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Muttations No question about it I&039;ve never seen these mutts, but they&039;re no natural-born anie wolves, but olf lands and then balances easily on its hind legs? What aves the rest of the pack forith its front paw as though it had a wrist? These things I can see at a distance Up close, I&039; attributes will be revealed

Cato has made a beeline for the Cornucopia, and without question I follow hiue? Besides, even if I could make it to the trees, it would be i - Peeta! My hands have just landed on the metal at the pointed tail of the Cornucopia when I remember I&039;m part of a tea as fast as he can, but thein on hioes down, but there are plenty to take its place

Peeta&039;s waving ht I can&039;t protect either of us on the ground I start cliold surface has been designed to resemble the woven horn that we fill at harvest, so there are little ridges and seaet a decent hold on But after a day in the arena sun, the h to blister my hands

Cato lies on his side at the very top of the horn, twenty feet above the ground, gasping to catch his breath as he gags over the edge Now&039;s my chance to finish him off I stop midway up the horn and load another arrow, but just as I&039;m about to let it fly, I hear Peeta cry out I twist around and see he&039;s just reached the tail, and the ht on his heels

"Cli but the knife in his hand I shoot my arron the throat of the first mutt that places its paws on the metal As it dies the creature lashes out, inadvertently opening gashes on a few of its coet a look at the claws Four inches and clearly razor-sharp

Peeta reachesThen I re at the top and whip around, but he&039;s doubled over with cramps and apparently hs out so fro

"What?" I shout at him

"He said, &039;Can they cli my focus back to the base of the horn

The ether, they raise up again to stand easily on their back legs giving them an eerily human quality Each has a thick coat, soht and sleek, others curly, and the colors vary from jet black to what I can only describe as blond There&039;s so that makes the hair rise up on the back of er on it

They put their snouts on the horn, sniffing and tasting the h-pitched yipping sounds to one another This must be how they communicate because the pack backs up as if to ood-sizestart and leaps onto the horn Its back legs must be incredibly powerful because it lands a mere ten feet below us, its pink lips pulled back in a snarl For a s there, and in that reen eyes glowering ator wolf, any canine I&039;ve ever seen They are unistered when I notice the collar with the nu hits reen eyes, the number it&039;s Glim trouble holding the arrow in place I have been waiting to fire, only too aware ofto see if the creatures can, in fact, cliun to slide backward, unable to find any purchase on theof the claws like nails on a blackboard, I fire into its throat Its body twitches and flops onto the ground with a thud

"Katniss?" I can feel Peeta&039;s grip on et out

"Who?" asks Peeta

My head snaps fro in the various sizes and colors The small one with the red coat and amber eyes Foxface! And there, the ashen hair and hazel eyes of the boy froled for the backpack! And worst of all, the se brown eyes and a collar that reads 11 in woven straw Teeth bared in hatred Rue

"What is it, Katniss?" Peeta shakes my shoulder

"It&039;s them It&039;s all of them The others Rue and Foxface and all of the other tributes," I choke out

I hear Peeta&039;s gasp of recognition "What did they do to them? You don&039;t think those could be their real eyes?"

Their eyes are the least of iven any of the real tributes rammed to hate our faces particularly because we have survived and they were so callously murdered? And the ones we actually killed do they believe they&039;re avenging their own deaths?

Before I can get this out, the in a new assault on the horn They&039;ve split into two groups at the sides of the horn and are using those powerful hindquarters to launch theether just inches from my hand and then I hear Peeta cry out, feel the yank on his body, the heavy weight of boy and rip on round, but as it is, it takes all th to keep us both on the curved back of the horn And

"Kill it, Peeta! Kill it!" I&039;h I can&039;t quite see what&039;s happening, I know hebecause the pull lessens I&039; ourselves toward the top where the lesser of two evils awaits

Cato has still not regained his feet, but his breathing is slowing and I know soon he&039;ll be recovered enough to come for us, to hurl us over the side to our deaths I ar out a h? I feel a moment&039;s relief because we must finally be up above theback to face Cato when Peeta&039;s jerked froot him until his blood splatters my face

