quiet?!" Sonia finally screamed. "The last thing Nessa needs right now is an argument where all of her friends are being so selfish! Haven't any of you, at any point in your lives, asked yourselves if you arguing is what she would have wanted?!"
"It is what she wants!" Lili retorted. Yuri, however, seemed to realize Sonia's point, because once he heard what she said, he slowly but surely developed a look of half worry and half guilt.
"Oh really?" Sonia told Lili.
"Well, she does try to stop us from fighting every time we fight. But it doesn't matter! 'Cause after that, she always does what I say and lets me win the fight."
Maybe it was the fact that Nessa had saved her life twice talking, or maybe it was the fact that someone as sweet and innocent as her was in Panem, a place that couldn't be less merciful. But once she heard that comment, Sonia tightened her grip on the ladder's bottom half. Before she even knew what she was saying, she declared, "You know what? Iris, I can't see you, but you're right. Lili should be the one who looks after this thing until it can be landed safely!"
Lili's eyes widened in shock. "Hey!"
The hovercraft flew a few inches higher and then soared above the rocket before Sonia could reply. In a second, Katniss was climbing down the ladder and shouting, "Sonia, get in! Geolo's spotted Thresh, and he wants to make sure you're safe before he goes to get him!"
"Katniss, these kids over here are Nessa's friends! From her country! Can you believe it? This is Lili, this is Yuri, and—"
"Introduce them once you're all up here! We don't have a moment to lose!"
"Wait a second," Lili realized, once she spotted Katniss, "you were on TV with Rue too!"
Sonia carefully let go of the ladder and began crawling forward so she could reach the ladder. "Save the introductions, Lili. First things f—"
Ping.
Sonia's voice trailed off as she felt something small but sharp suddenly land in the back of her neck. She quickly realized what it was and yanked it out, but it was too late. She could already feel herself losing consciousness, and all she could do before fully succumbing to the substance of the tranquilizer dart was say, "Yuri…the ladder…now!" Then she blacked out, tumbled off the rocket, and landed into the arms of the Peacekeeper who had shot the dart. The soldiers chasing the kids must have called for backup.
"Get back inside the rocket," Katniss instructed Yuri and Lili. "Whatever happens, do not focus on me. You can't let those men capture you!"
Yuri obeyed her orders without any objections, but unfortunately, Lili didn't. Her best friend was in the hovercraft just above her, and now that she was this close to finding her at last, she wasn't going to let such a good chance slip away. So, as soon as Katniss had climbed back into the hovercraft, she jumped onto the ladder and started to climb up after her.
"Lili, no!" Yuri cried. He instantly leapt up as well and stopped his friend before she could go too far. "Nessa's friend just told us to stay in the rocket ship. She wants us to be safe!"
"Well I'm not going back in there until I know for sure that Nessa is okay."
"But we can't see how she's doing until the Peacekeepers are gone!"
"I have to go see her, Yuri! The Freaky Friday Fairies might think Nessa wants a break from me, but nobody knows her the way I do. She must be so scared being away from me!"
"I know, but—"
"No buts. She's my best friend, and besides. You're not the boss, and neither is that teenager with the bow and arrows!"
While Yuri and Lili were caught up in their argument, Katniss made it into the pilot's cabin, now even more distraught. She wasted no time in telling Geolo about the kids' presence and Sonia's capture, but despite her anxiety, she kept the volume of her voice low so Nessa wouldn't be worried.
"Sonia's…gone?" Geolo asked, shocked.
"I don't know if she's dead, but I know she's unconscious. The Peacekeepers have got her!" Katniss then headed back to the hovercraft's exit.
"Wait!" Geolo said. "You're not going back to get her, are you?"
"As long as Thresh isn't here, there's time." There was an icy edge to her voice as that last comment came out, and Geolo could only watch in dismay as Katniss headed for the hovercraft's exit. She might not have been able to save Peeta, but if she could save another one of her teammates, that would at least be one thing she'd have control over. But Geolo knew something she didn't: it was too late. If it really had been a tranquilizer dart that had allowed the Peacekeepers to capture Sonia, then there was nothing they could do for her.
