#anyway the answer is 'haymitch knows what a spile is' and provides some grumpy comic relief

[wreywrites]

Tiger Shark

Part 5: The Net

Chapter 29

I rise into the arena. We are in a lake, our pedestals tiny islands, and the cornucopia on a larger central island with evenly-spaced rocky spokes running from it to the shore. I glance around, a smile already growing on my face. This I can do.

I find Finnick, about seven people to my left. At my look, he gives me the tiniest of nods, fingers tapping on his own leg, Stay with me.

I will stay with him forever. This I know.

The cannon sounds, and I dive into the water. I am the first person at the cornucopia. I grab a pair of the silver spears, jam some knives into my belt, reach for a backpack. There aren’t any.

A few yards away, Finnick is picking through the weapons at a leisurely pace. The odds are very good not many others know how to swim. At least not like we do.

Katniss gets there next. Finnick flashes her his bracelet—his token he told me was a surprise, more like part of whatever his plan is, I think—and she nods. She seems angry about it, but she nods, and then goes to work on the Cornucopia.

There is a loud splash and a shout of “Damn it, Katniss!”

“I’ll get him.” Finnick passes me his tridents and dives back into the water.

Katniss is staring at me as I grab a sword and hang it on my belt as well.

“Anyone else you want?”

She frowns. She looks confused. I feel confused.

“I’m with Finnick. So we’re allies, right?”

Stitch is sitting by the fire, assembling a buffalo hide poncho.

Stay with me.

“Is there anyone else you want? Anyone else I need to get?”

She blinks. Then- “Seeder. Wiress and Beetee. Maybe Cecelia.”

Seeder is already halfway to the shore, following Chaff. I don’t know where Nuts and Volts are, but I have a sneaking suspicion Johanna and Blight are in on whatever this is, and I know Johanna knows how to swim. Cecelia is bobbing toward the shore in the same direction as Finnick is pulling Haymitch.

I jerk my head in their direction. “Looks like we got them. Get going.”

For once, Katniss listens. She dives off the platform after Finnick, who nearly has Haymitch to the shore. I start arranging the stash of weapons I am carrying. I grab an axe for fun when I discover I can manage one slung across my back with Finnick’s tridents and my spare spear.

I duck back out of the Cornucopia, coming face to face with Gloss, who is also armed with a spear. Neither of us move.

Someone is yelling. Someone is yelling my name.

A smile flickers across Gloss’s face, almost imperceptible, and he gives his head a quick jerk to the side. He is letting me go.

I have a feeling that if I was anyone else, I would be dead. I would at least be fighting for my life. I also have the feeling that if this happens again tomorrow, I will be fighting for my life then. But just this once, Gloss is letting me go.

I nod, run past him, grabbing another sword on the way by, because why not, and dive into the water. Within twenty yards I come upon Alvan, doing what could be generously called a strong dog paddle.

“It’s me,” I grunt, swimming up beside him. I pause, treading water long enough to tuck the sword and spears through my belt. The whole time, Finnick’s smile and “Stay with me” run through my mind as I force them to drown out the flood of memories trying to sweep everything else away.

“Come on.” I put an arm around Alvan, and he knows enough about swimming to do a decent job of helping me help him all the way to shore, where we find Finnick, Katniss, Haymitch, and Cecelia. I pass Alvan a sword and a knife and he nods his thanks. Finnick takes his tridents back, and I hold my spears while they go through my stash and divvy up the rest.

