I'll Be Beside You (Sequel to I'll Be Watching You)

The Canary

CATO POV

"What are you talking about?"

"The arena is a clock. The strips of land represent the hours, with a new threat every hour. But the thing is they stay within their wedge. First the lightning, blood rain, fog, monkeys. That's the first four hours. The lightning strikes that tree at midnight and noon. Then comes the tidal wave at 10."

"How did you figure all that out?"

"I didn't. Wiress knew all along. I just assumed considering the fog seemed like it hit a wall before the monkeys came out and attacked us."

"So what do we do?"

"I say we go back to the Cornucopia. It is not safe in the jungle and we are exposed to the Careers if we stay here on the beach."

We all picked up our weapons and walked in single file along the closest strip of land to the Cornucopia. I was really surprised to see that the weapons had not been cleaned out. I remembered back to mine and Brooke's Game that is Careers completely cleaned out the whole Cornucopia so that the others wouldn't be advantaged. Wiress sat on the edge of the rocks, cleaning Beetee's coil and continuously singing 'Hickory Dickory Dock' while looking out at the water. I looked at Brooke, wondering if I should pull Wiress back to the group.

"Leave her. She is like our canary. In 12, they would send canaries into the mines to see if there was any bad air."

"Would the bird die?"

"It would stop singing first and that's when the men would know to get out. But then, yes, if the air is really bad the bird would die and so would the men."

I gave another glance over at Wiress, something just doesn't feel right to me. Finnick took out a large leaf and drew a map of the arena with the end of Johanna's knife. He drew three circles, one each for the Cornucopia, the water line and the edge of the jungle, before separating it into 12 equal pieces.

"Tell me again, what were the different threats in the first four hours?"

"Lightning, blood rain, fog and monkeys. And add tidal wave from 10 to 11."

I looked back over at Wiress, still singing away. She then sits up quickly and points  to a section of the jungle.

"Two."

I followed her finger and saw the fog seeping through the jungle and out onto the beach.

"Yes Wiress. You're right. Can you guys also add a mark so that we know which threats can follow us down onto the beach? It tells us which wedges the beach is safe to stay on."

Finnick nodded and I turned back to the others, Wiress continued to sing. I took a closer look at the top of the Cornucopia.

"Hey guys, the tail of the Cornucopia points to 12."

"So we can stick clear of section 2 and section 10 cause both the wave and the fog come out onto the beach. That's way more than we knew this morning."

We all nod in agreement and that's when we notice the silence.

Our canary has stopped singing.

I turned and threw one of my knives into the chest of a dripping wet Gloss, his arm wrapped around Wiress and her throat cut open into a scary red smile. Both her and Gloss' cannons go off and they both slid into the water. Before I knew it, Johanna turned and buried her axe deep into Cashmere's chest with an almighty thud, the cannon going off immediately. Finnick started to fight off Brutus while Brooke was aiming her arrows for Enobaria. I grabbed one of my swords and raced towards Brutus. He and Enobaria turned and ran down one of the sand strips, it felt really odd chasing after one of my mentors but I had to do it.

Suddenly, I was lifted off my feet. Everything became a blur as my world spun. I tried to hold on to anything but my hand wouldn't grip anything. My hand found Finnick's and he held onto me so tight that it felt like my circulation was being cut off at my fingers. As quickly as it started, the spinning stopped and we found ourselves splayed out on the beach, coughing up water. I tried to stand up but my body would hold me, I was too dizzy. Slowly, the world stopped spinning and I was able to stand and make my way back to my fiancée. Brooke was coughing up saltwater and holding her stomach.

"Are you okay?"

"Yeah I think so. The baby is still moving so I guess she's okay too."

I put out a hand to help Brooke up off the sand. I could see Johanna and Finnick but I could not see Beetee on the sand. I shielded my eyes from the sun and saw Beetee barely trying to keep himself afloat. I ran out into the water and carried him in, that's when I saw the bodies of Wiress, Cashmere and Gloss all floating in the water. Wiress still had an iron tight grip on the coil of wire that was floating above the water. I placed Beetee on the sand before diving back into the water. The hovercraft was coming fast, I had to hurry or the coil would be gone along with Wiress. I swam as fast as I could. When I finally reached her body, the claw was already coming down. I tried to wrestle the coil from her grip but she held on for dear life. Finally wrenching her fingers free, I stepped back as the claw wrapped itself around her corpse. I mouthed a small blessing and watched as the claw carried her up into the sky.

I just knew something wasn't right.