The Hunger Games: Retold

Chapter 23

My ears are ringing with Katniss' accusation. She's explaining how the little bit of missing cheese was Foxface, sneaking just enough to stay alive. And helping herself to some berries she assumed wouldn't be missed as well. Katniss' words are muffled though, all I can hear is an echo of "No, Peeta, she's your kill." I barely even saw this girl. She kept to herself in the training center and I haven't laid eyes on her since she fled into the woods at the Cornucopia. And now I've killed her. She joins the boys from 7 and 6, the girl from 8, and tiny Rue. Each sits in silent reproach for my part in the early ending of their too short lives.

I ask hollowly, "I wonder how she found us?" But that is probably down to me as well. "My fault, I guess, if I'm as loud as you say."

"And she's very clever, Peeta," Katniss tries to comfort me. "Well she was, until you outfoxed her," she adds.

"Not on purpose," I mumble. It makes no sense to credit me for being crafty enough to fool her, when really she just paid for my ignorance. I could have taken Katniss and myself both down just as easily. "Doesn't seem fair somehow," I protest. "I mean, we would have both been dead, too, if she hadn't eaten the berries first." But I can see the truth on Katniss' face. "No, of course we wouldn't. You recognized them, didn't you?"

She nods. "We call them nightlock."

"Even the name sounds deadly." l study the innocent-looking, little jewel like berries. "I'm sorry, Katniss. I really thought they were the same ones you'd gathered." I wonder just how long I'd have lasted out here on my own, even without a festering wound to contend with. Not long at all, is my guess. Fewer people for me to have hurt.

"Don't apologize. It just means we're one step closer to home, right?" she asks, repeating my attempt to steer her from melancholy when we learned Thresh had died. I nod my head and try to shake off the ugly, filthy feeling. I offer a silent, and useless, apology to Foxface and focus on getting Katniss out of this place.

"I'll get rid of the rest," I say, gathering up the poisonous fruit.

"Wait," Katniss stops me. She empties a few handfuls into a leather pouch and holds it up to me. "If they fooled Foxface, maybe they can fool Cato as well. If he's chasing us or something, we can act like we accidentally drop the pouch and if he eats them-"

"Then hello District Twelve," I finish emptily. I know it's the same, but facing him in a fight for our lives seems less abhorrent than plotting to trick him to his death. If I'm trying to rate how terrible my actions are based on how tricky I was in killing him, maybe it's not worth spending time thinking about. Instead, I know we need to plan for the inevitable confrontation. Will he just come to find us and we'll fight, or will the Gamemakers try to organize something more wrenching for the viewers? I have a horrible feeling it will be the latter.

"He'll know where we are now," I say. "If he was anywhere nearby and saw that hovercraft, he'll know we killed her and come after us."

Katniss nods her agreement, but a stubbornness lights her eyes. "Let's make a fire. Right now," she says, beginning to gather wood to burn.

"Are you ready to face him?" I ask. She has a dangerous, caution-to-the-wind sense to her decisive movements.

"I'm ready to eat," she shrugs. "Better to cook our food while we have the chance. If he knows we're here, he knows. But he also knows there's two of us and probably assumes we were hunting Foxface. That means you're recovered." She is calculating, weighing up probability and risk. How well does she understand her enemy? "And the fire means we're not hiding, we're inviting him here." She looks up at me and her eyes are gray ice. "Would you show up?" she asks.

"Maybe not," I back off.

With a healthy fire licking at the game she shot without me crashing around behind her, we keep a sharp eye out for Cato, but he wisely stays out of our way. Once the meat is cooked, we pack up and make a plan for the night. Katniss wants to head up a tree, but I'm not so sure.