The Wolf and the Mockingjay, Part 1, Chapter 6
Title: The Wolf and the Mockingjay, Part 1
Fandoms: Doctor Who/The Hunger Games fusion
Rating: Teen+ for violence
Pairings: Rose-Martha friendship; Jack/everyone
Characters: Rose, Martha, Ninth Doctor, Donna, Reinette (expy), Jack Harkness, Jackie Tyler, Mickey Smith, River Song, loads more; HG characters come in more in Part 2, but Cinna, Caesar Flickerman, Claudius Templesmith, Plutarch Heavensbee, Finnick Odair and President Snow appear in this part; OCs Nokia, Lace, Gem, Sulla and Livia.
Summary: Rose Tyler is chosen for the Hunger Games. Martha Jones volunteers to save her little sister. When they meet in the arena, something happens that will change the world.
Chapter 1: The Reaping
Chapter 2: The Capitol
Chapter 3: The Tributes
Chapter 4: The Arena
Chapter 5: The Ally
Under the cabin, Rose and Martha had the rare luxury of sleeping in. Rose’s leg finally woke her. It ached terribly, and Martha ducked out to get more willow bark. She also brought back a nice, big rabbit from one of her snares.
She seemed edgy, and Rose asked, “What is it?”
“It’s just about time for the Gamemakers’ deadly twist of the day,” Martha said. “It’s always coordinated with the time of the start of the Games.”
Of course it was. “I don’t know how I missed that,” said Rose.
Martha grinned at her. “I’m the brains of the outfit, remember?”
Rose was set to say something sassy back when a distant buzzing reached her ears. “What the hell is that?”
Martha’s eyes had gone wide. “Tracker jackers!”
“What? Get in the pond, then!” Martha made to help her, but Rose waved her off. “It’ll take me too long. Go!”
“No.” In a flash, Martha was outside kindling the fire. She piled on some green reeds to make it smoky, and then she withdrew under the cabin.
It was good thinking, Rose knew. The smoke and fire would, hopefully, block the deadly wasps from getting to them.
The buzzing grew louder and louder. Outside, it looked like a cloud was passing over the sun; that was how big the swarm was. The fire was doing its job, though; score another for Martha’s quick thinking. Not one tracker jacker got past it.
The buzzing faded into the distance, and Martha dared to venture out. “All clear,” she said.
Rose pulled herself out into the open, blinking at the daylight. “What fun they must have at the Games Center, thinking all of this up.”
Martha insisted on examining Rose’s leg before she put her pants back on. There were no obvious signs of infection, according to her, and the soreness would just take time to heal. She brewed up more willow bark tea, and Rose watched closely as she set up a spit for the rabbit. There was also a fish in Martha’s fish trap, and it cooked in the coals once the rabbit was done.
They ate, and Rose helped Martha repair her fish trap, an elegant little creation of reeds and grasses. Martha said they made them a lot in District 7 if there was a river or lake in the camp.
It was an education, hearing about life in Martha’s district. Because of the industry - lumber - there were few permanent towns. Instead, families were assigned to camps, nomadic settlements that periodically packed up and moved to a new location. Martha’s camp moved, on average, every three to four years. Her mother was the camp’s schoolteacher, and her father was a mechanic, helping to maintain the equipment for cutting down trees and the trucks that transported the lumber. He’d been a lumberjack, but losing a leg had put an end to that.
“Before the reaping, I promised Tish that she wouldn’t be chosen,” said Martha. “Leo had to take out tesserae for a while when Dad was injured, so we were all afraid for him. I couldn’t believe it when they called Tish’s name. I just . . . I couldn’t let this happen to her, you know?”
Rose nodded. “Yeah. I don’t have any siblings, but I can’t imagine letting my little sister be chosen if I could volunteer for her. What’s your brother like?”
“Leo? He’s great. His girl’s about to have a baby. Her parents won’t let her get married until she’s eighteen, but that’s just a month after the baby’s due. I can’t wait to find out if it’s a boy or a girl.” A shadow passed over Martha’s face. “I hope I find out.”