We set off into the trees.

~~~                               ~~~                               ~~~

It is quickly evident our biggest problem will be water. There just isn’t any, other than the lake, and that is saltier than the ocean. Finnick and I discuss this quietly from our place in the back of the group.

It’s just like Mako and I when we ran out of tablets. We could boil it, but we have exactly zero pieces of the necessary equipment, and boiling for six of us would take forever anyway. Alvan, who knows animals, says we all need to be on the lookout for any, and they should lead us to water eventually. Katniss snorts as if this is the most obvious thing in the world. She doesn’t trust any of us, and seems to trust Alvan least of all. Possibly because I think she has a grudging respect for Finnick, and she wanted Cecelia, but Alvan is there because I brought him along, and I’m only there because of Finnick, whose claim to an alliance with Katniss is tenuous at best.

Though, sometimes I catch Alvan and Haymitch giving each other a look. The same look Finnick has sometimes. Alvan knows whatever it is that I don’t know. I know there is a plan that I don’t know. Katniss doesn’t even know that she’s out of the loop on something. I can see it in her eyes as she watches the rest of us settle down for the night as Finnick and I weave sleeping mats for everyone from the prolific jungle vines while the others cut up the two tree rats Katniss shot a while ago when she was looking for water. Then they skewer the chunks on sticks and roast them by tossing them against the force field boundary of the arena that Haymitch found for us.

My tongue is already fuzzy and dry. Dehydration is going to kill us before the other tributes can.

“Getting dehydrated is the last thing that baby needs!” Haymitch calls to the trees.

Overhead, the anthem plays, and it has been a horrendously slow day, because only the men from Five, Six, and Eight are dead. Cecelia deflates when they show Woof’s picture.

“Sorry,” Alvan says to her. “I know how much he meant to ya.”

I don’t remember Cecelia’s Games. I was too little. I’m not sure if Woof was her mentor or not. But Beck wasn’t my mentor, and if he had ended up in here with me and died, it would wreck me. The even worse alternative is that Finnick was my mentor, and he has ended up in the arena with me, and we cannot both win.

Almost like he can read my mind, Finnick taps the ground between us. Stay with me.

I nod. I have no idea what he means, or what his plan is, or what is going on that everyone else seems to know about. But I can stay with him. That I can manage.

A parachute flutters down, landing in the middle of our little circle. We stare around at each other, completely unsure who it’s for.

Finally, Finnick pauses in his mat weaving and gestures at Haymitch. “Age before beauty.”

Haymitch rolls his eyes as Katniss snorts and Alvan chuckles, but he gets up and opens the package.

A little metal tube falls out. It is sort of sharp on one end, but not nearly sharp enough to be an effective weapon. It has no more than hit the ground when Haymitch leaps to his feet, grabs the thing, pulls a knife, and runs to the nearest biggish tree.

The rest of us stare at him like he has lost his mind as he bores a hole in the tree trunk with the knife, then jabs the gift from the parachute into the hole in the bark, taps it farther in with the handle of the knife, and takes a step back, looking triumphant. He has truly gone crazy.

And that’s coming from me.

And then a trickle of water runs out the end of the tube.

We are all on our feet, crowding around Haymitch and the tree.

“It’s a spile,” he grins.

One by one, we cup our hands under the trickle and slurp down water that is the same temperature as everything in the arena. It’s still water though, I think as my turn comes around again. Water makes or breaks in the arena. I know that all too well.

Between his turns at the spile, Finnick weaves a basket that would make Mags proud. It is perfectly symmetrical and watertight, so we can fill it with our newfound water. After we have all drunk our fill and splashed our faces, we fill the basket, then Katniss pulls the spile from the tree, loops a vine through it, and hangs it around her neck. Then we return to our circle.

Finnick hands Katniss the comfiest-looking mat. “All yours, Katniss. Better keep that baby comfortable.”

She frowns, then nods. “Who’s taking the watch?”

“I can,” Finnick says.

Katniss’s frown deepens, but Haymitch says, “Sounds good to me,” and flops down on his own mat.

“Fine,” Katniss says. “Wake me in a few hours.”

Finnick nods. He sits down at the edge of the circle with his back to us and the force field and his face to the lake and the center of the arena.

I start toward him, to sit down and sleep against his shoulder, but Haymitch calls me over. I sit next to him.

He is drumming his fingers on the blade of the axe like he’s restless and somehow both excited and nervous to use it. He says nothing, but the drumming of his fingers shifts slightly, and then, shakily, They don’t know. Don’t let them know.

I nod. I want to ask who taught him Taps, but from his questionable grasp of it, I almost think he doesn’t really know it. He only knows how to say what he just said.

He says, “Thanks for the axe.”

I nod again, and lay down on my mat, one hand clenched around one of my spears, the other arm under my head as a pillow, and Haymitch starts talking quietly, telling me about the supposed health benefits of white liquor.

