Catching Fire

seems as remarkable a feat as flying; we crawl until the vines turn to a narrow strip of sandy beach and the warm water that surrounds the Cornucopia laps our faces. I jerk back as if I’ve touched an open flame.
    Rubbing salt in a wound. For the first time I truly appreciate the expression, because the salt in the water makes the pain of my wounds so blinding I nearly black out. But there’s another sensation, of drawing out. I experiment by gingerly placing only my hand in the water. Torturous, yes, but then less so. And through the blue layer of water, I see a milky substance leaching out of the wounds on my skin. As the whiteness diminishes, so does the pain. I unbuckle my belt and strip off my jumpsuit, which is little more than a perforated rag. My shoes and undergarments are inexplicably unaffected. Little by little, one small portion of a limb at a time, I soak the poison out of my wounds. Peeta seems to be doing the same. But Finnick backed away from the water at first touch and lies facedown on the sand, either unwilling or unable to purge himself.
    Finally, when I have survived the worst, opening my eyes underwater, sniffing water into my sinuses and snorting it out, and even gargling repeatedly to wash out my throat, I’m functional enough to help Finnick. Some feeling has returned to my leg, but my arms are still riddled with spasms. I can’t drag Finnick into the water, and possibly the pain would kill him, anyway. So I scoop up shaky handfuls and empty them on his fists. Since he’s not underwater, the poison comes out of his wounds just as it went in, in wisps of fog that I take great care to steer clear of. Peeta recovers enough to help me. He cuts away Finnick’s jumpsuit. Somewhere he finds two shells that work much better than our hands do. We concentrate on soaking Finnick’s arms first, since they have been so badly damaged, and even though a lot of white stuff pours out of them, he doesn’t notice.
    He just lies there, eyes shut, giving an occasional moan.
    I look around with growing awareness of how dangerous a position we’re in. It’s night, yes, but this moon gives off too much light for concealment. We’re lucky no one’s attacked us yet. We could see them coming from the Cornucopia, but if all four Careers attacked, they’d overpower us. If they didn’t spot us at first, Finnick’s moans would give us away soon.
    “We’ve got to get more of him into the water,” I whisper. But we can’t put him in face-first, not while he’s in this condition. Peeta nods to Finnick’s feet. We each take one, pull him one hundred and eighty degrees around, and start to drag him into the saltwater. Just a few inches at a time. His ankles. Wait a few minutes. Up to his midcalf. Wait. His knees. Clouds of white swirl out from his flesh and he groans. We continue to detoxify him, bit by bit. What I find is that the longer I sit in the water, the better I feel. Not just my skin, but my brain and muscle control continue to improve. I can see Peeta’s face beginning to return to normal, his eyelid opening, the grimace leaving his mouth.
    Finnick slowly begins to revive. His eyes open, focus on us, and register awareness that he’s being helped. I rest his head on my lap and we let him soak about ten minutes with everything immersed from the neck down. Peeta and I exchange a smile as Finnick lifts his arms above the seawater.
    “There’s just your head left, Finnick. That’s the worst part, but you’ll feel much better after, if you can bear it,” Peeta says. We help him to sit up and let him grip our hands as he purges his eyes and nose and mouth. His throat is still too raw to speak.
    “I’m going to try to tap a tree,” I say. My fingers fumble at my belt and find the spile still hanging from its vine.
    “Let me make the hole first,” says Peeta. “You stay with him. You’re the healer.”
    That’s a joke, I think. But I don’t say it out loud, since Finnick has enough to deal with. He got the worst of the fog, although I’m not sure why. Maybe because he’s the biggest or maybe because he had to exert himself the most. And then, of course, there’s Mags. I still don’t understand what happened there. Why he essentially abandoned her to carry Peeta. Why she not only didn’t question it, but ran straight to her death without a moment’s hesitation. Was it because she was so old that her days were numbered, anyway? Did they think that Finnick would stand a better chance