Catching Fire (Katniss loves Peeta)

Chapter 25

"All right," I say. "We'll stay until the Careers are dead. But that's the end of it." I turn and wave to Finnick. "Hey, Finnick, come on in! We figured out how to make you pretty again!"

The three of us scour all the scabs from our bodies, helping with the others' backs, and come out the same pink as the sky. We apply another round of medicine because the skin seems too delicate for the sunlight, but it doesn't look half as bad on smooth skin and will be good camouflage in the jungle.

Beetee calls us over, and it turns out that during all those hours of fiddling with wire, he has indeed come up with a plan. "I think we'll all agree our next job is to kill Brutus and Enobaria," he says mildly. 

"I doubt they'll attack us openly again, now that they're so outnumbered. We could track them down, I suppose, but it's dangerous, exhausting work."
"Do you think they've figured out about the clock?" I ask.

"If they haven't, they'll figure it out soon enough. Perhaps not as precisely as we have. But they must know that at least some of the zones are wired for attacks and that they're reoccurring in a circular fashion. Also, the fact that our last fight was cut off by Gamemaker intervention will not have gone unnoticed by them.

We know it was an attempt to disorient us, but they must be asking themselves why it was done, and this, too, may lead them to the realization that the arena's a clock," says Beetee. "So I think our best bet will be setting our own trap."

"Wait, let me get Johanna up," says Finnick. "She'll be rabid if she thinks she missed something this important."

"Or not," I mutter since she's always pretty much rabid, but I don't stop him, because I'd be angry myself if I were excluded from a plan at this point.

When she's joined us, Beetee shoos us all back a bit so he can have room to work in the sand. He swiftly draws a circle and divides it into twelve wedges. It's the arena, not rendered in-Peeta's precise strokes but in the rough lines of a man whose mind is occupied by other, far more complicated things.

"If you were Brutus and Enobaria, knowing what you do now about the jungle, where would you feel safest?" Beetee asks. Nothing is patronizing in his voice, and yet I can't help thinking he reminds me of a schoolteacher about to ease children into a lesson. Perhaps it's the age difference, or just that Beetee is probably about a million times smarter than the rest of us.

"Where we are now. On the beach," says Peeta. "It's the safest place."

"So why aren't they on the beach?" says Beetee.

"Because we're here," says Johanna impatiently.

"Exactly. We're here, claiming the beach. Now where would you go?" says Beetee.

I think about the deadly jungle, the occupied beach. "I'd hide just at the edge of the jungle. So I could escape if an attack came. And so I could spy on us."

"Also to eat," Finnick says. "The jungle's full of strange creatures and plants. But by watching us, I'd know the seafood's safe."

Beetee smiles at us as if we've exceeded his expectations. "Yes, good. You do see. Now here's what I propose: a twelve o'clock strike. What happens exactly at noon and midnight?"

"The lightning bolt hits the tree," I say.

"Yes. So what I'm suggesting is that after the bolt hits at noon, but before it hits at midnight, we run my wire from that tree all the way down into the saltwater, which is, of course, highly conductive. When the bolt strikes, the electricity will travel down the wire and into not only the water but also the surrounding beach, which will still be damp from the ten o'clock wave. Anyone in contact with those surfaces at that moment will be electrocuted," says Beetee.