Catching Fire (Katniss loves Peeta)

Chapter 23

Catching Fire belongs to Suzanne Collins. I do own baby Mellark and Katniss loving Peeta. This is fanfiction, none of it is what happened in the actual book. In other words this is fake.

Chapter 23

A clock. I can almost see the hands ticking around the twelve-sectioned face of the arena. Each hour begins a new horror, a new Gamemaker weapon, and ends the previous. Lightning, blood rain, fog, monkeys - those are the first four hours on the clock. And at ten, the wave.

At present, the blood rain's falling, and we're on the beach below the monkey segment, far too close to the fog for my liking.

"Get up," I order, shaking Peeta and Finnick and Johanna awake. "Get up-we have to move." 

There's enough time, though, to explain the clock theory to them. About Wiress's tick-tocking and how the movements of the invisible hands trigger a deadly force in each section.

I think I've convinced everyone who's conscious except Johanna, who's naturally opposed to liking anything I suggest. But even she agrees it's better to be safe than sorry.

While the others collect our few possessions and get Beetee back into his jumpsuit, I rouse Wiress. She awakes with a panicked "tick, tock!"

"Yes, tick, tock, the arena's a clock. It's a clock, Wiress, you were right," I say. "You were right."

Relief floods her face - I guess because somebody has finally understood what she's known probably from the first tolling of the bells. "Midnight."

"It starts at midnight," I confirm.
A memory struggles to surface in my brain. I see a clock. No, it's a watch, resting in Plutarch Heavensbee's palm. 

"It starts at midnight," Plutarch said. And then my Mockingjay lit up briefly and vanished. In retrospect, it's like he was giving me a clue about the arena. But why would he? At the time, I was no more of a tribute in these Games than he was. Maybe he thought it would help me as a mentor.

Wiress nods at the blood rain. "One-thirty."

"Exactly. One-thirty. And at two, a terrible poisonous fog begins there," I say, pointing at the nearby jungle. "So we have to move somewhere safe now."

 She smiles and stands up obediently." With the inability to communicate overcome, she's functioning again.

I check my weapons. Tie up the spile and the tube of medicine in the parachute and fix it to my belt with a vine.

Beetee's still pretty out of it, but when Peeta tries to lift him, he objects. "Wire," he says. 

"She's right here," Peeta tells him. "Wiress is fine. She's coming, too."

But still, Beetee struggles. "Wire," he insists.

"Oh, I know what he wants," says Johanna impatiently. She crosses the beach and picks up the cylinder we took from his belt when we were bathing him. It's coated in a thick layer of congealed blood. 

"This worthless thing. It's some kind of wire or something. That's how he got cut. Running up to the Cornucopia to get this. I don't know what kind of weapon it's supposed to be. I guess you could pull off a piece and use it as a garrote or something. But really, can you imagine Beetee garroting somebody?"

"He won his Games with wire. Setting up that electrical trap," says Peeta. It seems he does remember most of the stuff from those videos, I tried, but I don't remember much to be honest. It kind of all blurred together. "It's the best weapon he could have."