Rose didn’t know what to say to that, so she told Martha about life on the Factory side, about her mom and Mickey and friends and Old Man Henrick, about her dad’s death, about growing up never seeing the stars, and about the gangs she’d had to dodge or fight all her life. It was as foreign to Martha as the forests of District 7 were to Rose.
As the two of them constructed a fishing net, Martha asked, “What did you mean last night when you talked about upsetting the balance of the Career pack?”
Rose shrugged. “They’ve got a lot of egos in there. If we could make something go wrong for them, really wrong, they might just turn on each other.”
“I’ve spied on them a little,” Martha said. “They took all the stuff from the Cornucopia and put it inside one of the buildings in the industrial area. It’s big, made of concrete, and the doors are rusted shut. The only way in is where part of the wall collapsed. Someone’s always there to guard it.” She made another knot in the net with an ease that was eluding Rose. “It looks pretty impressive, but I watched Elton - that’s the boy from Six - sneak in and steal some things from them.”
Rose watched Martha’s clever fingers and tried to imitate her movements. “Suppose we could do something to their supplies. Ruin them somehow. How long do you think they could survive without all the food and weapons and stuff in there?”
Martha grinned. “It’d be interesting to find out. Have anything in mind?”
“I thought you were the brains of the operation,” Rose teased. Martha giggled. “Once my leg is a little better, we can make our way over there and maybe find a way. It’s better than just sitting around trying not to get killed, anyway.”
“How many of us are left, anyway?” Martha wondered aloud. “Both from One and Two, Nokia, the boy from Four - are there any left from Five?”
“Yeah, Rodrick,” said Rose. “Elton from Six, you said, and then you, me, Furrow and Scooti. That’s twelve, right? Have you seen any of them?”
“Scooti was up on the bluff, last time I saw her. There’s a lake up past the factory, and I think both Elton and Furrow are near it. I haven’t seen Rodrick at all, and I only saw Nokia once, near the Cornucopia.”
Rose wondered how she was getting along, also being from an industrial district. If she’d made it this far, though, she had to be tougher than she looked.
She only hoped this respite would last. The willow bark tea took the edge off the pain in her leg, but it still hurt. Rose wasn’t recovered from her blood loss, either. Martha kept pushing fluid on her, which was all very well and good until she had to pee. That was not easy at all with an injured leg, and Rose sincerely hoped the cameras were following something else.
The day went by peacefully enough, though, and Rose felt she was learning more just watching Martha than she could have in weeks with the wilderness trainers. The younger girl could move so quietly, and she knew how to cover her tracks and practically disappear without half trying to. Rose couldn’t wait to see how she dealt with the forest, if she was this good with mere tall grass.
Dinner was rabbit and more katniss roots, with berries for dessert. Rose decided she could get used to fresh meat and vegetables that hadn’t been pickled or canned. She and Martha snuggled up together for the night, and only then did Rose realize that it was the first day since the Games began that no one had died.
***
The next morning, a tornado ripped through the arena. Not a big one, fortunately, but it tore apart the nearby thicket and peppered the cabin with debris. Rose and Martha were underneath when it hit, Rose pinning Martha against the side of the root cellar and protecting her with her body. It sounded like one of the big trains that brought in ore and took out steel from the Factory side.
Afterward, Rose and Martha surveyed the damage. Much of the tall grass had been flattened by the wind, and Rose felt uncomfortably exposed.
“The good news is, they don’t seem to be deliberately trying to kill us,” Martha said.
“Yeah,” Rose agreed. “This is just to keep us all from getting too comfortable. Speaking of which, did you want to take another look at my leg?”
Martha directed her to sit on a wide, flat rock near the pond. “How does it feel?” she asked as she removed the bandage.
“It’s better. Doesn’t hurt as much.” Martha poked at it. “Ow. That does.”
“But the good news is that the swelling’s going down, and there are no signs of infection.” Martha looked almost smug. “Only problem is, we’re running low on sterile dressings. I hope-“
A silver parachute landed next to them, interrupting whatever Martha was going to say. Rose picked it up and looked inside the small case attached to it. Martha gave a squeal at what she saw.