Yet before he could tell Katniss that it was too late and why, his train of thought abruptly changed course. Almost immediately after she'd disappeared down the ladder, he heard Katniss exclaiming, "What are you doing here?!"
"I wanna go see Nessa!" shouted the voice of a young girl, whom Geolo could only assume was—
"Lili!" Nessa called from the cargo bay. "Lili, is that really you?"
No. She couldn't go out there. Not now. Quickly, Geolo pressed the autopilot button and rushed into the cargo bay. When he got there, Nessa had opened her eyes, left her seat, and was carefully setting Foxface's head on it in her place (all the while grimacing as she finally saw how deep the tracker-removal-caused booboos were), with Rue nervously telling her to wait. Foxface, meanwhile, was asleep and completely unaware of what was happening.
"I promise I'll be right back," replied Nessa. "I missed her so much! I have to help her get into the—"
"AAAAH!"
Geolo, Nessa, and Rue froze. Three people had just screamed in unison, and two of those people were Katniss and Lili. As for the third person, Nessa recognized his voice as Yuri's right away, and she started to run toward the vehicle's exit to save the trio from whatever was going on.
"Nessa, no!" Geolo yelled. "Katniss is a strong tribute. She can get herself and your friends out of it. We'll be better off going to save Thresh."
"But Lili's in trouble! And so is Yuri!"
"She'll be fine," Rue assured her. "But if we don't get Thresh back, he and Foxface won't be. I know this is hard for you, but we can't help your friends. Not yet, anyway." She then turned to Geolo. "Wait a second…you don't think they were the ones driving the…"
"They were, and are," he confessed. "I don't know if anyone else is in the rocket because Katniss kind of rushed it when she told me what she saw, but I have a feeling Lili and Yuri didn't come alone."
Reluctantly, Nessa sighed and returned to the cargo bay to watch over Foxface. Simultaneously, Geolo went back to the pilot's cabin, while Rue bent down and peered through the hovercraft's exit to see what caused Nessa's friends and Katniss to scream. When she saw the trio running away from several Peacekeepers, two of whom were carrying dart guns, she quickly pieced together what had happened. The wicked soldiers had tried to knock out the threesome with their darts, but Katniss had witnessed it in the nick of time and leapt off the ladder with the kids in tow. As for the rocket that she'd heard rammed into the ladder while Sonia had been on it, it was now following Katniss and the two kids as they ran.
What Rue didn't expect to see, however, was one Peacekeeper just walking out of her sights, carrying an unconscious Sonia in his arms. This news was something she, for the sake of staying honest and keeping everyone up to date, immediately spread to Nessa after learning Geolo hadn't told her about that piece either—and of course hearing the news didn't make her ally feel any better.
"I really am sorry," Rue told her. "I don't like having to say this, but we have to save Thresh first. If we don't, then…maybe he'll survive, but I can't even get into what'll happen to Foxface. We can go back for Sonia and your friends once he's with us and we've all received our medicines, but for now…all we can do for them is hope Katniss can keep the Peacekeepers at bay long enough for us to be ready."
Then Geolo, who was currently steering them away from the rocket and towards Thresh, instructed, "Both of you, stay with Fox until the time is right. Things are about to get a little fiery outside."
"Fiery?" Nessa gulped.
"Don't worry, it's coming from us. Not to us." And with that, Geolo pressed a button on the hovercraft's control panel, causing a missile to shoot out and hit the rope, blowing a chunk of its middle area up without striking anyone on either side of the rest of the rope. The explosion was very loud, however—loud enough to attract the attention of several Capitol residents, along with a certain undercover third group of heroes.
