Panache’s sword thuds to the earth and he collapses, senseless. I whip around to see Maysilee emerge from behind a tree. A blowgun balances delicately in her fingers, the mouthpiece attached to a braided vine around her neck. Her latest necklace. Emotionless, she watches Panache expire.
“We’d live longer with two of us,” she says.
“Guess you just proved that.” I rub my neck where the dart entered Panache’s. “Allies?”
She thinks it over, nods, and pats a pouch at her hip. “But I’ve got a dozen poison darts left if you’re still feeling exclusive.”
“Noted. It sure is good to see you, Miss Donner.” The cannon fires
three times, shutting me up. I take in the dead bodies around us, for the first time recognizing that I’ve killed someone. Two someones. Brutally. It was
self-defense, no question, but I know I can never go back to five minutes ago. Having taken their lives . . . in that way . . . it’s undoable. I pick up my weapons. “Let’s get out of here.”
Maysilee considers the dead Careers and relieves the District 4 girl of her dagger. “Want anything else?”
“No.” I can’t use a trident and the idea of claiming Panache’s sword, stained with Newcomer blood, creeps me out. I’m not his heir, the new leader of the pack, nor do I want to present myself as such.
We walk away from the hedge, deeper into the woods. After a minute, the hovercraft flies over us, en route to collecting the bodies. The giant claw descends, lifting them, one, two, three into the sky as the craft swallows them up. We stop when they’ve all been retrieved. There’s nothing to walk away from anymore.
“You’re bleeding,” Maysilee points out.
Two gashes. One from deflecting the trident, one from Panache’s sword.
“Sit down,” she orders. I sink onto a fallen log and she pulls a first-aid kit from her black backpack. “I got this off a dead Career. The burn cream kept me from going off my head.” Her shirtsleeves have been cut off at the shoulder, and I note the burn marks on her arms, competing for space with
the riding crop welts and a range of cuts and bruises, her skin a map of the
abuse she’s suffered since the reaping. Who would’ve ever believed that coddled Maysilee Donner, of the nail polish and velvet bows, would come to this? And face it with such fortitude? Mamaw used to say you never really knew who’d swim in a flood.
“I guess the lava just burned up everything in its path?”
“No, it wasn’t even hot. It was some sort of gel that gave you chemical burns if it got under your clothes, then turned hard and slippery as ice on the ground.”
Guess that’s why there was no smoke and I didn’t burn up. Methodically, Maysilee cleans the wounds and closes them with neat,
even stitches. I’m not surprised really, after watching her create those artful tokens out of spit and string. When I’m sealed up again, she sits across from me and clocks my pack. “Any food?”
“Oh, I’ve got piles of food, but tragically, no silverware.”
One side of her mouth curls up. She pulls a pocketknife and a fork twisted out of a piece of wire from her pocket. “We’re covered.”
“Well, that’s a game changer. Are you free for dinner? Because I’m in possession of two very fine potatoes. Raw, but potentially bakeable. You?”
“Three slices of dried beef and half a can of olives. Fifty-fifty?” “Close your eyes a minute.”
Maysilee squints at me. “Why?”
“Just do it.” She closes one. “Both of them.” When she does, I pull out my glass, which has heroically survived the day, empty the rest of the bottle into it, and hold it out. “Okay, open up.”
At the sight of the elegant glass, the rich grape juice, she gives a little gasp. “That’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”
“It’s yours. A thank-you for saving my life.” She grins. “Fifty-fifty or no deal.”
“Done.” Because really, I want that juice like all-fire. “But you first.”
Maysilee takes the glass, sniffs the bouquet like it’s a fine wine, and takes a sip. Tears actually come to her eyes. “Oh, my word. Never thought I’d taste home again.” She hands it back. “Now you.”
Evening falls as we take our time passing the glass back and forth, savoring every drop. I make sure she gets the last mouthful. She wipes out the glass with her handkerchief and tries to return it.
“No, you keep it. It belongs with your table setting.”
