Beetee wants to inspect the tree before he has to rig it. Judging by the sun, it's about nine in the morning. We have to leave our beach soon, anyway. So we break camp, walk over to the beach that borders the lightning section, and head into the jungle. Beetee's still too weak to hike up the slope on his own, so Finnick and Peeta take turns carrying him. I let Johanna lead because it's a pretty straight shot up to the tree, and I figure she can't get us too lost. Katniss and I bring up the rear.
The dense, muggy air weighs on me. There's been no break from it since the Games began. I've sweated out buckets in the last two days, and even though I've had the fish, I'm craving salt. A piece of ice would be another good idea. Or a cold drink of water. I'm grateful for the fluid from the trees, but it's the same temperature as the seawater and the air and the other tributes and me.
As we near the tree, Finnick suggests Katniss take the lead. "Katniss can hear the force field," he explains to Beetee and Johanna.
"Hear it?" asks Beetee.
"Only with the ear the Capitol reconstructed," I say. I know she's not fooling Beetee with that story. Because surely he remembers that he showed me and her how to spot a force field, and probably it's impossible to hear force fields, anyway. But, for whatever reason, he doesn't question her claim.
"Then, by all means, let Katniss go first," he says, pausing a moment to wipe the steam off his glasses. "Force fields are nothing to play around with."
The lightning tree's unmistakable as it towers so high above the others. Katniss finds a bunch of nuts and makes everybody wait while she moves slowly up the slope, tossing the nuts ahead of her. My eyes are sweeping the greenery before me, catch sight of the rippled square in front of me and Katniss throws a nut directly in front of her and I hear it sizzle in confirmation.
"Just stay below the lightning tree," she tells the others.
We divide up duties. Finnick guards Beetee while he examines the tree, Johanna taps for water, Peeta and I gather nuts, and Katniss hunts nearby. There are a lot of nuts hanging from the trees and many more on the ground that has fallen. Peeta and I gather as much as we can carry. The sound of the ten o'clock wave reminds me we should get back, and we return to the others with pockets full of nuts. Katniss returns and cleans her kill, then she draws a line in the dirt a few feet from the force field as a reminder to keep back. The three of us settle down to roast nuts and sear cubes of rat.
Beetee is still messing around the tree, doing I don't know what, taking measurements and such. At one point he snaps off a sliver of bark, joins us, and throws it against the force field. It bounces back and lands on the ground, glowing. In a few moments, it returns to its original color. "Well, that explains a lot," says Beetee. I look over at Finnick, confused because it explains absolutely nothing to anyone but Beetee.
About this time we hear the sound of clicks rising from the sector adjacent to us. That means it's eleven o'clock. It's far louder in the jungle than it was on the beach last night. We listen internally.
"It's not mechanical," Beetee says decidedly.
"I'd guess insects," I say. "Maybe beetles."
"Something with pincers," adds Finnick.
The sound swells as if alerted by our quiet words to the proximity of living flesh. Whatever is making that clicking, I bet it could strip us to the bone in seconds.
"We should get out of here, anyway," says Johanna. "There's less than an hour before the lightning starts."
We don't go that far, though. Only to the identical tree in the blood-rain sections. We have a picnic of sorts, squatting on the ground, eating our jungle food, and waiting for the bolt that signals noon. At Beetee's request, Katniss climbs up into the canopy as the clicking begins to fade out. When she comes back down she says that then the lightning strikes, it's dazzling, even from here, even in the bright sunlight. It completely encompasses the distant tree, making it glow a hot blue-white and causing the surrounding air to crackle with electricity.
We take a circuitous route back to the ten o'clock beach. The sand is smooth and damp, swept clean by the recent wave. Beetee essentially gives us the afternoon off while he works with the wire. Since it's his weapon and the rest of us have to defer to his knowledge so entirely, there's the odd feeling of being let out of school early. At first, we take turns having naps in the shadowy edge of the jungle, but by late afternoon everyone is awake and restless.
We decide since this might be our last chance for seafood, to make a sort of feast or it. Under Finnick's guidance, we spear fish and gather shellfish, even dive for oysters. I like this part best, not because I have a big appetite for oysters. I only ever tasted them once, in the Capitol, and I couldn't get around the sliminess. But it's lovely, deep down under the water, like being in a different world. The water's very clear, and schools of bright-hued fish and strange sea flowers decorate the sand floor.
