He doubted the Peacekeepers would be concerned anytime soon. Why would he desert with elite officers’ school waiting? If anyone even noticed he was missing, they’d probably think he’d gone into town with another Peacekeeper. Unless they found the gun, of course. He didn’t want to go into all the school stuff now while the wound was still fresh. “I don’t know. Even when they realize I’ve run, they won’t know where to look.”
They hiked on toward the lake, each lost in their own thoughts. It all seemed unreal to him, as if this were just a pleasure outing, as the one two Sundays ago had been. As if they were going for a picnic, and he must be sure to get back in time for fried baloney and curfew. But no. When they reached the lake, they’d move on into the wilderness, to a life consumed with the most basic type of survival. How would they eat? Where would they live? And what on earth would they do with themselves, when the challenges of obtaining food and shelter had been met? Her with no music. Him with no school, or military, or anything. Have a family? It seemed too bleak an existence to condemn a child to. Any child, let alone one of his own. What was there to aspire to once wealth, fame, and power had been eliminated? Was the goal of survival further survival and nothing more?
Preoccupied as he was with these questions, the second leg of the journey to the lake passed quickly. They set down their loads on the shore, and Lucy Gray went directly to find branches for fishing poles. “We don’t know what lies ahead, so we better fill up here,” she said. She showed him how to attach the heavy thread and hooks to their poles. Clawing through the soft mud for worms disgusted him, and he wondered if this would be a daily activity. It would, if they were hungry enough. They baited the hooks and sat silently on the bank, waiting for a strike as the birds chattered around them. She caught two. He caught nothing.
Heavy, dark clouds rolled in, providing some relief from the beating sun but adding to his oppression. This was his life now. Digging for worms and being at the mercy of the weather. Elemental. Like an animal. He knew this would be easier if he wasn’t such an exceptional person. The best and the brightest humanity had to offer. The youngest to pass the officer candidate test. If he’d been useless and stupid, the loss of civilization would not have hollowed out his insides in this manner. He’d have taken it in stride. Thick, cold raindrops began to plop down on him, leaving wet marks on his fatigues.
“Never be able to cook in this,” Lucy Gray said. “Better go inside. There’s a fireplace in there we can use.”
She could only mean the one lake house that still had a roof. Probably his last roof, until he built one himself. How did you build a roof anyway? It had not been a question on the officer candidate test.
After she’d quickly cleaned the fish and wrapped them in leaves, they gathered up their bundles and hurried to the house as the rain pelted them. It might’ve been fun, if it hadn’t been his real life. Just an adventure for a few hours, with a charming girl and a fulfilling future elsewhere. The door was jammed, but Lucy Gray bumped it with her hip and it swung open. They scrambled in out of the wet and dropped their belongings. It was only one room, with concrete walls, ceiling, and floor. There was no sign of electricity, but light came through the windows on four sides and the single door. His eyes lit on the fireplace, full of old ashes, with a neat pile of dried wood stacked beside it. At least they wouldn’t have to forage for that.
Lucy Gray crossed to the fireplace, laid the fish down on the little concrete hearth, and began to arrange layers of wood and twigs on an old metal grate. “We keep some wood in here so there’s always some dry.”
Coriolanus considered the possibility of just staying in the sturdy little house, with plenty of wood around and the lake to fish in. But no, it would be too dangerous to put down roots this close to District 12. If the Covey knew of this spot, surely other people did, too. He had to deny himself even this last shred of protection. Would he end up in a cave after all? He thought of the beautiful Snow penthouse, with its marble floors and crystal chandeliers. His home. His rightful home. The wind blew a splatter of rain in, peppering his pants with icy drops. He swung the door shut behind him and froze. The door had concealed something. A long burlap bag. From the opening poked the barrel of a shotgun.
It couldn’t be. Unable to breathe, he nudged the bag open with his boot, revealing the shotgun and a Peacekeeper’s rifle. A little more and he could recognize the grenade launcher. Beyond question, these were the black market guns Sejanus had bought in the shed. And among them the murder weapons.
Lucy Gray lit the fire. “I brought along an old metal can thinking maybe we could carry live coals from place to place. I don’t have many matches, and it’s hard to get a fire going from flint.”
