Day 9
9:58 AM
"Wake up," Katniss says, shaking me. I leave sleep and slowly sit up, rubbing my eyes. Then I open them and look at her. Her eyes are red. She was probably sobbing again. Peeta died yesterday.
"It's late," she says to me. I blink and look down, very confused for some reason.
I don't feel good at all. My entire body has a dull ache to it. I have a throbbing headache, one of those headaches that make your head feel like it's exploding whenever your heart beats. All of my skin hurts; it seems like it hurts most under the skin, not on. My face feels hot, as if I have a bad fever. But most of all, the burn from Tony and the bug bite are stinging like crazy.
"I don't feel good," I tell Katniss, feeling like a little kid telling his mom.
"None of us do," she says without looking at me, digging through one of Peeta's bags.
"I'm serious-" A cannon interrupts me. We both look up and see the one person we hoped it would be: Tony Stark.
Katniss gasps. "Tony's dead?"
"Thank goodness," I say. We both stare up at the picture of him. Then I watch the shucking person who murdered Newt leave the sky.
"It was either Bilbo or Tris who did it," she says, still looking up even though Tony already disappeared. She looks at me. "It's them and us. That's all who's left."
I nod. She turns away and continues to rummage through a few bags.
"I really don't feel good," I say, bringing the conversation back to me.
I thought she would give me another sarcastic response like she did before, but she looks at me instead, confused. "How so?"
I shake my head. "I'm having aches, and I just...don't feel good." My voice is awful. It sounds like I smoke three packs a day.
She comes over to me. "You do look strange." Before I have time to respond, she places the back of her hand on my forehead. Her hand is cold.
"Oh my God," I hear her mumble.
"What?"
"You're burning up."
"Huh?"
"Your temperature feels unhealthy," she says, panic in her eyes. She goes over to the bags and starts ransacking them.
"Unhealthy?"
She ignores me and continues rummaging through the bags. The finally pulls out a huge first aid kit. She opens it and takes out a small package of something. She reads the package and then rips it open with her teeth.
"Here," she says, giving me the open package. I take it and look at the label. Ibuprofen.
"Take these," she says, handing me a water bottle.
I'm just about to when she stops me. "Wait. You can't take them on an empty stomach." She crawls over to the bags. My stomach churns at the thought of food.
"I'm not hungry."
"You're gonna have to eat."
"I can't."
She returns with an open package of trail mix, about half full. "You need to take those pills because if your fever gets any higher, your brain cells will start dissolving. If you take them without anything in your stomach it'll make you feel even worse then you already do. Now eat." She gives me the trail mix.
The last thing I want to do is eat, but I need to do what Katniss says. She knows much more about medical stuff then I do. I look through the contents of the mix. It has peanuts, raisins, almonds, sunflower seeds, cashews, and M&M's in it. I slowly eat it, dreading it.
"How much do I have to eat?" I whine.
"The rest of it," she replies. I groan and continue, predicting that this will probably come up later.
I get bored, so I start picking out the M&M's and avoiding the raisins and the almonds until she catches me.
"Eat it all."
"I don't like raisins and almonds."
"Eat it all."
I grab a raisin from the bag and throw it at her. It hits her forehead; she looks up from the arrows she was cleaning and gives me a look, although I can tell she's hiding a smile. "Eat."
"I am," I say, and surely enough I do finish it. I throw down the empty package. "Done. God, that was disgusting."
"Good," Katniss says, handing me the pills. I quickly take them.
"Let me look at your wounds," she says, sitting by me.
I take off my coat and roll up my sleeve. For some reason, the fabric is irritating to my skin. It seems like my skin is crawling.
Katniss takes off the bandage that was wrapped around the burn I got from Tony on Day 1. She examines it closely.
"Is it still infected?" I croak to her. I regret saying that, though, because it takes me back to when Minho was still alive. I vividly remember Newt and I asking Hermione if Minho was going to die and if his wounds were infected. That situation is just like this one. It's so haunting. They're all dead now.
"It's...getting a little...better, I guess." She glances at me and then back at my burn. "It'll be fine."
