The Hunger Games - Suzanne Collins [117]
“Don’t go to sleep,” I tell him. I’m not sure if this is exactly medical protocol, but I’m terrified that if he drifts off he’ll never wake again.
“Are you cold?” he asks. He unzips his jacket and I press against him as he fastens it around me. It’s a bit warmer, sharing our body heat inside my double layer of jackets, but the night is young. The temperature will continue to drop. Even now I can feel the Cornucopia, which burned so when I first climbed it, slowly turning to ice.
“Cato may win this thing yet,” I whisper to Peeta.
“Don’t you believe it,” he says, pulling up my hood, but he’s shaking harder than I am.
The next hours are the worst in my life, which if you think about it, is saying something. The cold would be torture enough, but the real nightmare is listening to Cato, moaning, begging, and finally just whimpering as the mutts work away at him. After a very short time, I don’t care who he is or what he’s done, all I want is for his suffering to end.
“Why don’t they just kill him?” I ask Peeta.
“You know why,” he says, and pulls me closer to him. And I do. No viewer could turn away from the show now. From the Gamemakers’ point of view, this is the final word in entertainment.
It goes on and on and on and eventually completely consumes my mind, blocking out memories and hopes of tomorrow, erasing everything but the present, which I begin to believe will never change. There will never be anything but cold and fear and the agonized sounds of the boy dying in the horn. Peeta begins to doze off now, and each time he does, I find myself yelling his name louder and louder because if he goes and dies on me now, I know I’ll go completely insane. He’s fighting it, probably more for me than for him, and it’s hard because unconsciousness would be its own form of escape. But the adrenaline pumping through my body would never allow me to follow him, so I can’t let him go. I just can’t. The only indication of the passage of time lies in the heavens, the subtle shift of the moon. So Peeta begins pointing it out to me, insisting I acknowledge its progress and sometimes, for just a moment I feel a flicker of hope before the agony of the night engulfs me again.
Finally, I hear him whisper that the sun is rising. I open my eyes and find the stars fading in the pale light of dawn. I can see, too, how bloodless Peeta’s face has become. How little time he has left. And I know I have to get him back to the Capitol. Still, no cannon has fired. I press my good ear against the horn and can just make out Cato’s voice.
“I think he’s closer now. Katniss, can you shoot him?” Peeta asks.
If he’s near the mouth, I may be able to take him out. It would be an act of mercy at this point.
“My last arrow’s in your tourniquet,” I say.
“Make it count,” says Peeta, unzipping his jacket, letting me loose.
So I free the arrow, tying the tourniquet back as tightly as my frozen fingers can manage. I rub my hands together, trying to regain circulation. When I crawl to the lip of the horn and hang over the edge, I feel Peeta’s hands grip me for support. It takes a few moments to find Cato in the dim light, in the blood. Then the raw hunk of meat that used to be my enemy makes a sound, and I know where his mouth is. And I think the word he’s trying to say is please.
Pity, not vengeance, sends my arrow flying into his skull. Peeta pulls me back up, bow in hand, quiver empty.
“Did you get him?” he whispers.
The cannon fires in answer.
“Then we won, Katniss,” he says hollowly.
“Hurray for us,” I get out, but there’s no joy of victory in my voice.
A hole opens in the plain and as if on cue, the remaining mutts bound into it, disappearing as the earth closes above them.
We wait, for the hovercraft to take Cato’s remains, for the trumpets of victory that should follow, but nothing happens.
“Hey!” I shout into air. “What’s going