I think of how cold the nights have been. "You can share my sleeping bag if you want. We'll both easily fit." Her face lights up. I can tell this is more than she dared hope for.
We pick a fork high in a tree and settle in for the night just as the anthem begins to play. There were no deaths today.
"Rue, I only woke up today. How many nights did I miss?"The anthem should block out our words, but still I whisper. I even take the precaution of covering my lips with my hand. I don't want the audience to know what I'm planning to tell her about Peeta.
Taking a cue from me, she does the same.
"Two," she says. "The girls from Districts One and Four are dead. There's ten of us left."
"Something strange happened. At least, I think it did.
It might have been the tracker jacker venom making me imagine things," I say. "You know the boy from my district? Peeta? I think he saved my life. But he was with the Careers."
"He's not with them now," she says. "I've spied on their base camp by the lake. They made it back before they collapsed from the stingers. But he's not there.
Maybe he did save you and had to run." I don't answer. If, in fact, Peeta did save me, I'm in his debt again. And this can't be paid back. "If he did, it was all probably just part of his act. You know, to make people think he's in love with me."
"Oh," says Rue thoughtfully. "I didn't think that was an act."
"Course it is," I say. "He worked it out with our mentor." The anthem ends and the sky goes dark.
"Let's try out these glasses." I pull out the glasses and slip them on. Rue wasn't kidding. I can see everything from the leaves on the trees to a skunk strolling through the bushes a good fifty feet away. I could kill it from here if I had a mind to. I could kill anyone.
"I wonder who else got a pair of these," I say.
"The Careers have two pairs. But they've got everything down by the lake," Rue says. "And they're so strong."
"We're strong, too," I say. "Just in a different way."
"You are. You can shoot," she says. "What can I do?"
"You can feed yourself. Can they?" I ask.
"They don't need to. They have all those supplies," Rue says.
"Say they didn't. Say the supplies were gone. How long would they last?" I say. "I mean, it's the Hunger Games, right?"
"But, Katniss, they're not hungry," says Rue.
"No, they're not. That's the problem," I agree. And for the first time, I have a plan. A plan that isn't motivated by the need for flight and evasion. An offensive plan. "I think we're going to have to fix that, Rue."
Chapter Sixteen
Rue has decided to trust me wholeheartedly. I know this because as soon as the anthem finishes she snuggles up against me and falls asleep. Nor do I have any misgivings about her, as I take no particular precautions. If she'd wanted me dead, all she would have had to do was disappear from that tree without pointing out the tracker jacker nest. Needling me, at the very back of my mind, is the obvious. Both of us can't win these Games. But since the odds are still against either of us surviving, I manage to ignore the thought.
Besides, I'm distracted by my latest idea about the Careers and their supplies. Somehow Rue and I must find a way to destroy their food. I'm pretty sure feeding themselves will be a tremendous struggle.
Traditionally, the Career tributes' strategy is to get hold of all the food early on and work from there. The years when they have not protected it well — one year a pack of hideous reptiles destroyed it, another a Gamemakers' flood washed it away — those are usually the years that tributes from other districts have won. That the Careers have been better red growing up is actually to their disadvantage, because they don't know how to be hungry. Not the way Rue and I do.
But I'm too exhausted to begin any detailed plan tonight. My wounds recovering, my mind still a bit foggy from the venom, and the warmth of Rue at my side, her head cradled on my shoulder, have given me a sense of security. I realize, for the first time, how very lonely I've been in the arena. How comforting the presence of another human being can be. I give in to my drowsiness, resolving that tomorrow the tables will turn. Tomorrow, it's the Careers who will have to watch their backs.
The boom of the cannon jolts me awake. The sky's streaked with light, the birds already chattering. Rue perches in a branch across from me, her hands cupping something. We wait, listening for more shots, but there aren't any.
"Who do you think that was?" I can't help thinking of Peeta.
"I don't know. It could have been any of the others,"says Rue. "I guess we'll know tonight."
"Who's left again?" I ask.