I lean against a tree and close my eyes while she re-bandages my burn. When she's done, I open my eyes. "Thanks."
She feels my arm with the back of her hand. "Geez, you're really hot."
I take advantage of that word choice. "So are you."
She gives me a look, but, once again, I know she's hiding a smile. "Let's see your other one. The bite." I don't want to look at that one. That's the one that hurts the most.
I groan and sit up. "Do I really have to take my shirt off? I'm freezing."
"You're cold?" she says in alarm.
"Yeah."
She shakes her head. "Just lift it up, then."
I do as she says and close my eyes again. She takes off the bandage, and then I hear her gasp loudly.
I quickly open my eyes. "What?"
But I don't need an answer. I already know. The bite is grossly infected. It's black, and I'm not exaggerating at all. The skin surrounding it is purple. It's swollen to an abnormal size. It's stinging and throbbing, and she's not even touching it. I'm so confused. It wasn't like this yesterday at all. It was fine yesterday.
"I'm guessing that's infected," I say after many heartbeats of silence.
She nods. "Very."
"Is that why I'm sick?"
She looks at me. "Probably," she says slowly. "This is the mutt bite, right?"
"Yeah."
"I'm guessing the bugs carried some disease, and when it bit you, it transferred to you."
The thought scares me. I have some disease carried by mutts? "That doesn't make sense. Newt got bit, too."
"He died two days ago, though. It probably takes some time to kick in. If he was still alive he would be sick, too."
She gets out a fresh bandage, and barely touches my cut. The stinging gets a thousand times worse and the throbbing gets harder. It feels like my cells are having a war in there.
"Holy shit," I moan weakly, jerking away from her.
"What?"
"That hurt," I stutter, panting.
She sits by me, looking at me. She feels my forehead with the back of her hand. "Is your pain any better since you took the ibuprofen?"
"It seems like it's worse."
She feels my chest with her the back of her hand, which makes me nervous. "God, this can't be healthy," she says. She moves her hands down, feeling my stomach, making me extremely nervous and even more warm.
"It's like the ibuprofen didn't help at all," she casually says, finally taking her hands off me. She turns to the bags, and that's when I realize I was holding my breath.
She digs through the bags. "I wish we had some ointment or something to put on that," I hear her mumble.
I don't reply.
"Oh, we do!" I hear her exclaim. "Wow...Peeta had everything." She comes back over to me with a little package in her hands, reading the label.
"What is that," I ask her.
"Anti-bacterial ointment."
"Will it sting?"
"To be honest, probably," she says. She opens the package.
"What do you do with it?"
"Just rub it on there."
"Oh, hell."
"It'll sting, but it'll kill a lot of bacteria."
"Let me do it."
"You?"
"Yeah."
"Are you sure?"
I nod. I don't want her touching my gross wound. It would gross her out and it would be embarrassing for me. She hands over the package. I squeeze a little bit on my finger.
"Do it all at once," she says, watching me. "That way you'll get all the pain at once."
I squeeze the entire thing on my index finger. I glance at her nervously. "I just...smack it all on there?"
She nods. "And then I'll cover it and it'll be done."
I nod and look at the wound. I'm so nervous, because it hurts like hell when nothing's even on it or no one's touching it.
I take a deep breath and smear the ointment over the bite. I remove my finger and she quickly slaps the bandage on.
Then the burning starts. It starts out lightly, then majorly gets worse. It feels like it's on fire. If I didn't know any better, I'd think it's on fire. I can clearly imagine in on fire.
"Shit," I groan, closing my fist around some snow and clutching my side.
"Does it hurt?" I hear her ask.
"Yep," I grunt, squinting my eyes, trying to wait until the pain passes. But it doesn't. It keeps growing with each second.
"What do I do?" I gasp, looking at her. "It's unbearable! We need to wipe it off! I'm allergic to it or something!"
"You're not allergic to it. Just wait it out. It'll pass." She slowly puts back down my shirt.
