20. Karma

       Despite settling comfortably against Daniel before falling asleep last night, the unbearable aching in my body was the only thing that got me up for the next day. I shifted uneasily. I hated this feeling, it was growing old.

 Noah was still fast asleep against the tree opposite us. It was obvious Dan didn’t give him a watch to take over; he was playing it safe like me. True, Noah earned points for leading us to water and food, but it wasn’t enough to let him watch over us during the night.

            “Good, someone’s finally up,” Dan chuckled tiredly. He had humongous bags under his eyes.

            “Did I quit too early?” I whimpered. “Look at me.” I sat up in the blanket, taking his face carefully in my hands. “I did.”

            “No, Bri, it’s fine,” he said. “I didn’t mind it.”

            “You must’ve been struggling all night.”

            “A little bit.”

            “You should have waked me, I could have taken over.”

            “I handled it.”

            “Maybe taking shifts was a bad idea.” I sighed. “Ah well, it was worth a shot, wasn’t it? Speaking of shots…any cannons go off?”

            “Nope,” Dan reported. He yawned hugely.

            “You take a load off, okay? I think you’re overdue for it,” I said. He immediately slid to lean on me, his head on my shoulder. Since I wasn’t fully awake yet, I figured I’d stay with him until Noah woke. I would still keep vigilant, only because a small part of me didn’t trust Noah.

            For now, we were safe. We had the best camping spot possible: we had a pond that we could use for bathing and water. Ew, now that I think about it…we should have filled the canteen first before cleaning ourselves. Now I questioned the contents of the water in the canteen, realizing that the water inside was used for bathing.

            It seemed like an hour had passed before Noah finally got up. He yawned, stretching. He noticed I was up.

            “How come nobody woke me up for a shift?” he asked. He jumped to his feet.

            “I think you know the answer to that.”

            “Right, right. The whole trust issue. He looks to be out cold.”

 I looked down at Dan. He looked so peaceful. I bet he was relieved to be sleeping after a long, grueling night. As Noah lumbered around the camp, I gently stroked Dan’s head.

            “Damn it,” Noah cursed.

 I stopped stroking Dan’s head and looked at Noah. “What?”

            “We ran out of food.”

            “What? That’s not possible; I swore there was a small pile left yesterday!” I protested.

            “The squirrels probably got it.”

            “The squirrels are flesh-eating? I knew it! I’m surprised they didn’t try and eat us alive in the middle of the night.”

            “Looks like we’re going to have to go hunting for more.”

            “Wait, right now?” I squeaked. I felt Dan nuzzle his head into the crook of my neck. “We can’t leave now! I’m not leaving Daniel here alone.”

            “I can go alone, Bridget. I’ve hunted solo for the past few days. I can manage.”

            “But I don’t trust you out on your own. Odds are you’ve made other allies and are just dying to tell them to kill us.”

            “You really don’t trust me, do you?” he scoffed.

            “Not really,” I confessed coldly.

            “Well, you’ve got a choice to make since you clearly don’t want to leave Daniel or me alone. You have to pick one, Bridget.”

            I couldn’t just simply wake Dan up for us to get moving on a hunting trip. I couldn’t do that to him, he suffered enough last night staying up for hours listening and watching for danger. He deserved some rest. But I couldn’t let Noah go out hunting alone, because I didn’t trust him. And I couldn’t leave Dan asleep and alone, because I was afraid something would happen to him if Noah and I left.

            Either choice is going to make me not happy. This was a good way to set me in a bad mood on top of my sore body. Today was just not my day.

Noah looked at me, arms folded. He was waiting for my answer. I knew I was going to have to make one quick, because I knew Noah wouldn’t wait all day for me. I know I’m going to regret this. Sorry, Dan, hope you can forgive me for choosing this.

            “I’ll go with you,” I told Noah.

            “Come on, then. Get up and bring the hatchet.”

