Chapter-15

A/N: This chapter includes a little bit of "sexual talk." Not really, but skip the first part of this chapter if PG13 content offends you. Also, semi graphic death in this chapter. Skip the fight if this will offend you. You've been warned.

Chapter 15

I wake up early, from the looks of it, at five in the morning. The sun hasn't come up yet, but I can see the orange hues forming in the horizon through the trees.

Peeta's still asleep and so is Rue. He looks so peaceful. I lean back into his chest, deciding to relax for a few more minutes. I don't think we can make it out of this arena, so I don't plan on taking things for granted. This comfort Peeta gives me, I'll willingly accept.

After about 20 minutes, I feel Peeta wake up behind me. "Good morning," he says sleepily. I move to turn my body so I can lay sideways, when I feel something on my lower back. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I can't control it," he says quietly. I laugh at him, I know how the body works. It's not like we don't learn about this in school.

"It's fine Peeta, I just didn't know I excited you so much," I whisper. God I hope the cameras can't hear this conversation, my mother would be so embarrassed. And Prim, she'd be dying of laughter. I'm probably failing miserably at flirting, but the Capitol people are pretty dumb. They're probably eating this stuff up.

"Stop Katniss," Peeta says with a laugh. "What time is it?"

"Around 5:30, we don't have to move until seven o' clock. We have to be sure the Careers are awake before we can start with our plan," I say.

I turn my body sideways again, which gets a groan out of Peeta. I can't help but blush, because even though we aren't doing anything sexual, it feels kind of dirty, because I can feel his penis on my thigh.

"Katniss, I'm really sorry, I can't control it and with you leaning on it like that, it's not going to go away," he says. My face must be bright red right now, this was not a conversation I'd expect to ever have, but here I am.

"It's okay Peeta, I know," I say. I lay my head back on his chest, not trying to get any sleep, but trying to ease myself of the stress of today. If anything goes wrong, any one of us could end up dead. Hell, all three of us could die today.

"If you want, you can go back to sleep, I don't think I would be able to fall asleep," Peeta says. "I don't know how to tell the time, but I'll wake you up when I think it's been an hour. Rue might be up by then, so she can tell me the time too."

"Okay, thank you," I whisper. This position is so much more comfortable on my back, so within minutes, I'm asleep.

"Katniss, get up. It's six something, We need to leave soon," Peeta says. I slowly open my eyes, taking some time for them to readjust. The sun is up now, practically blinding me.

"Here, let me put the ointment on your thigh again. It looks so much better," he says. I let him do it because I have to rub his back with the ointment, and the less contact I have with cuts and burns, the better for me. If he could reach his back, he'd be applying the ointment to himself too.

It doesn't hurt anymore, and does look much better, but we still apply the ointment to each other's burns just in case. Plus, this will definitely help with sponsors. Haymitch is probably angry at us with how we're acting. He's probably been speaking to sponsors all day.

Rue climbs down her tree, as Peeta and I climb down ours. Once we hit the ground, we meet and discuss the plan one more time.

"We need a signal. In District 11, when the work day is done, we use a four tone signal to tell everybody. It goes like this," she says. She whistles her signal, and to my surprise, mockingjays repeat it back. "We can use this to tell each other where we are without anyone else knowing. They'll think it's just the birds. Well, everyone but Thresh."

It's around 7:30 now, and we figure it's best to start heading around and getting the fires set up. Peeta will be the fire between Rue and I, so we'll meet up with him. He'll have the knife since he's the biggest, and since we're meeting him. He won't be moving so if the Careers find him, he'll be stuck.

As a group, we set up the wood for the first fire with dry green wood. It's smoke will be thick enough to be seen during the day, and will lure the Careers in. They're dumb enough to fall for this, I hope.

We set up the second fire around 700 feet from the first. This fire will be Peeta's, so Rue and I will need to run to this one. We set Rue's fire 600 feet away, because she's smaller and a little slower.