Johanna keeps watch while Finnick, Peeta, and Katniss clean and layout the seafood. I have never done anything like that before, so I didn't know how and I offered to keep watch with Johanna but she said that she didn't need help. So instead I sit beside Finnick and watch how he does it. Peeta just pried open an oyster when I hear him give a laugh. "Hey, look at this!" He holds up a glistening, perfect pearl about the size of a pea. "You know, if you put enough pressure on coal it turns to pearls," he says earnestly to Finnick and me.
"No, it doesn't," says Finnick dismissively. Katniss cracks up for some reason.
Peeta rinses the pearl off in the water and hands it to Katniss. "For you." Katniss holds it out in her palm and examines its iridescent surface in the sunlight.
"Thanks," she says, closing her fist around it.
The laughter drains from his eyes, as they stare so intensely into hers. I look down at the other oysters, trying to distract myself from listening in on their conversation, but it doesn't work.
"The locket didn't work, did it?" Peeta says, even though Finnick and I are right here and we can hear him. "Katniss?"
"It worked," she says.
"But not the way I wanted it to," he says, averting his glance. After that, he will look at nothing but oysters.
Just as we're about to eat, a parachute appears bearing two supplements to our meal. A small pot of spicy red sauce and yet another round of rolls from District 3. Finnick, of course, immediately counts them. "Twenty-four again," he says.
"Thirty-two rolls, then. We each take five, leaving two, which will never divide equally. It's bread for only one.
The salty fish, the succulent shellfish. Even the oysters seem tasty, vastly improved by the sauce. We gorge ourselves until no one can hold another bite, and even then there are leftovers. They won't keep, though, so we toss all the remaining food back into the water so the Careers won't get it when we leave. No one bothers about the shells. The wave should clear those away.
There's nothing to do now but wait. Finnick and I sit at the edge of the water, hand in hand, wordless. I think of how we finally admitted our feelings for one another when there is a great possibility that we might die in the coming hours. We don't mention that though, instead, I find comfort being in his presence.
The anthem begins, but there are no faces in the sky tonight. The audience will be restless, thirsting for blood. Beetee's trap holds enough promise, though, that the Gamemakers haven't sent in other attacks. Perhaps they are simply curious to see if it will work.
At what Finnick and I judge to be about nine, we leave our shell-strewn camp, cross to the twelve o'clock beach, and begin to quietly hike up the lightning tree in the light of the moon. Our full stomachs make us more uncomfortable and breathless than we were on the morning's climb. I begin to regret those last dozen oysters.
Beetee asks Finnick to assist him, and the rest of us stand guard. Before he even attaches any wire to the tree, Beetee unrolls yards and yards of the stuff. He has Finnick secure it tightly around a broken branch and lay it on the ground. Then they stand on either side of the tree, passing the spool back and forth as they wrap the wire around and around the trunk. At first, it seems arbitrary, then I see a pattern, like an intricate maze, appearing in the moonlight on Beetee's side. I wonder if it makes any difference how the wire's placed, or if this is merely to add to the speculation of the audience. I bet most of them know as much about electricity as I do.
The work on the trunk's completed just as we hear the wave begin. I've never really worked out at what point in the ten o'clock hour it erupts. There must be some buildup, then the wave itself, then the aftermath of the flooding. But the sky tells me ten-thirty.
This is when Beetee reveals the rest of the plan. Since we move more swiftly through the trees, he wants Johanna, Katniss, and me to take the coil down through the jungle, unwinding the wire as we go. We are to lay it across the twelve o'clock beach and drop the metal spool, with whatever is left, deep into the water, making sure it sinks. Then run for the jungle. If we go now, right now, we should make it to safety.
"I want to go with them as a guard," Peeta says immediately.
"You're too slow. Besides, I'll need you on this end. Katniss and Ember will guard," says Beetee. "There's no time to debate this. I'm sorry. If the girls are to get out of there alive, they need to move now." He hands the coil to Johanna.
I can tell that Katniss doesn't like this plan but she goes along with it. "It's okay," she tells Peeta. "We'll just drop the coil and come straight back up."
"Not into the lightning zone," Beetee reminds her. "Head for the tree in the one-to-two o'clock sector. If you find you're running out of time, move over one more. Don't even think about going back on the beach, though, until I can assess the damage."
I nod my head, but I know that Beetee will never make it back down to the beach because we are in the home stretch now. At midnight, they are coming for us. I walk over to Finnick. I take his face in my hands. "Don't worry. I'll see you at midnight." I give him a kiss and he nods his head and I step back toward Johanna and Katniss. "Ready?"
"Why not?" says Johanna with a shrug. "You guys guard, I'll unwind. We can trade off later."