Snowdrop

Chapter 16

  The mountain behind us – I don't recall it being there... maybe the clouds disguised it or the Gamemakers did something to hide it – anyway, the mountain behind us explodes in a plume of lava and rock. Cella screams and scrambles to her feet, snatching up her weaponry. Ember stumbles upright, surprisingly fast for someone who's recovering from knife wounds.
"Go, go, go!" Everyone's yelling and running, and the unstable ground makes it harder to move through the snow.
It's not until I'm several metres away, clutching Ember's hand and trying to swing my pack onto my shoulders that I realise Bailey's frozen in place, staring wide-eyed at the volcano. She's caught like an animal before slaughter, transfixed.
"Bailey!" I yell. "Bailey!"
Haymitch turns, and darts back with alarming speed. "Come on, Bailey, come on. Now's not the time to admire the view!" He drags her to her feet and sprints after us, yelling for us to move faster.
We crash through the forest, not caring how much noise we make. Our only thoughts are to save ourselves as the mountain spews fire.
Birds take flight, swooping over our heads like tiny hovercrafts, and in the distance someone screams and a cannon fires. Something grey catches in my hair and coat.
"Ash!" I shout, my breath stabbing at my chest. "We need to go faster or we'll suffocate!"
"Shit," I hear Cella mutter. She's running as fast as she can, her quiver bouncing awkwardly against her pack and her ponytail swinging wildly.
I trip a couple of times, but each time Ember hauls me to my feet, barely waiting to see if I'm all right. We enter a new part of the forest. It's denser, with lower hanging branches and scrubby foliage despite the cold climate. Even that doesn't seem to exist anymore, because even as we run the snow beneath our feet melts into an unattractive slush.
Branches cut at my face and catch in my hair, and I lift up my arms to sweep them aside. We're coughing now, squinting up at the sky as the sun is blotted out in a layer of ash and smoke.
"Come on, faster!" Haymitch calls.
I'm crying again, tears cutting tracks through the grime on my face. There's a boom, somewhere in the distance. A hiss and a crackle to my left. I look around wildly, catching sight of a tree a few hundred metres away. It teeters precariously, strangely graceful amidst this carnage, then collapses.
"Oh, shit!" Ember says.
My head snaps up to look at him. He never swears. But I don't have time to worry about it, because someone slams into me just as a tree right beside me bursts into flames. I hit the ground, wincing as I land heavily on my arm.
"Come on, come on, come on!" A hand grabs mine and I'm wrenched to my feet again.
The air around us crackles as fire rains from the sky, punctuated by our ragged breaths and shouts.
"Watch out!"
"We've gotta go, come on!"
"How – how long do you thing this'll last?"
"As long as it takes for us to be driven together."
I lift up my coat and cover my nose, hoping that it might stop me choking on the smoke. Branches crack and fall to the ground, hissing in what little remains of the snow are left. We run for what seems like hours but can really only be minutes, because too long and the Games would be accused of being boring.
But we run, tripping on tree roots and dodging balls of lava, until at last the attack is over. We stop, looking to the sky to see if anything more will happen. But nothing does, and we sink to the ground, panting.
I wipe the sweat from my forehead and unzip my pack with trembling fingers, then I take out my bottle. The water is deliciously cool, and after I've taken a long drink I splash some on my face and hands to scrub myself clean.
Cella winces, pressing her own bottle of water to her cheek. "D'you – d'you think they did that to eliminate water sources?"
Haymitch gargles and spits, shrugging. "Possibly. But the audience must've been getting bored. We're nearing the endgame now. There's only sixteen left, and action's slowing down." He tilts his head to the sky, as if addressing the Capitol. "Got to keep the blood flowing, don't we?"
Ember removes his jacket, dabs away the dirt and sweat from his face, and stuffs it in his backpack. "Either way, there's almost no snow to melt anymore. We should ration the water and avoid wasting it." He gives me a pointed look as I shake my hands dry. "We can't guarantee that the Gamemakers will make it snow anymore." As he zips his pack shut, a cannon fires.
"Fifteen left," I say. "Wonder who that was."
"Fifteen left, and a third of us are here. Doesn't that make us the next-strongest alliance?" says Cella. "'Cause there's only five Careers left, as far as we know, but we should assume there are so we don't catch ourselves out. Anyway, there's five Careers, and they've got the supplies, but they don't know how to survive. We might actually stand a chance, especially if the volcano took out their supplies."
Her eyes glitter, and it finally dawns on us. It's still a long shot with so many of us left, but one of us really could go home. We look around at each other, smiling, and Ember reaches across to take my hand.
My smile fades as I realise what he's thinking. You could go home.
