The Great War.

XIV

"Surreptitious Connection."

I lie down next to Marvel, and we both just stare at the night sky. We don't say anything, and my mind comes to a halt for a while. I don't think about what I should do next; I don't think about how the Games will end; I don't think about the tributes from District 12; I don't think about anything at all. I'm aware that dissociating is dangerous. I've always known it's one of my biggest problems, but after everything that has happened in the past few hours, I can't help it. I feel safe inside my own head, I always did.

I'm starting to doze off when I hear someone throwing up. I quickly open my eyes and see Marvel, who has also awakened. We turn our heads towards Cato, and I see him on his knees by the lake, clutching his abdomen. He stumbles and slams his face against the ground when he tries to get up. I know that we should help him in the name of the career alliance, but I don't want to do it. The situation with Marvel is different because he helped me after the fire. I owed him. Cato, on the other hand, has done nothing but terrorize me since we met on reaping day. A part of me wants to push his face into the lake until he stops breathing.

"We should do something," Marvel whispers. "He looks terrible."

"Let's leave him there for a while. He's not going anywhere," I say without paying much attention. "We could kill him right now if he wasn't that useful."

Cato will be confused and scared due to the hallucinations caused by the tracker-jacker venom. He'll probably try to attack us if we approach him right now, so it's better to let him recover on his own. But maybe I'm wrong, and I'm not helping him simply because I don't quite like him. I leave my district partner writhing on the ground for approximately thirty minutes, and when I see his body curled up and trembling, I think that he's had enough torture.

I shake Marvel, waking him up to give me a hand. We struggle to get up, and my body is begging me to stop and rest. We approach Cato, who looks completely vulnerable, and I almost feel sorry for him. It will be so easy to kill him right here and now, but we can't do that, not yet, since Thresh is still out there, somewhere, and I know that Cato is the only person who's strong enough to face him. Marvel is skilled at combat, but he's down by so many points compared to the other two.

"Well, look who finally wakes up! We thought you wouldn't," I joke. I doubt he'll view it as humor, but I'm taking advantage of the fact that he can't hurt me right now. "I'm guessing you had some nice dreams."

I notice his chest rapidly rising and falling. He struggles to breathe and cannot speak. I shine my flashlight on him to count the stings: one on his neck, three on his right arm, two on his left arm, and one beneath his eye. He's been stung seven times, and somehow he's still alive. I think that I never hated him more; I get closer to his face to get a better look at the swelling beneath his eye, and I'm sure that he's temporarily blinded.

"He looks terrible," I tell Marvel, who is examining our ally's arm. "We'll need another bottle of saline solution or some kind of antiseptic."

He gets a bottle from his backpack, and reluctantly, we start removing the stingers. I don't ask Cato if he's tolerating the pain well or if he wants to take a break. He keeps on yelling and I keep on ignoring him.

"Just stay still!" I reprimand him. "The less you move, the faster we'll be done."

"Stop," he whispers, almost inaudibly. "Please."

I remove the last stinger from the wound on his neck, and the nausea grows stronger. Cato has received the worst part of the attack, obviously after Glimmer and Tara. I start feeling sorry for him, so battered and destroyed, but the feeling doesn't last long.