Finding Peeta

After the announcement that two tributes from the same district could be declared winners, Katniss Everdeen immediately set out to find Peeta Mellark, knowing he was wounded and alone. The rule change transformed their relationship from a performance of star-crossed lovers into a practical alliance with life-or-death stakes, and Katniss, who had previously doubted Peeta's motives, now understood that his actions in the arena—shaking his head to keep her from the Cornucopia, fighting Cato to let her escape, even joining the Careers—had been moves to protect her. She realized that if either of them killed the other now, they would be pariahs back in District 12, and that the Gamemakers had made the change because the audience had embraced their romance so completely that condemning it would jeopardize the Games' success.

Discovery and First Contact

Katniss deduced that Peeta must be near a water source to have survived his wounds and the tracker jacker venom, and she followed a stream downhill, hoping to find him. She found a long-dried bloody streak on a boulder, with smeary lines suggesting someone in a confused state had tried to wipe it away, and then more bloodstains, one with threads of fabric glued to it. When she called his name in a hushed voice, a mockingjay landed on a scruffy tree and began to mimic her tones, so she stopped. She gave up and climbed back down to the stream, thinking he must have moved on, but when her foot broke the surface of the water, she heard a hoarse, weak voice: "You here to finish me off, sweetheart?" The voice came from her left, where her damaged ear could not pick it up well, but she recognized it as Peeta's. She whispered his name, asking where he was, and he replied, "Well, don't step on me." His voice was right under her feet, yet she saw nothing until his eyes opened—unmistakably blue in the brown mud and green leaves. He had painted himself into the muddy bank, his face and arms so artfully disguised with mud and plants as to be invisible, the final word in camouflage. Katniss knelt beside him and said, "I guess all those hours decorating cakes paid off." Peeta smiled and replied, "Yes, frosting. The final defense of the dying."

Assessment and Treatment of Wounds

Katniss told Peeta they were on the same team now, and he confirmed he had heard the announcement. She gave him a drink from her water bottle and asked if Cato had cut him; he answered that the wound was on his left leg, up high. She decided to get him into the stream to wash off the mud so she could see the extent of his injuries, but when she tried to help him, she discovered he was unable to move an inch on his own. He was so weak that the best he could do was not to resist, and despite his efforts to keep quiet, sharp cries of pain escaped him as she dragged him. The mud and plants seemed to have imprisoned him, and she finally had to give a gigantic tug to break him from their clutches. He ended up two feet from the water, lying there with his teeth gritted and tears cutting trails in the dirt on his face. She changed her plan and decided not to roll him all the way in, instead propping him against a boulder to clean him. She used her two water bottles and Rue's water skin, propping them against rocks in the stream so that two were always filling while she poured the third over his body. She gently unzipped his jacket, unbuttoned his shirt, and eased them off him, and had to cut away his undershirt with her knife because it was plastered into his wounds. She found he was badly bruised with a long burn across his chest and four tracker jacker stings, including one under his ear. She dug the stingers out of the lumps, causing him to wince, but the minute she applied the leaves he sighed in relief. She then applied the burn cream to his chest and noticed how hot his skin was becoming—he was burning with fever. She dug through the first-aid kit she had taken from the boy from District 1 and found pills that reduce temperature, which he obediently swallowed. When she offered him groosling, he wrinkled his nose and turned away, telling her he had not been hungry for days, which told her how sick he was. The best she could do was get him to eat a few bits of dried apple. He asked if he could sleep now, but she insisted on looking at his leg first. She removed his boots, socks, and then very slowly inched his pants off him. The tear Cato's sword had made in the fabric over his thigh in no way prepared her for what lay underneath: a deep inflamed gash oozing both blood and pus, the leg swollen, and worst of all, the smell of festering flesh. She wanted to run away, to disappear into the woods as she had done when the burn victim was brought to her house, but there was no one here but her. She tried to capture the calm demeanor her mother assumed when handling particularly bad cases, and told Peeta she would clean it well. She used the tracker jacker leaves to draw out infection, and within minutes of pressing the chewed-up green stuff into the wound, pus began running down the side of his leg. After three applications and what seemed like a bucket of pus, the wound looked better, and she could see how deep Cato's sword had cut—right down to the bone. She put some of the burn ointment on it, hoping it would help with infection, and wrapped it in clean white cotton.

Moving to the Cave and the First Kiss

Katniss helped Peeta dress and tried to move him downstream, but he could not walk far. She half-guided, half-carried him up to a small cavelike structure formed by rocks about twenty yards above the stream. She covered the floor with pine needles, unrolled her sleeping bag, and tucked him into it. She got a couple of pills and some water into him, but he refused to eat even the fruit. He lay there, his eyes trained on her face as she tried to build a blind out of vines to conceal the mouth of the cave, but the result was unsatisfactory. She tore it down in frustration. Peeta thanked her for finding him, and she said he would have found her if he could. His forehead was burning up, and the medicine seemed to have no effect. Suddenly, she was scared he was going to die. He began to say, "If I don't make it back," but she placed her fingers on his lips to quiet him. When he insisted, she impulsively leaned forward and kissed him, stopping his words. It was the first time she had ever kissed a boy, but all she could register was how unnaturally hot his lips were from the fever. She broke away and told him he was not going to die, that she forbade it. He whispered, "All right." She stepped out into the cool evening air just as a silver parachute floated down from the sky. She quickly untied it, hoping for real medicine to treat Peeta's leg, but instead found a pot of hot broth. She understood Haymitch's message: one kiss equaled one pot of broth. She knew that if she wanted to keep Peeta alive, she had to give the audience something more to care about—star-crossed lovers desperate to get home together. She thought of her parents, the way her father never failed to bring her mother gifts from the woods, the way her mother's face would light up at the sound of his boots at the door, the way she almost stopped living when he died. She went back to Peeta, kissed him awake, and held up the pot of broth. Getting the broth into him took an hour of coaxing, begging, threatening, and kissing, but finally, sip by sip, he emptied the pot.