That evening, the death recap shows that eight died, as opposed to the one we thought had died earlier. We mustn't have been able to hear the other cannons amidst the carnage.
Bailey looks slightly sad to learn that Odius, the boy from Two she seemed to like, is dead. But the Gamemakers' intervention leaves only us, the boy from One and Rouge, and the girl from Five to vie for the crown.
"Hopefully we'll get a good night's rest," Ember says. "There's been enough bloodshed for today, and we're all tired."
"I wonder if the last two Careers were hurt at all," I say. "With enough luck it'll take them out for a little while."
Haymitch leans back against a tree, tucking his arm behind his head. He's taken his coat off – we all have, it's too hot now – and I try not to look at the pop of muscle in his bicep. "I doubt it. They'll have sponsors literally tripping over themselves, especially this late in the Games. Any wound they have got will be easily fixed. So they'll be looking for us before long, but the smoke means they'll be a lot slower so we should get a little while to ourselves."
"Hey, isn't that what the rebels did to the Tracker Jacker nests in the Dark Days?" Cella says. "Smoked them out because it made them slow."
Ember cocks his head. "Huh. Wonder if that's why the Gamemakers did it. Not just to wipe out a good chunk of the remaining players, but to make it harder for us."
Haymitch agrees to take first watch with me after I've changed Ember's bandages. I lean against a tree, gazing into the distance as the mountain glows. A slow, steady trickle of lava makes its way down the mountainside, but it's too far away to do us any harm. I give a sigh.
"You're worried, aren't you?" Haymitch whispers eventually. "You know what Ember will do to get you home."
I nod. "Yes. It's so stupid, he's worth so much more than I am. But he's behaving as if I'm some precious treasure that must be protected at all costs. It scares me, you know? He will literally kill himself to keep me safe, but I've proven before that I can look after myself. I don't want to go home, because it means I'll be going home without him. I never went into the Games thinking I could. It's always just been me and him and Bailey trying to survive, but not really caring because we never thought we'd get this far."
"And now you're terrified because you know exactly what will happen if you make it to the last few," he says. He reaches out, hesitating for a moment, then pats my arm awkwardly. "Look, the odds are still stacked against any of us getting home. The Careers still have their supplies, and even if they're outnumbered, they certainly outskill us. You saw what happened last year with that girl from Two who took on three tributes and came out victorious. Odds are, we'll die before anything you're worried about will happen."
Oddly enough, his words comfort me. If and when we bump into the Careers again, Rouge will make absolutely certain she gets to either Ember or me. And then we'll have no chance in hell.
"I am sorry," I say.
"What? Why?"
"I've dumped my problems on you since we've teamed up again. It's not really fair."
Haymitch laughs quietly. "Sweetheart, do I look like I care? My younger brother is exactly the same as you, a bit dramatic but not really bad. I've dealt with him before. And I don't think either of us will have to worry about anything soon, so there's no point getting annoyed at you."
I turn to look at him. "If I hadn't volunteered for that girl, would you still be acting like this? It's a weird question, I know."
"Like what? Like you're behaving like my brother? Probably not. Maysilee and I are the same age, it's a bit different."
I lean back against the tree again, chewing my lip. Haymitch isn't as bad as I thought he was. I think back to when we were first reaped, and how I was almost scared of him. He was so grumpy, all the time, and I've somehow managed to get him to be nice to me. Is it really because I remind him of his brother, or is he also scared of Ember's wrath if he isn't nice?
"Tomorrow we'll make a plan," Haymitch says, settling back. "The Gamemakers will be plotting something, too, to draw us together. So we have to get one step ahead and make a plan of attack, probably quite literally."
"Mm-hmm."
"Will you two shut up?" Cella hisses. "Save it till morning."
She rolls over, shifting a few times to get comfortable, and within minutes she's snoring softly. Haymitch simply shakes his head, and I stifle a laugh.
As the night draws on, we don't say another word. We just sit in silence, watching the moon make its slow arc across the sky and the lava trickle lazily down the mountain. We'll be forced into the forest now. The plain by the Cornucopia won't offer any means of concealment, and nobody can go near the volcano.
Eventually, as a small sliver of light appears on the horizon, my thoughts drift to my family. Burnet will be watching every moment, most certainly. Kaitlynn will be trying to keep Posy busy, but still keeping a weather eye on the television. And I can see my mother, holding a cup of tea but never drinking it, glued to her seat, staring blankly at the screen. But always whispering our names under her breath, always willing us to find some way to beat the system and come home.
My fingers go to the pendant at my throat. I lift my head to the sky and close my eyes, whispering a silent promise that, if I don't go home, Ember will.