Cato stands beforePeeta in so at Cato&039;s arm, but weakly, as if confused over whether it&039;s ush of blood fro hole a mutt left in his calf

I ai it&039;ll have no effect on his trunk or liht, flesh-colored rade body armor from the Capitol Was that as in his pack at the feast? Body arlected to send a face guard

Cato just laughs "Shoot ht If I take him out and he falls to the mutts, Peeta is sure to die with him We&039;ve reached a stale Peeta, too He can&039;t kill Peeta without guaranteeing an arrow in his brain We stand like statues, both of us seeking an out

My ht snap at any o silent and the only thing I can hear is the blood pounding inblue If I don&039;t do so quickly, he&039;ll die of asphyxiation and then I&039;ll have lost hiainst me In fact, I&039;m sure this is Cato&039;s plan because while he&039;s stopped laughing, his lips are set in a triumphant smile

As if in a last-ditch effort, Peeta raises his fingers, dripping with blood fro to wrestle his way free, his forefinger veers off and makes a deliberate X on the back of Cato&039;s hand Cato realizes what it means exactly one second after I do I can tell by the way the smile drops from his lips But it&039;s one second too late because, by that ti his hand He cries out and reflexively releases Peeta who slaainst hi over I dive forward just catching hold of Peeta as Cato loses his footing on the blood-slick horn and pluround

We hear hi his body on impact, and then thefor the cannon, waiting for the co to be released But it doesn&039;t happen Not yet Because this is the clier Games, and the audience expects a show

I don&039;t watch, but I can hear the snarls, the growls, the howls of pain from both human and beast as Cato takes on theuntil I re hiht this could be Catohe had hidden in his clothes, because on occasion there&039;s the death scream of a mutt or the sound of olden horn The combat moves around the side of the Cornucopia, and I know Catothe one maneuver that could save his life - to make his way back around to the tail of the horn and rejoin us But in the end, despite his reth and skill, he is si it has been, round and we hear thehim back into the Cornucopia Now they&039;ll finish him off, I think But there&039;s still no cannon

Night falls and the anthem plays and there&039;s no picture of Cato in the sky, only the faintacross the plain reminds me that the Ga, and there is still no guarantee of victory

I turnas badly as ever All our supplies, our packs, remain down by the lake where we abandoned the to staunch the flow of blood fro wind, I rip off my jacket, remove my shirt, and zip back into the jacket as swiftly as possible That brief exposure setsbeyond control

Peeta&039;s face is gray in the pale ht I make him lie down before I probe his wound Ware will not be enough I&039;ve seen my mother tie a tourniquet a handful of times and try to replicate it I cut free a sleeve fro just under his knee, and tie a half knot I don&039;t have a stick, so I takeit as tightly as I dare It&039;s risky business - Peeta - but when I weigh this against hie the wound in the rest of o to sleep," I tell him I&039;m not sure if this is exactly medical protocol, but I&039;ain

"Are you cold?" he asks He unzips his jacket and I press against hi our body heat insideThe temperature will continue to drop

Even now I can feel the Cornucopia, which burned so when I first cli to ice

"Catoyet," I whisper to Peeta

"Don&039;t you believe it," he says, pulling upharder than I am

The next hours are the worst inThe cold would be torture enough, but the real night, and finally just whi as the mutts work away at him After a very short time, I don&039;t care who he is or what he&039;s done, all I want is for his suffering to end

"Why don&039;t they just kill him?" I ask Peeta

"You knohy," he says, and pulls me closer to him

And I do No viewer could turn away from the sho From the Gamemakers&039; point of view, this is the final word in entertainoes on and on and on and eventually co outbut the present, which I begin to believe will never change There will never be anything but cold and fear and the agonized sounds of the boy dying in the horn

Peeta begins to doze off now, and each ti his naoes and dies on hting it, probably more for me than for him, and it&039;s hard because unconsciousness would be its own forh my body would never allow o I just can&039;t

The only indication of the passage of time lies in the heavens, the subtle shift of theI acknowledge its progress and sometiony of the night engulfs ain