The Boy from One

Chapter Nineteen: The Bomber

I sleep through the morning. Or at least I try to sleep. Every time I close my eyes I see the Tracker Jacker nest falling, it exploding, Marina and Glimmer unable to run as the insects surround them and I hear Katniss's manic laughter as she watches it all from up her tree. 

I come out of my tent at midday and join Alvis, who's cooking lunch. We are joined by Cato and Clove, who, I notice, come out of the same tent. 

As Alvis hands round the stew he's made, Cato gets straight to business and outlines a plan he's come up with. 

"I want to kill Thresh tonight. With three of us, we'll be able to do it easily, especially as Marvel is long distance and can cover out backs" he says, "then Katniss tomorrow, and then with the those two out the way, we'll focus on the easier opponents-the girl from Five and the girl from Eleven." What will happen after that is left unspoken but we all know what will happen next-we will turn on each other. 

"What about Lover Boy?" I ask. 

Cato rolls his eyes dismissively, "He's as good as dead. Trust me, he won't be recovering from that wound any time soon."

"Still not sure about fighting Thresh in unknown territory," says Clove, "Like I said before, they're could be traps or anything."

Cato gives her a reassuring squeeze of the hand, "We'll be careful. I promise." They smile at each other. 

'That thing with Glimmer didn't last very long'  I think to myself. Marina had been right all along, 'He was truly in love with Clove all this time. He was just acting with Glimmer. '

I wonder how Glimmer would have taken it if she'd known. 

I remember her arguments with Clove-maybe she had deep down. She just hadn't wanted to admit to herself. Getting with Cato was her only chance of winning. 

We're just finishing our stew when Cato yells, "Smoke!" We all turn to see smoke wafting up from the forest. 

"Easy prey," smirks Clove. 

"Should Alvis come?" I ask. 

"He's coming," replies Cato firmly, "We need him in the woods and his job's done here anyway. No one can touch those supplies."

"What about Lover Boy?" I challenge, raising an eyebrow. He did, after all, help us put the mines in. 

Cato glares at me, "I keep telling you, forget about him," he thunders, "I know where I cut him. It's a miracle he hasn't bled to death yet. At any rate, he's in no shape to raid us. Come on."

He snatches up one of my spears and thrusts it into Alvis's hands, and then turning to the rest of us, says, "When we find her, I kill her in my own way and no one interferes." 

Except I am planning on doing just that. 

He storms off purposely towards the woods, with the rest of us in hot pursuit. 

We reach the fire but there's no one there. Cautiously we check around in case in might be a trap but we don't see anyone. Clove suggests we turn back when we see smoke in the distance from another camp fire. 

We slowly head in that direction, watching out in case anyone springs an attack on us; but there's nothing. Then, just as we are nearing the fire, there's an earthquake, and we're all thrown onto the ground. 

Clove gets up the fastest, looking from side to side in case we've set off an explosion or something. 

But then Alvis, visibly shaking like a leaf, says scared, as if he knows what this means for him, "It came from our camp."

We race back through the trees, Clove and Cato naturally leading the way. And as we break into the clearing, there's a mound of rubble where our food should have been...

"NO!" screams Cato, and he throws himself on the floor, pounding it with his hands, "NO!"

Clove, Alvis and I look away and search through the rubble, trying to find anything that can be useful. There's nothing; our only food source has been destroyed. Cato begins kicking the rubble angrily, and then he suddenly turn on Alvis. 

"You, " he hisses, his eyes bright with fury, "You did this!"

"I..I..I...I didn't know it would blow up the food," stammers Alvis helplessly, with nothing to say in his defence. 

With a snarl, Cato advances towards Alvis. Alvis turns and flees but Cato grabs him. And I watch impassively as Cato snaps Alvis's neck, hearing the canon signal the death of my last true ally, the boy who had healed my Tracker Jacker stings. And an inner voice inside me says, '16 down. 7 to go.'

"Cato," Clove pleads gently as she tries to reason with him, while I continue to search for food in the wreckage. She somehow manages to get him to calm down and we all go to the lake to let the hovercraft collect the body of Alvis. 

"They'll be a second one in a minute," says Clove soothingly, "To collect the body of the bomber, you'll see." But no second hovercraft comes. 

And in the night's sky, we only see the picture of Alvis and the boy from Ten. No one else. 

Cato picks up a pair of night-goggles and passes one to Clove. 

"Now we hunt down Thresh, " he says angrily. Clove follows, determined, but also with a look of concern on her face. I grab my set of spears and put Marina's net in my backpack and I pick up a tree branch, setting it alight to use as a torch. All three of us head into the woods. I make to follow them, but then I veer off, putting my torch into the lake so they can't see me, and head into the cover of the woods. 

I will let Thresh deal with Cato and Clove. But for me, I need to find the girl from District 11. To kill her and make Katniss pay for killing Marina and Glimmer.