Catching Fire - Suzanne Collins [121]
After we eat, I take his hand and tug him toward the water. “Come on. I'll teach you how to swim.” I need to get him away from the others where we can discuss breaking away. It will be tricky, because once they realize we're severing the alliance, we'll be instant targets.
If I was really teaching him to swim, I'd make him take off the belt since it keeps him afloat, but what does it matter now? So I just show him the basic stroke and let him practice going back and forth in waist-high water. At first, I notice Johanna keeping a careful eye on us, but eventually she loses interest and goes to take a nap. Finnick's weaving a new net out of vines and Beetee plays with his wire. I know the time has come.
While Peeta has been swimming, I've discovered something. My remaining scabs are starting to peel off. By gently rubbing a handful of sand up and down my arm, I clean off the rest of the scales, revealing fresh new skin underneath.
I stop Peeta's practice, on the pretext of showing him how to rid himself of the itchy scabs, and as we scrub ourselves, I bring up our escape.
“Look, the pool is down to eight. I think it's time we took off,” I say under my breath, although I doubt any of the tributes can hear me.
Peeta nods, and I can see him considering my proposition. Weighing if the odds will be in our favor. “Tell you what,” he says. “Let's stick around until Brutus and Enobaria are dead. I think Beetee's trying to put together some kind of trap for them now. Then, I promise, we'll go.”
I'm not entirely convinced. But if we leave now, we'll have two sets of adversaries after us. Maybe three, because who knows what Chaff's up to? Plus the clock to contend with. And then there's Beetee to think of. Johanna only brought him for me, and if we leave she'll surely kill him. Then I remember. I can't protect Beetee, too. There can only be one victor and it has to be Peeta. I must accept this. I must make decisions based on his survival only.
“All right,” I say. “We'll stay until the Careers are dead. But that's the end of it.” I turn and wave to Finnick. “Hey, Finnick, come on in! We figured out how to make you pretty again!”
The three of us scour all the scabs from our bodies, helping with the others' backs, and come out the same pink as the sky. We apply another round of medicine because the skin seems too delicate for the sunlight, but it doesn't look half as bad on smooth skin and will be good camouflage in the jungle.
Beetee calls us over, and it turns out that during all those hours of fiddling with wire, he has indeed come up with a plan. “I think we'll all agree our next job is to kill Brutus and Enobaria,” he says mildly. “I doubt they'll attack us openly again, now that they're so outnumbered. We could track them down, I suppose, but it's dangerous, exhausting work.”
“Do you think they've figured out about the clock?” I ask.
“If they haven't, they'll figure it out soon enough. Perhaps not as specifically as we have. But they must know that at least some of the zones are wired for attacks and that they're reoccurring in a circular fashion. Also, the fact that our last fight was cut off by Gamemaker intervention will not have gone unnoticed by them. We know it was an attempt to disorient us, but they must be asking themselves why it was done, and this, too, may lead them to the realization that the arena's a clock,” says Beetee. “So I think our best bet will be setting our own trap.”
“Wait, let me get Johanna up,” says Finnick. “She'll be rabid if she thinks she missed something this important.”
“Or not,” I mutter, since she's always pretty much rabid, but I don't stop him, because I'd be angry myself if I was excluded from a plan at this point.
When she's joined us, Beetee shoos us all back a bit so he can have room to work in the sand. He swiftly draws a circle and divides it into twelve