Sharp Objects

chapter twenty

"She did." Says zafira menacingly "so why should we save her? We all have weapons."

I turn around, waiting to see the career party with swords drawn, but only zafira and glimmer have walked forwards.then, suddenly, cato and Marvel appear behind them, and drag them away from me.

"You kill her and you're dead." Hisses Marvel.

"Actually,I think you own her you life."says cato " she's the one who dragged us away from the fire. without her. You'd be dead." Cato gives me a small smile,and I return it, before smirking at glimmer and zafira. Their shared expression is what I could only call complete and utter loathing, but they don't question cato, because what he said was completely utterly true.

We walk the forest, trying to clear our lungs from the smoke, until we reach a small lake. It's nothing like the one next to our camp, but it is good enough to gather some water.but, just when I'm about to go wading forward into the pool, Marvel shouts "there she is!"

I look up, trying to comprehend his Shouts,and my eyes come to rest on fire girl, sitting in the pool. I can almost feel my eyes lighting up a the prospect of putting a knife through her skull. I splash through the pool,following quickly behind cato,who practically launched himself through the  Walter after her, and use the rocks to haul myself back up on to solid ground. Then we follow her through the woods, cato still cheering ,way ahead the rest of us,with peeta right at the back.

Peeta.I'm waiting to see  how well he takes this. If we kill her (which we undoubtedly will) how will her take it? Will he runaway and leave us forever, just make him a target for our group? Or will he carry on,proving to us that it was all just a plan, as I originally thought? I'm backing on it being the second. There's no way that star cross lovers was real life.

We arrive in another clearing, much like the one we killed Eden a few nights ago, and I notice cato staring up into trees, looking besides himself with extreme excitement . I follow the line if his eye,and,there, scrambling up a tree trunk, is fire girl.

" way to go girl on fire!" Shouts cato up towards her,adding " we've got her now." And he turns back towards me.

" hey careers " she replies, smiling despite from her uncomfortable position."how's this area treating you?"

The smile falls of cato face in an instant. "Fairly." He answers, his voice monotonous, but with a hint of annoyance underneath the surface.her aim is to make her think that she's not scared of us. Well, I'm not entirely sure that that 'master plan' of hers is going to work out as she Hope's.

"Just kill her cato." Says Marvel, from behind me. He points to Cato's sword, then up at fire girl. " you've got a sword, and you can climb a tree, surely, should be that hard." She smirks up at fire girl, and I laugh along with him. Cato seems to contemplate Marvel's idea for a moment, looking back and forth from his sword, to our enemie in the trees,then finally takes his blade from his belt  and begins to climb.

He reaches about half way,then a branch suddenly snaps beneath his right hand as he grabs on, and he goes plummeting to the ground,landing at my feet.i sigh in disgust, probably sounding downright rude and ungrateful, but I don't really care: if that's what people want to think,then so  be it.

"Fine,I'll do it myself!" Shouts glimmer inaudible particularly demanding voice,before hustling herself up into the branches.she makes it much further than cato. But it all goes wrong when she tries to shoot fire girl with her arrow, her artery skills are far from expect, and the arrow misses are enemy by miles. Shoots into the bright blue sky into the forest canopy. I half expect it to come flying back at us,boomerang style. So much so,that I subtly shelter under a large tree branch.

When glimmers arrow doesn't come back to pierce my skull, I move back into the group, and trys my best not to loose it as cato fails to hit fire girl with an arrow too. I would try and throw, but she's straight above us, and I don't want my knife to come flying back down like a boomerang as I expected the arrow to. But I can't. Instead. I lose my temper.

"You idiot,cato!" I shout,waving my arms around, as I often do when I'm in a bad mood " learn archery,will you!because I'd be so much better for all of our lifes if you did." He gives me a dagger, his piercing blue eyes which were once so perfect suddenly turning cold and insane.

"I'd like to see you try." He replies,his voice monotonous, yet still with a razor sharp edge to it that I don't want to hear again. I stay quiet after that. Cato is obviously angry, and so am I,but not for the same reason as he is,he's angry as we can't get fire girl down from her stupid tree perch. I'm angry because we can't go back to camp and check my supplies, and I'm so angry because,for once,my skills have been forsaken: I wasn't even asked to contribute to the removal of fire girl from the surface of earth.

"Guys,why don't we just wait her out."

I snap my head around at the voice,that is ultimately suggesting something that's ridiculous,and yet,our only option. It's peeta. He's suggesting we wait her out, but he's not obtaining to her murder. So I was right, he is on our side after all. "She has to come down at some point. We'll kill her then."

I look to the others,and a round of appreciation,if not happy nods goes round. The others look at cato for question: since he's our kind of 'leader' and all,we better ask him first,of course.i just do my best holding back a snort of laughter that threatens to erupt me, their focus till on cato.

Eventually,he gives in. "Okay." He sighs,his voice returning to normal."somebody sort the camp,and somebody make a fire."

We oblige without question