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 to 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 most swiftly through the trees, he wants Johanna 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.
After the moment with the pearl, I know he's less willing than ever to let me
out of his sight.
“You're too slow. Besides, I'll need you on this end. Katniss
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 don't like the plan any more than Peeta does. How can I
protect him at a distance? But Beetee's right. With his leg, Peeta is too slow
to make it down the slope in time. Johanna and I are the fastest and most
sure-footed on the jungle floor. I can't think of any alternative. And if I
trust anyone here besides Peeta, it's Beetee.
“It's okay,” I tell Peeta. “We'll just drop the coil and come
straight back up.”
“Not into the lightning zone,” Beetee reminds me. “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 take Peeta's face in my hands. “Don't worry. I'll see you
at midnight.” I give him a kiss and, before he can object any further, I let go
and turn to Johanna. “Ready?”
“Why not?” says Johanna with a shrug. She's clearly no
happier about being teamed up than I am. But we're all caught up in Beetee's
trap. “You guard, I'll unwind. We can trade off later.”
Without further discussion, we head down the slope. In fact
there's very little discussion between us at all. We move at a pretty good clip,
one manning the coil, the other keeping watch. About halfway down, we hear the
clicking beginning to rise, indicating it's after eleven.
“Better hurry,” Johanna says. “I want to put a lot of
distance between me and that water before the lightning hits. Just in case Volts
miscalculated something.”
“I'll take the coil for a while,” I say. It's harder work
laying out the wire than guarding, and she's had a long turn.
“Here,” Johanna says, passing me the coil.
Both of our hands are still on the metal cylinder when
there's a slight vibration. Suddenly the thin golden wire from above springs
down at us, bunching in tangled loops and curls around our wrists. Then the
severed end snakes up to our feet.
It only takes a second to register this rapid turn of events.
Johanna and I look at each other, but neither of us has to say it. Someone not
far above us has cut the wire. And they will be on us at any moment.
My hand frees itself from the wire and has just closed on the
feathers of an arrow when the metal cylinder smashes into the side of my head.
The next thing I know, I'm lying on my back in the vines, a terrible pain in my
left temple. Something's wrong with my eyes. My vision blurs in and out of focus
as I strain to make the two moons floating up in the sky into one. It's hard to
breathe, and I realize Johanna's sitting on my chest, pinning me at the
shoulders with her knees.
There's a stab in my left forearm. I try to jerk away but I'm
still too incapacitated. Johanna's digging something, I guess the point of her
knife, into my flesh, twisting it around. There's an excruciating ripping
sensation and warmth runs down my wrist, filling my palm. She swipes down my arm
and coats half my face with my blood.
“Stay down!” she hisses. Her weight leaves my body and I'm
alone.
Stay down? I think. What? What is happening? My eyes shut, blocking out the
inconsistent world, as I try to make sense of my situation.
All I can think of is Johanna shoving Wiress to the beach.
“Just stay down, will you?” But she didn't attack
Wiress. Not like this. I'm not Wiress, anyway. I'm not Nuts. “Just stay down, will you?” echoes around inside my
brain.
Footsteps coming. Two pairs. Heavy, not trying to conceal
their whereabouts.
Brutus's voice. “She's good as dead! Come on, Enobaria!” Feet
moving into the night.
Am I? I drift in and out of consciousness looking for an
answer. Am I as good as dead? I'm in no position to make an argument to the
contrary. In fact, rational thinking is a struggle. This much I know. Johanna
attacked me. Smashed that cylinder into my head. Cut my arm, probably doing
irreparable damage to veins and arteries, and then Brutus and Enobaria showed up
before she had time to finish me off.
The alliance is over. Finnick and Johanna must have had an
agreement to turn on us tonight. I knew we should have left this morning. I
don't know where Beetee stands. But I'm fair game, and so is Peeta.
Peeta! My eyes fly open in panic.
Peeta is waiting up by the tree, unsuspecting and off guard. Maybe Finnick has
even killed him already. “No,” I whisper. That wire was cut from a short
distance away by the Careers. Finnick and Beetee and Peeta—they can't know
what's going on down here. They can only be wondering what has happened, why the
wire has gone slack or maybe even sprung back to the tree. This, in itself,
can't be a signal to kill, can it? Surely this was just Johanna deciding the
time had come to break with us. Kill me. Escape from the Careers. Then bring
Finnick into the fight as soon as possible.
