Suzanne Collins - Cathing Fire

On the good side, I'm on the right path and have not been so disoriented by the head injury as to lose my sense of direction. On the bad side, the wire has reminded me of the oncoming lightning storm. I can still hear the insects, but are they starting to fade?

I keep the loops of wire a few feet to my left as a guide as I run but take great care not to touch them. If those insects are fading and the first bolt is about to strike the tree, then all its power will come surging down that wire and anyone in contact with it will die.

The tree swims into view, its trunk festooned with gold. I slow down, try to move with some stealth, but I'm really just lucky to be upright. I look for a sign of the others. No one. No one is there. “Peeta?” I call softly. “Peeta?”

A soft moan answers me and I whip around to find a figure lying higher up on the ground. “Beetee!” I exclaim. I hurry and kneel beside him. The moan must have been involuntary. He's not conscious, although I can see no wound except a gash below the crook of his elbow. I grab a nearby handful of moss and clumsily wrap it while I try to rouse him. “Beetee! Beetee, what's going on! Who cut you? Beetee!” I shake him in the way you should never shake an injured person, but I don't know what else to do. He moans again and briefly raises a hand to ward me off.

This is when I notice he's holding a knife, one Peeta was carrying earlier, I think, which is wrapped loosely in wire.

Perplexed, I stand and lift the wire, confirming it's attached back at the tree. It takes me a moment to remember the second, much shorter strand that Beetee wound around a branch and left on the ground before he even began his design on the tree. I'd thought it had some electrical significance, had been set aside to be used later. But it never was, because there's probably a good twenty, twenty-five yards here.

I squint hard up the hill and realize we're only a few paces from the force field. There's the telltale square, high up and to my right, just as it was this morning. What did Beetee do? Did he actually try to drive the knife into the force field the way Peeta did by accident? And what's the deal with the wire? Was this his backup plan? If electrifying the water failed, did he mean to send the lightning bolt's energy into the force field? What would that do, anyway? Nothing? A great deal? Fry us all? The force field must mostly be energy, too, I guess. The one in the Training Center was invisible. This one seems to somehow mirror the jungle. But I've seen it falter when Peeta's knife struck it and when my arrows hit. The real world lies right behind it.

My ears are not ringing. It was the insects after all. I know that now because they are dying out quickly and I hear nothing but the jungle sounds. Beetee is useless. I can't rouse him. I can't save him. I don't know what he was trying to do with the knife and the wire and he's incapable of explaining. The moss bandage on my arm is soaked and there's no use fooling myself. I'm so light-headed I'll black out in a matter of minutes. I've got to get away from this tree and—

“Katniss!” I hear his voice though he's a far distance away. But what is he doing? Peeta must have figured out that everyone is hunting us by now. “Katniss!”

I can't protect him. I can't move fast or far and my shooting abilities are questionable at best. I do the one thing I can to draw the attackers away from him and over to me. “Peeta!” I scream out. “Peeta! I'm here! Peeta!” Yes, I will draw them in, any in my vicinity, away from Peeta and over to me and the lightning tree that will soon be a weapon in and of itself. “I'm here! I'm here!” He won't make it. Not with that leg in the night. He will never make it in time. “Peeta!”

It's working. I can hear them coming. Two of them. Crashing through the jungle. My knees start to give out and I sink down next to Beetee, resting my weight on my heels. My bow and arrow lift into position. If I can take them out, will Peeta survive the rest?

Enobaria and Finnick reach the lightning tree. They can't see me, sitting above them on the slope, my skin camouflaged in ointment. I home in on Enobaria's neck. With any luck, when I kill her, Finnick will duck behind the tree for cover just as the lightning bolt strikes. And it will be any second. There's only a faint insect click here and there. I can kill them now. I can kill them both.

Another cannon.

“Katniss!” Peeta's voice howls for me. But this time I don't answer. Beetee still breathes faintly beside me. He and I will soon die. Finnick and Enobaria will die. Peeta is alive. Two cannons have sounded. Brutus, Johanna, Chaff. Two of them are already dead. That will leave Peeta with only one tribute to kill. And that is the very best I can do. One enemy.

Enemy. Enemy. The word is tugging at a recent memory. Pulling it into the present. The look on Haymitch's face. “ Katniss, when you're in the arena…” The scowl, the misgiving. “ What?” I hear my own voice tighten as I bristle at some unspoken accusation. “ You just remember who the enemy is,” Haymitch says. “ That's all.”

Haymitch's last words of advice to me. Why would I need reminding? I have always known who the enemy is. Who starves and tortures and kills us in the arena. Who will soon kill everyone I love.

My bow drops as his meaning registers. Yes, I know who the enemy is. And it's not Enobaria.

I finally see Beetee's knife with clear eyes. My shaking hands slide the wire from the hilt, wind it around the arrow just above the feathers, and secure it with a knot picked up in training.

I rise, turning to the force field, fully revealing myself but no longer caring. Only caring about where I should direct my tip, where Beetee would have driven the knife if he'd been able to choose. My bow tilts up at the wavering square, the flaw, the… what did he call it that day? The chink in the armor. I let the arrow fly, see it hit its mark and vanish, pulling the thread of gold behind it.

My hair stands on end and the lightning strikes the tree.

A flash of white runs up the wire, and for just a moment, the dome bursts into a dazzling blue light. I'm thrown backward to the ground, body useless, paralyzed, eyes frozen wide, as feathery bits of matter rain down on me. I can't reach Peeta. I can't even reach my pearl. My eyes strain to capture one last image of beauty to take with me.

Right before the explosions begin, I find a star.

Everything seems to erupt at once. The earth explodes into showers of dirt and plant matter. Trees burst into flames. Even the sky fills with brightly colored blossoms of light. I can't think why the sky's being bombed until I realize the Gamemakers are shooting off fireworks up there, while the real destruction occurs on the ground. Just in case it's not enough fun watching the obliteration of the arena and the remaining tributes. Or perhaps to illuminate our gory ends.

Will they let anyone survive? Will there be a victor of the Seventy-fifth Hunger Games? Maybe not. After all, what is this Quarter Quell but… what was it President Snow read from the card?

“ …a reminder to the rebels that even the strongest among them cannot overcome the power of the Capitol…”

Not even the strongest of the strong will triumph. Perhaps they never intended to have a victor in these Games at all. Or perhaps my final act of rebellion forced their hand.

I'm sorry, Peeta, I think. I'm sorry I couldn't save you. Save him? More likely I stole his last chance at life, condemned him, by destroying the force field. Maybe, if we had all played by the rules, they might have let him live.

The hovercraft materializes above me without warning. If it was quiet, and a mockingjay perched close at hand, I would have heard the jungle go silent and then the bird's call that precedes the appearance of the Capitol's aircraft. But my ears could never make out anything so delicate in this bombardment.