Despite his knowledge that the Peacekeepers were still chasing the little kids' rocket with their trucks and had successfully summoned a backup troop, Thresh was startled when he heard an explosion happen nearby. He was even more surprised when, right after the explosion took place, the sharp tugging his rope was giving him suddenly stopped. Which caused the insanely tight feeling around his waist to vanish abruptly, and himself to roll off the roof of the Peacekeeper van and onto the van's hood.
Since he was still clutching her backpack, using his other hand to hold the needle, Clove sailed off the roof as well and found herself dangling in front of the hood, just above the road. She screamed as soon as this happened, but she quickly fell silent when the van screeched to a stop right after that. She and Thresh were instantly both sent tumbling onto the road, thankfully with neither of them getting hurt because the van they'd just fallen off of happened to be the one in the very front of the group. Although, that didn't mean they weren't already injured from bruises they'd received when bouncing from one Peacekeeper van to another…
Next thing Thresh knew, the hijacked hovercraft was hovering above him, its ladder descending low enough for him to reach. He then heard Three shouting, "Come on, get in! Quick!"
Thresh let go of Two's backpack and used the hand that had been holding it to climb up the ladder. He heard the Career climbing up right behind him a second later, and he immediately had to hold back a groan. He REALLY wasn't happy about having to bring her along, but as long as the Peacekeepers were out here, he didn't have a choice. Once they got out of the Capitol, he was going to start considering getting rid of her. Or he would do it in a few seconds, if she revealed at the last minute that everything she'd said in the elevator had been lies. But for now, he was just going to have to put up with her presence and hope everything she had said really was true.
Once he was in the hovercraft, the first thing Thresh did was holler Rue's name, to make sure she was okay. She was thankfully still in the cargo bay with Nessa and Five, perfectly fine aside from her tracker removal wound, and she instantly replied, "Most of us are okay!"
"Most?" Thresh inquired. He dashed into the cargo bay. He wanted to make sure everyone received the medicine they needed before Two got there, in case she really had been lying. If she killed Rue or left her with the Peacekeepers, all because he hadn't finished her off when he should have, he would never let himself live it down.
"I'll explain everything," promised Rue, once he entered the room. "Did you find the medicine?"
"Right here," Thresh replied. He bent down towards Five, and with Nessa comforting her the whole time, he rolled up the tribute's left sleeve and inserted the needle into her arm, pressing down on its plunger to send the serum into her system. Five grimaced as the process transpired, but it was a very mild change in expression and she seemed to remain unconscious during the entire procedure.
"Don't worry," Nessa soothingly told her nonetheless, "that's only your medicine going where it needs to go. Your leg won't have to hurt anymore. You'll be okay."
Thresh glanced around the cargo bay. "Where's Twelve? Where's Eight?"
Rue started to answer those questions, but was interrupted when she heard a scream coming from the pilot's cabin. "Geolo," she gasped.
Quickly, Thresh unzipped the smaller pouch of his backpack and tossed out the ointment Two had helped him find. "Help yourself," he instructed Rue, before sprinting out of the cargo bay to find out what was going on in the pilot's cabin.
Luckily, he soon discovered that Three hadn't screamed because Two had attacked him in some way. He had only screamed because he'd seen her entering the pilot's cabin. Now he was sitting in his seat, tightening his seatbelt and stammering, "Y-you…w…what are you d…doing here?"
"Relax, genius," Two assured him. "I'm not here to do the other Careers a favour. I'm here to do you and your team a favour. Your real team."
"You um…do you…by real team, do you mean your friends in a way of trying to persuade me to rejoin the Career pack, or Nessa and the others?"
Two smiled. "So that's my replacement's name. Nessa."
"Don't go near him, Two," warned Thresh, stepping between the duo in an effort to protect his ally, whom he then glowered at. "Your tracker?"