She carefully stows it away in her pack. I lean back against the log, spent. “So, I’ve barely seen a soul. What’s going on out there?”
Maysilee thinks a minute, fingering a burn on her arm. “Hard to say. The arena’s on the blink, but I’m sure you’re aware of that. If you mean the other tributes . . . for all I know, we’re the last two left.”
“Well, if it comes to that, I’m on borrowed time anyway. Don’t think twice about using those darts.”
“You think I couldn’t?”
I look her straight in the eye. I remember all the years of meanness, but I also factor in how she’s transformed since the reaping. Defending Louella, helping Ampert, looking out for the Newcomers. “I think you couldn’t.”
For just a second, a look crosses her face. Young and vulnerable. “Thanks for that. I don’t think you could either.”
Just before the moment gets too embarrassing, the anthem begins to play. Our heads tilt up.
“By my count, we were at twenty-six last night,” Maysilee says.
“Yeah, mine, too. If I keep track of the overall number, can you try to remember who’s gone? You’re better at details.”
“I’ll do my best.” Maysilee’s fingers entwine in her necklaces as she homes in on the sky.
Panache appears first, followed by all four kids from District 2.
The fingers on my right hand press into the pine needles. “Bad day for the Careers.”
But then Ampert leads off his entire team. Every single kid from District 3 is history.
“Bad day for everybody,” says Maysilee.
Next the boy and girl I just killed from District 4. Seems like the first time I’ve ever looked at them. I feel sick, thinking of their families. Self- defense, I know. I focus on the head count. “We’re up to eleven.”
A boy and a girl from District 5. “Five’s out now,” says Maysilee.
One of my doves, Atread, who’s the last boy from District 6. A boy from District 10. The girl from District 11 who isn’t Chicory. Blackout.
“Sixteen,” I say. “That leaves ten of us.”
“Only two Careers left. Silka from One and Maritte from Four. Eight of us Newcomers. You, me, Hull, and Chicory from Eleven.” Maysilee
takes a deep breath, concentrating. “Ringina and the other girl from Seven, I think her name’s Autumn. Two more. Who am I missing?”
“One of my doves from Six.”
“Right, Wellie. And someone else. Can’t place them right off. A boy, I think. He’s dressed in red. District Ten,” she concludes.
I remember Ampert swinging his lariat around in the gym. A boy from 10 had made it for him. “Buck?”
“That’s it.”
“You did great. I don’t know how you remembered them all.”
“I focus on their colors. No more purple, no more electric blue, no more orange, or peach, or yellow. And just a smattering of the rest of us.”
“Only two Careers left, though,” I say. “Wyatt would like those odds.”
At the mention of our oddsmaker, we both fall silent. Thirty-eight of us dead. Thirty-nine if you count Lou Lou. Forty if you count Woodbine. Just a smattering of us left. It doesn’t seem real. Nothing here is real.
The fake moon rises, casting a silvery light over our little clearing. I feel Maysilee a few feet away, sense her pulse, the rise and fall of her chest, but she seems as impermanent as the rest of it. Possibly I have died — by poisoning, in the tunnel, on Panache’s sword — and have moved on to one of Lenore Dove’s worlds, where I continue to dream of life.
“Have you killed anyone besides Barba and Angler?” Maysilee asks. Those must be the kids I fought from District 4. “No, just them. You?” “Panache was my second. I took out Loupe from District One a
couple of days ago. He’d broken away from the pack with Camilla from Two. Pretty sure I got a dart into her, but the volcano might have finished her in the end.”
The thunk of the pot hitting the ground behind us makes us jump.
Maysilee retrieves the gift and detaches the parachute. “I hope it’s food.”
She lifts the lid, and a cloud of bean and ham hock soup steam dampens my face. Mags. Trying to reach us, to let us know we are not alone in our pain, to give us strength to go on. Tears fill my eyes, forcing me to admit my
presence in the only world I know. Not an imaginary one. The one where I am in the Hunger Games for real.