“Do you know what those are?” She didn’t give Rose time to answer, but snatched the case out of her hands. “These are the kind of wound dressings they use at hospitals. You don’t need padding or even stitches, and they’re impregnated with antibiotics and healing agents.”
It didn’t look like anything except clear tape with a slightly squishy texture. Martha cleaned the area around Rose’s wound and applied the clear sheet, which immediately brought a cooling sensation.
“It’ll bond to your skin. Don’t pick at the edges!” Martha smacked Rose’s fingers away from it. “Completely waterproof and sweatproof, and it’ll seal out dirt and germs. Best of all, you don’t have to worry about popping the stitches now. Not that it’ll feel great if you try to do any tree climbing, of course.”
Rose looked at the wound dressing, and she understood that the Doctor was sending her a message. “In that case, I think we should move on from here.”
They gathered up their few belongings, and Martha said she knew where there was a spring in the woods. It would be a better place to rest than along the stream, so Rose agreed to go there.
First, though, she decided to do a little practice with the longbow. Martha used some charcoal to make a target on the side of the cabin, and Rose found a spot she thought was about the distance between the archery stand and the dummies from the gym. The bow was a little stiffer than the ones she’d used in the gym, and her first shot went astray. She refocused, and she managed to hit the target with each ensuing shot, and the bull’s-eye twice.
“I think you killed it,” said Martha. They collected the arrows and headed into the woods.
It was slow going. Rose watched Martha, how she moved and where she put her feet, and did her best to imitate her. Martha could move almost soundlessly through the woods. She stopped a few times to point things out to Rose, like ways to figure out what direction she was headed, or signs that game was nearby.
As educational as it was, though, Rose was done by mid-afternoon. Her leg ached, and she had no energy left.
“Why don’t you rest a bit?” Martha suggested. “The spring’s not too far from here. We can head there when you’re ready.”
Rose sat down with her back against a fallen log, grateful for the respite. “Thanks. You don’t have any more willow bark, do you?”
“No, but I know where to get some.” Martha pulled out her knife. “I won’t be long.”
She left, and Rose leaned back, closing her eyes. The woods were quiet, and she began to drift into a half-doze, just at the edge of sleep . . .
And a nightmare came crashing through the bushes. It was almost unrecognizable as a human, so covered with blood and dirt that the only clear features that stood out were two bulging eyes. It screamed, and it attacked.
Rose was completely unprepared. She forced herself to her feet, but the maddened tribute was on her before she could find her balance. A hot pain ripped through her injured leg, and she was being forced back and down against the log, trying desperately to keep those hands from her neck-
Thunk!
-her attacker buckled and fell to the ground with an axe in the back of his neck. Rose pushed him away and saw Martha a few feet away, horror in her face.
Rose’s brain caught up with the situation. Her attacker was Rodrick, his once-handsome features twisted with fear and hate and tracker jacker stings. He’d torn at his own flesh in agony and delirium in the day or so that had followed, and it was only Martha’s axe that had ended his torment.
Martha bent over, retching, as the cannon went off. Understanding, Rose went to Rodrick’s body and dislodged the axe. Then she closed his eyes and stepped away so the hovercraft could take him.
Rose cleaned the axe with some moss before going to Martha. She rubbed the younger girl’s back.
“It was the tracker jackers,” she said. “The stings drove him insane. There wasn’t anything you could’ve done for him except what you did.” She put the axe back into Martha’s belt. “There. Now I owe you another one.”
Martha took a few deep breaths. “Thanks, Rose. I don’t think we need to keep score, do we?”
“No. Not us.” Rose hugged her. “Let’s find that spring now, okay?”
The spring was situated in a good place, with enough foliage about it that it wasn’t immediately visible against a small bluff. Rose had left “exhausted” back at the scene of Rodrick’s death, and she took Martha up on her offer to keep watch while Rose napped.
When she awoke, Martha was sitting on a rock, staring into the bubbling spring. “Do you want to talk?” Rose asked.
“It just doesn’t make sense,” Martha said. “I want to be a healer. Why do I have to kill?” She wiped a tear away.