The Cave as Sanctuary and the Deepening Bond

Katniss spent the night half-sitting, half-lying next to Peeta, refreshing a damp bandage on his forehead and trying not to dwell on the fact that by teaming up with him, she had made herself far more vulnerable than when she was alone. Tethered to the ground, on guard, with a very sick person to take care of, she knew she was taking a risk, but she trusted that whatever instinct had sent her to find him was a good one. When the sky turned rosy, she noticed the sheen of sweat on his lip and discovered the fever had broken. She made him berry mush, which he ate obediently, and he told her she had not slept. She admitted she was exhausted, and he offered to keep watch while she slept. She smoothed out the sleeping bag on the cave floor and lay down, one hand on her loaded bow. Peeta sat beside her, leaning against the wall, his bad leg stretched out before him, his eyes trained on the world outside. He told her to go to sleep, and his hand brushed the loose strands of her hair off her forehead. Unlike the staged kisses and caresses so far, this gesture seemed natural and comforting. She did not want him to stop, and he did not. He was still stroking her hair when she fell asleep. She slept too long, waking in the afternoon, and found Peeta had not woken her because nothing was going on and he liked watching her sleep. She tested his cheek and found it hot as a coal stove again. She gave him more fever pills and stood over him while he drank two quarts of water. When she unwrapped his leg, her heart dropped into her stomach: the swelling had increased, the tight shiny skin was inflamed, and red streaks were starting to crawl up his leg—blood poisoning. She knew her chewed-up leaves and ointment would not make a dent in it, and that they would need strong anti-infection drugs from the Capitol. She told him he would just have to outlast the others, and they would cure it back at the Capitol when they won. He agreed, but she felt it was mostly for her benefit. She made him soup by mincing groosling and mashing roots, heating it with hot stones in the sun, and he ate without complaint, even scraping out the pot. He rambled on about how delicious it was, which should have been encouraging if she did not know what fever did to people. She gave him another dose of fever medicine before he went off his head completely. As she went down to the stream to wash up, she thought only that he was going to die if she did not get to the feast. She knew she could keep him going for a day or two, and then the infection would reach his heart or his brain or his lungs and he would be gone. Then she saw a parachute floating by and retrieved a vial, hoping Haymitch had gotten the medicine. But when she uncorked it and sniffed, she recognized the sickly sweet scent of sleep syrup. She realized Haymitch had sent it not to cure Peeta, but to knock him out so she could go to the feast without him. She mashed up berries and mint to disguise the taste and fed it to him, telling him they were sugar berries. He swallowed the last spoonful and said, "They're sweet as syrup," his eyes widening as he realized the truth. She clamped her hand over his mouth and nose, forcing him to swallow, and he lost consciousness. She sat back and looked at him with a mixture of sadness and satisfaction, wiping a stray berry from his chin. She said, "Who can't lie, Peeta?" even though he could not hear her.

Preparation for the Feast and the Night Before

In the remaining hours before nightfall, Katniss gathered rocks and did her best to camouflage the opening of the cave, making it appear to be part of a larger pile of rocks. She could still crawl in to Peeta through a small opening, but it was undetectable from the outside. She made a meal out of the smaller, bonier fish in the stream, filled every water container and purified it, and cleaned her weapons. She had nine arrows left. She debated leaving the knife with Peeta for protection, but decided against it, knowing his camouflage was his final defense. She watched the sky, hoping for one less opponent at dawn, but nobody appeared that night. She crawled into the cave, secured her night-vision glasses, and curled up next to Peeta. It was so bitterly cold that she lay next to him in the bag, trying to absorb every bit of his fever heat. She had never felt lonelier since the Games began. She thought of her mother and Prim, wondering if they would sleep a wink tonight, and of Gale, knowing he would be watching every moment and willing her to come home. She wondered what he made of all the kissing. Through a crack in the rocks, she watched the moon cross the sky. At what she judged to be about three hours before dawn, she began final preparations. She was careful to leave Peeta with water and the medical kit right beside him. After some debate, she stripped him of his jacket and zipped it on over her own. She took Rue's spare pair of socks, cut holes for her fingers and thumbs, and pulled them on. She filled Rue's small pack with some food, a water bottle, and bandages, tucked the knife in her belt, and got her bow and arrows. Before she left, she remembered the importance of sustaining the star-crossed lover routine and leaned over to give Peeta a long, lingering kiss, imagining the teary sighs emanating from the Capitol. She pretended to brush away a tear of her own, then squeezed through the opening in the rocks out into the night.