Catching Fire

and that makes the job of keeping Peeta alive harder.
    “So you want to make camp here, then?” Finnick asks.
    “I don’t think that’s an option,” Peeta answers. “Staying here. With no water. No protection. I feel all right, really. If we could just go slowly.”
    “Slowly would be better than not at all.” Finnick helps Peeta to his feet while I pull myself together. Since I got up this morning I’ve watched Cinna beaten to a pulp, landed in another arena, and seen Peeta die. Still, I’m glad Finnick keeps playing the pregnancy card for me, because from a sponsor’s point of view, I’m not handling things all that well.
    I check over my weapons, which I know are in perfect condition, because it makes me seem more in control. “I’ll take the lead,” I announce.
    Peeta starts to object but Finnick cuts him off. “No, let her do it.” He frowns at me. “You knew that force field was there, didn’t you? Right at the last second? You started to give a warning.” I nod. “How did you know?”
    I hesitate. To reveal that I know Beetee and Wiress’s trick of recognizing a force field could be dangerous. I don’t know if the Gamemakers made note of that moment during training when the two pointed it out to me or not. One way or the other, I have a very valuable piece of information. And if they know I have it, they might do something to alter the force field so I can’t see the aberration anymore. So I lie. “I don’t know. It’s almost as if I could hear it. Listen.” We all become still. There’s the sound of insects, birds, the breeze in the foliage.
    “I don’t hear anything,” says Peeta.
    “Yes,” I insist, “it’s like when the fence around District Twelve is on, only much, much quieter.” Everyone listens again intently. I do, too, although there’s nothing to hear. “There!” I say. “Can’t you hear it? It’s coming from right where Peeta got shocked.”
    “I don’t hear it, either,” says Finnick. “But if you do, by all means, take the lead.”
    I decide to play this for all it’s worth. “That’s weird,” I say. I turn my head from side to side as if puzzled. “I can only hear it out of my left ear.”
    “The one the doctors reconstructed?” asks Peeta.
    “Yeah,” I say, then give a shrug. “Maybe they did a better job than they thought. You know, sometimes I do hear funny things on that side. Things you wouldn’t ordinarily think have a sound. Like insect wings. Or snow hitting the ground.” Perfect. Now all the attention will turn to the surgeons who fixed my deaf ear after the Games last year, and they’ll have to explain why I can hear like a bat.
    “You,” says Mags, nudging me forward, so I take the lead. Since we’re to be moving slowly, Mags prefers to walk with the aid of a branch Finnick quickly fashions into a cane for her. He makes a staff for Peeta as well, which is good because, despite his protestations, I think all Peeta really wants to do is lie down. Finnick brings up the rear, so at least someone alert has our backs.
    I walk with the force field on my left, because that’s supposed to be the side with my superhuman ear. But since that’s all made up, I cut down a bunch of hard nuts that hang like grapes from a nearby tree and toss them ahead of me as I go. It’s good I do, too, because I have a feeling I’m missing the patches that indicate the force field more often than I’m spotting them. Whenever a nut hits the force field, there’s a puff of smoke before the nut lands, blackened and with a cracked shell, on the ground at my feet.
    After a few minutes I become aware of a smacking sound behind me and turn to see Mags peeling the shell off one of the nuts and popping it in her already-full mouth. “Mags!” I cry. “Spit that out. It could be poisonous.”
    She mumbles something and ignores me, licking her lips with apparent relish. I look to Finnick for help but he just laughs. “I guess we’ll find out,” he says.
    I go forward, wondering about Finnick, who saved old Mags but will let her eat strange nuts. Who Haymitch has stamped with his seal of approval. Who brought Peeta back from the dead. Why didn’t he just let him die? He would have been blameless. I never would have guessed it was in his power to revive him. Why could he possibly have wanted to save Peeta? And why was he so determined to team up with me? Willing to kill me, too, if it comes to that. But leaving the choice of if we fight to me.
    I keep