“Like when my grandmother died,” says Maysilee.
“Mine, too.” I don’t list all my dead. It’s not a competition.
She unclips two spoons from the lid of the pot and hands me one.
Silently, we eat our soup. Fifty-fifty.
The night air feels chilly. Maysilee pulls her shirt down over her knees for warmth and hugs herself, but I can still see the gooseflesh on her arms. “I could make a fire if you’d like,” I offer.
“That’d be good. If you don’t think it’s too dangerous,” she says. “Not if one of us keeps watch. In fact, it could be a good thing if the
other Newcomers find us.”
“We can handle Maritte and Silka. Right?”
“With you and those darts? I don’t think we even need me.” I collect wood and put my flint striker to work.
“Aren’t you a sly dog,” says Maysilee. “Smuggling that in.”
“Well, you know I like my pretty with a purpose.” My voice catches a bit, remembering where I heard that. I concentrate on getting a fire going.
Maysilee smooths out a small tarp on the ground, settles herself on it, and rubs her hands over the blaze. “You can sleep now if you want. I’m not tired.”
The circles under her eyes say otherwise, but I’m fading fast. “Okay, but wake me anytime to take over.” I secure my flint striker around my neck, spread out my hammock on the ground, and stretch out, watching the tongues of fire dance.
“Works better if you close your eyes,” she says.
“Yeah.” I shift positions, but something seems unfinished. Like I never really thanked her for today. No, I did. With the juice. But that doesn’t begin to cover it. What do you say to the meanest girl in town who’s become your friend? No, more than a friend, really. A Newcomer. Being
tributes and not killing each other . . . looking out for each other with no questions asked . . . that’s family, I guess.
“You need to sleep while you can, Haymitch.”
“I know but . . . what I’m thinking . . . you and me . . . You remember what Ampert said when you made his token?”
There’s a long pause before she says, “Sure. I’ll be your sister.”
Our hands reach out at the same time, clasp, and then release. “’Night, Sis.” I roll over and let sleep take me.
My dreams are nothing I want to remember, full of people I must never forget. I visit death after death. It’s a relief to be woken up.
Maysilee has let me sleep most of the night. When we switch places, I’m determined to give her the same opportunity. Ax and knife at hand, I
keep the fire burning with bits of fuel until the sun rises on our fifth day in the arena. My stomach growls so loud I’m afraid it might wake her. Last night’s soup seems a distant memory. I should be watching the woods, but my eyes keep drifting upward, hoping for a sponsor gift. Nothing would be too small, a piece of bread, a bit of cheese, and our water’s getting mighty low.
I focus on my plan. Obviously, I was onto something with that hedge. They played me, but they also confirmed what I suspected. I’ve found the end of the arena. If I can get through the shrubbery, I’ll find the generator and try to hack it to bits.
Time’s a-wasting, but Maysilee deserves some shut-eye. To distract myself, I pull her tarp out from under my butt and attempt to fashion it into some sort of gizmo to catch rainwater, in the event any more should fall.
My efforts result in a crooked funnel of sorts, that I tie with vines at the point. Seems like something of an achievement, until I hear her laughter.
“Made yourself a hat, did you?”
I’m kind of glad just to hear her laugh. “This, I’ll have you know, is a first-class watercatcher. And you will eat those words.”
“Will I? Exactly how are all the raindrops supposed to find that tiny opening?”
She has a point. There’s very little room for the rain to enter, which is no way to collect water. The water that fills our rain barrel has a roof to catch it before it finds its way down the drainpipe. “More surface area, you thinking?”
“I’m thinking.” Maysilee holds out her hand for my funnel. She
unwraps the tarp and flattens it out thoughtfully. It’s about four by four feet with little rings in the corners for securing it. “First, we’ll need some way to mount it.” She looks around, then gathers some vines. I help her tie them to the rings. She borrows my knife and punches a small hole in the very center of the tarp. “Now the water can run out there. Wish we had a tube of some kind; it would channel it into your jug.”