"I'm going to take it out myself once we're out of the city, I promise," vowed Three. "It's just, with the Peacekeepers out there, Sonia captured, and Katniss trying to rescue her and Nessa's friends from home—"
"What?!" Thresh exclaimed. He then noticed Two looked half as surprised as he felt, and he caught himself starting to wonder if she truly had been honest with him about her meaning well. No; he couldn't go there. The girl was just as much of a psycho as the other three Careers. Who knew what was really going through her mind? There was a chance she was only half as surprised because she was really just relieved. Relieved that the one tribute who'd had a better private training session than her was either in danger or about to be.
Rue, who was holding the now-open ointment container and had apparently just rubbed some of the medicine on her arm's wound, stepped out of the cargo bay and jumped. "What is she doing here?"
"Who are you talking about?" Nessa called. She came out of the cargo bay next, carefully carrying a still-unconscious Foxface (who had also received some of the ointment) in her arms and keeping her injured arm and leg positioned horizontally. As soon as she saw Clove standing there, however, Nessa yelped in fear and almost but didn't drop her ally. The girl from District 2 had been so upset when she'd accidentally replaced her in the arena—without a doubt, she wanted to give her a big booboo even more than Cato, Glimmer, and Marvel had.
"Calm down," said Clove, "everything's okay. Really!" But on the inside, she was absolutely horrified by what she was saying to her replacement. Even though she was now on her way to gaining a much bigger reward than Hunger Games victors could ever receive, she still felt robbed by what Nessa had done back in her launch room. Being nice to her was among the last things she wanted to be doing right now. At this rate she was hoping that Fire Girl and that troublemaker from District 8 would be taken away by the Peacekeepers long before their allies could rescue them. Then she wouldn't have to pretend to be their friend and suffer more than she needed to. Her replacement—what was her name, Nessa—would then be the only sworn enemy of hers that she'd really need to put up with.
While Thresh reluctantly explained what had happened during his visit to the hospital, Geolo steered the hovercraft back the way they'd come and scanned the ground for Katniss. He had to find her and Nessa's friends, fast! However, he couldn't spot them anywhere. He did, though, glimpse an unconscious Sonia being transported into the back of a parked Peacekeeper van, and instantly a lump formed in his throat. She'd believed in him so profoundly and had comforted him when he'd desperately needed it, and now...there she was, helplessly tranquilized to unconsciousness, being detained by a bunch of merciless soldiers. And here he was, wanting to save her but knowing he couldn't.
It was simply too late, and he knew that because of something that had happened some time before the 74th Hunger Games had begun. Back in the gymnasium, two hours before his friendship with Tally shattered into pieces like a computer screen, Geolo had had a brief conversation with the male tribute from District 9. They'd just both happened to be at the campfire station, and since Geolo was anxious about practicing there due to his fear of fire, the boy from 9 had decided to assist him in getting a campfire set up.
The whole time, he had attempted unsuccessfully to ultimately coax Geolo out of his fear, and one of the methods he'd tried was saying, "You know, there's stuff out there that's much scarier than a simple campfire. One time this guy robbed a roadside shop back in my district, and he almost got away. Like, he really would have, if one of the fresher Peacekeepers hadn't hit him with a dart just before he took cover in a very convincing way. Man do those men think of everything! I mean, homing devices in dart serum, instead of the dart itself?! How do you do that?"
Before he knew it, Geolo was crying once again. Why hadn't he just stopped Sonia from going out to feel the rope?! If only he'd persuaded her to stay in the hovercraft, then she'd still have been able to leave the Capitol with them! Now that there was homing serum in her veins, they had no choice but to leave her behind! Only Capitol surgeons knew how to remove liquid trackers from their victims…darn, why did this have to happen? Why did it have to happen to Sonia?
Geolo would have let himself get carried away in his sadness, but he could still hear Thresh's speech in the background and knew he had to stay focused on the rest of the circumstances. So, even though it pained him to do so, he forced his attention away from Sonia and onto the topic everyone else was thinking about. Which of course made him become more and more nervous, though not entirely because he was unable to stop a part of him from remaining sad about losing you-know-who.
