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CATCHING FIRE -- CHAPTER 26
The group makes their way back to the lightning tree where Beetee begins to coil the wire around the tree. He instructs Katniss and Johanna to take the coil and spread it across the jungle, through the beach, and into the water. Beetee knows the two girls are the best picks for the job because they are the quickest. Katniss is hesitant in leaving Peeta alone, and Peeta doesn’t want Katniss out of his sight; however, they both know that for the plan to work, they must spend a little bit of time without each other’s company.
Johanna and Katniss then take off to unwind the coil. One of them keeps an eye out, while the other unwinds the wire.
Suddenly, after they just have traded duties (Katniss is now unwinding the coil), the wire is cut by somebody nearby and it falls from the jungle above to their feet below. Katniss reaches for an arrow, but her face is almost immediately bashed in by the metal cylinder that the wire is coiled around. She falls to the ground, seeing doubles.
Katniss then feels Johanna pinning her down, stabbing her with something sharp in her shoulder. Johanna tells Katniss to stay down and she does. Not too far from her, she hears Brutus and Enobaria. The two enemies move past Katniss since they believe she is “as good as dead.”
Katniss makes her way to a tree where she sits up and checks out her wounds. She’ll survive from her head wound, but her shoulder wound is something that worries her a bit.
Suddenly, she hears Finnick running through the jungle, shouting out Katniss’ and Johanna’s names. Katniss hides from him, not knowing if he’s a friend or an enemy at this point. For all she knows, he has planned out a scene of betrayal with Johanna. Johanna and Finnick have known each other for a long time so to think that they have teamed up is not an impossible idea. Luckily for Katniss, Finnick continues running through the jungle, going in the direction that Johanna ran off in.
Katniss, fearing for the safety of Peeta, begins to make her way back towards Peeta and Beetee. Meanwhile, the cannon shoots once, signaling the death of a tribute.
Before Katniss gets back to the lightning tree, she’s delayed by a clump of Beetee’s wire that she accidently gets tangled in. She’s quick to untangle herself and she follows the wire to the lightning tree. There, she only sees Beetee.
Beetee, who is nearly unconscious and is unable to say much of anything, points out another trap that he has set up on the tree. In addition to the wire that Katniss was uncoiling with Johanna, Beetee has used another piece of coil to do something else. He has tied the extra coil on a branch of the tree, and he has let it fall downwards. The end of this extra coil is attached to a knife. Katniss, at first, thought that Beetee was just saving some extra coil. Now, she knows he had a backup plan, perhaps one that involved the force-field. Unfortunately, Beetee blacks out and without him, Katniss isn’t able to learn of his intentions.
Katniss’ attention is soon drawn to Peeta who is running towards her from the jungle. He’s surely being hunted by now by other tributes. Katniss is suffering from blood-loss and hasn’t much energy left to help him, so she calls out to him to help divert attention away from him and onto her. It works and she glimpses Enobaria and Finnick running towards her.
Katniss plans on using her bow and an arrow to take Enobaria down. Hopefully, when she’s out of the picture, Finnick can make it to safety before the lightning strike. Katniss, then, contemplates killing both Enobaria and Finnick. They have not been able to spot her hiding spot yet, so she can take out both of them easily.
The cannon wails in the distance, signaling the death of another tribute. Katniss now realizes that if she were to kill both Enobaria and Finnick, Peeta would be left alone with only one other enemy to kill.
Unexpectedly, Katniss begins thinking about her real enemy, and she recalls the words that Haymitch spoke to her, “remember who the enemy is.” Realizing that the real enemy is the Capitol, she takes the wire off of Beetee’s knife and ties it onto her arrow (she uses a knot she learned in training to tie it). Next, she shoots the arrow straight through the weak point of the force-field that Beetee pointed out earlier in the Training Center. Suddenly, the lightning bolt strikes the tree, the electricity runs through the wire, and the giant force-field that encloses the whole arena turns a fiery blue.
by Suzanne Collins
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