Darker And Colder

1.14: A Gift To The Tributes

Chapter 14
Peeta's POV

I run after Katniss, who jolted into the jungle saying she felt sick. I don't doubt this as it has happened a lot recently, and I had happened before she told me. She was just very good at hiding it so she wouldn't hurt anyone.

I make sure nobody is going to attack her, and when she has finished we go back to the beach. But there is no sign of Finnick anywhere. His trident is gone, and he isn't in our line of sight. I panic, thinking our one ally has left us to survive it alone, and given us one more obstacle in the way of getting out of here. Then I see his bronze hair and the rest of his head rise from the water. He swims to shore, wielding his trident, which is spearing 3 fish.

"Breakfast, anyone?" he says.

♤♤♤

Katniss's POV

The fish is good and salty, but we still haven't found water, and I am dehydrated so badly already.

Just as I am thinking this, a silver parachute floats down from the sky and Peeta rushes toward it.

He brings out a silvery metal tube with a slightly lipped end. I have seen this sort of thing before. It is an old memory, but if I could just about grasp it-

Finnick starts to say something. "What do you think it could b-"

"A SPILE!" I exclaim, taking it out of Peeta's hand to examine. I realise this seems rude, but I mouth sorry to him and he doesn't seem to mind. "It's like a sort of tap, almost. You put it in the right tree, and sap would come out of it. But I am guessing that in these trees it isn't sap, but rather water."

"I have no idea how you know that," says Finnick, "but you are a genius."

I blush, but Peeta looks proud.

We walk into the jungle a little way and cut a small gap into a tree with a knife. I insert the spile into the gap, and nothing happens.

I am so disappointed that I am about to take it out and throw it into the water, but then I think to move it around a little, and a small, but real stream of water starts dripping out. I go to drink a little and I instantly feel better. I then move out of the way to let Peeta and Finnick have a drink, and when they have both had some water I go back for more. Finnick comes up with the idea to weave baskets out of grass, and they are so tightly woven that they can carry water. We fill them up and drink, then we fill them back up and take them down to the beach with us. I am careful to remove the spile from the tree so we don't lose it, and when we are on the beach I wrap it in the material of the silvery parachute and tuck it into my purple belt.

Peeta sits next to me, trying to arrange his artificial leg in a way that isn't awkward and won't impose on my space. I insist its fine but he says it doesn't matter and it doesn't make it harder for him.

Sometimes he amazes me with how kind he can be, and even if it inconveniences him he is still so caring and generous. But sometimes he can be so protective that he does put barriers in the way of others to stop them hurting people he cares about. Or even people I care about that he has barely even spoken to.

And I remember that he loves me. Me. An average but gaunt, rude and less than pretty girl from the seam. How does he see me as beautiful, kind, and worth risking his and others lives for?

I wish for the millionth time that these games would end, that I could live a life with Peeta. Happily, and without us being plagued by death and watched by cameras. Where we could live in peace with our child. Where the child probably wouldn't die before being born. A kinder world. A safer world. Sometimes I wonder whether this is why Peeta is always so kind, so protective. Because we all just want the world to be kind and safe. But never will we get that peace.