It didn’t make sense, and Rose knew nothing she could say would help. She tried anyway. “Sarah Jane - she’s one of the living victors from Nine, along with the Doctor and Donna - told me, before I left, to remember that what we do, we do to survive. I think I understand what she was trying to get across to me now. I understand why she took over the community home after she got back. And why the Doctor does what he does, and why Donna works at the community home, too.”
Martha looked at Rose with those too-wise-for-her-age eyes. “In other words, find something to keep you from hating yourself?”
“That’s about the size of it, yeah.” Rose squeezed her hand. “Let’s eat something, and then you need to rest.”
They took turns watching during the night. Neither slept well.
***
The next morning, they foraged for food. Martha chided Rose for not having an arrow on string while they walked through the woods. Martha herself always had her pistol bow loaded and ready. Rose obediently drew an arrow from her quiver and kept it on the string. Good thing, too; she managed to nail a rabbit a few minutes later.
It was also good that they were on high alert for the Gamemakers’ mid-morning terror, because the only warning they had was a sharp, high-pitched hiss. Suddenly, the trees were full of lizards with razor-sharp teeth. And they looked way too interested in Martha and Rose.
“This way!” shouted Martha, whipping around and setting off at a run. Rose trusted her sense of direction and followed.
Something landed on her backpack, and Rose knocked it off with her bow. She ignored the pain in her leg, instinctively understanding it would be a bad, bad thing to let these things get their teeth into her. She hit another one off of Martha as they ran.
The lizards kept up with them, leaping through the trees. One would occasionally leap for the girls, only to get batted aside. Rose didn’t want to know what would happen if they started getting more aggressive. The only thing she could do was to follow Martha, racing hard for the edge of the woods. Branches whipped across their faces, and Rose nearly turned her ankle on roots several times, but she kept running as hard as she could.
And then they burst out into the field with the Cornucopia. They both turned to look back at the woods, where the lizards clustered on branches and hissed angrily. One or two jumped to the ground, but they were clumsy there, easy to kick away.
As if there’d been some kind of signal - which Rose supposed there was - the lizards then melted away, retreating back where they’d come from.
Rose was on high alert for any other tributes, knowing that if she and Martha had been chased out of the woods, it was possible others had, too. Movement caught her eye, and she had her bow up and pointing at the small figure stumbling out of the woods before she processed that it was Nokia. The District 3 tribute seemed to be holding something.
Martha gasped, and Rose, knowing Nokia wasn’t a threat, not now, lowered her bow.
“Rose?” came Nokia’s voice, sounding faint and distant.
Martha moved first, but Rose wasn’t far behind as they both ran for the girl. By the time they reached her, she’d crumpled to the ground. Livid bites covered her exposed skin.
It was obvious, even to Rose, that Nokia wasn’t long for the world. Her face had gone gray, and she was having trouble breathing. Some kind of venom, then, perhaps not very strong, but, with the number of bites and Nokia’s emaciated body . . .
“I’ve got you,” said Martha, gathering Nokia up to lean back against her.
“Water,” Nokia wheezed. Martha gave her a drink from her canteen.
Rose touched the strange device she held in her hands. “What’s this?”
“I made,” Nokia began, and had to stop to breathe. “I made a . . . bomb. Thought . . . I’d blow up . . . the Careers. Don’t . . . think I can now.”
“You’re fine,” Martha said, sounding a little hysterical. “You’ll be fine. Just rest.”
“How do you use it?” Rose asked. It looked like two ceramic discs held together with a lot of wires, with a flat button on top and a metal lever sticking out the side. Rose suddenly remembered noticing that the ground near one of the launch pads had been dug up. Nokia had built this thing out of some of the land mines.
Nokia’s lips were turning blue, but she answered. “Button . . . ten seconds. Lever . . . disarms.” She drew in a painful-sounding breath. “Take it.”
Rose took it, very gingerly. “We’ll put it to good use. I promise.”
Nokia looked at Rose and then at Martha, who was starting to cry. “Strange. We . . . should have . . . been . . . friends . . .”
She died. A cannon fired.
Martha started sobbing. Rose laid the bomb aside and, as gently as she could, pulled Martha away from Nokia’s corpse. Once they were clear, she let Martha collapse, and Rose just held her, murmuring comfort. A hovercraft appeared and took the body away.