Yet still. Clove? On their team?! Her story was pretty believable, he had to admit, but was it true? Cato was (or at least had been) a downright sociopath, along with Marvel, while Glimmer was more in the psychopath department. But Clove…she was basically a combination of a sociopath and a psychopath—hotheaded and careless, but also very smart and strategic. Impulsive, vain, and calculating at the same time, with a love for killing that was so strong, Tally had said it made her nauseous during their first hour in the Training Centre's gymnasium. The day before she'd been humiliated by him and the Careers. Yeah; Careers in general were impossible to trust, but Clove was the most untrustworthy of them all.
However, when Geolo glanced at Rue and Nessa, and noticed them nervously but trustingly glancing at Thresh, he realized that he must have let Clove into the hovercraft for an important reason. He was, after all, one of the more reserved members of their team, only willing to trust others if it meant he and Rue would be safe. Clearly, there was something beneficial about letting this socio-psycho join their team; extremely beneficial. And now that he thought about it, Geolo was almost certain that the reason why Clove was here had to do with the Peacekeepers.
He sighed, trying not to think about the situation. Katniss was the one he was supposed to be concerned for. Maybe, due to being a former ally of the Careers' (and still feeling kind of overpowered by them despite everything, he hated to admit), he did feel pretty unsettled now that he was in close proximity with Clove, not to mention still feeling miserable because of the whole Sonia thing…but he also knew that if they made any wrong moves, the Girl On Fire would end up being inadvertently sacrificed too.
As soon as the hovercraft was no longer in their sights, Katniss scooped up Yuri and Lili and held them against her chest, quickening her pace as much as she could. Unfortunately the Peacekeepers immediately quickened their pace too. More darts were sent flying forward, presumably because the soldiers saw no point in targeting the rocket without weapons as strong as those on a hovercraft of their own. Though she ducked and dodged each one, successfully protecting both kids at the same time. All the while hoping that soon, she could get the duo to safety and lure the Peacekeepers away from them and the rocket so she could start fleeing and fighting.
However, before Katniss could go far in planning out how she was going to pull off such a plan, a loud explosion was heard, and the ground shook violently beneath her feet. The Peacekeepers were instantly thrown two inches forward, as was she, and they fell to their knees. The cruel men in white felt no pain from their stumble due to the strong protection their armour provided, and neither did Yuri and Lili, because Katniss mustered all her strength just in time and managed to keep them above the ground. Yet doing so meant putting pressure on both of her arms, which she remembered too late was a terrible mistake. In just a second, her arm—the one where her tracker had once been—was throbbing like crazy, and she was left sitting on the pavement, gasping and groaning in agony.
"Are you okay?" Yuri worriedly asked her.
"I'm fine," writhed Katniss. "Go! Save yourselves!"
Lili suspiciously eyed the tribute's shirt sleeves, one of which she was certain some kind of scrape (though she assumed it was smaller than it really was) was under. "I think you should put a band-aid on your arm."
"Please," Katniss begged, "run!"
Before either of the kids could object, the Peacekeepers made it to their feet, and Katniss had to cover her companions' eyes before they could peer over her and see they had their weapons pointed forward. Which only increased the pain she was in, but she pushed through it nevertheless. If anyone was going to join Sonia, she'd much rather it be her. Not them.
One of the Peacekeepers sneered, "You had such amazing talent and admirers, Miss Everdeen. It's shocking that you would dare throw it all away over an opportunity to leave your Games unfinished."
"I'm not going to ask you again," murmured Katniss. "Both of you, run. Now!" She then turned and looked straight at the rocket, then glanced back the other way, trying to tell the rocket's passengers to evacuate the area too. She didn't know for sure who was in there, but she had a feeling it was at least one person who was just as young and innocent as Yuri and Lili.