Rue climbs a tree 20 feet away from her fire, and will look out for Peeta's fire. Once she sees his fire, she'll light hers.

We leave Rue, and head to Peeta's fire. It takes us a few minutes to reach his fire, but we're in no rush. Once we get to his fire, Peeta hugs me tight.

"Be safe, you don't have a weapon. Don't do anything risky, alright?" he says.

"I won't. This plan will work, we'll see eachother again, I promise," I say into his shirt.

I turn and head to my fire. Peeta will light his fire ten minutes after I leave. I make it to my pile of wood, and get ready. This plan has to work, or else we're dead.

Peeta's fire is lit, and so is mine. I run towards his fire, and see Rue's fire lit too. It takes me two minutes to get to his fire. Rue gets there shortly after me. Now we wait, and pray that whichever Career comes, comes alone.

We sit around for a few minutes, each of us looking in different directions. I hear heavy steps coming to my right, and turn to see Glimmer and Cato. They're alone though, which means our plan worked like we thought it would.

Cato wastes no time, charging at us with his sword. I see Glimmer with her bow and arrows. My bow and arrows. Cato is charging at Peeta, who only has a knife to protect himself. What should I do? Rue and I are weaponless, how can we help?

I need to get the bow and arrows from Glimmer. I run at her as she grabs an arrow and prepares it on the string of the bow. Peeta and I wrestled a lot in the living room of our floor of the Training Center. He taught me how to use my opponents body weight against them, and how to easily get someone pinned on the ground. I just need to make sure she doesn't hit me.

As she pulls her string back, I duck. She releases the arrow over my head, and I keep charging at her. I don't have time to check where it went, but I hope Peeta's okay, but I don't have time to check in on him.

I tackle her to the ground as she grabs another arrow, sending the bow flying out of her hands. We wrestle for a few seconds, but Peeta taught me well, because I get her pinned on her stomach easily.

I grab all the arrows out of the quiver, and keep one in my hand, throwing the other nine towards where the bow landed. I yank my belt out of my pants, and tie her hands together behind her back tightly. It'll take her a few minutes to slip out of it, and that's all the time I need.

I knee her in the side of her ribs, hoping to break a few so I have some extra time to grab the bow and help Peeta.

I get up, and run for the bow. Once in my hands, I take the arrow in my hand and get it ready to shoot. I turn towards Peeta, who is wrestling with Cato. Cato has a knife in his hands, his sword behind Peeta.

I send an arrow flying at Cato, and it hits him in the shoulder. Damn these fancy Capitol bows! I'm not used to them still, it doesn't help that I've only shot them three times.

The shot was good enough to give Peeta some time to throw Cato off of him. Realizing he's outnumbered now, Cato gets up and runs. "We can't chase him, he's running towards the other Careers!" I yell at Peeta.

I run to Peeta, and realize something's wrong. His leg is bleeding a lot, and he looks pale. "Peeta!"

I scream at him. He can't die on me, I got the bow now. We have a chance!

"Rue?" I look at Rue, and she's already digging in her bag, looking for something. "Rue, we need to help him," I scream.

She grabs some leaves out of her bag and holds them onto the cut. I can see Peeta sigh in relief, meaning the leaves are working. How are a bunch of leaves going to save him from bleeding out of a cut like that?

"We need to get out of here, Peeta can you walk? We won't go far, but we need to get away from this fire. The other Careers will be here soon," I say.

"Yeah, I can walk," he says as he slowly gets up. I can tell he's in pain, but I don't say anything. We need to get out of here quickly.

"What should we do with Glimmer?" I ask Peeta and Rue.

"We can't let her live, but I don't want to kill her either," Peeta says.

"What choice do we have?" I ask.

"I know we have to, but it still feels wrong," he says. "Can we make it quick and easy? I don't want her to suffer."

I grab the knife from Peeta's hand, and head over to her. I don't want to kill her, she's defenseless and scared, but if we don't, she'll reunite with the Careers and hunt us down. It's inevitable.