We take inventory of our stuff, which seems fruitless until I spy the wineglass. I remember how the juice filled the entire stem. “How attached are you to this?”
“Less attached than I am to water,” says Maysilee.
Placing the glass carefully on the log, I chop off the base and the bowl, leaving a hollow glass tube. Maysilee slides it into the hole. The jagged glass does a nice job of holding it in place.
“That should work,” she says. “Now all we need’s a rain shower.” She folds the tarp carefully and returns it to her pack. “So, what’s the plan? I
was thinking we might go back to the Cornucopia to see if we can find any
food that got left behind. Then we could go look for the other Newcomers. Or do you think we should find them first?”
“I think we should head north.” “North? Whatever for?”
“I just have a feeling about it,” I say, so the Gamemakers won’t suspect my next move.
“Haymitch, I need food.”
“Thought you weren’t a breakfast person.”
“Well, in here, I’m a breakfast-lunch-and-supper person. Never really knew what it was like to be hungry before. I mean, really hungry. It hurts.” She presses her hand against her stomach. “And it scares me.”
“I’m familiar. But I’m bent on heading north.”
“Can we at least try to locate the Careers’ packs? They must’ve hidden them somewhere around here before they hunted you.”
“Good thinking, but not for too long. Fifteen minutes and we go.”
Maysilee gives me a probing look but begins the search. She suspected I wasn’t being up front with her back in the apartment. I don’t know if she credits me with the arena breakdown, but she knows something’s still up that I’m not sharing. Should I tell her? How? When? Those cameras have to be on us.
We go back to the site of the fight and spiral out, looking for any
supplies the Careers might have stashed. Sure enough, we find some tucked under a rock shelf, only a short distance away. Three backpacks of various sizes. We dump them out on the ground and take stock of the contents. A hammock like mine. Two empty water jugs. Three handkerchiefs. A bottle of syrupy medicine for when you’ve been poisoned. A second tarp. A blowtorch, something like the one I’ve seen Tam Amber use. I press the lever, there’s a click, and six inches of flame shoot out.
Maysilee raises her eyebrows. “Starting fires will be a cinch now.”
Almost makes me sad, seeing Lenore Dove’s gift become obsolete so quickly. “Until the fuel runs out,” I counter.
We lay out the food with care. A flat tin of sardines. A banana with brown spots. Four rolls. A jar of nut butter with about an inch left. I add my two potatoes and Maysilee her three dried beef jerky strips and olives.
Could be worse.
“Okay, breakfast person, what will it be?” I ask her.
Maysilee takes charge of the food, halving the rolls and spreading them with the nut butter, artfully arranging slices of smushy banana on top. I’m not sure about the combination, but one bite dispels any doubt. “This is prime,” I say.
“Well, I am responsible for the more innovative flavor combinations at our shop. Did you ever try our hot pepper cherry taffy?”
“I did! That was Mamaw’s favorite!”
She gets out her knife and fork and cuts off a piece of her roll. “That was mine. Also, the cream cheese cinnamon balls and the lavender suckers. The mayor was partial to those.”
“Sounds like the job wasn’t all bad,” I comment.
She sighs. “Ironic is what it was. I don’t even care much for candy. So many more interesting things to make.”
I wolf down my sandwiches before she’s even finished her first and look around for something to do. I take the lids off the Careers’ water jugs, hoping for a few drops. Dry as a bone. “Guess they were thirsty, too.” Stripping some vines off a tree, I rig the second tarp for water catching. “No tube for this one.”
“We’ll make it work,” says Maysilee. “With a second hammock, maybe we can both sleep up in the trees.”
“Sure. Feels safer up there. If we go high enough, we won’t need to be on watch. We’d hear anybody coming.”
We pack up our booty, and she gestures for me to go first. “After
you.”
Trouble is, I don’t know where we are. I head off like I do. Trekking through the woods might give me an opportunity to reorient myself. Since I don’t entirely trust the sun’s position anymore, I’m hoping for a few
landmarks to get my bearings. We run into one after about ten minutes: the blueberry bushes with the broken branches where I hid my first night. That hedge really spit me out a long way from where I entered.
