supplies.
So, I’m right about the booby trap, but it’s clearly more complex than I had imagined. I was right about the girl, too. How wily is she to have discovered this path into the food and to be able to replicate it so neatly? She fills her pack, taking a few items from a variety of containers, crackers from a crate, a handful of apples from a burlap sack that hangs suspended from a rope off the side of a bin. But only a handful from each, not enough to tip off that the food is missing. Not enough to cause suspicion. And then she’s doing her odd little dance back out of the circle and scampering into the woods again, safe and sound.
I realize I’m grinding my teeth in frustration. Foxface has confirmed what I’d already guessed. But what sort of trap have they laid that requires such dexterity? Has so many trigger points? Why did she squeal so as her hands made contact with the earth? You’d have thought… and slowly it begins to dawn on me… you’d have thought the very ground was going to explode.
“It’s mined,” I whisper. That explains everything. The Careers’ willingness to leave their supplies, Foxface’s reaction, the involvement of the boy from District 3, where they have the factories, where they make televisions and automobiles and explosives. But where did he get them? In the supplies? That’s not the sort of weapon the Gamemakers usually provide, given that they like to see the tributes draw blood personally. I slip out of the bushes and cross to one of the round metal plates that lifted the tributes into the arena. The ground around it has been dug up and patted back down. The land mines were disabled after the sixty seconds we stood on the plates, but the boy from District 3 must have managed to reactivate them. I’ve never seen anyone in the Games do that. I bet it came as a shock even to the Gamemakers.
Well, hurray for the boy from District 3 for putting one over on them, but what am I supposed to do now? Obviously, I can’t go strolling into that mess without blowing myself sky-high. As for sending in a burning arrow, that’s more laughable than ever. The mines are set off by pressure. It doesn’t have to be a lot, either. One year, a girl dropped her token, a small wooden ball, while she was at her plate, and they literally had to scrape bits of her off the ground.
My arm’s pretty good, I might be able to chuck some rocks in there and set off what? Maybe one mine? That could start a chain reaction. Or could it? Would the boy from District 3 have placed the mines in such a way that a single mine would not disturb the others? Thereby protecting the supplies but ensuring the death of the invader. Even if I only blew up one mine, I’d draw the Careers back down on me for sure. And anyway, what am I thinking? There’s that net, clearly strung to deflect any such attack. Besides, what I’d really need is to throw about thirty rocks in there at once, setting off a big chain reaction, demolishing the whole lot.
I glance back up at the woods. The smoke from Rue’s second fire is wafting toward the sky. By now, the Careers have probably begun to suspect some sort of trick. Time is running out.
There is a solution to this, I know there is, if I can only focus hard enough. I stare at the pyramid, the bins, the crates, too heavy to topple over with an arrow. Maybe one contains cooking oil, and the burning arrow idea is reviving when I realize I could end up losing all twelve of my arrows and not get a direct hit on an oil bin, since I’d just be guessing. I’m genuinely thinking of trying to re-create Foxface’s trip up to the pyramid in hopes of finding a new means of destruction when my eyes light on the burlap bag of apples. I could sever the rope in one shot, didn’t I do as much in the Training Center? It’s a big bag, but it still might only be good for one explosion. If only I could free the apples themselves…
I know what to do. I move into range and give myself three arrows to get the job done. I place my feet carefully, block out the rest of the world as I take meticulous aim, The first arrow tears through the side of the bag near the top, leaving a split in the burlap. The second widens it to a gaping hole. I can see the first apple teetering when I let the third arrow go, catching the torn flap of burlap and ripping it from the bag.
For a moment, everything seems frozen in time. Then the apples spill to the ground and I’m blown backward into the air.
17
The impact with the hard-packed earth of the plain knocks the wind out of me. My backpack does little to soften the blow. Fortunately my quiver has caught in the crook of my elbow, sparing both itself and my shoulder, and my bow is locked in my grasp. The ground still shakes with explosions. I can’t hear them. I can’t hear anything at the moment. But the apples must have set off enough mines, causing debris to activate the others. I manage to shield my face with my arms as shattered bits of matter, some of it burning, rain down around me. An acrid smoke fills the air, which is not the best remedy for someone trying to regain the ability to breathe.
After about a minute, the ground stops vibrating. I roll on my side and allow myself a moment of satisfaction the sight of the smoldering wreckage that was recently the pyramid. The Careers aren’t likely to salvage anything out of that.
I’d better get out of here, I think. They’ll be making a beeline for the place. But once I’m on my feet, I realize escape may not be so simple. I’m dizzy. Not the slightly wobbly kind, but the kind that sends the trees swooping around you and causes the earth to move in waves under your feet.
I take a few steps and somehow wind up on my hands and knees. I wait a few minutes to let it pass, but it doesn’t.
Panic begins to set in. I can’t stay here. Flight is essential. But I can neither walk nor hear. I place a hand to my left ear, the one that was turned toward the blast, and it comes away bloody. Have I gone deaf from the explosion? The idea frightens me. I rely as much on my ears as my eyes as a hunter, maybe more at times. But I can’t let my fear show. Absolutely, positively, I am live on every screen in Panem.
No blood trails, I tell myself, and manage to pull my hood up over my head, tie the cord under my chin with uncooperative fingers. That should help soak up the blood. I can’t walk, but can I crawl? I move forward tentatively. Yes, if I go very slowly, I can crawl. Most of the woods will offer insufficient cover. My only hope is to make it back to Rue’s copse and conceal myself in greenery. I can’t get caught out here on my hands and knees in the open. Not only will I face death, it’s sure to be a long and painful one at Cato’s hand. The thought of Prim having to watch that keeps me doggedly inching my way toward the hideout.
Another blast knocks me flat on my face. A stray mine, set off by some collapsing crate. This happens twice more. I’m reminded of those last few kernels that burst when Prim and I pop corn over the fire at home.
To say I make it in the nick of time is an understatement. I have literally just dragged myself into the tangle of hushes at the base of the trees when there’s Cato, barreling onto the plain, soon followed by his companions. His rage is so extreme it might be comical — so people really do tear out their hair and beat the ground with their fists — if I didn’t know that it was aimed at me, at what I have done to him. Add to that my proximity, my inability to run or defend myself, and in fact, the whole thing has me terrified. I’m glad my hiding place makes it impossible for the cameras to get a close shot of me because I’m biting my nails like there’s no tomorrow. Gnawing off the last bits of nail polish, trying to keep my teeth from chattering.
The boy from District 3 throws stones into the ruins and must have declared all the mines activated because the Careers are approaching the wreckage.
Cato has finished the first phase of his tantrum and takes out his anger on the smoking remains by kicking open various containers. The other tributes are poking around in the mess, looking for anything to salvage, but there’s nothing. The boy from District 3 has done his job too well. This idea must occur to Cato, too, because he turns on the boy and appears to be shouting at him. The boy from District 3 only has time to turn and run before Cato catches him in a headlock from behind. I can see the muscles ripple in Cato’s arms as he sharply jerks the boy’s head to the side.
It’s that quick. The death of the boy from District 3.
The other two Careers seem to be trying to calm Cato down. I can tell he wants to return to the woods, but they keep pointing at the sky, which puzzles me until I realize, Of course. They think whoever set off the explosions is dead.
They don’t know about the arrows and the apples. They assume the booby trap was faulty, but that the tribute who blew up the supplies was killed doing it. If there was a cannon shot, it could have been easily lost in the subsequent explosions. The shattered remains of the thief removed by hovercraft. They retire to the far side of the lake to allow the Gamemakers to retrieve the body of the boy from District 3. And they wait.
