Jabberjay [The Hunger Games]

Chapter Twelve

I jolt my head out of view as quick as my reflexes allow me to. My fingers mold onto the stone that my fingers are locked around as I prepare to strike, fearing that I have been seen. I am paralyzed, too afraid to move, too scared to run, and find myself frozen in anxiety. It isn't until I hear the hushed voice of a boy that I am confident I've been overlooked: "We need to hurry. They went into the swamp and they'll probably be back soon."

The swamp? I mentally retrace my steps as the throbbing in my head makes itself known again. While I ponder, I bite my lip in an attempt to distract myself from the throbbing of my wound. I do not recall any signs of a swamp in the direction that I went earlier, nor would I want to enter one. A swamp sounds like a disaster waiting to happen, an intriguing biome filled with dangers all around. Snakes, crocodiles, frog mutations with long tongues glazed with poison; the possibilities are endless. Why would anyone go into a swamp at night, let alone the first night? They must be smarter than that.

The darkness has masked the identity of the three figures that I saw when I approached the cornucopia. I assume that the boy is talking about the Careers, which is crucial intel. I try to narrow down who the boys' voice could belong to. I am far too scared to lift my head over the slope and find out, so I brainstorm instead. Fourteen tributes left, the boys are alive from District One, Two, Four, Six, Seven, Eight, and Eleven. It obviously is not any of the Careers so that eliminates Lux, Malo, and Ripley. The voice sounds too mature to be the kid from Eleven, so I mark him out as well. That leaves District Six, Eight, and Jaws from Seven. Upon further thought I halfway cross out the boy from District Eight because I remember that he stood beside me at the cornucopia and ran in the opposite direction of the bloodbath. Theoretically, he could have met up with some allies, or made some in the forest, but those odds are slim.

"They did not leave much, so I doubt they plan on coming back. All of their supplies were in backpacks when they left," says the voice of a girl.

"Let's just take the water bottles and iodine, then get out of here before someone sees us," says the voice of a different girl.

Two girls and a boy. I assume that two of them are district partners from Six or Seven, the other girl being from a separate outlying district. Typically tributes stick with their district partners if they are both lucky enough to survive the early carnage, so that's where my educated guess comes from. I eavesdrop for a while longer, my dry tongue begging for the water that they speak of. I feel my heart is pounding, feeling its pulse in my temple, and I consider making a run for it hoping that they would leave me alone. That would make too much noise though, so I swallow the boulder in my throat and get as comfortable as my head allows me to against the slope. For a few moments, I try to match the voices with faces of different tributes, hearing them sorting through supplies. My attention shifts back to the situation at hand once one of the girls speak, "Let's go."

They tread softly on the rock, which tells me they don't want to draw attention to themselves. A forest fire of curiosity is burning inside of me as I wonder who the tributes are. It takes every ounce of self-control to resist standing up and seeing the faces that belong to the voices. I cannot afford to be spotted though with only a rock to defend myself against whatever weapons they have scavenged. Once I hear them travel down the slope, I wait a few more minutes before I decide to rise. It hits me in this moment that I will be sleeping alone tonight. I am too smart to roam around in the dark through the woods looking for a swamp full of questionable allies. However, I let a smile appear on my face because I have information that nobody else does. I know that there are two groups, the one that I belong to; the Careers, who headed into a swamp earlier. Then there's a smaller alliance of three that gathered up supplies from the cornucopia that the Careers left behind, they now head into the arena behind the tail of the cornucopia. Then there is me, the outcast Career who will sleep alone tonight. I know the latest update on eight of the other thirteen tributes in the arena. I may not have a knife, but knowledge can kill just as fast.