our weapons at the ready. But except for the orange carcasses on the ground, the monkeys are gone. Peeta lays the morphling on the sand. I cut away the material over her chest, revealing the four deep puncture wounds. Blood slowly trickles from them, making them look far less deadly than they are. The real damage is inside. By the position of the openings, I feel certain the beast ruptured something vital, a lung, maybe even her heart.
She lies on the sand, gasping like a fish out of water. Sagging skin, sickly green, her ribs as prominent as a child's dead of starvation. Surely she could afford food, but turned to the morphling just as Haymitch turned to drink, I guess. Everything about her speaks of waste—her body, her life, the vacant look in her eyes. I hold one of her twitching hands, unclear whether it moves from the poison that affected our nerves, the shock of the attack, or withdrawal from the drug that was her sustenance. There is nothing we can do. Nothing but stay with her while she dies.
“I'll watch the trees,” Finnick says before walking away. I'd like to walk away, too, but she grips my hand so tightly I would have to pry off her fingers, and I don't have the strength for that kind of cruelty. I think of Rue, how maybe I could sing a song or something. But I don't even know the morphling's name, let alone if she likes songs. I just know she's dying.
Peeta crouches down on the other side of her and strokes her hair. When he begins to speak in a soft voice, it seems almost nonsensical, but the words aren't for me. “With my paint box at home, I can make every color imaginable. Pink. As pale as a baby's skin. Or as deep as rhubarb. Green like spring grass. Blue that shimmers like ice on water.”
The morphling stares into Peeta's eyes, hanging on to his words.
“One time, I spent three days mixing paint until I found the right shade for sunlight on white fur. You see, I kept thinking it was yellow, but it was much more than that. Layers of all sorts of color. One by one,” says Peeta.
The morphling's breathing is slowing into shallow catch-breaths. Her free hand dabbles in the blood on her chest, making the tiny swirling motions she so loved to paint with.
“I haven't figured out a rainbow yet. They come so quickly and leave so soon. I never have enough time to capture them. Just a bit of blue here or purple there. And then they fade away again. Back into the air,” says Peeta.
The morphling seems mesmerized by Peeta's words. Entranced. She lifts up a trembling hand and paints what I think might be a flower on Peeta's cheek.
“Thank you,” he whispers. “That looks beautiful.”
For a moment, the morphling's face lights up in a grin and she makes a small squeaking sound. Then her blood-dappled hand falls back onto her chest, she gives one last huff of air, and the cannon fires. The grip on my hand releases.
Peeta carries her out into the water. He returns and sits beside me. The morphling floats out toward the Cornucopia for a while, then the hovercraft appears and a four-pronged claw drops, encases her, carries her into the night sky, and she's gone.
Finnick rejoins us, his fist full of my arrows still wet with monkey blood. He drops them beside me on the sand. “Thought you might want these.”
“Thanks,” I say. I wade into the water and wash off the gore, from my weapons, my wounds. By the time I return to the jungle to gather some moss to dry them, all the monkeys' bodies have vanished.
“Where did they go?” I ask.
“We don't know exactly. The vines shifted and they were gone,” says Finnick.
We stare at the jungle, numb and exhausted. In the quiet, I notice that the spots where the fog droplets touched my skin have scabbed over. They've stopped hurting and begun to itch. Intensely. I try to think of this as a good sign. That they are healing. I glance over at Peeta, at Finnick, and see they're both scratching at their damaged faces. Yes, even Finnick's beauty has been marred by this night.
“Don't scratch,” I say, wanting badly to scratch myself. But I know it's the advice my mother would give. “You'll only bring infection. Think it's safe to try for the water again?”
We make our way back to the tree Peeta was tapping. Finnick and I stand with our weapons poised while he works the spile in, but no threat appears. Peeta's found a good vein and the water begins to gush from the spile. We slake our thirst, let the warm water pour over our itching bodies. We fill a handful of shells with drinking water and go back to the beach.
