第87章

  “all right,” he whispers.
  i step out in the cool evening air just as the parachute floats
  down from the sky. my fingers quickly undo the tie, hoping for
  some real medicine to treat peeta’s leg. instead i find a pot of
  hot broth.
  haymitch couldn’t be sending me a clearer message. one
  kiss equals one pot of broth. i can almost hear his snarl.
  “you’re supposed to be in love, sweetheart. the boy’s dying.
  give me something i can work with!”
  and he’s right. if i want to keep peeta alive, i’ve got to give
  the audience something more to care about. star-crossed lov-
  ers desperate to get home together. two hearts beating as
  one. romance.
  never having been in love, this is going to be a real trick. i
  think of my parents. the way my father never failed to bring
  her gifts from the woods. the way my mother’s face would
  light up at the sound of his boots at the door. the way she al-
  most stopped living when he died.
  “peeta!” i say, trying for the special tone that my mother
  used only with my father. he’s dozed off again, but i kiss him
  awake, which seems to startle him. then he smiles as if he’d
  be happy to lie there gazing at me forever. he’s great at this
  stuff.
  i hold up the pot. “peeta, look what haymitch has sent you.”
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  getting the broth into peeta takes an hour of coaxing, beg-
  ging, threatening, and yes, kissing, but finally, sip by sip, he
  empties the pot. i let him drift off to sleep then and attend to
  my own needs, wolfing down a supper of groosling and roots
  while i watch the daily report in the sky. no new casualties.
  still, peeta and i have given the audience a fairly interesting
  day. hopefully, the gamemakers will allow us a peaceful night.
  i automatically look around for a good tree to nest in before
  i realize that’s over. at least for a while. i can’t very well leave
  peeta unguarded on the ground. i left the scene of his last hid-
  ing place on the bank of the stream untouched — how could i
  conceal it? — and we’re a scant fifty yards downstream. i put
  on my glasses, place my weapons in readiness, and settle
  down to keep watch.
  the temperature drops rapidly and soon i’m chilled to the
  bone. eventually, i give in and slide into the sleeping bag with
  peeta. it’s toasty warm and i snuggle down gratefully until i
  realize it’s more than warm, it’s overly hot because the bag is
  reflecting back his fever. i check his forehead and find it burn-
  ing and dry. i don’t know what to do. leave him in the bag and
  hope the excessive heat breaks the fever? take him out and
  hope the night air cools him off? i end up just dampening a
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  strip of bandage and placing it on his forehead. it seems weak,
  but i’m afraid to do anything too drastic.
  i spend the night half-sitting, half-lying next to peeta, re-
  freshing the bandage, and trying not to dwell on the fact that
  by teaming up with him, i’ve made myself far more vulnerable
  than when i was alone. tethered to the ground, on guard, with
  a very sick person to take care of. but i knew he was injured.
  and still i came after him. i’m just going to have to trust that
  whatever instinct sent me to find him was a good one.
  when the sky turns rosy, i notice the sheen of sweat on
  peeta’s lip and discover the fever has broken. he’s not back to
  normal, but it’s come down a few degrees. last night, when i
  was gathering vines, i came upon a bush of rue’s berries. i
  strip off the fruit and mash it up in the broth pot with cold wa-
  ter.
  peeta’s struggling to get up when i reach the cave. “i woke
  up and you were gone,” he says. “i was worried about you.”
  i have to laugh as i ease him back down. “you were worried
  about me?