~~~                               ~~~                               ~~~

Katniss is shouting.

My fingers tighten around the spear but before I can process anything else, someone is hauling me to my feet.

“Run!” someone yells. “Run!”

I stagger forward, following the hard grip on my wrist, blinking the sleep from my eyes. Things still look fuzzy, no matter how much I blink. Then I realize it isn’t my eyes, it’s the milky white mist creeping toward us.

“Run!”

It is Alvan, dragging me along as Finnick and Cecelia haul Haymitch to his feet and Katniss staggers after all of us, still screaming, “Run! Go!”

It’s almost like a jellyfish sting—Finnick is talking me to sleep, the epic of the jellyfish up by the Traps—but it’s everywhere and a scream rips from my throat—Merritt roars in rage and charges at Jilly and the arrow buries itself in his chest—but now he is dragging me through the jungle—no, that’s Alvan—but someone is screaming and there is the thunder of the stampede—or is that our wild, blind flight from the fog?

A buffalo slams into me. I stagger, hitting my knees hard. The mist creeps closer—more jellyfish stings. Katniss scrambles to her feet and takes off running again. Merritt hauls me upright.

“Come on, Annie!”

It’s not Merritt, it’s Alvan.

Someone is yelling, screaming, behind us.

Merritt—Alvan—screams back. “This way! Up here!”

Katniss runs by. Alvan hauls me along and I stagger after him.

I can’t feel my arms, but at the same time I can feel them too much. They are twitching, my grip on my spears loosening. One of them falls but I have to leave it. The other starts to slip and I make some sort of sound that Alvan hears over everything else. He reaches back and grabs the spear, still pulling me after him. “Come on, Annie! We gotta run!”

And it gets worse as we go.

The fog creeps inexorably forward, and we stagger onward. I am in so much pain. With every step, my muscles twitch more, slipping from my control into their own twisted dance. I don’t know where anyone but Alvan is.

“This way!” Cecelia’s voice comes from so far ahead it seems impossible we’ll ever reach her, and then the ground drops out from under my feet.

Alvan and I tumble down the small slope. I can’t get up. But Cecelia is there, and she looks triumphant. I stare at her, and she points up at a tree with a handful of orange monkeys sitting in it.

I find the muscle control to nod. They wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t safe. Animals are smart. Here, under their tree, we are safe.

I have only had time to process all this when Katniss crashes down the slope as well, followed immediately by Finnick, who is carrying Haymitch on his back. They are covered in horrible blisters, but of course they have been exposed to the most fog. Finnick and Haymitch especially. Cecelia is practically spotless, but she had a good head start, and wasn’t dragging or carrying anyone.

The fog suddenly becomes thicker, only a few feet from us, but it creeps no closer. I frown. It almost looks like it has hit a glass wall, some invisible line it can’t cross, so it piles up.

