let it fly | cato hadley

22 | Fog

"Celeste!" Katniss yelled out.

"Those could be poisonous!" she warned, causing Celeste to chuckle. Finnick laughed and kept walking, as Katniss stared the older girl down.

"It's fine. They were in the games two years back -- my tributes ate them when they needed food," Celeste explained, handing a few to the others. Finnick was the only one to take some though, eating the roasted ones.

"I'm going to do a perimeter check again," Katniss huffed out instead, climbing the tree as Celeste and Finnick chuckled. A few moments later, Katniss made her way back down, once again in sad spirits.

"Find anything?' Finnick asked, seated on the ground.

"Nope. No water. I did find out the forcefield is a dome though," Katniss offered, sitting on the ground in frustration.

"There has to be water somewhere. Maybe we should rest for the night and then we can continue walking in the morning," Celeste suggested with a huff. The group nodded, setting up camp by the edge of the forcefield, hoping that the extra protection helped.

While Finnick and Celeste set up camp, Peeta worked on roasting more nits and Katniss went hunting for water, hoping that if they split the work, things will go faster.

Thankfully, it did and an hour later, the four were happily eating. Katniss finally ate some of the nuts as well, after a few nervous looks.

Soon, the sun began to go down and all the group wanted was water, but none appears. Then the Capital seal appears in the sky, causing Celeste to freeze.

Please not Cato. Please not him. Celeste thought crossing her fingers. Thankfully, the seal cut right to District 5, skipping over 1-4 entirely. Celeste sighed in relief at that, relaxing slightly. Though she tensed again when she noticed Cecilia, a mother of 3, show up in the sky and then again when Seeder appeared.

The group remained silent, at a loss for words. Even though losing them meant being one step closer to winning, none of the four actually wished death on any of the other tributes. All the victors wanted to do was survive -and these games made it almost impossible.

Eventually, a rising noise was heard from above, signaling a silver parachute. Immediately, the group stood up, excluding Peeta, and made their way over to the parachute. Inside lay a silver tube that Celeste couldn't get a good view at.

"What is it?" Finnick asked, holding it up for them to see.

"Maybe a whistle," Peeta suggested, trying to blow into it with no luck. That's when Celeste made her way to the front and grabbed the object.

"It's a spile," Celeste blurted with a laugh, amused by the object.

"A what?" Finnick asked, raising his brows in confusion.

"It's like a faucet for the trees. It helps get syrup out of them," Katniss added, now remembering the time her father taught her about them.

"What do we need syrup for?" Peeta asked, eyes narrowed.

"I don't think it's for syrup. I think something else is in the trees," Celeste admitted, knocking on the tree in front of her.

Katniss the grabbed spile and attempted to wedge it into the tree, only to fail when the spile's edge refused to make a dent. Celeste then grabbed one of her knives and began carving a hole to make the wood softer which allowed Katniss to shove the spile in.