Wolves
Katniss
All of the water in the forest has dried up overnight. Luckily, Katniss and Harry still have a nearly-full 2-liter, hydration pack, and canteen, but it reinforces the knowledge that the Gamemakers are gunning for a finale. If they need more water, they’ll have to go to the lake.
They decide to head in that direction while they’re still rested and full. She continues to hunt, and he continues to gather, and around midday, they stop to build another smokey fire and eat their fill. It won’t do them any good to face a fight on an empty stomach. There’s no semblance of rationing any longer; they eat until they can’t eat anymore.
It’s early evening when they reach the plain. There’s no sign of Draco. Katniss remembers Romilda’s gambit with the backpacks, and they check the Cornucopia to make sure he isn’t hiding there. Then they fill and treat their water vessels at the lake, and stuff their faces again.
The sun is sinking and the sky is darkening with artificial rapidity. Katniss is worried about fighting Draco in the dark, but Harry convinces her to give it at least half an hour. While they wait, she sings Rue’s signal tune to the mockingjays. Harry smiles like it’s the most beautiful sound he’s ever heard.
Then the mockingjays start shrieking, every one of them giving the alarm call. Both of them are instantly on their feet, weapons at the ready, when Draco smashes out of the woods, sprinting directly towards them. He holds no weapons. His hands are completely empty.
Katniss’s first arrow hits his chest dead-on but falls aside. “He’s got some sort of armor on!” she shouts to Harry. He nods in the corner of her eye. They brace themselves, but Draco runs right past them, not even paying attention to them as he beelines toward the Cornucopia.
“What is he running from?” Harry mutters. They don’t have long to wonder. Creatures are leaping out of the woods onto the plain, a whole pack of them, at least twenty.
Katniss follows Draco’s lead and races toward the Cornucopia, Harry right behind her, their supplies forgotten. She hears his slingshot and is very glad to have him watching her back. She spins around to let an arrow loose, then continues the mad dash towards the Cornucopia, looking over her shoulder periodically to keep an eye on the pack.
These are definitely Capitol Mutts. They look and run like wolves, but they stand on their hind legs and gesture to each other like humans. As soon as she reaches the tail of the Cornucopia, Katniss climbs. The metal scalds her hands, still hot from the day’s sun, but she ignores the blisters like her life depends on it, because it does.
At the top, Draco is lying on his side, gasping for breath. Katniss aims an arrow at him, but then she hears Harry call her name. He’s at the tail, but the mutts are right on top of him.
“Climb!” she screams, letting the arrow fly down the maw of the closest mutt. It lashes out in its death throes; its claws are four inches long and sharp as a razor blade.
Harry is almost at the top; she grabs his arm and hauls him up. Then she remembers Draco and whips around. He’s doubled over with cramps and seems more concerned with the mutts than the humans. He coughs something she can’t make out.
“What?” she shouts.
“He asked, ‘Can they climb?’” Harry answers. She looks back at the pack. They’re assembling at the base, standing on their rear legs in that uncanny, human-like way. Each one has a different coat: one curly and black, another straight and red… Something about them has her hair standing on end.
They’re communicating with high-pitched yips. One of them, a blonde, takes a running start and tries to leap onto the horn. That’s when she realizes what’s really unsettling her: their eyes are human. And they have collars. With numbers. The blonde wolf has a “1” around its – her – neck.
Katniss screams as the mutt slides off the side of the Cornucopia, and fires into its throat even though it can’t reach them.
“Katniss?” Harry grips her arm.
“It’s her!” she shrieks.
“Who?” he asks. He studies the mutts at her side, then gasps when he comes to the same conclusion she did.
They’ve turned all of the dead tributes into wolves.
The mutts have split into two groups, circling to either side of the horn. Their powerful hindquarters allow them to make impressive leaps, and one of them manages to get its teeth around Harry’s ankle when he slips. She grabs his arm, but he’s being pulled over the side.
“Kill it! Kill it, Harry!” He must obey her because the weight dragging him down disappears. She pulls him back up. His calf is shredded, gushing blood. He’s lost Draco’s sword. They scramble for the top of the horn – Draco is definitely the lesser of two evils here.
He’s still not on his feet, so Katniss faces the mutts again, shooting them down as they make their leaps. Harry is slinging golden balls with little effect. Then he’s jerked from her side. She spins around again.