My head is spinning from the pain as it burns and stings and my muscles jerk and twitch. The spear falls from my hand. Taffeta is standing over Mako’s body as his head rolls away and Elsie is whooping and laughing as we stampede the buffalo and Stitch falls dead next to the river and Jilly’s scythe sings as she swings it through the air.

~~~                               ~~~                               ~~~

My own scream drags me back to reality as two pairs of strong hands push me completely under water. But the stinging burn is seeping out. I stop struggling against the hands and they immediately release. I come up for air, gasping, then plunge myself back under, letting the pain leach away into the waves.

The waves have always been safe.

Mom taught me to lobster dive. Dad taught me to sail. Rizz taught me to fish. Coral taught me to backflip. Finnick taught me to keep swimming.

So I do, until all the pain is gone, and even the stiffness has leached out of my muscles.

When I am done, I drag myself back to shore.

“We’re gonna need your help with these two.” Alvan gestures at Finnick and Haymitch. They took the worst of it by far.

I sigh, then size up my help. Katniss needs to deal with Haymitch, but would I rather have Cecelia, who is taller, or Alvan, who has that stocky strength I remember from Merritt? There is thunder in my brain.

I yank in a breath. “Alvan, grab his feet.”

Alvan grabs one knee in each arm as I slip my arms under Finnick’s and lace my fingers together behind his neck. Finnick screams.

I’ve never heard anything like it before. Pitiful, terrified, agonized. To say it breaks my heart is an understatement. It’s a gut punch, knocking all the air from my lungs and sucking all the air from the arena so there is none left for me to pull back in.

Stay with me.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper, trying to comfort him even as I tighten my grip in preparation for him to struggle. “I’m so sorry.”

He screams again. It hurts so much he can’t even fight as Alvan and I carry him to the water. He just trails into a pathetic whimper.

Stay with me.

I force myself to stay present, to muscle through for him.

“Let’s start with just his feet,” Alvan says as the waves lap over our shoes.

I shake my head. “We have to do it all at once. We’ll never be able to hold him down otherwise.”

Alvan takes a deep breath, sizing Finnick up, then nods. We pivot and push on, getting as far in as we can before the water touches him. He screams again.

I give Alvan a look, and we drop Finnick.

The water is only just over my knees, but I know how much it hurts as he convulses and sinks to the bottom. I give him about ten seconds, then drop down after him, grab his shoulders, and pull his head above the water. His teeth are clenched and his eyes squeezed shut but he hauls in a breath.

“Stay with me, Finnick.”

He whimpers in response.

“Hey honey,” I say teasingly. The ghost of a smile passes his lips before a twisted look of pain covers it up again. “I know it hurts. The water makes it better though. Just like swimming at home made everything alright. Hang in there. Stay with me.”

He nods, teeth still gritted.

There is splashing and shouting and swearing on the shore. I glance up to see Alvan, next to Finnick in case he starts to thrash again, or sink, chuckling at the scene. I turn my head to the left and see Katniss and Cecelia wrestling Haymitch into the water. Even in his nerve-damaged state, arms twitching wildly and legs barely functional, Haymitch is on his feet and putting up a good fight.

“I’ve got him,” I say to Alvan with my own slight smile. “Go help them.”

He wades back to shore.

Finnick is looking better by the second. Finally, his eyes flutter open. “Remember that jellyfish story I told you?”

“Yeah?”

“This was worse.”

“Yeah.”

I let him relax in the water for a while, soaking the poison from the mist away. Then I take a deep breath. “Finnick, I know you don’t want to hear it, but I need you to gargle some. And wash your sinuses out.”

Another whimper. Like I’ve lost my mind, but not in the usual way. Not the way he knows how to help with.

“I know,” I whisper. “Now,” I let a smile slide back over my face and my voice return to its normal volume, “you can either go under voluntarily, or I can dunk you like they’re doing to Haymitch.” I let him sit up so he can see the other three trying, hardly successfully, to keep Haymitch in the water.

“I’ll drown myself, thanks,” Finnick rasps. He drags himself through the water until it’s deep enough to swim. He sucks in some water and snorts it back out his nose, then gargles a few mouthfuls, and finally stops, treading water and coughing. I follow him into the deeper water, and soon we are swimming like at home. Mostly because I don’t want to have to help with Haymitch, but also these are—beside the fact that we are actively in the Hunger Games, again—the best swimming conditions I have ever experienced.