“Uh-huh,” said Coriolanus. “Good idea.” How had the weapons gotten here? It made sense, really. Billy Taupe could have brought Spruce to the lake, or maybe Spruce had simply known about it anyway. It would have been useful to the rebels during the war, to have as a hideout. And Spruce had been smart enough to know he couldn’t risk hiding the evidence in District 12.
“Hey, what’d you find there?” Lucy Gray joined him and leaned down, pulling the burlap from the weapons. “Oh. Are these the ones they had in the shed?”
“I think they must be,” he said. “Should we take the guns along?”
Lucy Gray drew back, rose to her feet, and considered them for a long moment. “Rather not. I don’t trust them. This will come in handy, though.” She pulled out a long knife, turning the blade over in her hand. “I think I’ll go dig up some katniss, since we got the fire going anyway. There’s a good patch by the lake.”
“I thought they weren’t ready,” he said.
“Two weeks can make a lot of difference,” she said.
“It’s still raining,” he objected. “You’ll get soaked.”
She laughed. “Well, I’m not made of sugar.”
In truth, he was happy for a minute alone to think. After she left, he lifted the bottom of the burlap bag, and the weapons slid out onto the floor. Kneeling beside the pile, he picked up the Peacekeeper’s rifle he’d killed Mayfair with and cradled it in his arms. Here it was. The murder weapon. Not in a Capitol forensic lab, but here, in his hands, in the middle of the wilderness, where it posed no threat at all. All he had to do was destroy it, and he would be free from the hangman’s noose. Free to go back to the base. Free to go forward to District 2. Free to rejoin the human race without fear. Tears of relief flooded his eyes, and he began to laugh out of sheer joy. How would he do it? Burn it in a bonfire? Disassemble it and scatter the parts to the four winds? Throw it into the lake? Once the gun was gone, there’d be nothing to connect him to the murders. Absolutely nothing.
No, wait. There would be one thing. Lucy Gray.
Well, no matter. She would never tell. She wouldn’t be thrilled, obviously, when he told her there’d been a change of plans. That he was returning to the Peacekeepers and heading to District 2 tomorrow at dawn, essentially leaving her to her fate. Still, she’d never rat him out. It wasn’t her style, and it would implicate her in the murders as well. It would mean she could wind up dead, and as the Hunger Games had shown, Lucy Gray possessed an extraordinary talent for self-preservation. Plus, she loved him. She’d said so last night in the song. Even more, she trusted him. Although, if he ditched her in the woods to claw out an existence alone, no doubt she would consider that a breach of faith. He had to think of just the right way to break the news. But what would that be? “I love you deeply, but I love officers’ school more?” That wasn’t going to go over well.
And he did love her! He did! It was just that, only a few hours into his new life in the wilderness, he knew he hated it. The heat, and the worms, and those birds yakking nonstop . . .
She was certainly taking a long time with those potatoes.
Coriolanus glanced out the window. The rain had diminished to a sprinkle.
She hadn’t wanted to go by herself. Too lonely. Her song said that she needed, loved, and trusted him, but would she forgive him? Even if he deserted her? Billy Taupe had crossed her, and he’d ended up dead. He could hear him now . . .
“Makes me sick how you’re playing the kids. Poor Lucy Gray. Poor lamb.”
. . . and see her sinking her teeth into his hand. He thought about how coolly she’d killed in the arena. First that frail little Wovey; that was a cold-blooded move if he’d ever seen one. Then the calculated way she’d taken out Treech, baiting him to attack her, really, so she could whip that snake out of her pocket. And she claimed that Reaper had rabies, that it was a mercy kill, but who knew?
No, Lucy Gray was no lamb. She was not made of sugar. She was a victor.
He checked to see that the Peacekeeper’s rifle was loaded, then opened the door wide. She was nowhere in sight. He walked down to the lake, trying to remember where Clerk Carmine had been digging before he brought them the katniss plant. It didn’t matter. The swampy area around the lake was deserted, and the bank undisturbed.
“Lucy Gray?” The only response came from a lone mockingjay on a nearby branch, who made an effort to mimic his voice but failed, as his words were not particularly musical. “Give it up,” he muttered to the thing. “You’re no jabberjay.”
No question, she was hiding from him. But why? There could only be one answer. Because she’d figured it out. All of it. That destroying the guns would wash away all physical evidence of his connection to the murders. That he no longer wanted to run away. That she was the last witness to tie him to the crime. But they’d always had each other’s backs, so why would she suddenly think he might harm her? Why, when only yesterday, he’d been pure as the driven snow?