It's still night, though dawn can't be too many hours away. Unless the Gamemakers want it to be. “Why don't you two get some rest?” I say. “I'll watch for a while.”
“No, Katniss, I'd rather,” says Finnick. I look in his eyes, at his face, and realize he's barely holding back tears. Mags. The least I can do is give him the privacy to mourn her.
“All right, Finnick, thanks,” I say. I lie down on the sand with Peeta, who drifts off at once. I stare into the night, thinking of what a difference a day makes. How yesterday morning, Finnick was on my kill list, and now I'm willing to sleep with him as my guard. He saved Peeta and let Mags die and I don't know why. Only that I can never settle the balance owed between us. All I can do at the moment is go to sleep and let him grieve in peace. And so I do.
It's midmorning when I open my eyes again. Peeta's still out beside me. Above us, a mat of grass suspended on branches shields our faces from the sunlight. I sit up and see that Finnick's hands have not been idle. Two woven bowls are filled with fresh water. A third holds a mess of shellfish.
Finnick sits on the sand, cracking them open with a stone. “They're better fresh,” he says, ripping a chunk of flesh from a shell and popping it into his mouth. His eyes are still puffy but I pretend not to notice.
My stomach begins to growl at the smell of food and I reach for one. The sight of my fingernails, caked with blood, stops me. I've been scratching my skin raw in my sleep.
“You know, if you scratch you'll bring on infection,” says Finnick.
“That's what I've heard,” I say. I go into the saltwater and wash off the blood, trying to decide which I hate more, pain or itching. Fed up, I stomp back onto the beach, turn my face upward, and snap, “Hey, Haymitch, if you're not too drunk, we could use a little something for our skin.”
It's almost funny how quickly the parachute appears above me. I reach up and the tube lands squarely in my open hand. “About time,” I say, but I can't keep the scowl on my face. Haymitch. What I wouldn't give for five minutes of conversation with him.
I plunk down on the sand next to Finnick and screw the lid off the tube. Inside is a thick, dark ointment with a pungent smell, a combination of tar and pine needles. I wrinkle my nose as I squeeze a glob of the medicine onto my palm and begin to massage it into my leg. A sound of pleasure slips out of my mouth as the stuff eradicates my itching. It also stains my scabby skin a ghastly gray-green. As I start on the second leg I toss the tube to Finnick, who eyes me doubtfully.
“It's like you're decomposing,” says Finnick. But I guess the itching wins out, because after a minute Finnick begins to treat his own skin, too. Really, the combination of the scabs and the ointment looks hideous. I can't help enjoying his distress.
“Poor Finnick. Is this the first time in your life you haven't looked pretty?” I say.
“It must be. The sensation's completely new. How have you managed it all these years?” he asks.
“Just avoid mirrors. You'll forget about it,” I say.
“Not if I keep looking at you,” he says.
We slather ourselves down, even taking turns rubbing the ointment into each other's backs where the undershirts don't protect our skin. “I'm going to wake Peeta,” I say.
“No, wait,” says Finnick. “Let's do it together. Put our faces right in front of his.”
Well, there's so little opportunity for fun left in my life, I agree. We position ourselves on either side of Peeta, lean over until our faces are inches from his nose, and give him a shake. “Peeta. Peeta, wake up,” I say in a soft, singsong voice.
His eyelids flutter open and then he jumps like we've stabbed him. “Aa!”
Finnick and I fall back in the sand, laughing our heads off. Every time we try to stop, we look at Peeta's attempt to maintain a disdainful expression and it sets us off again. By the time we pull ourselves together, I'm thinking that maybe Finnick Odair is all right. At least not as vain or self-important as I'd thought. Not so bad at all, really. And just as I've come to this conclusion, a parachute lands next to us with a fresh loaf of bread. Remembering from last year how Haymitch's gifts are often timed to send a message, I make a note to myself.