Draco has Harry in a headlock, cutting off his air supply. He’s scratching at Draco’s arm weakly. She aims one of her last two arrows at Draco, but – as he points out – “Shoot me, and we both go down.”
They’re at a stalemate. Harry is suffocating, his lips turning blue. If she doesn’t act quickly, he’ll asphyxiate, and then Draco will probably use his body as a shield or a weapon or something equally disgusting. Draco is smirking like he’s already won.
Harry meets her eye. He mimes drawing an “X” on Draco’s arm – the one around his throat.
She doesn’t hesitate, doesn’t give Draco time to realize what it means, just shoots him right in the hand. He screams and releases Harry, who slams backwards, knocking Draco over the side but losing his own balance in the process. She grabs him by the waist before he can tumble down into the pack.
They hear Draco hit the ground, the air whooshing out of him, and then the tribute-mutts are on him. Harry and Katniss are clinging to each other, waiting for the cannon, but it doesn’t come.
This is the finale. The audience wants a show.
They don’t watch the visual, but the audio track is bad enough. Growls and snarls from the beasts, roars and shouts from the human, howls of pain all around. She remembers Draco’s body armor. They’re in for a long night.
The battle circles the Cornucopia. Draco is probably trying to get back to where he can climb it. He doesn’t make it. They hear him hit the ground, then a dragging sound. The mutts pull him into the mouth below them.
Night falls in earnest. There’s a seal in the sky, but not Draco’s portrait, because he’s moaning underneath them.
She sees something dark trickling down the side of the horn – it’s Harry’s blood. His calf is still bleeding copiously. The flesh is ragged, shredded. All of their supplies are still down at the lake. She has nothing but the clothes on her back and her last arrow to make a tourniquet. He might lose his leg, but at least he won’t lose his life.
They huddle together, shivering. She tells him to stay awake. He assures her there’s no way he’s falling asleep. She thinks blood loss might be the way, but doesn’t say so.
It’s the worst night of her life, which is saying something. The metal beneath them and the air around them turn frigid. Draco continues moaning, begging for death, whimpering pitifully. The wolves seem to be chewing on him.
“Why don’t they just kill him?” she wonders aloud.
“You know why,” Harry answers, and she does. It’s all part of the show.
Minutes turn to hours, and just as she feared, Harry starts to doze off. Every time she wakes him, she has to shout louder. He’s fighting, but probably more for her than himself – unconsciousness would be its own escape.
The sun is rising. Still no cannon. Harry’s face looks like a corpse, bloodless. He needs Capitol healing. Immediately. Draco needs to die so they can win and Harry can get treatment.
“I know you said dibs on killing him…” she whispers. He’s sworn repeatedly that Draco would die by his own sword, the sword he used to kill Luna, the sword Harry no longer has. Draco’s currently dying of Gamemaker-inflicted wounds anyway. If Harry wants to live, he has to relinquish his revenge.
“Just do it,” he says, his voice deathly quiet. She nods and frees the arrow, retying the tourniquet as tight as possible without it. Crawling to the edge of the horn, she carefully hangs over the mouth.
The light is dim, but she can just make out the hunk of raw flesh that used to be Draco. She thinks he’s trying to say please as her arrow finds his mouth. Harry pulls her back up as the cannon fires.
“We won,” he says hollowly. There’s no joy in it, for either of them. A hole opens in the plain, and the remaining mutts disappear into the earth.
They wait, for the ‘craft to remove Draco’s remains, for the sound of victorious trumpets, but… nothing happens.
“What the hell is going on?” she shouts in frustration.
“Maybe we have to get away from the body?” Harry breathes. That… that doesn’t sound right to her, but it’s something to do, anyway.
She helps Harry down from the Cornucopia. Her muscles are stiff with cold; his are shaking. She hauls him onto her back and carries him to the lake. Their supplies are undisturbed. She pours water into his mouth and sips some herself.
A mockingjay gives its warning cry, and the hovercraft finally appears and removes Draco’s body. Tears of relief fill Katniss’s eyes. Now they can go home.
But, again, nothing happens.
“What are they waiting for?” Harry asks weakly.
“I don’t know,” she tells him and starts searching for a stick for the tourniquet. She finds the arrow that bounced off Draco just as Cornelius Fudge’s voice booms through the Arena.
“Greetings to our finalists in these 74th Hunger Games! On closer examination of the rules, the previous modification has been invalidated. Only one winner will be allowed,” he says with a disturbing level of cheer. “Good luck – and odds be with you!” Then static. Then nothing.