Under The Stars

Chapter 7

Peeta

Katniss wakes up just as the rain trickles to a stop. Her dark eyes that seem to hold so much sorrow blink up at me. She shivers and curls into a fetal ball pressed into my side.

"Why is it so cold?" She asks.

"It's night," I say. "They keep making them colder and the days hotter." She nods and struggles to sit up.

"We'll have to leave this morning," she says. "We have to start hunting them too. They aren't gonna just destroy each other for us."

"Can't we just wait until there's only one left?" I ask. She shakes her head.

"I can't just sit here and wait to be hunted down like some animal," she says.

"Are you sure you're strong enough?" I ask and she glares at me.

"Have I done anything lately that suggests I'm not?" She asks.

"I don't want you getting hurt again," I say. Her face says she doesn't believe a word I'm saying but she only shakes her head.

"Who's to say that won't happen right here?" She says. "I can't let us sit here and become Cato's prey." She grabs the remains of our dinner and divides it into two before handing me one of the plates. "Eat as much as you can. We won't be getting any food for a while." I take it from her and start eating. She is completely silent, a slight hostility flowing around her. Her eyes watch me with curiosity and she eats quickly before grabbing her bow and gathering up our things. The beginning of daylight starts to leak through the cave opening and I finish just as she closes her bag.

"Are you ready?" she asks. I nod and she offers her hand to me. I take it and she pulls me up. She ducks out of the cave and I follow her. We walk a few yards and she stops, looking back over her shoulder.

"Is something wrong?" I ask. She shakes her head.

"No," she says and then she looks back at me. "It's just, it feels like we're leaving home all over again."

"I know," I say. "But soon, we really will be home and we won't have to leave for a long, long time." I kiss her cheek and she nods before stepping forward, leading me on the path of least resistance through the dense forest. It's like my feet find every dry leaf and twig, making crunching sounds beneath my feet. Katniss' ears twitch with every sound and eventually she sighs and turns around to face me.

"You know what the problem is right?" She says. I nod and she gets a thoughtful look on her face. "Take off your boots. That should help."

"What?" I ask her and she kneels down and starts untying her own shoes.

"I'll take off mine too," she says and I watch as she slips them and her socks off. "These boots are hard to walk quietly in. I know that. It's years of practice that help me." I nod and take off my own shoes, slinging them by the laces over my shoulder as I follow her.

I notice something in the bushes and Katniss pulls back her bow and let's an arrow fly. There's a squeal and the movement stops. She walks over and pulls the rabbit, shot perfectly through the eye, out of the bushes.

"How the?" I ask her and she ties it to a string and hulls it up into a tree.

"Practice," she says quietly. "Lots and lots of practice." Her eyes get clouded, almost sad look but she shakes it off and looks at me. "I'm gonna go see if I can find some fresh water. Just stick
around here and try not to die. I'll try to stay in earshot. If you have trouble, just whistle." She drops her pack and walks through some brush, disappearing silently as a deer.

I look around at our surroundings and notice some spiny bushes with dark purple berries hanging from them. I get bored and start picking them, laying them on Katniss' tarp I stole from her pack. I get a decent pile when I hear something in the brush towards the way we had come. I don't find anything and start to make my way back when I hear the cannon sound.

"Katniss?" I call, praying that it wasn't her cannon I just heard. I start making my way back when I hear her terrified cry.

"Peeta!" She screams. I walk into the clearing to find her pacing the clearing she sees me and walks up to me. She slaps me across the face and grabs me by the shoulders.

"Where were you?!" she shouts as she shakes me. "I told you to stay here."

"I was picking some berries and-" she cuts me off by shaking me again.

"Those are night lock Peeta!" She says. "You'd be dead before they reached your stomach if you ate those. When I found those after I heard the cannon, I thought, I thought," Her arms suddenly pull me to her and she starts crying. "I thought it was you. I thought I lost you. I don't want to lose you. I can't lose you." I hug her back and gently rub her back. She shakes for a while but it eventually subsides and her breathing eases.

"It's okay," I say. "I'm fine. We're both fine." She lifts her head and looks around.

"Wait," she says. "If it wasn't your cannon and it wasn't my cannon." She pulls away and walks over to the bushes behind where I was sitting earlier and pulls back suddenly, eyes wide and scared. I walk over to her and see the dead body of the girl from 5. I grab her arm and try to lead her to a tree so I can at least get her out of Cato's reach.

"Come on," I say. "He could be anywhere right now."

"Peeta, look at her hands," she says. "This is your kill, not Cato's." I look down and notice that what I thought was blood running out of her mouth was actually red berry juice and there are still five more laying in her limp palm. I look back at Katniss and notice she's trembling again.

"If you knew Cato didn't kill her, why do you look like you've seen a ghost?" I ask her.

"She was so close to you," she says. "and you didn't even know she was there. She could have killed you so easily." She still just stands there and I reach out and grab her arm.

"Come on," I say. "Let's get out of here." She nods and turns away from the body. She picks up her pack and pulls a small pouch out of her pocket and gathers up a handful of the night lock berries. She places them in her pouch and picks up her tarp, shaking it and scattering the berries. She places it in her pack and turns to me smiling.

"Come on," she says. "Let's go." I nod and follow her out of the clearing.

"Why did you grab those berries?" I ask. She shrugs and looks over at me.

"I don't know," she says. "Just playing on a hunch."

"Hunch?" I ask.

"Yeah," she says. "I was just wondering, maybe Cato likes berries too." I laugh at her trying to keep light of the situation that we're trying to deny.

With only us and Cato left, the end is coming. In a few hours, we will face the finale of the 74th Annual Hunger Games.