Together

Chapter 9

I wake up early the next morning to the sounds of bird chirps and trills. Arrow and Mae and still asleep and I decide its best not to wake them. Since it's early the sun isn't as hot as it was yesterday. The sun shines through the leaves on the trees and shines down on my face; warming it.

When I hear a loud thud from the other side of the tree I climb down and find Arrow arranging his supplies. I sit down on the ground next to him as he turns his pack upside down and the contents spills into the damp ground.

"What did you get?" I ask him; keeping my voice down so I don't wake Mae.

"A water bottle, a tarp - which means it's probably going to rain -, a sleeve of crackers, some beef strips, iodine, these glasses ," he says as he slides the glasses onto my face and I give a small giggle.

"They don't work very well," I say while surveying my surrounds. The glasses make it almost impossible to focus on anything.

"Oh they will, when it gets dark. You see, these aren't for day time, they help you see in the dark. No one will ever be able to sneak up on us now," he explains. His forest green eyes are full of happiness and I can feel myself blushing as he looks at me. He leans in and gives me a quick peck on the lips.

"You're so smart," I say when he pulls away.

"I know," he says cockily. I laugh.

"So what else do you have in there," I say pointing back at the pack laying on the ground.

"Oh! I've also got an extra pair of socks, and that spear over there," he says, nodding his head to indicate the spear propped up against the tree. I'm surprised I hadn't noticed this last night. "And just a couple extra spear heads," he says as he shoves the other items back into his pack.

A sudden thud behind me causes me to jump, but when I turn around I see it's only Mae.

"You two lovebirds ready to go?" She says and I can feel myself blushing again.

"Yeah," says Arrow as he slings his pack over his shoulder. When he's standing he holds his hand out. I take it and he pulls me up.

"I think we should head towards the lake because right now, that's our only known source of water. We can go around and stay in the field behind it," suggests Mae. We all agree to Maes plan and start walking in the direction of the lake. We're almost out of water, but the stuff we do have it warm from the constant humidity. I can't wait to drink cold water again.

It doesn't take long before we have reached the lake. We position ourselves in the tall grass behind the lake, with nothing but more and more grass at our backs. The field seems to have no end. The lake, we find, is spring fed so the water is cold and clear. We all wash our faces in the water and fill up our water bottles. While we are waiting the half hour for the iodine to purify the water, Mae and I wash our hair in the water. When I am done with my hair I braid it back into the same French braid Cinna did, and start scrubbing the grim from under my finger nails. All the while Arrow keeps watch for any other tributes. Beyond the lake we can faintly see the career camp just outside the cornucopia. We figure that the distance and the tall grass will be enough to conceal us.

"I think we should hunt. Get some animals or something." Mae suggests as we drink our now purified water. A real meal sounds good right now and it's only early afternoon so a short hunt couldn't hurt.

"Sounds good to me." I respond. We collect our supplies and stuff it all into our two backpacks. We decide that we can take at most an hour at hunting and then we should be heading back to camp.

About half an hour into our hunt we have gotten two rabbits with Maes knives. Suddenly Arrow stops dead in his tracks.

"Wait," he whispers holding his finger to his lips. I listen, and faintly, in the distance, I can hear what sounds like laughing. I don't know anybody who would be laughing in the arena besides the careers. Arrow quickly puts his hand on my back and begins pushing me in the opposite direction. Pretty soon we are all running at full speed back towards our camp; hoping we can loose them in the tall grass.