When Haymitch is no longer screaming and using every swear word I’ve ever heard and some I haven’t, we make our way back to the group, shedding our jumpsuits, ruined by the fog, leaving skintight shorts for both of us and a high-quality sports bra for me with the added bonus of nothing for Finnick. Maybe the audience will enjoy this enough to send us some food.

Alvan is sitting on the shore also only in the shorts, looking generally terrible with his blister-pocked skin, but he seems to be in good spirits as he says dryly, “That could’a been worse.”

I snort.

Finnick looks philosophical. “You’re not wrong about that.” Then, absently, he licks his lips. “We need water.”

“Agreed,” I frown at the lake.

Alvan hauls himself to his feet. “I’ll get the spile.” He walks to where the others are sitting in the shallow water, similarly stripped down, except for Cecelia, who had only a few blisters on her hands.

A few minutes later, Alvan returns, and the three of us make our way into the trees until we find a suitable one. Alvan taps the spile into the tree as I keep watch and Finnick hurriedly weaves a new basket. Then the three of us splash clean with the water and drink our fill. I am reaching for the basket when Finnick bumps my shoulder. I glance up to see him looking pointedly past me. I turn, very slowly, to see a tree full of monkeys. Orange monstrosities smiling down on us with mouths full of fangs and bloodlust in their eyes.

I tighten my grip on my spear. “Alvan,” I say calmly, quietly. “Get the spile.”

He yanks the spile from the tree without question, turns back to see Finnick and me standing, facing opposite directions, hips pressed together. No blind spots.

Alvan’s eyes go wide. I shake my head almost imperceptibly, but I feel Finnick tense next to me. Something is behind me. Probably more of the demon monkeys. Cecelia starts to shout, and all hell breaks loose.

It is muscle memory, really, as I stab the spear, killing monkey after monkey, flinging their carcasses to the side. Finnick and I cut our way to Alvan, who is already bleeding from a gash in his shoulder but is wielding his sword with that deadly proficiency I remember he and Cally both had during the Fifty-Ninth Hunger Games.

By some unspoken agreement, the three of us in our triangle of death begin to work back toward the beach and Katniss and Haymitch and Cecelia.

But the monkeys. There are so many. By the time I can feel sand underfoot at the edge of the jungle, I have never been this tired. Not even after eight hours of treading water. I stumble. Finnick catches me, but leaves a gap in our defenses. A monkey springs. My spear is already buried in a different one, Finnick is busy with two others, Alvan at my back can’t see it. And time is moving so slowly. So, so slowly. This is how I will die. A stupid mutt monkey in the Hunter Games when I shouldn’t even be here because I am already a victor, I shouldn’t have to be reaped again, that’s the deal-

The woman from Six materializes from the trees, painted in mud, between me and the mutt. It sinks its fangs into her neck. The cannon booms immediately. I yank my spear from the other monkey, stab the one on the morphling’s chest, prepare for another, but there are none. They have melted back into the trees.

My breath is coming too fast. It is silent. I drop to my knees. There is a head on the ground. Taffeta’s eyes find mine-

A hand grabs my shoulder. I jump, reaching for my spear, but it’s just Merritt—Alvan—I shake my head, trying to clear my thoughts. It’s Alvan.

“Thanks,” he says.

“Your shoulder,” I say.

“Yeah.” He shrugs a little.

Cecelia kneels next to him with an armful of moss.

Now that we aren’t in immediate danger, I notice how uncomfortable I am. Tired too, but my skin crawls and itches. It is all I can do to not scratch everywhere. I feel a little better when I notice the others absently itching at their scabs from the fog blisters as well.

Finnick’s neck is bleeding under his ear as he scratches at it.

“Don’t scratch.” Katniss’s voice is somehow teasing and dead serious at the same time as she pulls her own fingers away from the back of her other hand. “You’ll only bring infection.”

“That’s true!” Cecelia calls, not looking up from Alvan’s shoulder, which she has been bandaging with moss and vines and the remains of one of our shredded jumpsuits.

“Yes, Mom,” Finnick rolls his eyes good-naturedly. Then he sprawls out on the sand. “Wake me up if I start scratching, I guess.” In seconds, he is snoring gently.

“I’ll watch,” Cecelia says. “You all get some rest.”

I don’t need telling twice. I curl up in the sand. Alvan starts talking to Cecelia about home remedies for itchy skin. She knows a few, but nothing using what we have in the arena that she’s seen.

