第109章

  i don’t
  know. not like she was. and utterly lacking in the control fox-
  face demonstrated. i believe cato could easily lose his judg-
  ment in a fit of temper. not that i can feel superior on that
  point. i think of the moment i sent the arrow flying into the
  apple in the pig’s mouth when i was so enraged. maybe i do
  understand cato better than i think.
  despite the fatigue in my body, my mind’s alert, so i let pee-
  ta sleep long past our usual switch. in fact, a soft gray day has
  begun when i shake his shoulder. he looks out, almost in
  alarm. “i slept the whole night. that’s not fair, katniss, you
  should have woken me.”
  320
  i stretch and burrow down into the bag. “i’ll sleep now.
  wake me if anything interesting happens.”
  apparently nothing does, because when i open my eyes,
  bright hot afternoon light gleams through the rocks. “any sign
  of our friend?” i ask.
  peeta shakes his head. “no, he’s keeping a disturbingly low
  profile.”
  “how long do you think we’ll have before the gamemakers
  drive us together?” i ask.
  “well, foxface died almost a day ago, so there’s been plenty
  of time for the audience to place bets and get bored. i guess it
  could happen at any moment,” says peeta.
  “yeah, i have a feeling today’s the day,” i say. i sit up and
  look out at the peaceful terrain. “i wonder how they’ll do it.”
  peeta remains silent. there’s not really any good answer.
  “well, until they do, no sense in wasting a hunting day. but
  we should probably eat as much as we can hold just in case we
  run into trouble,” i say.
  peeta packs up our gear while i lay out a big meal. the rest
  of the rabbits, roots, greens, the rolls spread with the last bit
  of cheese. the only thing i leave in reserve is the squirrel and
  the apple.
  by the time we’re done, all that’s left is a pile of rabbit
  bones. my hands are greasy, which only adds to my growing
  feeling of grubbiness. maybe we don’t bathe daily in the seam,
  but we keep cleaner than i have of late. except for my feet,
  which have walked in the stream, i’m covered in a layer of
  grime.
  321
  leaving the cave has a sense of finality about it. i don’t
  think there will be another night in the arena somehow. one
  way or the other, dead or alive, i have the feeling i’ll escape it
  today. i give the rocks a pat good-bye and we head down to
  the stream to wash up. i can feel my skin, itching for the cool
  water. i may do my hair and braid it back wet. i’m wondering
  if we might even be able to give our clothes a quick scrub
  when we reach the stream. or what used to be the stream.
  now there’s only a bone-dry bed. i put my hand down to feel
  it.
  “not even a little damp. they must have drained it while we
  slept,” i say. a fear of the cracked tongue, aching body and
  fuzzy mind brought on by my previous dehydration creeps in-
  to my consciousness. our bottles and skin are fairly full, but
  with two drinking and this hot sun it won’t take long to dep-
  lete them.
  “the lake,” says peeta. “that’s where they want us to go.”
  “maybe the ponds still have some,” i say hopefully.
  “we can check,” he says, but he’s just humoring me. i’m
  humoring myself because i know what i’ll find when we re-
  turn to the pond where i soaked my leg. a dusty, gaping
  mouth of a hole. but we make the trip anyway just to confirm
  what we already know.
  “you’re right. they’re driving us to the lake,” i say. where
  there’s no cover. where they’re guaranteed a bloody fight to
  the death with nothing to block their view. “do you want to go
  straightaway or wait until the water’s tapped out?”