Peeta drops the sheath and buries his knife into the monkey's back, stabbing it again and again until it releases its jaw. He kicks the mutt away, bracing for more. Katniss has his arrows now, I have a loaded bow, and Finnick at my back, breathing hard but not actively engaged.
"Come one, then! Come on!" shouts Peeta, panting with rage. But something has happened to the monkeys. They are withdrawing, backing up to the trees, fading into the jungle, as if some unheard voice calls them away. A Gamemaker's voice, telling them this is enough.
"Get her," Katniss says to Peeta. "We'll cover you."
Peeta gently lifts up the morphling and carries her the last few yards to the beach while Finnick and I keep our weapons at the ready. But except for the orange carcasses on the ground, the monkeys are gone. Peeta lays the morphling on the sand. I watch as Katniss cuts away the material over her chest, revealing the four deep puncture wounds. Blood slowly trickles from them, making them look far less deadly than they are. The real damage is inside. By the position of the openings, I feel certain the beast ruptured something vital, a lung, maybe even her heart.
She lies on the sand, gasping like a fish out of water. Sagging skin, sickly green, her ribs as prominent as a child's dead of starvation. Surely she could afford food, but turned to the morphling just as Haymitch turned to drink, I guess. Everything about her speaks of waste — her body, her life, the vacant look in her eyes. I hold one of her twitching hands, unclear whether it moves from the poison that affected our nerves, the shock of the attack, or withdrawal from the drug that was her sustenance. There is nothing we can do. Nothing but stay with her while she dies.
"I'll watch the trees," Finnick says before walking away. I would like to walk away, too, but she grips mine and Katniss' hand so tightly I would have to pry off her fingers, and I don't have the strength for that kind of cruelty. I think of Monty and Calyptus, how I couldn't save them either even though I tried so hard.
Peeta crouches down on the other side, beside Katniss, and strokes her hair. When he begins to speak in a soft voice, it seems almost nonsensical, but the words aren't for us. "With my paint box at home, I can make every color imaginable. Pink. As pale as a baby's skin. Or as deep as rhubarb. Green like spring grass. Blue that shimmers like ice on water."
The morphling stares into Peeta's eyes, hanging on to his words.
"One time, I spent three days mixing paint until I found the right shade for sunlight on white fur. You see, I kept thinking it was yellow, but it was much more than that. Layers of all sorts of color. One by one," says Peeta.
The morphling's breathing is slowing into shallow catch breaths.
"I haven't figured out a rainbow yet. They come so quickly and leave so soon. I never have enough time to pasture them. Just a bit of blue here or purple there. And then they fade again. Back into the air." says Peeta.
The morphling seems mesmerized by Peeta's words. Entranced. She lifts up a trembling hand and paints what I think might be a flower on Peeta's cheek.
"Thank you," he whispers. "That looks beautiful."
For a moment, the morphling's face lights up in a grin and she makes a small squeaking sound. Then her bloody hand falls back onto her chest, she gives one last huff of air, and the cannon fires. The grip that she has on Katniss' hand releases.
Peeta carries her out into the water. He returns and sits beside Katniss while I stand to the side. The morphling floats out towards the Cornucopia for a while, then the hovercraft appears and a four-pronged claw drops, encases her, carries her into the night sky, and she's gone.
My eyes grow watery with tears as one slips down my cheek. I didn't know her, not really. I've seen her a couple of times. Never even spoken to her. But she gave her life for the cause.
Finnick rejoins us, his fist full of mine and Katniss' arrows still wet with monkey blood. He drops them beside us on the sand. "Thought you might want these."
"Thanks," we both say. I wade into the water to wash off the gore, from my weapons, my wounds. By the time I return to the jungle to gather some moss to dry them, all the monkeys' bodies have vanished .
"Where did they go?" I ask.
"We don't know exactly. The vines shifted and they were gone," says Finnick.
We stare at the jungle, numb and exhausted. In the quiet, I notice that the spots where the fog droplets touched my skin have scabbed over. They've stopped hurting and begun to itch. Intensely. I try to think of this as a good sign. They are healing. I glance over at Finnick, then to Peeta, and see they're both scratching at their damaged faces.
"Don't scratch," Katniss says as she too has noticed this. "You'll only bring infection. Think it's safe to try the water again?"
We make our way to the tree Peeta was tapping. Finnick and I stand with our weapons poised while he works the spile in, but no threat appears. Peeta's found a good vein and the water begins to gush from the spile. We slack our thirst, let the warm water pour over our itching bodies. We fill a handful of shells with drinking water and go back to the beach.
It's still night, though dawn can't be too many hours away. Unless the Gamemakers want it to be. "Why don't you three get some rest" Katniss says. "I'll watch for a while.
"No, Katiss, I'd rather," says Finnick. She looks at him for a moment before nodding her head.
"All right, Finnick, thanks," she says. She lies down on the sand next to Peeta, who drifts off at once.
I lie down in the sand next to Finnick, but I don't go to sleep. I don't say anything either, cause I know that Finnick needs some time alone to mourn Mags. I look up at the stars and wonder how Nolan is doing. I know he is still alive, but I don't know where he is.
After a few hours I sit up. I turn my head to look over at Finnick who stares into the jungle. "Are you okay?" I ask him although I already know that he isn't.
