Chapter-14

Chapter 14

"Rue?" I whisper.

"It's her, Katniss. The little girl that was following you around in the training center," Peeta told me.

"Rue? We aren't going to hurt you, you can come down," I said a little louder. I didn't know if people were around, but I didn't want to take any chances.

Rue began climbing down the tree. She was fast, faster than I was, which impressed me.

"Wow," Peeta said. He was impressed too, by the look on his face.

Her feet hit the ground, and she looked up at us. She was scared, I could tell. She had a small brown bag, filled with something I couldn't see.

"You won't hurt me?" she asked.

"Of course not, how could we hurt someone as little as you," Peeta said with a smile.

She was tiny, but she didn't look any different than she did in the training center. She didn't look hungry.

"Is your district partner here?" I asked. I trust Rue, she reminds me of my sister, but this could be a trap.

"Heleft me. I wanted to team up with him, but he told me it would be safer on my own. He said Cato would be hunting him down first because he's the next biggest boy," she said sadly.

She wasn't wrong. Cato basically said it all throughout training. He'd hunt down Thresh first, then me and Peeta, and pick off the rest of the tributes one by one.

"Well you can team up with us if you want," Peeta said. He's too nice for his own good sometimes. Another person to look after would only distract him and I, but I couldn't let Rue leave.

She looked at us for a couple seconds, trying to tell if we were lying or not. I don't blame her, in this arena, there are no friends. There is the Career Pack, and the rest of the tributes. Nobody outside of the Careers made an alliance. Peeta and I were an exception.

"Okay," she said with a smile. I couldn't help but smile back, she reminded me so much of Prim. I miss her so much, but I don't have time to think about her. I need to survive, and help Peeta too.

She opened her bag, and it was filled with leaves and nuts and berries. "Wow, you're a good scavenger, huh?" Peeta asked. She nodded.

"In District 11, our job is agriculture, so I know a lot about plants," she said. "I recognized a lot of these plants from back home."

"Do you know where the Careers are?" I asked.

"By the cornucopia, they have everything in a giant pile outside of the cornucopia. They leave someone there to watch the food and supplies while the rest go hunting for us," she said.

"So they aren't guarding the lake? I figured that's where they would be," I said.

"There's no point. I found a small pond a while back, so there's more than one water source. They'd be wasting their time sitting there after the first two days. Only someone really desperate would go to the lake," she said. She's very smart, I'll give her that.

"Can you take us to the pond?" I asked. We need water badly, and she can take us there.

"Yes, follow me," she said.

She starts walking towards the pond she found, and I realize that this water will not be safe to drink. We'll get sick quickly if we drink this water.

"I boiled the water so it was safe to drink, but once it gets dark, we can't light a fire. The Careers will be looking for that," she said. So that's how she drank the water.

"Katniss and I got a backpack from the cornucopia, so we can use the iodine at night time. It'll purify the water while we sleep," Peeta says.

"We got a water bottle too, but it's small. It'll still be useful though," I said.

As it gets dark, we boil some water, and drink some, filling the bottle again. Rue has her own bottle she made. We use hers to fill with the boiled water and let it cool overnight in the chilly air, while we use mine to purify. Both will be cold and refreshing tomorrow morning.

We put out the fire, and climbed a tree. Rue is three trees over, so if one of us is found, the other will be safe. Peeta and I stick together though.

As Peeta gets to the same fork I'm at, we take off our belts and tie them together like last night. He looks a lot more calm tonight.

Peeta sits first, his back to the tree, and butt to the branch we're on. I sit between his legs, my back to his chest. The sleeping bag makes it a lot more comfortable, but I can tell Peeta's back already hurts from leaning on the tree.

I look over to Rue, and see that she uses her belt to secure her to the branch too. She's crafty, I think she deserves higher than a 7 for what I've seen her do so far.

"Katniss?" Peeta whispers in my ear.

"Hmm?"

"We're supposed to be in love, so you can kiss me anytime you feel like it," he whispers. I hope the cameras can't see my face in the dark, because I'm blushing and my face is hot.

I lean back and fall asleep, listening to the sound of Peeta's heartbeat, steady and soothing.

I wake up to the smell of smoke. Peeta's still asleep, so I wake him up. It's early morning, maybe six o' clock.

"Peeta, wake up. Peeta," I say. He finally stirs, and opens his calming blue eyes. "Look," I say as I point into the distance. "There's a fire over there."

"Rue," I scream. I see her in her tree, still asleep. I watch her wake up, and I point at the fire. She looks back at me and nods.

With that, Peeta and I climb down the tree. Peeta's a little faster than last time, but still slow and unsure of where to place his feet.

Rue jumps from tree to tree, faster than I ever thought someone could do. She's like a little bird flying around the trees.

"Peeta, we need to hurry! The fire's closing in on us!" I yell. He jumps to the ground and we start running.

My throat is burning and my eyes are tearing up from the smoke. I'm worried about Rue, she's fast but what if she fell? And will I be able to find her once we escape this fire?

Peeta is a faster runner than me, but I can keep up easily. He keeps looking back at me to make sure I'm with him.

I keep running from the fire, it's like a wall of flames. This is not an ordinary forest fire. This is a fire created by the Gamemakers.

I run until I trip on a branch on the ground, landing on my hands and knees. "Katniss!" Peeta yells. He turns around and grabs my hand, dragging me to my feet. He doesn't let go, he keeps running pulling me along with him.

I feel like we've been running forever, but the Gamemakers don't think so. A fireball shoots at Peeta and I from a tree, almost hitting him in the chest.

Two more fireballs fly by my head, then another. These Gamemakers want us dead. I wasn't supposed to make it past the cornucopia, I'm sure of it. That's why they put that bow in my view, tempting me to run for it. They didn't like my stunt with the apple during training, and they're giving me hell for it now.

