Catching Fire: The New Story

Chapter 84

Author's Note:

As I promised, the last chapter of Catching Fire: The New Story.

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Katniss's POV

Johanna unwinds the wire first, taking it once everyone is out of sight. Johanna unwinds the wire while I stay on guard, it isn't much of a guard now since all I can think about is Peeta, how heartbroken he looked when we left. Beetee is right, they have to protect him while he works on the plan. Peeta will just slow us down and if we want to finish this and come out safe, we need to be quick.

I set my foot down on that idea, not because it is right, but because I need to focus on guarding and then later, unwinding the wire.

We have traveled not so far when the quietness of our plan is filled with the ticking of insects, the hour next to us. Indicating it is past eleven, the wave was possibly at the hour of nine to ten. The noises ring in my left ear, fuzzing my focus.

"Better hurry," Johanna says. "I want to put as much distance between me and that water before the lightning strikes. Just in case Volts miscalculated something."

"I'll take the coil for a while." It's harder laying the wire out than guarding. With this, I can't focus on Peeta and his safety, although I am trying not to, since I will be unwinding the wire and watching where I step. I actually have to concentrate, put my mind to focus on one thing and that is the wire shining in the little moonlight we get, the gold of it making is seem almost not real. Johanna has already had a long enough turn.

"Here," says Johanna. Her hand had just let go of the wire long enough for me to know the slight vibration wasn't from her. I look back while Johanna continues ahead. I tug on the wire, and I hear a snap from somewhere nearby. The coil comes flying to me, the cut end wraps around my wrist. I cry out, dropping the roll which tightens the grip on my wrist. Johanna is at my side, and she undoes the wire from my wrist. Blood drips from all the little wounds it made. Someone has cut the wire, and they will be here any moment. 

My hand begins to find a silver arrow when something hard smashes into the side of my head. Next thing I know, I am lying on my back on the ground of the dark jungle, a terrible pain in my right temple. I open my eyes, but everything seems to be blurry and moving. I focus to on turning the two moons in the sky to one as my vision moves in and out. It is difficult to breathe, and I can make out Johanna sitting over me. Her knees pin me to the ground by my shoulders.

I cry out when pain runs through my left forearm. I try to move away from Johanna, or at least try to fight back, but I am too numb. Johanna's digging into my flesh with something. I guess the edge of her knife, twisting it around. My skin tears and warmth runs down my arm, filling my palm and falling through my fingers. She wipes away some blood from my arm and coats my neck in my own blood.

"Stay down," she hisses. He weight is removed, and I am alone while she runs into the jungle from my view.

Stay down? I think. What is going on? I shut my eyes tightly, blocking out the nightmare of a world around me. I try my hardest to make sense of this situation without making my head pounding harder.

All I can think of is Johanna pushing Wiress to the ground. "Just stay down will ya!" But she didn't attack Wiress like this, nothing like this. I am not Wiress, anyway. I am not Nuts. "Just stay down will ya!" echoes inside my head.

I hear someone coming, two people coming towards me. Heavy, not even trying to cover their tracks.

"She's as good as dead! Leave her, Brutus!" Enoboria. They move past me and into the night.