~~~                               ~~~                               ~~~

There is a monstrous scaly green face only a few inches in front of me. I yelp, scramble backwards on my elbows, reach for my spear.

But the face howls with laughter.

“Damn it, Finnick!”

He laughs harder. I punch him in the stomach.

He wheezes and doubles up and I shove him off to the side.

I can hear everyone else laughing now too as I get to my feet and laugh at his predicament, and everyone else’s. Except for Cecelia, they are all completely covered in green slime, the pockmarks from their blisters showing through hideously.

“Somebody sent us medicine,” Haymitch says, passing a little tube to me. “It’ll stop the itching.”

I glance down at my hands and see that I have been scratching in my sleep. There is blood caked on my fingers and bits of scabs under my nails from where I clawed at myself. I nod, unscrew the lid, and smear some of the goop onto my arms. It’s good stuff.

Cecelia helps with my back once I have done everything I can reach. We sit down in the shade with the others.

Done with his shellfish trawling, Finnick drops down next to me. “You look terrible,” he whispers with a wicked grin.

“So do you,” I whisper back.

“Does it feel wrong to you? Not being the second-prettiest person in the arena?”

“After Gloss?”

A shocked, horrified, insulted look crosses his face.

I laugh at his pretend offense. “Yeah. I don’t know how to get by without my good looks. I imagine it’s worse for you though.”

He barks out a laugh.

Alvan and Katniss return with a basket full of water. Alvan’s gaze finds Finnick and me and he pushes the water basket at Katniss and howls with laughter, slapping his thighs and cackling like a madman. I would know. “Y’all look-!” He gasps for breath. “For the pretty ones, y’all’re havin’ a rough day!” He collapses onto the sand, feet almost kicking in the air. He looks ten years younger. He also looks like a sea monster.

I glance at Finnick, smiling.

He is smiling too.

Katniss passes around the basket of water, and Cecelia is drinking when a parachute drifts down into our midst, with six of those beloved cream cheese rolls.

Finnick raises his in my direction. “Cheers to you, Tiger Shark.”

“Hear, hear,” Haymitch says through a mouthful of bread. “Excellent dessert after our shellfish.”

Then there’s a scream, and a rushing, sucking roar that I recognize. Finnick tenses next to me and we both look up across the arena to see a huge wave come crashing down through the trees. We stare as it roars toward the cornucopia and causes such a surge that all of our possessions on the sand begin to wash away. Everyone scrambles to save what we can grab, which happens to be everything but the ruined jumpsuits.

Holding my spear and the water basket, I watch the water recede again. I won by swimming once, but I don’t think I can survive that. Then again, I’m not supposed to survive this, any of this. It’s the Hunger Games. Twenty-three of us are not supposed to survive this.

The ground shakes and the dam breaks and I am sprinting through the trees and there are buffalo all around and-

“Annie?”

I blink.

Finnick is standing at my side, looking intently at me. “Let’s go get some oysters.”

I nod and follow him out into the water. I am up to my knees when I see them—three figures emerging from farther down the beach, red like cooked lobsters. I frown.

A few yards away, Finnick follows my gaze. For a few seconds, we both process this, then I jump up, running for the beach, and behind me Finnick is shouting, “Johanna! Johanna!”

“Johanna!” I yell with him.

Katniss stares at us as we sprint past her.

“Annie?” Johanna shrieks back. “Finnick!”

We are almost within arm’s reach of her when I realize what it is. I skid to a stop in the sand, staring at Johanna and the two figures with her. They are covered in blood.

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