He doesn't turn to look at him, instead he keeps his eyes straight forward. "I'm sorry, I don't exactly know what you're going through but I'm here if you ever want to talk." I tell him. Him losing Mags would be like me losing Willow, and I can't even imagine the pain that would cause me because she has become my mother figure. I can't even begin to imagine how Finnick is feeling, he knew Mags basically his whole life.
I see him nod his head but doesn't speak. I lay back down. I must have dozed off, because when I open my eyes it is midmorning. There is a mat of grass suspended on branches above us that shield our faces from the sunlight. I sit up and see that Finnick's hands have not been idle. Two woven bowls are filled with fresh water. A third holds a mess of shellfish.
Finnick sits on the sand, cracking them open with a stone. "They're better fresh," he says, ripping a chunk of flesh from a shell and popping it into his mouth. His eyes are still puffy but I don't say anything.
My stomach begins to growl as the smell of food and I reach for one. The sight of my fingernails, caked with blood, stops me. I've been scratching my skin raw in my sleep.
"You know, if you scratch you'll bring on infection." says Finnick.
"That's what I've heard," I say. I go to the saltwater and wash off the blood, trying to decide which I hate more, pain or itching.
From behind me on the beach I hear Katniss call out. "Hey, Haymitch, if you're not too drunk, we could use a little something for our skin."
It's almost funny how quickly the parachute appears above her. "About time," she says.
I make my way back over to the group as Katniss sits down in the sand. She screws the lid off of the tube. Inside is a thick, dark ointment with a pungent smell, a combination of tar and pine needles. I wrinkle my nose as Katniss squeezes a glob of medicine on her palm and begins to massage it into her leg. Once she has some for her other leg she tosses the tube to Finnick, who eyes her doubtfully.
"It's like you're decomposing," says Finnick. But I guess the itching wins out, because after a minute Finnick begins to treat his own skin, too. Then he hands me the tube.
"Poor Finnick. Is it the first time in your life you haven't looked pretty?" Katniss says.
"It must be. The sensation's completely new. How have you managed it all these years?" he asks. I smile at that as I rub down my own skin.
"Just avoid mirrors. You'll forget about it," she says.
"Not if I keep looking at you," he says.
We slather ourselves down, even taking turns rubbing the ointment into each other's backs where the undershirts don't protect our skin. "I'm going to wake Peeta," Katniss says.
"No, wait," I say. "Let's do it together. Put our faces right in front of his."
Well, there's so little opportunity for fun left in our lives, that Katniss agrees. We position ourselves on either side of him. Me and Finnick take the same side. Our faces are inches from his nose, and give him a shake. "Peeta. Peeta, wake up," Katniss says in a soft, singsong voice.
His eyelids flutter open and then he jumps like we've stabbed him. "Aa!"
The three of us fall back in the sand, laughing our heads off. Every time we try to stop, we look at Peeta's attempts to maintain a distainful expression and it sets us off again. By the time we pull ourselves together, I get the sense that Katniss is starting to trust Finnick and I more.
A parachute lands near to us with a fresh loaf of bread. Finnick turns the bread over in his hands, examining the crust. He and I know that it is a message from Haymitch, telling us to keep Katniss and Peeta alive at all costs. After a while Finnick looks up from the bread. "This will go well with the shellfish."
While Katniss helps Peeta coat his skin with the ointment, Finnick and I deftly clean the mean from the shellfish. We gather round and eat the delicious sweet flesh with the salty bread from District 4.
We all look monstrous — the ointment seems to be causing some of the scabs to peel — but I'm glad for the medicine. Not just because it gives me relief from the itching, but also because it acts as protection from the blazing white sin in the pink sky. By its position, I estimate it must be going on ten o'clock, that we've been in the arena for about a day. Eleven of us are dead, Thirteen alive. Somewhere in the jungle, nine are concealed. Three of four are the Careers. And I know Nolan and Johanna are two more.
For me, the jungle has quickly evolved from a place of protection to a sinister trap. I know at some point we'll be forced to reenter its depths, either to hunt or be hunted, but for right now I'm planning to stick to our little beach. And I don't hear any of the others suggesting we do otherwise. For a while the jungle seems almost static, humming, shimmering, but not flaunting its dangers. Then, in the distance, comes screaming. Across from us, a wedge of the jungle begins to vibrate. An enormous wave crests high on the hill, topping the trees and oraring down the slope. It hits the existing seawater with such force that, even though we're as far as we can get from it, the surf bubbles up around our knees, setting our few possessions afloat. Among the four of us, we manage to collect everything before it's carried off, except for our chemical-riddled jumpsuits, which are so eaten away that no one cares if we lose them.
A cannon fires. We see the hovercraft appear over the area where the wave began and pluck a body from the trees. Tweleve. Instantly I begin to worry about Nolan. He knows how to swim, but not that great. I have to keep telling myself that it wasn't him to calm myself down.
The circle of water slowly calms down, having absorbed the giant wave. We rearrange our things back on the wetsand and are about to settle down when me and Katniss both spot them. Four figures, about two spokes away, stumbling onto the beach. "There," she says quietly, nodding in the newcomers' direction. Peeta and Finnick follow our gaze. As if by previous agreement, we all fade back into the shadows of the jungle.