kill for your love - the hunger games

(032) district partners, jabberjays, bread

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KILL FOR YOUR LOVE.

act two. 

(chapter thirty-two, district partners, jabberjays, bread)

the arena, 75 ADD.

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THE MOMENT THE SCREAM echoed around, Juniper, Peeta, and Johanna all got up and immediately sprinted to the jungle, hearts racing as the cry sounded nearly like Katniss. If Katniss was dead, what would happen? Would the rebellion not take place? Or would they take on Peeta to be their new face? Would Plutarch even rescue Juniper from the arena if she failed?

With that in mind, Juniper was desperate to get to Katniss and Finnick, but the minute she entered the jungle, she suddenly bashed her head onto something. An ear-ripping crack echoed around as a crimson liquid began to immediately gush from her nose, an immense stinging pain spreading through her body. 

"Ow! What the fuck?"  Juniper hissed as she bent down, gingerly tapping the bridge of her nose. 

"What?" Johanna scoffed as she stared into the jungle. 

Everyone was confused on what Juniper had smacked her nose on, even Beetee as he waddled over to them, cradling the wire like he might lose it. But suddenly, Peeta stepped forwards and raised a hand and it was like he was resting his palm against a wall. 

A wall. 

"This is the exact same barrier that happened with the fog," Peeta muttered. It wasn't a force field and as Juniper sucked up the pain, she joined the boy and touched the transparent wall. It was hard and smooth. It stopped them from getting to Finnick and Katniss. "The fog nearly got us, but something stopped it. Like an invisible wall." 

"It's the hourly horror," Beetee said sadly. "Jabberjays."

"Jabberjays..." Peeta muttered. "That was Katniss's sister... that scream. That makes so much sense."

Jabberjays were a type of muttation created by the Capitol to spy on rebels during the Dark Ages, the First Rebellion. The birds, all male, had the ability to memorise and repeat entire human conversations. But once the rebels and those in the districts realised their private words were being transmitted, they used the jabberjays to feed lies to the Capitol. They, therefore, ceased the usage of them and abandoned them to die off in the wild. But unbeknownst to them, they bred with the female mockingbirds to produce the mockingjays, a bird that could repeat both human melodies and birdsong. They were symbols of rebellion.

"Well, we can't just leave them in there!" Johanna told them and immediately, everyone but Beetee gathered their weapons and tried to at least make a dent in the invisible barrier, Johanna with her axe, Peeta with his knives, and Juniper with her sword. But they couldn't even make a scratch on the transparent wall and after multiple minutes of trying, all they ended up with were sore arms and panting breaths. 

"It is no use." Beetee shook his head. "The Gamemakers' have made it so you can't reach them. It would be dense of them to make it otherwise."

Juniper furrowed her brows as she searched the jungle for any sign of Finnick or Katniss. They had obviously used Katniss's sister, according to Peeta, to scare her. But who would they use for Finnick? He was very secretive about his life and who he loved in case the Capitol used it against him. But then Juniper remembered.