“That’s where Lou Lou found me,” I tell Maysilee.
“Oh. Blueberries.” She pulls out a small bowl and begins to gather them by the handful, which alarms me.
“You know we can’t eat those, right?”
“’Course I do. But my poison’s running low. Need to restock.”
I guess the darts didn’t come poisoned. Leave it to Maysilee to make them lethal. She mashes the berries into a juicy paste.
“You really need to do all that now?” It’s already late morning, and I’m getting fidgety.
“What’s the big rush, Haymitch?” That shuts me up. She knows I’ve got a secret worth telling and she’s using it against me. Like she did with Lenore Dove, I guess.
Maysilee drains some of the liquid into a heart-shaped glass vial that hangs from one of her necklaces. “It’s designed for perfume, so it’s got a
good tight lid to prevent evaporation. Just wish it held more.” She twists the tiny lid back on the heart. “How’d she die anyway? Lou Lou?”
“Inhaling bee balm,” I say. “Ampert told me about Wyatt.”
“He was trying to shield her. When he died, she ran away. I tried to follow her, but I lost her at the mountain.” She wipes her bowl with some
leaves. “I wonder what they’re thinking back home. Bet everyone’s rooting for you.”
“Maybe before the gong, but not anymore. You’re the one who tried to stick with the Newcomers. I know I’d be rooting for you.”
“Trying’s not doing.”
“No, but it sure beats not trying.” Of course, I have been trying to accomplish any number of things that I’m sure never made it on air. But trying wasn’t doing there either. At least, I know which way to head now. Maybe at the hedge, I’ll be able to get some doing done.
We hike along in silence, keeping an eye out for Careers, Newcomers, and mutts, but meeting no one. Sometimes we pass a casualty of the flooding . . . trees that drip blood instead of sap . . . a gaping hole where something exploded, leaving a slimy clear liquid coating everything in its vicinity . . . a stump that belches sulfurous, glowing gas . . . all of which we give a wide berth to.
I stop to examine a trio of dead fox mutts, fur as orange as sunset, who appear to have died eating poisonous eggs.
“What do you think those things were designed to do?” I ask. “Steal our food probably,” says Maysilee.
Or eat us, I think. Like the squirrels. Who knows? Maybe those were programmed for me.
Around midday we reach the hedge. “It’s a maze.” I tell Maysilee. “No point in trying to outsmart it. It’ll spin you around for miles.”
“What’s your plan?”
“My plan is, we cut straight through it and take a gander at what’s on the other side.” I drop my pack to the ground, roll up my sleeves, and pull out my long knife.
Maysilee surveys the hedge — its height, its length — then steps in closer for a look at the holly leaves and speckled berries. “Something’s not right about this hedge.” She looks back over her shoulder, considering what’s behind us. “But that’s nothing new.”
“I was in it for hours yesterday, and the worst I got was lost. I think that’s its purpose,” I reassure her.
She sets down her pack and pulls out the dagger she got from Barba. We slip through the opening and take advantage of the ten feet of straight path, then stop as it begins to curve into the maze. I square my shoulders so
I’m facing true north. “Here. This is where we should go in. Probably the faster the better.”
“Gotcha.” Maysilee steps up beside me. “On three?”
I nod and we count together, slowly raising our weapons. “One, two, three!”
We bring down our blades simultaneously, slicing cleanly through the greenery. But we’ve barely finished our first strokes when dozens of the holly berries pop off their stems and swarm up our arms. We both give a holler and begin brushing them off.
“What the hell are these?!” I exclaim. “Ladybugs!” says Maysilee.
Ladybugs? I lift my hand to examine one. It’s a ladybug, all right, or pretty near. All up and down my arms, the creatures latch on to the flesh. Within seconds, they inflate to the size of acorns and begin exploding, splattering my face with my blood.