            Carefully, I shrugged Daniel off and let him lay on the grass. I was so tempted to leave the hatchet with him because he’d be vulnerable without it. But I didn’t want Noah to go yelling at me either. Reluctantly, I grabbed the hatchet and followed Noah into the woods, abandoning a sleeping Daniel.

            The woods were quiet like they always were. I held the hatchet with a loose grip but not too loose. I didn’t want it falling out of my hands and onto my foot—that wouldn’t be a pleasant feeling.

 I didn’t really like the silence between Noah and me.

            “Did you ever find her?” I asked him quietly as I fell in step beside him.

Noah stumbled a step, taken aback by my question.

“Hmm? Oh…yeah, I found her,” he sighed. “Before she got killed anyway. I didn’t sneak into the Career camp and steal her, though I was really tempted to. She actually snuck off in the middle of the night, and we just happened to find each other. I thought I’d never get to see her. She was lucky to get away at night—that’s why I saw no harm was done to her.”

            Oh yeah there was, but in your case that wasn’t harm. I remembered Kaya’s bruised lip and red neck. They had been getting intimate here in the woods. Now that I looked at Noah, I saw nothing that could indicate Kaya gave some rough loving of her own to him.

            “She told me she got fed up with her brother’s threats about killing me,” Noah ranted. He shrugged. “I led her to the camp, and she stayed with me. But that one morning…” His voice lowered. “I woke up to find her gone. Then I heard the cannon. I hoped it wasn’t her, but it was.” I saw his hands clench into fists. “I just wish I knew who killed her and how she died.”

            Wow. Noah really didn’t know how Kaya died. That was a relief to me. Wait, he could be lying. But I highly doubted Noah could fake being in horrific pain as he recollected memories of his girlfriend.

            “Wait,” I told him. I stuck my arm out to stop him. I squinted ahead to see a twitchy gray tail. A squirrel. “I spy food.”

            “Hope he’s fat,” Noah murmured.

            Carefully, we both slunk to different sides, trying to herd the squirrel. I gave Noah a gesture to move in. When we were within range, we both sprang. The squirrel hadn’t fled; he decided to go on the offensive. I screamed as he went right for me. I had a feeling it was the same squirrel who had bit my knuckle, but there was a very slim chance it was.

            I could feel his sharp claws and tiny feet scramble along my skin. I tried to throw him off, but I didn’t know where he was. I ended up dropping my hatchet in the madness this bastard was giving me.

            “Do something!” I cried desperately to Noah.

            “Hold on, try not to flail too much,” Noah told me.

            “Are you stupid?” I snarled at him. I gave a yelp of pain as the squirrel bit my nose and then bit into the skin on the back of my hand. “Get off me!”

            Noah ripped the squirrel off my hand, quickly grabbing the hatchet. The squirrel bit his knuckle but Noah ended its life quickly. One chop would have satisfied me. I guess in the heat of the moment, Noah decided to get chop-happy. I had to shove him off balance to get him to stop. He fell on his butt.

            His hazel eyes met mine, his were furious.

            “What?” he hissed.

            “You massacred our meat!” I bellowed. I looked to what was left of the squirrel. There was no way we were going to gain anything from that mess.

The squirrel’s head was gone, there was a huge gash in its stomach, and its tail had been chopped off. Blood squirted from what was left of the body. I covered my mouth, gagging. The meat I had yesterday was threatening to come back up. Don’t look at it! I quickly turned my head away.

            “Oh. Sorry,” Noah said softly. He sprung to his feet. I saw the hatchet blade lathered in animal blood. That blood I could look at and not get sick from, but seeing the dead animal itself…yeah, I didn’t like it much. “Let’s get moving.” Noah gently pushed me along with a hand behind my back. I never looked back at the mangled squirrel body.

            We didn’t have a lot of luck after the maniac squirrel tried to rip off our skin—my skin, really. Noah had a hold of the bloody hatchet. We seemed to be going deep into the woods, towards the border of it—that’s what I assumed anyway. I wasn’t sure where we were going anymore.

