amazingly similar in the execution. a bow pulled, an arrow
shot. entirely different in the aftermath. i killed a boy whose
name i don’t even know. somewhere his family is weeping for
him. his friends call for my blood. maybe he had a girlfriend
who really believed he would come back . . .
but then i think of rue’s still body and i’m able to banish
the boy from my mind. at least, for now.
it’s been an uneventful day according to the sky. no deaths.
i wonder how long we’ll get until the next catastrophe drives
us back together. if it’s going to be tonight, i want to get some
sleep first. i cover my good ear to block out the strains of the
anthem, but then i hear the trumpets and sit straight up in an-
ticipation.
for the most part, the only communication the tributes get
from outside the arena is the nightly death toll. but occasio-
nally, there will be trumpets followed by an announcement.
usually, this will be a call to a feast. when food is scarce, the
gamemakers will invite the players to a banquet, somewhere
known to all like the cornucopia, as an inducement to gather
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and fight. sometimes there is a feast and sometimes there’s
nothing but a loaf of stale bread for the tributes to compete
for. i wouldn’t go in for the food, but this could be an ideal
time to take out a few competitors.
claudius templesmith’s voice booms down from overhead,
congratulating the six of us who remain. but he is not inviting
us to a feast. he’s saying something very confusing. there’s
been a rule change in the games. a rule change! that in itself
is mind bending since we don’t really have any rules to speak
of except don’t step off your circle for sixty seconds and the
unspoken rule about not eating one another. under the new
rule, both tributes from the same district will be declared
winners if they are the last two alive. claudius pauses, as if he
knows we’re not getting it, and repeats the change again.
the news sinks in. two tributes can win this year. if they’re
from the same district. both can live. both of us can live.
before i can stop myself, i call out peeta’s name.
241
part iii
"the victor"
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i clap my hands over my mouth, but the sound has already
escaped. the sky goes black and i hear a chorus of frogs begin
to sing. stupid! i tell myself. what a stupid thing to do! i wait,
frozen, for the woods to come alive with assailants. then i re-
member there’s almost no one left.
peeta, who’s been wounded, is now my ally. whatever
doubts i’ve had about him dissipate because if either of us
took the other’s life now we’d be pariahs when we returned to
district 12. in fact, i know if i was watching i’d loathe any tri-
bute who didn’t immediately ally with their district partner.
besides, it just makes sense to protect each other. and in my
case — being one of the star-crossed lovers from district 12
— it’s an absolute requirement if i want any more help from
sympathetic sponsors.
the star-crossed lovers . . . peeta must have been playing
that angle all along. why else would the gamemakers have
made this unprecedented change in the rules? for two tri-
butes to have a shot at winning, our “romance” must be so
popular with the audience that condemning it would jeopard-
ize the success of the games. no thanks to me. all i’ve done is
managed not to kill peeta. but whatever he’s done in the are-
na, he must have the audience convinced it was to keep me
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alive. shaking his head to keep me from running to the cornu-
copia. fighting cato to let me escape. even hooking up with
the careers must have been a move to protect me. peeta, it
turns out, has never been a danger to me.
the thought makes me smile. i drop my hands and hold my
face up to the moonlight so the cameras can be sure to catch it.
so, who is there left to be afraid of?
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