"Glimmer, I'm going to make this quick. You won't feel pain for long," I say. She nods her head.

I take the blade, and slit her throat. I'll never be able to sleep again after doing what I just did, but it needed to be done if Peeta or I were to survive the Games. I feel like I need to cry, but I can't right now.

I grab the bow and arrows off the ground, remove the quiver from Glimmer's dead body, and run to Peeta and Rue.

I help Peeta walk away from the fire, towards the stream we found yesterday. We need water, and to wash out his cut so it doesn't get infected. I'm not a healer, but I've learned a thing or two about cuts and wounds.

We slowly go to the stream, and after an hour, finally get there. Peeta looks worse than he did before, but tries to look calm. He can't die now.

I help him into the water, and pray that once we clean this up, it's not that bad. I gently pour water onto it, hoping not to cause him too much pain. He moans and clenches his teeth, but says nothing.

The cut is deep, almost down to his bone. How am I going to help him? I wish Prim were here, she'd know what to do.

I apply some more leaves once it's cleaned up, and draw out a little bit of pus. I'm ready to throw up, but I have to keep calm for Peeta's sake. Rue helps me with the leaves. I gently apply burn ointment to the cut. I'm not sure it'll help, but it's all the medicine we have so it'll have to do.

"You're pretty good at this healer stuff, you sure your mom isn't training the wrong person?" he says with a laugh. He's trying to lighten the mood so I laugh too.

"Look, if I don't make it-" he says.

"Stop. You're going to be fine," I say sternly.

"I know, but if I don't-" I cut him off again.

"I said you'll be fine Peeta, stop," I said angrily. I don't know if he'll live, but I don't want to think like that.

"But if-" I cut him off. I get him to stop talking in the only way I know how. I kiss him softly on the lips, hoping he gets the idea that I don't want to hear him talk about dying.

"So you guys weren't lying about being in love?" Rue asks. I blush deeply, forgetting someone was watching. Actually, everyone was watching. All of Panem just watched me kiss Peeta.

Now that I think about it, Haymitch just watched me kiss Peeta. Why the hell hasn't he sent anything for his leg?

"Rue, we need to get him out of here. Fill the water bottles up, we need to leave before the Careers find us," I say.

Rue fills up the bottles like I asked, while I help Peeta sit up. He doesn't want to move, I can tell every movement he makes shoots pain through his body.

"Okay, new plan. I'll give you two minutes to sit there, I need to clean your blood off the rocks so the Careers don't know we've been here," I say. "You have two minutes, then we're moving, whether I need to drag you or you walk with us."

I clean his smeared blood off the rocks, and make my way back over to him. I slowly helped him to his feet. Well, I slowly helped him to his foot. He can't apply any pressure to his other foot.

We slowly walk down the stream, hoping to find something we could use for Peeta. It slowly gets darker and darker, but we can't stop until we find somewhere Peeta can rest.

As we walk, I see an opening in the rocks and dirt ahead. A small cave, big enough for maybe ten people to fit inside, but perfect for three.

"Alright Peeta, just keep going and you'll get to rest soon," I say.

"Katniss, can we please take a break. I can't keep going anymore," he says.

"Peeta, we already took three breaks, and the cave is right there," I say. "You can't make it there?"

"No, please can we stop," he begs.

"Fine," I say reluctantly. We don't have time to stop, but he's in pain, and he's in this much pain because of my stupid plan. It worked, but it might have killed Peeta in the process. If only Haymitch would send some damn medicine…

We hear the anthem for the tribute death count, and see in the sky the tributes that died. There's only nine of us left. Peeta and I, Thresh and Rue, Cato and Clove, Foxface, Marvel, and another tribute I don't know.

We take another five minute break, and then continue moving. We finally make it to the cave, where I slowly and gently put Peeta down on the floor. I lay out the sleeping bag for him, and cut a hole out for his leg to fit out of so the sleeping bag isn't touching his cut.

He slowly slides into the sleeping bag, and sticks his leg out of the hole.

