in this condition. Peeta nods to Finnick's feet. We each take one, pull him one hundred and eighty degrees around, and start to drag him into the saltwater. Just a few inches at a time. His ankles. Wait a few minutes. Up to his midcalf. Wait. His knees. Clouds of white swirl out from his flesh and he groans. We continue to detoxify him, bit by bit. What I find is that the longer I sit in the water, the better I feel. Not just my skin, but my brain and muscle control continue to improve. I can see Peeta's face beginning to return to normal, his eyelid opening, the grimace leaving his mouth.
Finnick slowly begins to revive. His eyes open, focus on us, and register awareness that he's being helped. I rest his head on my lap and we let him soak about ten minutes with everything immersed from the neck down. Peeta and I exchange a smile as Finnick lifts his arms above the seawater.
“There's just your head left, Finnick. That's the worst part, but you'll feel much better after, if you can bear it,” Peeta says. We help him to sit up and let him grip our hands as he purges his eyes and nose and mouth. His throat is still too raw to speak.
“I'm going to try to tap a tree,” I say. My fingers fumble at my belt and find the spile still hanging from its vine.
“Let me make the hole first,” says Peeta. “You stay with him. You're the healer.”
Instead I try to put myself back together. I rescue my mockingjay pin from my ruined jumpsuit and pin it to the strap of my undershirt. The flotation belt must be acid resistant, since it looks as good as new. I can swim, so the flotation belt's not really necessary, but Brutus blocked my arrow with his, so I buckle it back on, thinking it might offer some protection. I undo my hair and comb it with my fingers, thinning it out considerably since the fog droplets damaged it. Then I braid back what's left of it.
Peeta has found a good tree about ten yards from the narrow strip of beach. We can hardly see him, but the sound of his knife against the wooden trunk is crystal clear. I wonder what happened to the awl. Mags must’ve either dropped it or taken it into the fog with her. Anyway, it's gone.
I have moved out a bit farther into the shallows, floating alternately on my belly and back. If the seawater healed Peeta and me, it seems to be transforming Finnick altogether. He begins to move slowly, just testing his limbs, and gradually begins to swim. But it's not like me swimming, the rhythmic strokes, the even pace. It's like watching some strange sea animal coming back to life. He dives and surfaces, spraying water out of his mouth, rolls over and over in some bizarre corkscrew motion that makes me dizzy even to watch. And then, when he's been underwater so long I feel certain he's drowned, his head pops up right next to me and I start.
“Don't do that,” I say.
“What? Come up or stay under?” he says.
“Either. Neither. Whatever. Just soak in the water and behave,” I say. “Or if you feel this good, let's go help Peeta.”
In just the short time it takes to cross to the edge of the jungle, I become aware of the change. Put it down to years of hunting, or maybe my reconstructed ear does work a little better than anyone intended. But I sense the mass of warm bodies poised above us. They don't need to chatter or scream. The mere breathing of so many is enough.
I touch Finnick's arm and he follows my gaze upward. I don't know how they arrived so silently. Perhaps they didn't. We've all been absorbed in restoring our bodies.
During that time they've assembled. Not five or ten but scores of monkeys weigh down the limbs of the jungle trees. The pair we spotted when we first escaped the fog felt like a welcoming committee. This crew feels ominous.
I arm my bow with two arrows and Finnick adjusts the trident in his hand. “Peeta,” I say as calmly as possible. “I need your help with something.”
“Okay, just a minute. I think I've just about got it,” he says, still occupied with the tree. “Yes, there. Have you got the spile?”
“I do. But we've found something you'd better take a look at,” I continue in a measured voice. “Only move toward us quietly, so you don't startle it.” For some reason, I don't want him to notice the monkeys, or even glance their way. There are creatures that interpret mere eye contact as aggression.
Peeta turns to us, panting from his work on the tree. The tone of my request is so odd that it's alerted him to some irregularity. “Okay,” he says casually. He begins to move through the jungle, and although I know he's trying hard to be quiet, this has never been his strong suit, even when he had two sound legs. But it's all right, he's moving, the monkeys are holding their positions. He's just five yards from the beach when he senses them. His eyes only dart up for a second, but it's as if he's triggered a bomb. The monkeys explode into a shrieking mass of orange fur and converge on him.
I've never seen any animal move so fast. They slide down the vines as if the things were greased. Leap impossible distances from tree to tree. Fangs bared, hackles raised, claws shooting out like switchblades. I may be unfamiliar with monkeys, but animals in nature don't act like this. “Mutts!” I spit out as Finnick and I crash into the greenery.
I know every arrow must count, and they do. In the eerie light, I bring down monkey after monkey, targeting eyes and hearts and throats, so that each hit means a death. But still it wouldn't be enough without Finnick spearing the beasts like fish and flinging them aside, Peeta slashing away with his knife. I feel claws on my leg, down my back, before someone takes out the attacker. The air grows heavy with trampled plants, the scent of blood, and the musty stink of the monkeys. Peeta and Finnick and I position ourselves in a triangle, a few yards apart, our backs to one another. My heart sinks as my fingers draw back my last arrow. Then I remember Peeta has a sheath, too. And he's not shooting, he's hacking away with that knife. My own knife is out now, but the monkeys are quicker, can spring in and out so fast you can barely react.
“Peeta!” I shout. “Your arrows!”
Peeta turns to see my predicament and is sliding off his sheath when it happens. A monkey lunges out of a tree for his chest. I have no arrow, no way to shoot. I can hear the thud of Finnick's trident finding another mark and know his weapon is occupied. Peeta's knife arm is disabled as he tries to remove the sheath. I throw my knife at the oncoming mutt but the creature somersaults, evading the blade, and stays on its trajectory.
Weaponless, defenseless, I do the only thing I can think of. I run for Peeta, to knock him to the ground, to protect his body with mine, even though I know I won't make it in time.
She does, though. Materializing, it seems, from thin air. One moment nowhere, the next reeling in front of Peeta. Already bloody, mouth open in a high-pitched scream, pupils enlarged so her eyes seem like black holes.
The insane morphling from District 6 throws up her skeletal arms as if to embrace the monkey, and it sinks its fangs into her chest.
22
Peeta drops the sheath and buries his knife into the monkey's back, stabbing it again and again until it releases its jaw. He kicks the mutt away, bracing for more. I have his arrows now, a loaded bow, and Finnick at my back, breathing hard but not actively engaged.
“Come on, then! Come on!” shouts Peeta, panting with rage. But something has happened to the monkeys. They are withdrawing, backing up trees, fading into the jungle, as if some unheard voice calls them away. A Gamemaker's voice, telling them this is enough.
“Get her,” I say to Peeta. “We'll cover you.”
Peeta gently lifts up the morphling and carries her the last few yards to the beach while Finnick and I keep
