第76章

  did she make it back to the
  rendezvous point? is she worried about me? at least, the sky
  has shown we’re both alive.
  i run through the surviving tributes on my fingers. the boy
  from 1, both from 2, foxface, both from 11 and 12. just eight
  of us. the betting must be getting really hot in the capitol.
  they’ll be doing special features on each of us now. probably
  interviewing our friends and families. it’s been a long time
  since a tribute from district 12 made it into the top eight. and
  now there are two of us. although from what cato said, pee-
  ta’s on his way out. not that cato is the final word on anything.
  didn’t he just lose his entire stash of supplies?
  let the seventy-fourth hunger games begin, cato, i think. let
  them begin for real.
  a cold breeze has sprung up. i reach for my sleeping bag
  before i remember i left it with rue. i was supposed to pick up
  another one, but what with the mines and all, i forgot. i begin
  to shiver. since roosting overnight in a tree isn’t sensible an-
  yway, i scoop out a hollow under the bushes and cover myself
  with leaves and pine needles. i’m still freezing. i lay my sheet
  of plastic over my upper body and position my backpack to
  block the wind. it’s a little better. i begin to have more sympa-
  thy for the girl from district 8 that lit the fire that first night.
  but now it’s me who needs to grit my teeth and tough it out
  until morning. more leaves, more pine needles. i pull my arms
  inside my jacket and tuck my knees up to my chest. somehow,
  i drift off to sleep.
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  when i open my eyes, the world looks slightly fractured,
  and it takes a minute to realize that the sun must be well up
  and the glasses fragmenting my vision. as i sit up and remove
  them, i hear a laugh somewhere near the lake and freeze. the
  laugh’s distorted, but the fact that it registered at all means i
  must be regaining my hearing. yes, my right ear can hear
  again, although it’s still ringing. as for my left ear, well, at least
  the bleeding has stopped.
  i peer through the bushes, afraid the careers have re-
  turned, trapping me here for an indefinite time. no, it’s fox-
  face, standing in the rubble of the pyramid and laughing. she’s
  smarter than the careers, actually finding a few useful items
  in the ashes. a metal pot. a knife blade. i’m perplexed by her
  amusement until i realize that with the careers’ stores elimi-
  nated, she might actually stand a chance. just like the rest of
  us. it crosses my mind to reveal myself and enlist her as a
  second ally against that pack. but i rule it out. there’s some-
  thing about that sly grin that makes me sure that befriending
  foxface would ultimately get me a knife in the back. with that
  in mind, this might be an excellent time to shoot her. but she’s
  heard something, not me, because her head turns away, to-
  ward the drop-off, and she sprints for the woods. i wait. no
  one, nothing shows up. still, if foxface thought it was danger-
  ous, maybe it’s time for me to get out of here, too. besides, i’m
  eager to tell rue about the pyramid.
  since i’ve no idea where the careers are, the route back by
  the stream seems as good as any. i hurry, loaded bow in one
  hand, a hunk of cold groosling in the other, because i’m fa-
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  mished now, and not just for leaves and berries but for the fat
  and protein in the meat. the trip to the stream is uneventful.
  once there, i refill my water and wash, taking particular care
  with my injured ear. then i travel uphill using the stream as a
  guide. at one point, i find boot prints in the mud along the
  bank. the careers have been here, but not for a while. the
  prints are deep because they were made in soft mud, but now
  they’re nearly dry in the hot sun. i haven’t been careful
  enough about my own tracks, counting on a light tread and the
  pine needles to conceal my prints. now i strip off my boots
  and socks and go barefoot up the bed of the stream.
  the cool water has an invigorating effect on my body, my
  spirits. i shoot two fish, easy pickings in this slow-moving
  stream, and go ahead and eat one raw even though i’ve just
  had the groosling. the second i’ll save for rue.