            In fact, I had no idea how we were going to get back to camp. Unless Noah was an excellent navigator, we were screwed. I had no GPS in my brain for camp, so I was useless in terms of navigation.

            “How far do we have to go to hunt? We’ll end up at the border if we keep going,” I complained. “Or we might go into unknown territory—or we might find ourselves walking to the edge of a cliff.”

            “I know you’re hungry, so am I. We just need a little patience,” Noah snapped lightly. “So far all we’ve got is—”

            “Nothing. We have nothing.”

            “I don’t know. We could still salvage that squirrel meat.”

            “Ew, I’d rather not.” I wrinkled my nose.

            “Suit yourself, but you’re starving yourself.”

            “I’d rather starve than get sick from bloody meat on the ground that hasn’t been washed.”

            My feet screamed for me to stop, so I did. I considered taking a seat on the grassy floor, but my body wanted to stay standing. Noah walked on ahead about ten feet before he noticed I wasn’t following. He stopped to turn to me.

            “Tired?” he teased.

            “Only a little,” I whimpered. Noah trotted to me, putting a hand on my shoulder. Every fiber in my body told me to shake it off, but I didn’t. “Can I hold the hatchet?” Noah handed it over. It felt good to be back in possession of my hatchet.

            “Do you want me to carry you?” he offered.

            “Nah, I just need to rest.”

            “Do you not trust me?” Noah hovered over me. I craned my neck up to glare at him.

            “It’s a game, Noah. I want to trust you, but I can’t.”

            “Meaning that Daniel doesn’t want you to trust me,” he growled. “I’m not stupid, Bridget. I know how he is with you. That’s not a secret.”

            “What’s not a secret? That he acts like a protective brother?” I put my hands on my hips.

            Noah started leaning down towards me. My eyes were wide like an owl’s; I was frozen to the spot where I stood. I felt his cheek rub against mine. What the hell was he doing? He wasn’t seriously considering kissing me, was he? No…not unless he’s convinced himself that I’m Kaya. I really hoped that wasn’t the case.

            “You should learn to trust him more,” he purred in my ear.

            I couldn’t put words to my lips, because screaming erupted from them. I made a horrible gurgling noise as I felt pain slice into my left side. My knees wobbled threateningly. Noah pulled away to see the agony I was feeling. His eyes showed malevolence. He thrust the object deeper into me, and I screamed louder.

            Once whatever was lodged into me had been ripped out, I immediately toppled to the earthy ground. The hatchet freed itself from my hand. I coughed and grabbed my side. I looked up at Noah, seeing a bloody knife in his right hand. Terror shot through me.

How could I have been so naïve? Why did I have to be the one to actually think I could trust someone besides Dan in the arena? We could have dropped the deadweight this morning if Daniel hadn’t been up all night watching for danger. We should have left Noah this morning.

            “So naïve,” Noah cackled. The knife swung menacingly in his hand. I recognized that knife at once. It was Kaya’s. I swallowed.

Something clicked in my brain almost instantly.

            “You—you were there,” I whispered. “You were there when Kaya died.”

            “Yes, I was,” he spat coldly. “I hated seeing her be ripped apart by the monkeys. I also hated seeing you scurry away from the scene of the crime.”

            “I didn’t do it, Noah! She trapped herself in those vines, and the branch fell. She did it to herself. She came at me with the knife; she could have used it to cut the vines!”

            “Liar!” he roared. He knelt down, blade exposed near my throat. “Lucky for me you didn’t grab the knife; otherwise I would have strangled you or found another way to get rid of you.”

            “How many others have you done this to?” I hissed. “Became friendly with them and then took them out?”

            “You’ll be my first. I’m going to kill you when Kaya couldn’t. This is for her. She’ll finally get the justice she’s always wanted, and so will I. You took away my girlfriend, and I’ll take away Daniel’s.”

