18 DAYS

Chapter 13: The Explosion.

DAY 8

When the tributes enter the arena through the tubes, they are allocated one minute before the Games begin. To ensure they do not step off before it is up, landmines are placed all around the launch plates. Blowing the reckless up, being a quite radical and captivating way to get everyone to stay in line. Litteraly.

"I'm done." The boy from Three runs back around the Cornucopia. Sweaty and covered in mud from deep under his nails to inside the creases on his worried forehead.

The best way for them to be able to leave camp and make sure no one would steal their stuff while being gone, was by reinforcing it with stabile defences. First Cato had thought digging trenches and ornating them with spikes might work. But that would take days and none of them had been strong enough for that kind of labour. Then they could have just booby trapped the cleary around the Cornucopia. But neither him, Clove nor Marvel were good enough animal hunters to know how to make those. And Three's predisposition was toward electronics not pre-historic devices.

"Good. It's time then." The three careers remaining grab their gear and head back toward the trees. Map in hand stepping carefully on the spots marked on the paper until they reach the outskirt of the forest.

His genius idea had hit him then. Taking the Cornucopia and its ressources for themselves wasn't only about not having to hunt. It was also to steal all the ressources away from the other tributes. Not immediate but rather long-term killing. And there were other gifts from the Capitol that the careers could put to their advantage. Use every scrap of deadliness available in the arena.

So he had the boy from Three use his abilities to replant the mines around the camp. It was botched work. Anyone could see something was wrong with the ground now it'd been turned over. But they wouldn't figure why before being blown up to atoms. Barbaric. But it wasn't originally his idea.

"You try to get redhead and the little girl. If you see Thresh, just run the opposite direction to get to us.", Once into the greenary, Cato points to Marvel the direction he wanted him to take for his hunt.

"We going for Peeta and Katniss. With his leg wound and the stings she took during her eff-up attack, they couldn't have gotten far. So we are going toward the water again to look for them."

Clove and Marvel nod. No need to doubt his commands. The boy from Two seemed to have gotten all his strength and sense back. It was good to feel like the Careers had a purpose again.

On those words, they split.

*

The Careers had left with the first appearance of light in the sky before sunrise. Dawn the promise of a new chance in a game of death.

"Are you okay?"

"That might be the hundreth time you are asking me just today."

Clove throws a knife into a tree a hundred yard ahead. Soon they'll walk past it and she'll pick it up. It was mostly to pass the time, she didn't need any training. And she had enough knives inside her jacket, she could loose a few dozens to make a difference.

"Sorry it's just..." She stops talking, filling in the silence by unlodging the knife from the tree.

Cato halts, hands on his hips like an annoyed dad. "What?"

"It's just nothing is going as planned. Look at us."

Cato breath out. She wasn't wrong. Usually he would have welcomed the possibility to be alone with her. But it was day eight, they had no backups and were critically outnumbered.