I don't know. I don't know. I only know that I must get back
to Peeta and keep him alive. It takes every ounce of will I have to push up into
a sitting position and drag myself up the side of a tree to my feet. It's lucky
I have something to hold on to because the jungle's tilting back and forth.
Without any warning, I lean forward and vomit up the seafood feast, heaving
until there can't possibly be an oyster left in my body. Trembling and slick
with sweat, I assess my physical condition.
As I lift up my damaged arm, blood sprays me in the face and
the world makes another alarming shift. I squeeze my eyes shut and cling to the
tree until things steady a little. Then I take a few careful steps to a
neighboring tree, pull off some moss, and without examining the wound further,
tightly bandage my arm. Better. Definitely better not to see it. Then I allow my
hand to tentatively touch my head wound. There's a huge lump but not too much
blood. Obviously I've got some internal damage, but I don't seem in danger of
bleeding to death. At least not through my head.
I dry my hands on moss and get a shaky grip on my bow with my
damaged left arm. Secure the notch of an arrow to the string. Make my feet move
up the slope.
Peeta. My dying wish. My promise. To keep him alive. My heart
lifts a bit when I realize he must be alive because no cannon has fired. Maybe
Johanna was acting alone, knowing Finnick would side with her once her
intentions were clear. Although it's hard to guess what goes on between those
two. I think of how he looked to her for confirmation before he'd agree to help
set Beetee's trap. There's a much deeper alliance based on years of friendship
and who knows what else. Therefore, if Johanna has turned on me, I should no
longer trust Finnick.
I reach this conclusion only seconds before I hear someone
running down the slope toward me. Neither Peeta nor Beetee could move at this
pace. I duck behind a curtain of vines, concealing myself just in time. Finnick
flies by me, his skin shadowy with medicine, leaping through the undergrowth
like a deer. He soon reaches the sight of my attack, must see the blood.
“Johanna! Katniss!” he calls. I stay put until he goes in the direction Johanna
and the Careers took.
I move as quickly as I can without sending the world into a
whirl. My head throbs with the rapid beat of my heart. The insects, possibly
excited by the smell of blood, have increased their clicking until it's a
continuous roar in my ears. No, wait. Maybe my ears are actually ringing from
the hit. Until the insects shut up, it will be impossible to tell. But when the
insects go silent, the lightning will start. I have to move faster. I have to
get to Peeta.
The boom of a cannon pulls me up short. Someone has died. I
know that with everyone running around armed and scared right now, it could be
anybody. But whoever it is, I believe the death will trigger a kind of
free-for-all out here in the night. People will kill first and wonder about
their motives later. I force my legs into a run.
Something snags my feet and I sprawl out on the ground. I
feel it wrapping around me, entwining me in sharp fibers. A net! This must be
one of Finnick's fancy nets, positioned to trap me, and he must be nearby,
trident in hand. I flail around for a moment, only working the web more tightly
around me, and then I catch a glimpse of it in the moonlight. Confused, I lift
my arm and see it's entangled in shimmering golden threads. It's not one of
Finnick's nets at all, but Beetee's wire. I carefully rise to my feet and find
I'm in a patch of the stuff that caught on a trunk on its way back to the
lightning tree. Slowly I disengage myself from the wire, step out of its reach,
and continue uphill.
On the good side, I'm on the right path and have not been so
disoriented by the head injury as to lose my sense of direction. On the bad
side, the wire has reminded me of the oncoming lightning storm. I can still hear
the insects, but are they starting to fade?
I keep the loops of wire a few feet to my left as a guide as
I run but take great care not to touch them. If those insects are fading and the
first bolt is about to strike the tree, then all its power will come surging
down that wire and anyone in contact with it will die.
The tree swims into view, its trunk festooned with gold. I
slow down, try to move with some stealth, but I'm really just lucky to be
upright. I look for a sign of the others. No one. No one is there. “Peeta?” I
call softly. “Peeta?”
A soft moan answers me and I whip around to find a figure
lying higher up on the ground. “Beetee!” I exclaim. I hurry and kneel beside
him. The moan must have been involuntary. He's not conscious, although I can see
no wound except a gash below the crook of his elbow. I grab a nearby handful of
moss and clumsily wrap it while I try to rouse him. “Beetee! Beetee, what's
going on! Who cut you? Beetee!” I shake him in the way you should never shake an
injured person, but I don't know what else to do. He moans again and briefly
raises a hand to ward me off.
This is when I notice he's holding a knife, one Peeta was
carrying earlier, I think, which is wrapped loosely in wire.
