We Stood Strong

Chapter 30: Breaking Out

Chapter 30 [Finnick's P.O.V.]

Before we set up the "trap", Beetee needed to check out the lightning tree. We predicted it was about nine o'clock, so the ten o'clock wave would be coming soon, meaning we would have to evacuate the beach, so, taking our bearings, we headed up to the lightning section. Beetee is too fragile to walk yet so Peeta and I take shifts carrying him up the way. Katniss allows Johanna to take the lead, claiming she's the best to bring up the rear. I doubt she would attack us now, at least not until this trap is over.

But as we lug our belongings up the slope, I remember of the dangerous forcefield and it's unpredictable whereabouts. "Wait," I say. "Katniss should take the lead." We stop, considering my statement.

I describe to Beetee and Johanna how Katniss can hear the force field.

"Hear it?" Beetee questions.

"Only with the ear the Capitol reconstructed," Katniss adds. Beetee seems unsettled with this, but obliges. Wiping his glasses he says, "Then by all means, let Katniss go first. Force fields are nothing to play around with."

Gradually we make our way to the lightning tree, with Katniss tossing nuts along the way, avoiding the force field. She cautiously throws one last nut into the air, when it sizzles and flies back, we've all stopped. We've found the force field.

"Just stay below the lightning tree," Katniss suggests.

Taking our own roles, Katniss hunts, Peeta searches for nuts, Johanna taps a tree for water, Beetee works out his plan with the lightning tree while I stand guard for him.

When we all come back, we feast off what Katniss and Peeta had collected, though Beetee is intent with playing with the tree. Later, he rips off a silver piece of bark, joins our sitting positions, and chucks it into the force field. It flies back, bouncing to a stop in the jungle grass, glowing. A couple of seconds later it fades to the original silver color.

"That explains a lot," Beetee mutters to himself, though I don't know what he was referring to. Did he mean the bark? Or did he mean the force field?

Then this thought continues in my head as I try to figure out what Beetee was referring to. Was it as if the force field had the same voltage as the lightning, is that what the tree looks like when it is struck? But it must be something more complicated than that. Thinking about the subject, Beetee is responsible for breaking the force field when it comes time. Then I realize the real outcome for Beetee's idea:

This is the last step of our plan. The games are almost over. Its not to electrocute the careers, it's to break the force field.

And this means I have only one more duty for the rebels. I have to take out Katniss', Peeta's and Beetee's trackers.

A roar of "clicks" vibrate through the air from the eleven-o'clock section. "It's not mechanical," Beetee says finally.

"I'd guess insects. Maybe beetles," Katniss says.

"Something with pinchers," I suggest.

Strangely the noises intense, as if it thirsted for our flesh, and is now aware of our distance. Although we are not in the same sliver of time zone, it sends shivers down my back.

"We should get out of here, anyway," Johanna warily says. "There's less than an hour before the lightning starts."

We wander a bit into the next section, to the twin tree in the blood-rain section. In silence we nibble on the meat from a tree rat and nuts.

Katniss scales a tree before the lightning strikes the tree, and reports to Beetee the affect of the loud strike.

Heading towards the two-o'clock section and beach we make a clockwise trip to the beach of the ten-o'clock section. Beetee releases us of his orders for the rest of the day while he plans with his wire.