"Katniss, let me see your leg," he says as he grabs the burn ointment.

"You're worried about my leg? Look at yours!" I say with a small smile.

"Come on, don't be stubborn," he says. I put my leg on his stomach and he rubs the ointment into my burn. It looks a lot better, almost fully healed. I rub the ointment into Peeta's back, and he sighs.

"You should become a masseuse when you get back home," he says with a laugh.

"I don't have the most gentle hands Peeta, if anyone in my family should become a masseuse, it should be Prim," I say laughing too.

I slide into the sleeping bag next to Peeta. I lean my head onto his chest, put my hand over his heart and put my leg between his, making sure not to hurt his cut. He's filled with warmth, which is perfect for the freezing cold night right now.

"Rue, are you sure you're not cold?" Peeta asks. "You and Katniss can sleep in the sleeping bag together if you'd like."

"I'm okay. Plus, I like seeing you and Katniss cuddling. You guys make a cute couple," she says with a smile.

"We're no-" I stop myself from saying we aren't a couple. We would lose all of our sponsors if they find out we are lying about being in love.

Peeta and I fall asleep in minutes, with Rue keeping watch first. After a few hours, I woke up sweating. It's still night time, maybe two o' clock in the morning.

"Oh my God, Peeta, you're like a furnace!" I say as I wake him up. He slowly opens his sleepy eyes. His round blue orbs stare back into mine, and I can't help but get lost in them. They're what I'd imagine the sea looks like.

Rue clears her throat and giggles, letting us know she's still here. I blush and Peeta rubs his neck embarrassed.

"Peeta, you're on fire. Why are you so hot?" I ask.

"You're pretty hot yourself," he says with a wink. I blush slightly, but I didn't mean my question like that. I feel his forehead, and it's burning up. "You have a fever, Peeta!"

"I'm fine Katniss, I don't feel any worse than I did yesterday," he says.

"Let me see your leg," I demand. Oh my God. It's worse than I thought. My eyes almost pop out of my head at the sight. Peeta has blood poisoning.

"It's getting better," I say unconvincingly. It's gotten worse in reality.

"Katniss, I know what blood poisoning is. My mother doesn't have to be a healer for me to know that," he says.

"We'll figure out something to help your leg. Just rest for now. You need to eat something too," I say, handing him a handful of berries. He just stares at them.

"Eat, Peeta. Or I'll force you to."

"I'm not hungry," he says.

"Fine," I say as I take the berries out of his hand. One by one, I feed him the berries.

"Can you guys quit flirting, I'm trying to sleep," Rue whispers. We all laugh.

"Alright Peeta, go back to sleep now," I say softly. "I'll wake you up in the morning."

"I can't sleep, Katniss. My leg hurts too much," he says. "Can we just lay down though?"

This will be perfect for the sponsors, so I lay back down onto his chest, and stare at the opening of the cave. If someone were to walk through, we'd be dead, but it's a chance I'd have to take if we're to get the medicine Peeta needs to survive.

I must've fallen asleep, because early in the morning, Peeta wakes me up.

"Katniss, a parachute," he says pointing outside the cave. Could it be? Peeta's medicine?

I get up and practically run out of the cave. I grab the parachute and go back to Peeta.

"Peeta, look, it's your medicine! It must've cost Haymitch a fortune," I say.

I hurriedly open the container and inside is a syringe. It's a hypodermic needle filled with something for his leg. Some fancy medicine that will hopefully heal his leg.

I inject it into his thigh right below the cut, so hopefully it will help soon.

"Alright Peeta, hopefully this helps," I say.

Thank you Katniss," he says. "I don't know what I'd do if you weren't here."

"Not get stabbed, maybe?" I say jokingly. He didn't seem to think it was very funny though.

"It's not your fault I got stabbed, I would've got stabbed either way. I'd be dead right now if it weren't for you," he says seriously.

"I was joking, Peeta. It's Cato's fault, not ours," I say.

