75th - part 13
katniss
My head feels fuzzy, probably from a combination of the hit, the kiss, the wound on my arm, and the fact that Johanna is somewhere in the jungle alone. I need to get up, I need to find her and make sure she survives, but I can’t seem to find my balance.
johanna
I hear another yell, but this time I can tell who it is. Finnick, screaming my name. I yell back at him, running as fast as I can up the hill. We almost run straight into each other.
“What the hell?”
“Cole chased after Brutus. Go, that way, go!”
I follow him off the path, into the jungle, hoping we make it there in time.
I finally manage to get to my feet and start following the wire back up the hill, going slowly at first but speeding up once the throbbing in my head starts to ease up.
I need to find Johanna. I need to find Cole. I need to make sure that if anyone survives the finale, it’s one of them.
If it wasn’t for them, I would collapse right now and let Snow win.
We find Cole and Brutus locked in a fight, the kid barely holding up against the Career as their weapons clang against each other. Out of the corner of my eye, I see her before she realizes I’m here: Enobaria, running toward the men. Again, I act without thinking and barrel into her, knocking her to the ground.
A cannon sounds. I freeze in my tracks, my heart sinking as I try to convince myself that it’s one of the Careers.
“JOHANNA!” I take off running toward the lightning tree, desperate and confused. “JOHANNA, WHERE ARE YOU?”
I make an absolutely idiotic mistake when the cannon sounds by taking my attention off Enobaria to check that Cole isn’t dead. In the second it takes me, Enobaria flips me onto my back and bashes my head against the ground. She’s about to slit my throat, but I manage to knock her hand away at the last second. The knife cuts my arm, but I ignore it and use her moment of recoil against her, throwing her off of me and looking around for my allies. Brutus is lying dead, Cole is next to him trying to catch his breath, and Finnick is nowhere to be found. I’m about to run back toward the tree when the fucking stupid dumbass kid charges at Enobaria, forcing me to stick around and try to save him.
I finally reach the tree. Beetee’s on the ground, a spear wrapped in the wire next to him. I bend down to check him, realizing that he’s still alive, but injured. It almost looks like he’s been shocked.
“Beetee!” He doesn’t answer. I pick up the spear, inspecting the way that he’s tied the wire around the metal tip. He must have been trying to make it into a weapon. But the spear itself is already deadly enough, it doesn’t need the wire…
I think I know what he was trying to do.
The kid gets Enobaria back on the ground, and it’s then that I realize tackling her isn’t an option. She’s exactly where she wants to be, primed to use her fangs if her knives aren’t available. He almost gets a chance to spear her, but she flips him like a pancake and opens her mouth. As my ax flies at her head, she unfortunately notices and dodges just in time, rolling off of Cole and giving me the chance to step between the two of them.
“Stay the fuck back!” I yell at the kid. “Either go to the tree or stay out of my way.”
“She’s the only one left! I’m staying here!” he shouts back.
Enobaria tries to run at me again, but I swing widely and she’s forced to step out of the way quickly. The second time she charges, she stops a few feet away and throws a knife right into my right shoulder.
I scream in pain, summoning everything I have left to keep my left arm ready with an ax, and slice the side of her stomach as she stumbles toward me.
Volts better hurry the fuck up or he’s the next person I kill.
I figure it’s worth a shot. Beetee is the smartest of all of us, so if he wanted to take down the forcefield, he must have had a reason. I unwrap the wire from the spear and start to wrap it on an arrow.
“Katniss!” I whip my head around and see Finnick. My bow is already trained on him before he can step any closer, but he raises his hands in surrender. “Katniss, get away from the tree!”
I could kill him, right now. Then it would just be the Careers, myself, and Beetee, and Johanna or Cole would be clear to win. If they’re still alive. All I have to do is let go of this arrow and send it plunging into Finnick’s chest.
Above us, I hear the thunder rumbling as the cloud forms.
“Katniss,” he says again, “remember who the real enemy is!”
It’s Snow. It’s always Snow. And even if Johanna wins, she’ll still be at the mercy of Snow.
I turn toward the forcefield, releasing the arrow at the last possible moment.