Playing Games

Chapter Fourteen Saving Peeta

We learn some interesting things in this chapter. I'm ready for the games to get over though and see the reunion between Katniss and Finnick =]

Getting the broth into Peeta takes an hour of coaxing, begging, threatening, but finally, sip by sip, he empties the pot. I let him drift off to sleep then and attend to my own needs, wolfing down a supper of groosling and roots while I watch the daily report in the sky. No new casualties. Still, Peeta and I have given the audience a fairly interesting day. Hopefully, the Gamemakers will allow us a peaceful night.

I put on my glasses, place my weapons in readiness, and settle down to keep watch.

The temperature drops rapidly and soon I'm chilled to the bone. Eventually, I give in and slide into the sleeping bag with Peeta. It's toasty warm and I snuggle down gratefully until I realize it's more than warm, it's overly hot because the bag is reflecting back his fever. I check his forehead and find it burning and dry. I don't know what to do. Leave him in the bag and hope the excessive heat breaks the fever? Take him out and hope the night air cools him off? I end up just dampening a strip of bandage and placing it on his forehead. It seems weak, but I'm afraid to do anything too drastic.

I spend the night half-sitting, half-lying next to Peeta, refreshing the bandage, and trying not to dwell on the fact that by teaming up with him, I've made myself far more vulnerable than when I was alone. Tethered to the ground, on guard, with a very sick person to take care of. But he's family. Would I leave Prim out to die. It still not the same only having found out what a week ago?

But I knew he was injured. And still I came after him. I'm just going to have to trust that whatever instinct sent me

to find him was a good one.

When the sky turns rosy, I notice the sheen of sweat on Peeta's lip and discover the fever has broken. He's not

back to normal, but it's come down a few degrees. Last night, when I was gathering vines, I came upon a bush of Rue's berries. I strip off the fruit and mash it up in the broth pot with cold water.

Peeta's struggling to get up when I reach the cave. "I woke up and you were gone," he says. "I was worried

about you." I have to laugh as I ease him back down. "You were worried about me? Have you taken a look at yourself lately?"

"I thought Cato and Clove might have found you. They like to hunt at night," he says, still serious.

"Clove? Which one is that?" I ask.

"The girl from District Two. She's still alive, right?" he says.

"Yes, there's just them and us and Thresh and Foxface,"

I say. "That's what I nicknamed the girl from Five. How do you feel?"

"Better than yesterday. This is an enormous improvement over the mud," he says. "Clean clothes and medicine and a sleeping bag."

We get him propped up against the wall and he obediently swallows the spoonfuls of the berry mush I feed him. He refuses the groosling again, though.

"You didn't sleep," Peeta says.

"I'm all right," I say. But the truth is, I'm exhausted.

"Sleep now. I'll keep watch. I'll wake you if anything happens," he says. I hesitate. "Katniss, you can't stay up forever."

He's got a point there. I'll have to sleep eventually. And probably better to do it now when he seems relatively alert and we have daylight on our side. "All right," I say.

"But just for a few hours. Then you wake me."

It's too warm for the sleeping bag now. I smooth it out on the cave floor and lie down, one hand on my loaded bow in case I have to shoot at a moment's notice. Peeta sits beside me, leaning against the wall, his bad leg stretched out before him, his eyes trained on the world outside. "Go to sleep," he says softly.