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By Root 310 0

has he stayed alive all these days since? If the wound and the stingers haven’t killed him, surely thirst would have taken him by now. And that’s when I get my first clue to his whereabouts. He couldn’t have survived without water. I know that from my first few days here. He must be hidden somewhere near a source. There’s the lake, but I find that an unlikely option since it’s so close to the Careers’ base camp. A few spring-fed pools. But you’d really be a sitting duck at one of those. And the stream. The one that leads from the camp Rue and I made all the way down near the lake and beyond. If he stuck to the stream, he could change his location and always be near water. He could walk in the current and erase any tracks. He might even be able to get a fish or two.

Well, it’s a place to start, anyway.

To confuse my enemies’ minds, I start a fire with plenty of green wood. Even if they think it’s a ruse, I hope they’ll decide I’m hidden somewhere near it. While in reality, I’ll be tracking Peeta.

The sun burns off the morning haze almost immediately and I can tell the day will be hotter than usual. The waters cool and pleasant on my bare feet as I head downstream. I’m tempted to call out Peeta’s name as I go but decide against it. I will have to find him with my eyes and one good ear or he will have to find me. But he’ll know I’ll be looking, right? He won’t have so low of an opinion of me as to think I’d ignore the new rule and keep to myself. Would he? He’s very hard to predict, which might be interesting under different circumstances, but at the moment only provides an extra obstacle. It doesn’t take long to reach the spot where I peeled off to go the Careers’ camp. There’s been no sign of Peeta, but this doesn’t surprise me. I’ve been up and down this stretch three times since the tracker jacker incident. If he were nearby, surely I’d have had some suspicion of it. The stream begins to curve to the left into a part of the woods that’s new to me. Muddy banks covered in tangled water plants lead to large rocks that increase in size until I begin to feel somewhat trapped. It would be no small matter to escape the stream now. Fighting off Cato or Thresh as I climbed over this rocky terrain. In fact, I’ve just about decided I’m on the wrong track entirely, that a wounded boy would be unable to navigate getting to and from this water source, when I see the bloody streak going down the curve of a boulder. It’s long dried now, but the smeary lines running side to side suggest someone—who perhaps was not fully in control of his mental faculties—tried to wipe it away.

Hugging the rocks, I move slowly in the direction of the blood, searching for him. I find a few more bloodstains, one with a few threads of fabric glued to it, but no sign of life. I break down and say his name in a hushed voice. “Peeta! Peeta!” Then a mockingjay lands on a scruffy tree and begins to mimic my tones so I stop. I give up and climb back down to the stream thinking, He must have moved on. Somewhere farther down.

My foot has just broken the surface of the water when I hear a voice.

“You here to finish me off, sweetheart?”

I whip around. It’s come from the left, so I can’t pick it up very well. And the voice was hoarse and weak. Still, it must have been Peeta. Who else in the arena would call me sweetheart? My eyes peruse the bank, but there’s nothing. Just mud, the plants, the base of the rocks.

“Peeta?” I whisper. “Where are you?” There’s no answer. Could I just have imagined it? No, I’m certain it was real and very close at hand, too. “Peeta?” I creep along the bank.

“Well, don’t step on me.”

I jump back. His voice was right under my feet. Still there’s nothing. Then his eyes open, unmistakably blue in the brown mud and green leaves. I gasp and am rewarded with a hint of white teeth as he laughs.

It’s the final word in camouflage. Forget chucking weights around. Peeta should have gone into his private session with the Gamemakers and painted himself into a tree. Or a boulder. Or a muddy bank full of weeds.

“Close your eyes again,” I order.