Perplexed, I stand and lift the wire, confirming it's
attached back at the tree. It takes me a moment to remember the second, much
shorter strand that Beetee wound around a branch and left on the ground before
he even began his design on the tree. I'd thought it had some electrical
significance, had been set aside to be used later. But it never was, because
there's probably a good twenty, twenty-five yards here.
I squint hard up the hill and realize we're only a few paces
from the force field. There's the telltale square, high up and to my right, just
as it was this morning. What did Beetee do? Did he actually try to drive the
knife into the force field the way Peeta did by accident? And what's the deal
with the wire? Was this his backup plan? If electrifying the water failed, did
he mean to send the lightning bolt's energy into the force field? What would
that do, anyway? Nothing? A great deal? Fry us all? The force field must mostly
be energy, too, I guess. The one in the Training Center was invisible. This one
seems to somehow mirror the jungle. But I've seen it falter when Peeta's knife
struck it and when my arrows hit. The real world lies right behind it.
My ears are not ringing. It was the insects after all. I know
that now because they are dying out quickly and I hear nothing but the jungle
sounds. Beetee is useless. I can't rouse him. I can't save him. I don't know
what he was trying to do with the knife and the wire and he's incapable of
explaining. The moss bandage on my arm is soaked and there's no use fooling
myself. I'm so light-headed I'll black out in a matter of minutes. I've got to
get away from this tree and—
“Katniss!” I hear his voice though he's a far distance away.
But what is he doing? Peeta must have figured out that everyone is hunting us by
now. “Katniss!”
I can't protect him. I can't move fast or far and my shooting
abilities are questionable at best. I do the one thing I can to draw the
attackers away from him and over to me. “Peeta!” I scream out. “Peeta! I'm here!
Peeta!” Yes, I will draw them in, any in my vicinity, away from Peeta and over
to me and the lightning tree that will soon be a weapon in and of itself. “I'm
here! I'm here!” He won't make it. Not with that leg in the night. He will never
make it in time. “Peeta!”
It's working. I can hear them coming. Two of them. Crashing
through the jungle. My knees start to give out and I sink down next to Beetee,
resting my weight on my heels. My bow and arrow lift into position. If I can
take them out, will Peeta survive the rest?
Enobaria and Finnick reach the lightning tree. They can't see
me, sitting above them on the slope, my skin camouflaged in ointment. I home in
on Enobaria's neck. With any luck, when I kill her, Finnick will duck behind the
tree for cover just as the lightning bolt strikes. And it will be any second.
There's only a faint insect click here and there. I can kill them now. I can
kill them both.
Another cannon.
“Katniss!” Peeta's voice howls for me. But this time I don't
answer. Beetee still breathes faintly beside me. He and I will soon die. Finnick
and Enobaria will die. Peeta is alive. Two cannons have sounded. Brutus,
Johanna, Chaff. Two of them are already dead. That will leave Peeta with only
one tribute to kill. And that is the very best I can do. One enemy.
Enemy. Enemy. The word is tugging
at a recent memory. Pulling it into the present. The look on Haymitch's face.
“Katniss, when you're in the arena ...” The scowl, the
misgiving. “What?” I hear my own voice tighten as I
bristle at some unspoken accusation. “You just remember who
the enemy is,” Haymitch says. “That's all.”
Haymitch's last words of advice to me. Why would I need
reminding? I have always known who the enemy is. Who starves and tortures and
kills us in the arena. Who will soon kill everyone I love.
My bow drops as his meaning registers. Yes, I know who the
enemy is. And it's not Enobaria.
I finally see Beetee's knife with clear eyes. My shaking
hands slide the wire from the hilt, wind it around the arrow just above the
feathers, and secure it with a knot picked up in training.
I rise, turning to the force field, fully revealing myself
but no longer caring. Only caring about where I should direct my tip, where
Beetee would have driven the knife if he'd been able to choose. My bow tilts up
at the wavering square, the flaw, the ... what did he call it that day? The
chink in the armor. I let the arrow fly, see it hit its mark and vanish, pulling
the thread of gold behind it.
My hair stands on end and the lightning strikes the tree.
A flash of white runs up the wire, and for just a moment, the
dome bursts into a dazzling blue light. I'm thrown backward to the ground, body
useless, paralyzed, eyes frozen wide, as feathery bits of matter rain down on
me. I can't reach Peeta. I can't even reach my pearl. My eyes strain to capture
one last image of beauty to take with me.
Right before the explosions begin, I find a star.
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