第99章

  “why? you know why,” peeta says. i give my head a slight,
  painful shake. “haymitch said you would take a lot of convinc-
  ing.”
  “haymitch?” i ask. “what’s he got to do with it?”
  “nothing,” peeta says. “so, cato and thresh, huh? i guess
  it’s too much to hope that they’ll simultaneously destroy each
  other?”
  but the thought only upsets me. “i think we would like
  thresh. i think he’d be our friend back in district twelve,” i
  say.
  “then let’s hope cato kills him, so we don’t have to,” says
  peeta grimly.
  i don’t want cato to kill thresh at all. i don’t want anyone
  else to die. but this is absolutely not the kind of thing that vic-
  tors go around saying in the arena. despite my best efforts, i
  can feel tears starting to pool in my eyes.
  peeta looks at me in concern. “what is it? are you in a lot of
  pain?”
  i give him another answer, because it is equally true but
  can be taken as a brief moment of weakness instead of a ter-
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  minal one. “i want to go home, peeta,” i say plaintively, like a
  small child.
  “you will. i promise,” he says, and bends over to give me a
  kiss.
  “i want to go home now,” i say.
  “tell you what. you go back to sleep and dream of home.
  and you’ll be there for real before you know it,” lie says.
  “okay?”
  “okay,” i whisper. “wake me if you need me to keep watch.”
  “i’m good and rested, thanks to you and haymitch. besides,
  who knows how long this will last?” he says.
  what does he mean? the storm? the brief respite ii brings
  us? the games themselves? i don’t know, but i’m ion sad and
  tired to ask.
  it’s evening when peeta wakes me again. the rain has
  turned to a downpour, sending streams of water through our
  ceiling where earlier there had been only drips. peeta has
  placed the broth pot under the worst one and repositioned the
  plastic to deflect most of it from me. i feel a bit better, able to
  sit up without getting too dizzy, and i’m absolutely famished.
  so is peeta. it’s clear he’s been waiting for me to wake up to
  eat and is eager to get started.
  there’s not much left. two pieces of groosling, a small
  mishmash of roots, and a handful of dried fruit.
  “should we try and ration it?” peeta asks.
  “no, let’s just finish it. the groosling’s getting old anyway,
  and the last thing we need is to get sick off spoilt food,” i say,
  dividing the food into two equal piles. we try and eat slowly,
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  but we’re both so hungry were done in a couple of minutes.
  my stomach is in no way satisfied. “tomorrow’s a hunting
  day,” i say.
  “i won’t be much help with that,” peeta says. “i’ve never
  hunted before.”
  “i’ll kill and you cook,” i say. “and you can always gather.”
  “i wish there was some sort of bread bush out there,” says
  peeta.
  “the bread they sent me from district eleven was still
  warm,” i say with a sigh. “here, chew these.” i hand him a
  couple of mint leaves and pop a few in my own mouth.
  it’s hard to even see the projection in the sky, but it’s clear
  enough to know there were no more deaths today. so cato
  and thresh haven’t had it out yet.
  “where did thresh go? i mean, what’s on the far side of the
  circle?” i ask peeta.
  “a field. as far as you can see it’s full of grasses as high as
  my shoulders. i don’t know, maybe some of them are grain.
  there are patches of different colors. but there are no paths,”
  says peeta.
  “i bet some of them are grain. i bet thresh knows which
  ones, too,” i say. “did you go in there?”