  gradually, subtly, the ringing in my right ear diminishes un-
  til it’s gone entirely. i find myself pawing at my left ear period-
  ically, trying to clean away whatever deadens its ability to col-
  lect sounds. if there’s improvement, it’s undetectable. i can’t
  adjust to deafness in the ear. it makes me feel off-balanced
  and defenseless to my left. blind even. my head keeps turning
  to the injured side, as my right ear tries to compensate for the
  wall of nothingness where yesterday there was a constant
  flow of information. the more time that passes, the less hope-
  ful i am that this is an injury that will heal.
  when i reach the site of our first meeting, i feel certain it’s
  been undisturbed. there’s no sign of rue, not on the ground
  or in the trees. this is odd. by now she should have returned,
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  as it’s midday. undoubtedly, she spent the night in a tree
  somewhere. what else could she do with no light and the ca-
  reers with their night-vision glasses tramping around the
  woods. and the third fire she was supposed to set — although
  i forgot to check for it last night — was the farthest from our
  site of all. she’s probably just being cautious about making her
  way back. i wish she’d hurry, because i don’t want to hang
  around here too long. i want to spend the afternoon traveling
  to higher ground, hunting as we go. but there’s nothing really
  for me to do but wait.
  i wash the blood out of my jacket and hair and clean my ev-
  er-growing list of wounds. the burns are much better but i
  use a bit of medicine on them anyway. the main thing to wor-
  ry about now is keeping out infection. i go ahead and eat the
  second fish. it isn’t going to last long in this hot sun, but it
  should be easy enough to spear a few more for rue. if she
  would just show up.
  feeling too vulnerable on the ground with my lopsided
  hearing, i scale a tree to wait. if the careers show up, this will
  be a fine place to shoot them from. the sun moves slowly. i do
  things to pass the time. chew leaves and apply them to my
  stings that are deflated but still tender. comb through my
  damp hair with my fingers and braid it. lace my boots back
  up. check over my bow and remaining nine arrows. test my
  left ear repeatedly for signs of life by rustling a leaf near it, but
  without good results.
  despite the groosling and the fish, my stomach’s growling,
  and i know i’m going to have what we call a hollow day back
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  in district 12. that’s a day where no matter what you put in
  your belly, it’s never enough. having nothing to do but sit in a
  tree makes it worse, so i decide to give into it. after all, i’ve
  lost a lot of weight in the arena, i need some extra calories.
  and having the bow and arrows makes me far more confident
  about my future prospects.
  i slowly peel and eat a handful of nuts. my last cracker. the
  groosling neck. that’s good because it takes time to pick clean.
  finally, a groosling wing and the bird is history. but it’s a hol-
  low day, and even with all that i start daydreaming about
  food. particularly the decadent dishes served in the capitol.
  the chicken in creamy orange sauce. the cakes and pudding.
  bread with butter. noodles in green sauce. the lamb and dried
  plum stew. i suck on a few mint leaves and tell myself to get
  over it. mint is good because we drink mint tea after supper
  often, so it tricks my stomach into thinking eating time is over.
  sort of.
  dangling up in the tree, with the sun warming me, a mouth-
  ful of mint, my bow and arrows at hand . . . this is the most re-
  laxed i’ve been since i’ve entered the arena. if only rue would
  show up, and we could clear out. as the shadows grow, so
  does my restlessness. by late afternoon, i’ve resolved to go
  looking for her. i can at least visit the spot where she set the
  third fire and see if there are any clues to her whereabouts.
  before i go, i scatter a few mint leaves around our old
  campfire. since we gathered these some distance away, rue
  will understand i’ve been here, while they’ll mean nothing to
  the careers.
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  in less than an hour, i’m at the place where we agreed to
  have the third fire and i know something has gone amiss. the
  wood has been neatly arranged, expertly interspersed with
  tinder, but it has never been lit. rue set up the fire but never
  made it back here. somewhere between the second column of
  smoke i spied before i blew up the supplies and this point, she
  ran into trouble.
  i have to remind myself she’s still alive. or is she?