So I squint my eyes and pant, resisting the urge to wipe it off. After ten minutes of it burning like hell, it slowly decreases into nothing. Just the dull ache that was there before remains.
"Better?" Katniss asks from by the bags, once she noticed I stopped panting.
I nod. I slowly sit up from the tree I was slouched against. I reach for my coat.
"No," Katniss says, pulling it away from me.
"Huh?"
"You're too hot. Every square inch of your body is heated too much. You have to cool off."
"How is that possible? I'm shucking cold right now."
"You're having chills. From your fever. You aren't really cold."
I look at her in confusion.
"Just trust me. Go without it for a while."
I nod and lay down in the snow with just my long sleeve shirt on, shivering. My headache seemed to get worse ever since I woke up. My aches are killing me, even though they're dull. My stomach churns. I curse the bugs in my mind. Damn mutts.
Katniss comes over to me and hands me two crackers without saying anything. I take them but don't eat them. I can't eat.
I might die. I might die today. Even though going back home would be awful, the thought of dying is scary, too. I'm only 16. I'm too young. I've been held hostage by WICKED my whole life. I've never gotten to do the things I wanted to do.
But maybe Newt and Minho are there, in heaven. If there is a heaven. I hope there is.
But going home would help the others. Teresa and Frypan and everyone else who's still there, in WICKED. If they're still alive. Who knows what WICKED did to them. They could all be dead. They could all be dead and gone and I could be the only one left.
"You okay?" Katniss says, from over by the bags.
I look over at her, snapping me back to reality. "What makes you think I'm not?"
"I can sense it." She comes over by me and sits by me.
I don't know what to say. I look at the ground, still majorly shivering. I don't want to tell her about WICKED; I don't want to talk about that.
"Are you okay?" she asks.
I look at her, wanting to tell her, yet not wanting to at the same time. I shake my head, suddenly afraid of crying if I speak.
I can feel her looking at me as I study the ground. "I'm just thinking," I say, my voice surprisingly steady.
"About what?"
"Dying."
She's silent. I look away from the ground and to her. "I'm going to die, aren't I?"
"You don't know that for sure," she says slowly.
"I'm pretty sure I do." I look away from her. "It's a scary thought."
"What is?"
"Death. Even though I'd be okay with it."
"Is there anyone back home for you?"
I think of WICKED and shake my head. "I don't really have a home." I study the snow, feeling her eyes on me. "They're all dead. No one's left. Either way is bad for me. Death and home."
There's a few heartbeats of silence, and then I feel the back of her hand on my forehead. I look at her. "Is my fever any better?"
"It's mostly the same." She hands me my coat, to put back on. "You're shivering. Just put that back on."
I slowly do as she says, my muscles aching with each movement. I zip it up and lean against the tree, glad to be somewhat warm again. My head pounds and my stomach churns, and I'm just plain depressed. This sucks.
Katniss hands me a bottle. "Drink up. You look dehydrated."
"I'm not thirsty," I croak.
"Drink up."
I take the bottle, but don't drink. I'm so stiff and nauseous, I can't bring myself to. She goes back over to the bags.
I continue to let my mind wander. There's four people left. Bilbo got a four and Tris got a ten. Not that dangerous, but I'm still scared. Of both of them. Actually, 'scared' is too weak of a word. I'm horrified. I'm horrified at what's to come. Home or death, both of which would be awful. My future is black.
"Katniss," I blurt.
She looks at me.
"Is it normal?" My voice is shaking for some reason. "To be this terrified?"
"Of what?" she asks me softly.
"The games. The other two tributes. Death. Home. Everything."
After a brief pause she speaks. "Yes," she says. "It's completely normal."
I blink.
She comes over to me and sits by me. "I'm scared, too. So are Tris and Bilbo. We all are."
I nod, looking at the ground.
"But don't worry," she slowly says. I look at her. "You're safe."
"I'm safe?"
"With me, yeah." She looks at me. "I won't let anyone or anything touch you. Until the end. Whenever that may be."
I slowly nod, feeling too miserable to feel the joy of her saying this to me. "Thanks," I croak.
"You're welcome."