Come Back to Me

XVI

Parker drug Gretchen's kukri, skinning the jackrabbit that had been caught in Cordelia's snare. Due to the ointment Finnick had sent, Cordelia's wrist as well as the wound on Gretchen's shoulder, were almost completely healed and she was able to tie the trap herself which was best for her sanity. Even though Parker had grown into the skill rather quickly, he was still quick to test every single one of the girl's nerves exactly when she needed it the least.

They were now four days into the games, and things were moving rather slow. Cordelia had no doubt that the gamemakers would start to shake things up at any moment, in fact she was grateful that they had left things alone for so long. The tributes trekked around carefully throughout the day, gathering roots and hunting game for themselves. They had all come to the joint conclusion that there must've been another source of water somewhere in the arena, other than the one by the Cornicopia, considering that they hadn't run into any of the other tributes and no one else had been killed by the Careers. There was no way that anyone could've made it this long without water. The past couple of nights when the anthem played, no faces showed in the sky, telling that there were still ten tributes left. Their group, the Careers, the boy from six, and the girl from five.

"It's best that we make a plan." Gretchen said instinctively.

Parker and Cordelia had been the main source of food, and Cordelia would've been counted out if it weren't for her ability to tie the traps. Although, she had taken a quail down out of a tree with her spear that morning, and that gave her the confidence to start trying more techniques. If you counted Carter's medical training, as well as his knowledge on plants and other things survival, then Gretchen sat alone in her uselessness. Except she wasn't completely useless, if you considered the fact that she was meant to be a Career. Her knowledge on the arrogant tributes wasn't vast, for she split from them pratically in the reaping. However, she had similar training, not to mention she had literally sat with one of them in school, and she was familiar enough with their tactics to be of some help. Though aside from that, she knew nothing. Not how to hunt, not how to stitch a wound, and certainly not how to start a fire, much less how to cover it's tracks. Maybe that's why the group worked so well. Some could get food, one could heal, and one knew their opponents closely.

"It'd be better for us to plan on attacking first," She worked through her portion of rabbit and some roots that Carter had collected, "especially while we're well fed, and even."

The two groups were far from even. Each Career was twice the size of any of them minus Gretchen, not to mention they had been trained to kill. Cordelia supposed her ally was talking about numbers, because even though it'd be far from a fair fight, each alliance had four tributes. They continued working through the food, finishing off the rabbit as well as some left over quail from the morning. If they were going in for a fight, it'd be best to do so on a full stomach. Not that the meat would last for much longer in the swealtering heat. They took turns sipping from the water bottle, Cordelia silently cursing the fact that they only had one. Though it was big, four seperate people tended to get through the supply rather quickly.

"We could attack in the morning," Parker suggested, "or at night."

"Night could be better," Grethcen's response was immediate, and sure, "they're cocky -as always- so, it's likely they're not as adiment about someone keeping watch. I find it hard to believe that they'd ever expect someone approaching them. In their heads everyone's too scared of them, they probably assume that the rest of us are gonna try and wait out their deaths."

The air was dried with a thick hotness, each of their jackets have been stuffed away into the backpacks. In fact, the temperature felt so unaturally high, that Parker had for a second thought of just finding a stone to cook the rabbit on.