Another four fireballs flew by Peeta and I, barely missing, but I wasn't so lucky when the fifth came. It hit my leg, burning my thigh, shooting pain throughout my left side. I scream in pain, alerting Peeta.

"Katniss!" Peeta yells as he turns around. He runs towards me, attempting to pick me up, but as he does, I watch a fireball hit him in his back. He screams in pain too, and drops to the ground. He gets right back up, picking me up in his arms, and runs again. The firewall is right behind us, almost engulfing us in flames. The heat is unbearable.

Peeta runs and dodges fireballs, protecting me everytime he hears the whirring sound before the ball of fire shoots at us. If it weren't for him, I'd be dead, burned alive.

I look at his face, and see a smile. Why is he smiling? We're about to die, or so I thought. He carries me to a stream, with slippery rocks under us. We're safe from the fire, but is Rue?

Peeta gently puts me down in the stream, clothes and all. The cool water is an instant relief for my burn on my leg. I hear Peeta sigh too.

"Let me see your leg Katniss," he says. I lift my leg up, placing it on Peeta's knees as he sits.

"Oh my god…" he says in shock. I haven't had the chance to look at it yet, so I don't know how bad it is, but based on his reaction, it's worse than I thought.

I look down, and see a red and orange burn with pus coming out of it. I hate burns of all kinds, even burns from touching a hot stove for a second. Any burn is torture for me, so this one is a living hell.

"Oh my god, Peeta, let me see your back," I say. His back is probably in the same condition as my leg.

"I'm fine Katniss," he says.

"Turn around, Peeta," I say angrily. He listens this time, and it's much worse than mine. "Oh my god, Peeta…" I don't even know what to say. His whole back is blistering and oozing pus through his shirt.

I cut some of the cloth around my burn with the knife Clove threw at me, and did the same for Peeta's back. How he's going to sleep tonight in a tree, I don't know.

We couldn't have five minutes to ourselves. I hear the Careers laughing and talking.

"Did you see the look on that little girl's face?"

Rue? Oh God, I hope she's okay.

"She looked petrified!"

"We'll get her later, she's not much of a threat."

Peeta and I ran out of the stream quietly, hoping not to be heard. I can't climb a tree with my leg, and Peeta would be too slow. We'd be dead by the time we started climbing.

We sneak off, and once we think we're safe, start running for our lives. I'm a lot slower than Peeta, but he waits for me.

We run and walk for an hour or two, until we know we're as far away as possible. We're in no condition to fight the Careers. Even if we were, it's a two on four fight. And I don't have my bow.

"Peeta, they said Rue's still alive," I say quietly.

"I know. Thank God, I was worried sick," he whispers back. "The blonde girl had your bow, Katniss. We need to get it from her if we're going to have any shot at winning this thing."

"She did? How are we going to get it?" I ask excitedly. This could be our only shot at winning.

"You're a hunter. We can try to trap them, or lure them away from each other. You know we can't beat them if they're together," he says.

He's right. We have no chance against them as it is. We only have one knife between the two of us, and barely any food left. We need to do something drastic if we want to survive.

"Alright, here's the plan. Cato's arrogant, we can easily lure him away from the pack. Hell, I'm sure he wants me dead just because I got a higher score than him," I say.

"What about the others?" he asks.

"I don't know. We can try lighting fires. They'll split up to hunt down whoever lit the fires. If we could only find Rue, she could light a third for us. Cato would go after one himself, and the other three would divide and go after the last two fires," I say.

"But we need Rue's help, and we don't know where she is," he says.

"Yeah, I know. We'll look for her first, if she sees us, she'll let us know. She's probably in a tree somewhere," I say.

We walked for another couple hours, looking for Rue. Eventually, she finally climbed down a tree and met with us.

"Rue? Are you okay? Are you hurt?" Peeta bombards her with questions.

"Yes I'm okay," she giggles.

"Rue, we have a plan. We might be able to get rid of the Career Pack. But we need your help," Peeta says.

We tell her our plan, and she agrees almost instantly. We'll do it tomorrow morning, where the smoke from the fires will be most visible.

"Once you light your fire, look for the smoke from the fire in the middle. That's Peeta's fire, we'll meet him and take out whichever Career falls for the trap, alright?" I tell Rue.

Once we figure out the full plan, we each climb our trees and get ready to sleep. I strap myself in with Peeta, and I can tell he's in a lot of pain from the burn.

As I close my eyes, I hear something in the tree. I look up, and see a small container attached to a parachute. A gift from a sponsor! I unstrap myself from Peeta, and stand up to grab it. I slowly sit back down in front of Peeta and open it.

Inside is a small container of burn ointment. Perfect for what we went through today. "Thank you Haymitch," I whisper into the air. I don't know if he can hear me, but we needed this.

Peeta takes the ointment out of my hands, and gently rubs it into my thigh. The relief is almost instant, and I sigh from it. Once Peeta's done, I help him turn around so he doesn't fall, and gently rub it into his back.

"Oh my God, Haymitch, you're a lifesaver," Peeta says. I try not to laugh, since we're still being hunted down by the Careers, but it's nice to not feel fear the whole time. "Thank you, that feels so much better," he tells me.

We resume our position on the branch, strap ourselves in, and fall asleep.

A/N: I know it took a few days for this chapter and it's short, but I was having a little trouble figuring out how I wanted to go about it. Sorry!

I felt like Suzanne Collins made Peeta appear weak in the books, with Katniss saving him over and over again, Finnick saving him, etc… So I wanted to have him save Katniss once. Plus, I feel like it'll help evolve their friendship/relationship better in the future.