The Divergent Games - A Crossover

Katniss - Back in the Ring - 12

Warning: There's one or two cuss words in this chapter. 

The closer we get to the Cornucopia, the quieter the woods get. Or maybe that's just me. At first we were talking to each other, but as the day grew shorter, and the looming reality that we may as well be walking into a lion's den became larger than ever, the walk became silent.

Just as the sun is drifting below the horizon, we reach a break in the trees. We're not entirely to the field just yet, but we can see it through here. It looks like the Careers have made a pile of all their supplies about ten feet from the metal horn. It's huge, with crates and bags and all sorts of weapons. My bow, however, is nowhere to be found.

On top of the horn sits the girl from District Four. Her partner works with someone else, the boy from Three, I think. They're behind the Cornucopia so I can barely see them, but they seem to be attempting to dig.

"The lake's that way," Peeta murmurs, pointing to our right. "Come on."

We move quietly, excluding Peeta, back into the forest and in the general direction of the water. The temperature drops fast, and must be down to twenty degrees when we actually reach the shore. But my mouth is too dry to care, and I have to force myself to wait until the water is cleaned with the iodine. It feels like torture.

We fill each of the bottles, passing them between us. Drinking as much as we want, then refilling and squeezing droplets of iodine into each of them. When that's finished, I go back to the edge of the trees.

From my new angle, I can still barely see what the boys are up to, and I don't see the bow either. The idiotic part of me wants to get closer, but the girl from Four will definitely see me from her perch. I need her to be distracted.

She looks bored up there, and I'm sure that almost anything will work. But what will distract a Career that won't end with one of us dead?

Peeta appears next to me, mist floating up into the air from his mouth as he breathes. His jacket is pulled over his hands, and his lips are trembling.

"What are you thinking?" he asks.

"I need to look for it."

"Well you can't go out there," he says, grabbing my wrist. His hand is freezing. "She'll see you, and you'll end up dead."

The way that he's looking at me... I can almost see the cameras on our faces right now, and Caesar Flickerman's commentary dubbed over it. I pry his cold fingers from my arm, attempting to warm them up somewhat by holding them.

"Peeta–"

"Seriously, Katniss," he cuts in. "They could kill you, easily." He didn't have to add that last word. Maybe now they could kill me easily, but once I get a hold of my bow, I'll be the threat. I just need to find it, and the sooner the better because I'm practically helpless without it.

"I can go with you," Tris suggests. Her and Four have just walked up. She says it so casually you'd think she'd volunteered to go with me to the Hob. "We can be in and out."

"Not with her up there."

Tris shivers, rubbing her hands together. Four sees this, and wraps his big arms around her from behind. She melts into him, like butter on a warm bun(which sounds so good right now.)

Peeta and I are going to have to pick it up.

"Plus, we can't kill any of them if we don't want to alert the others," says Tris. "Our best bet is stealth, but again..." She nods up at the girl on the Cornucopia. Great timing too, because she has just stood up, head turned away from us. Then she starts yelling, probably to her partner whom we can't see, and pointing to the forest on the opposite side of the ring where smoke is rising to the sky, billowing up and up.