It takes a while for her to tell me the whole story. How Foxface stole the food from the supply pile before she blew it up, how she would take enough to safety alive, but not enough that anyone would notice it, how she wouldn't question the safety of the berries we were preparing to eat ourselves.
"I wonder how she found us," I say. "My fault, I guess, if I'm as loud as you say."
"And she's very clever, Peeta. Well, she was," she corrects herself. "Until you outfoxed her."
"Not on purpose. Doesn't seem fair somehow. I mean we would have both been dead, too, if she hadn't eaten the berries first." I think about that for a second. "No, of course, we wouldn't. You recognized them, didn't you?"
She nods. "We call it nightlock."
"Even the name sounds deadly," I muse. "I'm sorry, Katniss. I really thought they were the same ones you gathered." I really don't mind the fact that I could have died by eating them, but it's a whole different story for Katniss. How stupid of me to endanger her like that.
"Don't apologize," she says. "It just means we're one step closer, right?"
"I'll get rid of the rest," I say, evading her question. I can't assure her with something so uncertain, like surviving the Hunger Games. I gather up the sheet of blue plastic, careful to trap the berries inside, and walk toward the edge of the woods.
"Wait!" Katniss cries. She picks up a leather pouch, and walks toward me. She fills it with a few handfuls of berries from the plastic in my hands. "If they fooled Foxface, maybe they can fool Cato as well," she explains. "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 complete her sentence. She's even cleverer than Foxface.
"That's it," she says, securing the pouch to her belt.
"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." That I killed her, I correct myself in my mind. It's so ironic. I promised to myself and my father that I wouldn't kill anyone – well, at least not unless it was absolutely necessary, like to defend myself. And I killed Foxface. But Katniss knows she's not my first kill. I know she heard me saying that I would take care of the girl Cato stabbed from the tree she was hiding in. I will never forget the face of the dying girl from District 8. How even in her last breath she cringed away from me in terror when she saw me coming. How I just stood there and waited until she died. I didn't kill her with my own hands, but I might as well have. I stood aside while Cato stabbed her again and again. I guess I can at least say my hands are clean of innocents' blood.
"Let's make a fire," Katniss says suddenly, pulling me out of my reverie. "Right now."
"Are you ready to face him?"
"I'm ready to eat," she says with a half smile on her face. "Better to cook our food while we have a 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. And the fire means we're not hiding, we're inviting him here. Would you show up?"
"Maybe not," I answer.
I light a fire, a little smug that I was able to coax a blaze out of damp wood. In no time Katniss has the rabbits and squirrel roasting, the roots, wrapped in leaves, baking in the coals. We take turns gathering greens and keeping a careful watch for Cato, but he doesn't honor us with his presence.
When the food's cooked, Katniss packs most of it up, leaving us each a rabbit's leg to eat as we walk.
Katniss wants to climb up a tree and spend the night there, but I resist and for a good reason.
"I can't climb like you, Katniss, especially with my leg, and I don't think I could ever fall asleep fifty feet above the ground," I tell her.
"It's not safe to stay in the open, Peeta," she insists.
"Can't we go back to the cave?" I ask. "It's near water and easy to defend."
She sighs in exasperation, and I'm almost positive she's going to force me up a tree. I wait for the verdict as she thinks it over.
"Sure," she says, reaching up to give me a kiss. "Let's go back to the cave."
"Well, that was easy," I say, relieved I'll be spending the night on solid ground...and with Katniss.
We toss a bunch more wood on the fire. It should be sending off smoke for a few more hours, although we can't expect anything from Cato at this point.
When we reach the stream, we notice the water has dropped considerably and moves at its old leisure pace. Katniss suggests we walk in it, and I happily agree because I'm much quieter in the water than in dry land.
It's a long walk back to the cave though, even going downward. I start regretting having suggested going back to the cave. By the time we reach our destination, our feet are dragging and the sun is touching the horizon. We fill up our water bottles and walk up the slope to our hideout.
Katniss starts setting out our dinner, but although I'm starving, I start dozing off. Katniss half pushes me to the sleeping bag. She tucks the sleeping bag around me, and I take advantage of her closeness and reach up for a kiss. Instead of pulling back, she places her hand delicately on my cheek and leans closer to me. I sight at the feeling of her soft, warm lips against mine and kiss her even deeper, almost roughly. She pulls away slowly, touching her lips to mine one more time, and gently pushes me down. I wouldn't have given up so easily, but my eyelids feel so heavy, I start dozing off again almost as soon as she pulled away. I let my eyes close. I'm almost completely unconscious when she kisses my forehead.
I have to make it back home, I think to myself. For Katniss, I have to make it out of this hell alive.
