第61章

  i stare into the foliage trying to will myself
  to rest, but the burns forbid it. birds are settling down for the
  night, singing lullabies to their young. night creatures emerge.
  an owl hoots. the faint scent of a skunk cuts through the
  smoke. the eyes of some animal peer at me from the neigh-
  boring tree — a possum maybe — catching the firelight from
  the careers’ torches. suddenly, i’m up on one elbow. those
  are no possum’s eyes, i know their glassy reflection too well.
  in fact, those are not animal eyes at all. in the last dim rays of
  light, i make her out, watching me silently from between the
  branches. rue.
  how long has she been here? the whole time probably. still
  and unobserved as the action unfolded beneath her. perhaps
  she headed up her tree shortly before i did, hearing the pack
  was so close.
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  for a while we hold each other’s gaze. then, without even
  rustling a leaf, her little hand slides into the open and points
  to something above my head.
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  my eyes follow the line of her finger up into the foliage
  above me. at first, i have no idea what she’s pointing to, but
  then, about fifteen feet up, i make out the vague shape in the
  dimming light. but of . . . of what? some sort of animal? it looks
  about the size of a raccoon, but it hangs from the bottom of a
  branch, swaying ever so slightly. there’s something else.
  among the familiar evening sounds of the woods, my ears reg-
  ister a low hum. then i know. it’s a wasp nest.
  fear shoots through me, but i have enough sense to keep
  still. after all, i don’t know what kind of wasp lives there. it
  could be the ordinary leave-us-alone-and-we’ll-leave-you-
  alone type. but these are the hunger games, and ordinary isn’t
  the norm. more likely they will be one of the capitol’s mutta-
  tions, tracker jackers. like the jabberjays, these killer wasps
  were spawned in a lab and strategically placed, like land
  mines, around the districts during the war. larger than regu-
  lar wasps, they have a distinctive solid gold body and a sting
  that raises a lump the size of a plum on contact. most people
  can’t tolerate more than a few stings. some die at once. if you
  live, the hallucinations brought on by the venom have actually
  driven people to madness. and there’s another thing, these
  wasps will hunt down anyone who disturbs their nest and at-
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  tempt to kill them. that’s where the tracker part of the name
  comes from.
  after the war, the capitol destroyed all the nests surround-
  ing their city, but the ones near the districts were left un-
  touched. another reminder of our weakness, i suppose, just
  like the hunger games. another reason to keep inside the
  fence of district 12. when gale and i come across a tracker
  jacker nest, we immediately head in the opposite direction.
  so is that what hangs above me? i look back to rue for help,
  but she’s melted into her tree.
  given my circumstances, i guess it doesn’t matter what
  type of wasp nest it is. i’m wounded and trapped. darkness
  has given me a brief reprieve, but by the time the sun rises,
  the careers will have formulated a plan to kill me. there’s no
  way they could do otherwise after i’ve made them look so
  stupid. that nest may be the sole option i have left. if i can
  drop it down on them, i may be able to escape. but i’ll risk my
  life in the process.
  of course, i’ll never be able to get in close enough to the ac-
  tual nest to cut it free. i’ll have to saw off the branch at the
  trunk and send the whole thing down. the serrated portion of
  my knife should be able to manage that. but can my hands?