            “I’m not his girlfriend!” I cried. God, what was with everyone in assuming Dan and I were together? Did no one hear me say that we were best friends? Did everyone ignore the fact that Dan and I said in our interviews that we felt like siblings when around each other?

            Noah snorted. “That’s not how I see it when looking at him. He watches over you like you’re the most special girl in the world.” Why did everyone keep saying that? Was it true? Was it so obvious to everyone except for me?

            Wait, why am I worrying about that? I’m about to be killed! I looked to the hatchet. Noah kicked it away.

“You know, it’s amazing how you managed to survive the bloodbath at the Cornucopia, because I expected you to be the first to be idiotic enough to stay there and fight only to lose,” he cooed. 

            I wheezed as I grabbed my wound tighter, biting my lip so I wouldn’t scream anymore. Actually, it would be wise—that way someone could kill Noah. Yet, I would die too, so really that was more stupid than wise, now that I thought about it.

            I lay my head against the grassy ground, closing my eyes, waiting for the quick slice to end my life. Instead, I heard a whipping breeze and something—or more like someone—rolling away from me. I popped my eyes open only to see Daniel wrestling with Noah. How in the hell did he find us? We left him alone and asleep.

It didn’t matter how he found us, I was just glad he did.

            It was a constant power struggle. At times Dan nearly got struck with the knife that still was soaked in my blood. I would have helped him if I could, but I was too much in pain to lift myself up off the ground to help. Dan held Noah’s wrist as he pinned him to the ground. I could see Dan had Noah trapped under him.

I closed my eyes, long enough to hear the changing noises of battle. They stopped all together. In a panic, I forced my eyes open to see what happened.

 I saw Noah’s still figure. I was rooted to where I lay.

            Daniel had just killed someone. Never in my life did I ever think he had it in him to kill somebody, regardless whether or not he was forced to be in the Hunger Games.

Dan staggered to his feet. Noah’s knife was now caked with two types of blood. I expected Noah to jump back on his feet and pounce on Dan, but he never stirred. Dan stood there, looming over Noah’s still body. A cannon shot off, making me yelp. Whoever was left now knew there was one less person to compete with. I couldn’t remember how many tributes besides Dan, me, and the Career pack were left.

            Dan’s head snapped around to me. I flinched. I couldn’t tell what Dan was thinking, his eyes were unreadable. I trembled as he inched closer, the knife just dying to sink itself into me again. I knew what I was afraid of more though: my nightmare involving Dan killing me coming true.

Dan bent down to look at me; the knife fell to the ground.

            “Let me see,” he whispered.

            “We’ve got to leave here first and head back,” I gasped. “I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to be around when the hovercraft pays a visit to retrieve his body.”

            “Okay, okay.” Slowly, he helped me to my feet. My legs crumbled underneath me. Dan was there to catch me. My legs felt so weak, like they would break.

            “Take the knife just in case,” I suggested. “We could use it later on. Grab the hatchet too, while you’re at it.”

            I stayed on my own feet long enough to where Dan snatched the knife and hatchet from the ground. With me throwing an arm over his shoulder, he escorted me on the long journey back to our camp. Hopefully, nobody came across it.

*      *      *

            It was just setting night when we made it back to camp. I was surprised we had made it in the time we had, being that I felt feeble.

Everything was as we left it. The blanket still lay where Dan had slept; the pack was still near the blanket as well. Dan helped me hobble to the tree where he helped me sit down. The bark of the tree was uncomfortable, but it couldn’t compare to the searing pain in my side.

            “Let me see,” Dan said. He gently pried my hands away and lifted up my shirt. His eyes flickered disgust. “He must’ve lodged it in there pretty good.” I flinched when he touched the wound.

I panted, resting my head against the tree. “How did you find us? Did you put a tracking chip on me that you never told me about?”

