第110章

  322
  “let’s go now, while we’ve had food and rest. let’s just go
  end this thing,” he says.
  i nod. it’s funny. i feel almost as if it’s the first day of the
  games again. that i’m in the same position. twenty-one tri-
  butes are dead, but i still have yet to kill cato. and really,
  wasn’t he always the one to kill? now it seems the other tri-
  butes were just minor obstacles, distractions, keeping us from
  the real battle of the games. cato and me.
  but no, there’s the boy waiting beside me. i feel his arms
  wrap around me.
  “two against one. should be a piece of cake,” he says.
  “next time we eat, it will be in the capitol,” i answer.
  “you bet it will,” he says.
  we stand there a while, locked in an embrace, feeling each
  other, the sunlight, the rustle of the leaves at our feet. then
  without a word, we break apart and head for the lake.
  i don’t care now that peeta’s footfalls send rodents scurry-
  ing, make birds take wing. we have to fight cato and i’d just as
  soon do it here as on the plain. but i doubt i’ll have that
  choice. if the gamemakers want us in the open, then in the
  open we will be.
  we stop to rest for a few moments under the tree where
  the careers trapped me. the husk of the tracker jacker nest,
  beaten to a pulp by the heavy rains and dried in the burning
  sun, confirms the location. i touch it with the tip of my boot,
  and it dissolves into dust that is quickly carried off by the
  breeze. i can’t help looking up in the tree where rue secretly
  323
  perched, waiting to save my life. tracker jackers. glimmer’s
  bloated body. the terrifying hallucinations . . .
  “let’s move on,” i say, wanting to escape the darkness that
  surrounds this place. peeta doesn’t object.
  given our late start to the day, when we reach the plain it’s
  already early evening. there’s no sign of cato. no sign of any-
  thing except the gold cornucopia glowing in the slanting sun
  rays. just in case cato decided to pull a foxface on us, we cir-
  cle the cornucopia to make sure it’s empty. then obediently,
  as if following instructions, we cross to the lake and fill our
  water containers.
  i frown at the shrinking sun. “we don’t want to fight him af-
  ter dark. there’s only the one pair of glasses.”
  peeta carefully squeezes drops of iodine into the water.
  “maybe that’s what he’s waiting for. what do you want to do?
  go back to the cave?”
  “either that or find a tree. but let’s give him another half an
  hour or so. then we’ll take cover,” i answer.
  we sit by the lake, in full sight. there’s no point in hiding
  now. in the trees at the edge of the plain, i can see the mock-
  ingjays flitting about. bouncing melodies back and forth be-
  tween them like brightly colored balls. i open my mouth and
  sing out rue’s four-note run. i can feel them pause curiously at
  the sound of my voice, listening for more. i repeat the notes in
  the silence. first one mockingjay trills the tune back, then
  another. then the whole world comes alive with the sound.
  “just like your father,” says peeta.
  324
  my fingers find the pin on my shirt. “that’s rue’s song,” i
  say. “i think they remember it.”
  the music swells and i recognize the brilliance of it. as the
  notes overlap, they compliment one another, forming a lovely,
  unearthly harmony. it was this sound then, thanks to rue, that
  sent the orchard workers of district 11 home each night. does
  someone start it at quitting time, i wonder, now that she is
  dead?