Rue's Games

Chapter 7: Normal

Cat-like, I land on both feet. Un-cat-like, I stumble straight away because one of my feet hurts.

I have about a minute to spare, because neither Cato nor Clove seem brave enough to jump down after me. I scramble up, being careful not to put weight on my right foot. I limp over to the table, grabbing the ‘11’ and ‘1’ bags, but also the ‘2’ bag.

I half hop, half limp back into the forest. They don’t make any movements to follow me, but Cato screams after me:

“We’ll get you soon! Both of you! We will be this year’s victors!”

I know they are wrong.

I would have liked to travel back but going from tree to tree, but I don’t think my foot could handle it so I walk on my toes.

I am relieved to find Thresh back at the cave. He is curled up in the sleeping bag.

He eyes flick open as he hears me come in. I reach down and hug him. He pulls his arms out and hugs me tightly.

“I’m so sorry,” he whispers. “I wanted to help you but I couldn’t. It was horrible. While I was waiting for you to come back, I didn’t know whether you were still alive or not.”

“I am,” I say, “I’m not going to die here.”

“You won’t. This is a promise that I will keep.”

“I brought you some stuff.”

I give him our bag. He opens it and inspects the contents.

“A few days worth of insulin and a test kit. This gives us a deadline. We have to have won after a few days or I’ll run out again. They won’t give us another feast.”

“That’s not all.”

I open the green bag and find a strangely shaped metal thing. Thresh recognizes it as a device you push into a tree and a small stream of water comes out. This will be useful for when our iodine runs out. I open the black bag and find some body armour. I wonder why they needed it, as there have been no beasts so far and none of the tributes left are very violent. They must have been expecting something for the finale.

I take off my shoe and show Thresh the cut on my foot. It is not very deep, but Clove’s knife went straight through the sole of my shoe and we have no way of fixing it. Thresh tells me that he looked at the cut on his side, and it isn’t very deep either. He gives me a water container he got hold of during the bloodbath, and I go outside to the cave to try to get some water from a tree, still walking on my toes.

I push the sharp end of the device into a tree and am surprised at how quickly the water comes out. I fill up the bottle and bring it back to Thresh. We each drink some then Thresh shows me how to clean out the cut on my heel.

“I looked into first aid when we were in training,” he explains.

He won’t let me see the cut on his hip, and he cleans it himself. He says it isn’t very bad, but there was a lot of blood earlier, so I’m not so sure. I think it’s because he doesn’t want me to worry about him. It occurs to me that this may be why he didn’t mention the diabetes, either.

My stomach growls, so Thresh stands up carefully, testing out how painful standing was. I give him back the knife I didn’t use. I’m not sure if he should be hunting again, but he seems up for it and he is almost as good a hunter as Katniss was.

I am starting to feel a sort of sense of normality, picking berries and random root vegetables that I can find while Thresh hunts for rabbits. It’s amazing how fast you get used to the Games, and how quickly they can end for you.