Reluctantly, both kids finally obeyed Katniss, who immediately stretched her arms out to shield them one more time. Not that any attacks from the Peacekeepers came at that moment—before they could react, Matt, determined to protect his friends and Katniss at the same time, pressed a button on the rocket ship's control panel. One that hadn't yet been pushed. And once he pressed it, a gigantic beige cloud was sent flying out from a compartment in the vehicle, engulfing the Peacekeepers and causing them to sneeze constantly and uncontrollably. After that, Daisy steered the rocket past the soldiers and Katniss, so they could pick up Yuri and Lili and prevent them from getting separated.
While Katniss took advantage of the kids' absence and the cloud's presence two seconds later by firing her arrows at the Peacekeepers' faces (the only parts of their bodies that weren't covered by white armour), Toolip stared at the button Matt had pressed in fascination. "What does that button do?" she asked.
"It sneezes fog that's made out of pepper," explained Matt. "You know, the sprinkly kind that comes from pepper shakers? The kind that makes you sneeze? I saw the button had a picture of a pepper shaker on it after we left District 11, and I thought that's what it did. And that we might need it."
"Now that is a nice touch," smiled Astilbo.
"But what are we supposed to do now?" Iris asked. "Katniss—she's the teenager that was helping Yuri and Lili—needs to get back with our sister and the other escaped tributes, and Nessa."
"And so do we," declared Matt. "Then we need to find Bongo and the rest of our friends and switch Nessa and Effie back."
Fern furrowed her brow. "What do you mean, 'switch her and Effie back?'"
"And who's Bongo?" added Daisy.
Matt did a face palm. He, Yuri, and Lili had been with these siblings for hours now, and while they had explained the parts about Nessa and two of Lili's relatives being trapped in Panem, they hadn't revealed a single detail about the body switch between Nessa and Effie Trinket. Or the fact that Bongo, Golias, Effie, Wish-Trish, and Objectiva were all somewhere in Panem too, trying to undo the switch. With no idea that the kids had followed in their footsteps.
Quickly, Matt told the five siblings everything they needed to know, while Daisy steered the rocket downward so that Yuri and Lili could reach it and climb back in. However, once he was finished his speech, Toolip screamed and exclaimed something he needed to know: yet another Peacekeeper van had arrived on the scene. It was now screeching to a halt in front of Yuri and Lili, blocking their path.
As for Katniss, she was nowhere to be seen.
Oh dear. Will someone come to the kids' rescue before anything too serious happens? Can Nessa's team avoid having to sacrifice yet another member? Find out in the next upcoming chapter.
Note: The scene where Lili and Matt tried to throw each other and some of Rue's sisters under the bus was not by any means intended to make them seem wicked or anything. That just happens to be one of the things they do in scary situations; when someone needs to do something they believe is scary, they (along with Yuri and Bongo, I'm sorry to say) will do anything to avoid having to do it themselves. Even if it means saying someone else should do it instead. I'm serious—the MBBF episode "Descent To The Downstairs" proved it.
And I'm also sorry to say this, but…don't think that was the only episode where Lili demandingly threw Matt under the bus. Because whenever she wants to spare Nessa from anything scary or catches Nessa disagreeing with her during a dispute against Yuri, Matt is always the one Lili turns to (particularly in the episode "Brickle Pickle"). Basically, whenever Nessa can't be Lili's sometimes-reluctant assistant, she automatically begins telling Matt to do everything she says, and whenever she does, she always does it in this angry kind of way. It's a sad fact, but it's also true.
I just thought I'd mention it, because while Lili is (to be perfectly honest; no offence intended) my least favourite character of the show, that doesn't mean I'm not aware she has a good side. She may have a few issues, but she's not TWISTED, like President Snow and the Peacekeepers. She does care about others, and Matt does too; they're just still learning, and that just happens to be how they would manage particular situations should they arise. But still, throwing people under the bus like that is wrong, especially in a scenario that intense, which was part of the reason why I had Sonia say something about it just before she was captured. Let's just say that watching every scene from "My Big Big Friend" where Lili takes her bossiness too far drives me as crazy as it drove her.
Anyways, now that that's cleared up…see you soon!