Sejanus. She must have figured out that Sejanus was the third person Coriolanus had killed. She wouldn’t have to know anything about the stunt with the jabberjays, only that he’d been Sejanus’s confidant, and that Sejanus was a rebel, while Coriolanus was a defender of the Capitol. Still, to think he’d kill her? He looked down at the loaded gun in his hands. Maybe he should’ve left it in the shed. It looked bad coming after her armed. As if he was hunting her. But he wasn’t really going to kill her. Just talk to her and make sure she saw sense.
Put down the gun, he told himself, but his hands refused to cooperate. All she has is a knife. A big knife. The best he could manage was to sling the gun onto his back. “Lucy Gray! Are you okay? You’re scaring me! Where are you?”
All she’d have to say was “I understand, I’ll go on alone, like I was planning to all along.” But just this morning she’d admitted she didn’t think she could make it on her own, that she’d return to the Covey after a few days. She knew he wouldn’t believe her.
“Lucy Gray, please, I just want to talk to you!” he shouted. What was her plan here? To hide until he grew tired and went back to the base? And then sneak back home tonight? That didn’t work for him. Even with the murder weapon gone, she’d still be dangerous. What if she went back to District 12 now and the mayor succeeded in getting her arrested? What if they interrogated or even tortured her? The story would come out. She hadn’t killed anyone. He had. His word against hers. Even if they didn’t believe her, his reputation would be destroyed. Their romance would be revealed, along with the details of how he’d cheated in the Hunger Games. Dean Highbottom might be brought in as a character witness. He couldn’t risk it.
Still no sign of her. She was giving him no choice but to hunt her down in the woods. The rain had stopped now, leaving the air humid and the earth muddy. He went back to the house and scanned the ground until he found the slight imprint of her shoes, then followed her tracks until he reached the brush where the woods began again in earnest and quietly made his way into the dripping trees.
Bird chatter filled his ears, and the overcast sky made visibility poor. The underbrush concealed her footprints, but somehow he felt he was on the right track. Adrenaline sharpened his senses, and he noticed a snapped branch here, a scuff mark in the moss there. He felt a bit guilty, frightening her this way. What was she doing, quivering in the bushes while she tried to suppress her sobs? The idea of life without him must be breaking her heart.
A patch of orange caught his eye, and he smiled. “I don’t want you to lose me,” she’d said. And he hadn’t. He pushed through the branches and into a small clearing canopied by trees. The orange scarf lay across some briars, where it had apparently blown loose and snagged as she fled. Oh, well. It confirmed he was on the right track. He went to retrieve it — maybe he’d keep it after all — when a faint rustle in the leaves pulled him up short. He’d just registered the snake when it struck, uncoiling like a spring and digging its teeth into the forearm extended toward the scarf.
“Aa!” he screamed in pain. It released him immediately and slithered into the brush before he even had a chance to get a good look at it. Panic set in as he stared at the red, arched bite mark on his forearm. Panic and disbelief. Lucy Gray had tried to kill him! This was no coincidence. The trailing scarf. The poised snake. Maude Ivory had said she always knew where to find them. This was a booby trap, and he’d walked straight into it! Poor lamb, indeed! He was beginning to sympathize with Billy Taupe.
Coriolanus knew nothing about snakes, other than the rainbow ones in the arena. Feet rooted to the ground, heart racing, he expected to die on the spot, but while the wound hurt, he was still standing. He didn’t know how long he might have, but by all things Snow, she was going to pay for this. Should he tie off the arm with a tourniquet? Suck out the venom? They hadn’t done survival training yet. Afraid his first aid treatments might only spread the poison more swiftly through his system, he yanked his sleeve down over his forearm, pulled his rifle off his shoulder, and started after her. If he’d felt better, he’d have laughed at the irony of how quickly their relationship had deteriorated into their own private Hunger Games.
She wasn’t so easy to track now, and he realized the earlier clues had been left to lead him directly to the snake. But she couldn’t be that far away. She’d want to know if the thing killed him, or if she should form another plan of attack. Maybe she hoped he’d pass out so she could cut his throat with the long knife. Trying to quiet his panting, he moved deeper into the woods, gently pushing the branches back with the nose of his rifle, but it was impossible to discern her whereabouts.