The Girl Who Sparked the Capitol - Book 2 - Peeta

Chapter 23

A clock. Alessia can almost see the hands ticking around twelve-sectioned face of the arena. Each hour begins a new horror, a new Gamemaker weapon, and ends the previous. Lighting, blood rain, fog, monkeys- those are the first four hours on the clock. And at ten, the wave. She doesn't know what happens in the other seven, but she knows Wiress is right.

Currently, the blood rain's falling and they're on the beach below the monkey segment, far too close to the fog for Alessia's liking. Do the various attacks stay within the confines of the jungle? Not necessarily. The wave didn't. If that fog leaches out of the jungle, or the monkeys return...

"Get up," Alessia orders, 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. 

Alessia thinks she has convinced everyone who's conscious except for Johanna, who's naturally opposed to anything Alessia suggest. But even she agrees it's better to be safe than sorry.

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

"Yes, tick, tock, the arena's a clock. It's a clock, Wiress, you were right," Alessia says. 

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

"It starts at midnight," Alessia confirms.

A memory struggles to surface in her brain. She remembers a clock. No, it's a watch, resting in Plutarch Heavensbee's palm. "It starts at midnight,"  Plutarch said. And then Alessia's mockingjay lit up briefly and vanished. In retrospect, it's like he was giving her a clue about the arena. But why would he? At the time, she was no more a tribute in these Games than he was. Maybe he thought it would help her as a mentor. Or maybe this had been the plan all along. 

Wiress nods at the blood rain. "One-thirty," she says.

"Exactly. One-thirty. And at two, a terrible poisonous fog begins there," Alessia says, pointing at the nearby jungle. "So we have to move somewhere safe now." Wiress smiles and stands up obediently. "Are you thirsty?" Alessia hands her the woven bowl and she gulps down about a quart. Finnick gives her the last bit of bread and she gnaws on it. With the inability to communicate overcome, she's functioning again.

Alessia checks her weapons. Ties up the spile and the tube of medicine in the parachute and fixes it to her belt with 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 they took from his belt when they 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 is 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's the best weapon he could have."

There's something odd about Johanna not putting this together. Something that doesn't quite ring true. Suspicious. "Seems like you'd have figured that out," Alessia says. "Since you nicknamed him Volts and all."