            “Bri, do you honestly think I’d let you two go hunting together?” he snorted. “I’m not stupid; I just knew it was a matter of time before Noah struck.”

            “Sorry I didn’t listen to you. I’m an idiot,” I whined. “We should have abandoned him sooner.”

            “No, you’re not an idiot. It’s just your personality; you want to feel that you can trust others besides me. That’s not possible here.”

            “Isn’t that the truth?” I huffed. I hissed as I felt a light stinging erupt from the wound. “Should wounds sting?”

            “I don’t know.” Daniel wrinkled his nose. “Something smells bad.”

            “It’s probably us.”

            “No, it’s worse than that. Besides, we just cleaned up yesterday.”

            “What can be worse than body odor?”

            Dan sniffed around until he found the source: the knife. He grabbed it by its hilt. He plugged his nose with his free hand.

            “This,” he said through a clogged nose. “Noah had it coated in something.”

            “I don’t get it. How could he have had this knife the whole time? I never saw him pull it out or anything. The jerk kept it hidden well.” I let out a soft cry of pain. “Why do I get the feeling that it’s poison?” I whimpered as I stared at the knife. The blood still looked fresh. It’d eventually dry, adding to the smell.

            “That’s what it very well could be.” Dan’s voice was grave. He unplugged his nose. “But there are a lot of poisons, so we have no idea which it is. If we don’t know, how would a sponsor know what medicine to give you?”

            “What sponsors?” I snorted. “Dan, we don’t have any. The odds were slim on us in the beginning.”

            “You don’t know that. They have to be improving now. I’m sure we shocked a lot of people by surviving this long,” he considered.

            “I shocked Noah. He told me so.”

            “Yeah, I overheard that.” Dan’s voice was bitter.

The anthem made our heads snap up to the sky. Noah’s picture lit up the night. He was with Kaya now. They could make out all they wanted up there. I bet Eric loved seeing Noah’s picture up there. Dan did him a favor.

            Dan looked to the pond that shimmered with light from the Capitol seal in the sky. When it winked out, we were submerged in darkness.

            “Let’s see if we can clean this wound up any,” he murmured. Abandoning me, he took a few handfuls of water and maneuvered back to me. He poured it on my wound. It didn’t sting or anything, but it didn’t help matters.

            “I don’t think water is going to help any,” I sighed.

            “It’ll at least clean the blood off you.” He gently rubbed the blood off around the gash in my side. “There.”

            “If this is poison, I’m done for,” I groaned. I had never considered dying by being stabbed by a poisonous knife. I shoved my shirt down over the wound.

            “No, you’re not, Bri.” Dan grabbed my chin so I could look into his eyes. “We’ll get help. Johanna won’t let you die, not when there’s medicine that can cure this.”

            “I hope you’re right.”

            “For now, I think we better rest.”

            Daniel took his usual spot near me, throwing the blanket over us both. He tucked the hatchet under the blanket with us just like last time. I snuggled into him, feeling lousy.

Just my luck—getting stabbed and infected with poison. That added to the list of injuries I had sustained in the Hunger Games. First was the pre-Games beat-up by Eric, followed by falling out of a tree, being attacked by squirrels, and now I got stabbed with a knife. How come I wasn’t a cold-blooded killer like some of the Careers? I should have killed Noah from the start; I wouldn’t be here right now worrying about poison slowly killing me—if it was killing me slowly. For all I knew, I could be dead before the sun rose tomorrow.

            Let’s not think about that, let’s stay positive. Dan’s right, Johanna will come to our aid. She’ll get us medicine. I’ll be healed. I wasn’t sure how much of a dream that sounded like, but I had to have hope. Besides, Daniel and I wanted to come out as victors for District 7. If Johanna really loved us like she told us she did—as if we were her children—then she’d bust her ass to help us in any way she could.

            I knew I wouldn’t get much sleep, because the poison was already acting up, stinging me. I winced in my sleep, trying to ignore the biting pain.