The Hunger Games - Suzanne Collins [58]
So... what? Is he trying to make me suffer for defying him? Is he directing all the sponsors toward Peeta? Is he just too drunk to even notice what’s going on at the moment? Somehow I don’t believe that and I don’t believe he’s trying to kill me off by neglect, either. He has, in fact, in his own unpleasant way, genuinely been trying to prepare me for this. Then what is going on?
I bury my face in my hands. There’s no danger of tears now, I couldn’t produce one to save my life. What is Haymitch doing? Despite my anger, hatred, and suspicions, a small voice in the back of my head whispers an answer.
Maybe he’s sending you a message, it says. A message. Saying what? Then I know. There’s only one good reason Haymitch could be withholding water from me. Because he knows I’ve almost found it.
I grit my teeth and pull myself to my feet. My backpack seems to have tripled in weight. I find a broken branch that will do for a walking stick and I start off. The sun’s beating down, even more searing than the first two days. I feel like an old piece of leather, drying and cracking in the heat. every step is an effort, but I refuse to stop. I refuse to sit down. If I sit, there’s a good chance I won’t be able to get up again, that I won’t even remember my task.
What easy prey I am! Any tribute, even tiny Rue, could take me right now, merely shove me over and kill me with my own knife, and I’d have little strength to resist. But if anyone is in my part of the woods, they ignore me. The truth is, I feel a million miles from another living soul. Not alone though. No, they’ve surely got a camera tracking me now. I think back to the years of watching tributes starve, freeze, bleed, and dehydrate to death. Unless there’s a really good fight going on somewhere, I’m being featured. My thoughts turn to Prim. It’s likely she won’t be watching me live, but they’ll show updates at the school during lunch. For her sake, I try to look as least desperate as I can. But by afternoon, I know the end is coming. My legs are shaking and my heart too quick. I keep forgetting, exactly what I’m doing. I’ve stumbled repeatedly and managed to regain my feet, but when the stick slides out from under me, I finally tumble to the ground unable to get up. I let my eyes close.
I have misjudged Haymitch. He has no intention of helping me at all.
This is all right, I think. This is not so bad here. The air is less hot, signifying evening’s approach. There’s a slight, sweet scent that reminds me of lilies. My fingers stroke the smooth ground, sliding easily across the top. This is an okay place to die, I think.
My fingertips make small swirling patterns in the cool, slippery earth. I love mud, I think. How many times I’ve tracked game with the help of its soft, readable surface. Good for bee stings, too. Mud. Mud. Mud! My eyes fly open and I dig my fingers into the earth. It is mud! My nose lifts in the air. And those are lilies! Pond lilies!
I crawl now, through the mud, dragging myself toward the scent. Five yards from where I fell, I crawl through a tangle of plants into a pond. Floating on the top, yellow flowers in bloom, are my beautiful lilies.
It’s all I can do not to plunge my face into the water and gulp down as much as I can hold. But I have jus enough sense left to abstain. With trembling hands, I get out my flask and fill it with water. I add what I remember to be the right number of drops of iodine for purifying it. The half an hour of waiting is agony, but I do it. At least,
I think it’s a half an hour, but it’s certainly as long as I can stand.
Slowly, easy now, I tell myself. I take one swallow and make myself wait. Then another. Over the next couple of hours, I drink the entire half gallon. Then a second. I prepare another before I retire to a tree where I continue sipping, eating rabbit, and even indulge in one of my precious crackers. By the time the anthem plays, I feel remarkably better. There are no faces tonight, no tributes died today. Tomorrow I’ll stay here, resting, camouflaging my backpack with mud, catching some of those little