We need food desperately. We ran out last night, but now that I have a bow and ten arrows, I can hunt.

"I'll be back, I won't go far. We need some food," I say to Rue and Peeta.

"Katniss, it isn't safe. The Careers are still out there, we need to stick together," he says.

"Peeta, I'll be okay. I have my bow and arrows, remember?" I say.

"But Katniss, it'll be one of you versus four Careers. You cou-" I cut him off with another kiss. It's like killing three birds with one stone. It helps with the sponsors, gets Peeta to stop talking, and to be honest, I don't mind kissing him. I don't know what it's supposed to feel like, since he was my first kiss, but it feels good to me.

I walk out of the cave before he can say another word, and start walking around looking for game. I hunt for an hour, and come back with two squirrels, a rabbit, and a bird. I don't know what this bird is, but it looks edible enough.

I head back to the cave silently, and before I walk in, I hear Rue and Peeta talking.

"Do you really like her?" Rue asks Peeta.

"Yes, I do," he says.

I walk in and they stop talking. Rue's face lights up when she sees the bird I got.

"You got a groosling? Wow, I can't believe they're in the arena," she says excitedly.

"Is it edible? I wasn't sure," I say.

"Yes, and it's really good, too," she says happily. "Let's cook it!"

We gather some wood while Peeta stays in the cave, and come back to light it. It's daytime, and there won't be thick black smoke from this type of wood, so we should be safe.

We cook the food for a while, and take it back to Peeta. He looks happy to see us, like he thought we'd abandon him.

I divide the food up evenly, and we start eating. Peeta says he's not hungry, but I don't care. He needs to eat, he's sick.

"Wow, I've never had a whole leg before," Rue says.

"Want the other one?" I say as I hand her mine with a smile. Her eyes light up. If I don't win the Games, I pray she does.

"Peeta, eat please," I say.

"Katniss, I'm really not hungry. If I eat, I'll just be sick and throw up," he says.

I sit next to him, and whisper, "no more kisses until you eat. All of it, too."

He grabs his piece of groosling and practically inhales it. I giggle when I see him eat the berries.

"Not hungry my ass," I say while laughing.

"Katniss, what did you say to get him to eat," Rue asks. I blush instead of answering.

"She said-" Peeta starts until I cover his mouth with my hand. I hold it there for a few seconds before I let go.

"As I was saying, She said there w-" I covered his mouth again. He licked my hand this time, making me pull back.

"She said there would be no more kisses if I don't eat," Peeta says.

"Peeta!" I yell. Rue is giggling.

"Shhh Katniss, keep your voice down. Are you trying to lead the Careers right to us?"

"Rue, the Careers. How do you think we could get rid of their supplies? They'll outlast us with all of the supplies they have," I say.

"I don't know, but you're right. We need to find a way," she said. "We can go check it out tomorrow and see if we can think of anything."

"But Peeta," I say. "We can't just leave him."

"I'll come with you guys," he says. "I'll be a good distraction."

"No, you can't come. You're hurt Peeta, you'll get yourself killed," I say.

"Katniss," he starts.

"No. You stay here, alright? We'll be back before you know it," I say. We sit around for the rest of the day, finally fed enough to fill our stomachs. Today's a rest day. Tomorrow, we get down to business. It slowly gets darker and colder, so we decide to call it a night. I'll be first watch tonight, then Rue, then Peeta.

I get in the sleeping bag with Peeta with my bow next to my head. If someone were to walk in, I'd have about five seconds to grab my bow and an arrow and fire. I lie on Peeta's chest, listening to his heartbeat while I watch outside. after a couple hours, I wake Rue up, and settle back into Peeta. Tomorrow, we get rid of the Careers supplies.

A/N: So Rue is still alive, I just can't kill her off! I don't know what to do about her yet, but I tried changing up how the story line went a little, and now we see exactly how Peeta got his leg cut so that's interesting.

Please Review! It gives me motivation to keep posting chapters! :)