“Not fair,” gasped Martha. “We should’ve been friends! It’s not fair!”
“No,” Rose agreed. “It’s not fair.”
She let Martha cry, letting the strain of the arena, of having to kill Rodrick, of witnessing Nokia’s death, work itself out. The younger girl finally cried herself to sleep, and Rose decided to let her rest. They were in a relatively sheltered area at the edge of the woods, and Rose could see the whole clearing without them being immediately noticeable themselves.
It was a few hours later when Martha awoke, and, without a word, she led Rose back to the spring, where they roasted the rabbit Rose had shot earlier and ate.
“What now?” she finally asked as they finished their meal.
Rose lifted Nokia’s bomb. “Well, Nokia made a present for the Careers,” she said. “I think we ought to deliver it.”
Chapter 7
Fandoms: Doctor Who/The Hunger Games fusion
Rating: Teen+ for violence
Pairings: Rose-Martha friendship; Jack/everyone
Characters: Rose, Martha, Ninth Doctor, Donna, Reinette (expy), Jack Harkness, Jackie Tyler, Mickey Smith, River Song, loads more; HG characters come in more in Part 2, but Cinna, Caesar Flickerman, Claudius Templesmith, Plutarch Heavensbee, Finnick Odair and President Snow appear in this part; OCs Nokia, Lace, Gem, Sulla and Livia.
Summary: Rose Tyler is chosen for the Hunger Games. Martha Jones volunteers to save her little sister. When they meet in the arena, something happens that will change the world.
Chapter 1: The Reaping
Chapter 2: The Capitol
Chapter 3: The Tributes
Chapter 4: The Arena
Chapter 5: The Ally
Under the cabin, Rose and Martha had the rare luxury of sleeping in. Rose’s leg finally woke her. It ached terribly, and Martha ducked out to get more willow bark. She also brought back a nice, big rabbit from one of her snares.
She seemed edgy, and Rose asked, “What is it?”
“It’s just about time for the Gamemakers’ deadly twist of the day,” Martha said. “It’s always coordinated with the time of the start of the Games.”
Of course it was. “I don’t know how I missed that,” said Rose.
Martha grinned at her. “I’m the brains of the outfit, remember?”
Rose was set to say something sassy back when a distant buzzing reached her ears. “What the hell is that?”
Martha’s eyes had gone wide. “Tracker jackers!”
“What? Get in the pond, then!” Martha made to help her, but Rose waved her off. “It’ll take me too long. Go!”
“No.” In a flash, Martha was outside kindling the fire. She piled on some green reeds to make it smoky, and then she withdrew under the cabin.
It was good thinking, Rose knew. The smoke and fire would, hopefully, block the deadly wasps from getting to them.
The buzzing grew louder and louder. Outside, it looked like a cloud was passing over the sun; that was how big the swarm was. The fire was doing its job, though; score another for Martha’s quick thinking. Not one tracker jacker got past it.
The buzzing faded into the distance, and Martha dared to venture out. “All clear,” she said.
Rose pulled herself out into the open, blinking at the daylight. “What fun they must have at the Games Center, thinking all of this up.”
Martha insisted on examining Rose’s leg before she put her pants back on. There were no obvious signs of infection, according to her, and the soreness would just take time to heal. She brewed up more willow bark tea, and Rose watched closely as she set up a spit for the rabbit. There was also a fish in Martha’s fish trap, and it cooked in the coals once the rabbit was done.
They ate, and Rose helped Martha repair her fish trap, an elegant little creation of reeds and grasses. Martha said they made them a lot in District 7 if there was a river or lake in the camp.
It was an education, hearing about life in Martha’s district. Because of the industry - lumber - there were few permanent towns. Instead, families were assigned to camps, nomadic settlements that periodically packed up and moved to a new location. Martha’s camp moved, on average, every three to four years. Her mother was the camp’s schoolteacher, and her father was a mechanic, helping to maintain the equipment for cutting down trees and the trucks that transported the lumber. He’d been a lumberjack, but losing a leg had put an end to that.
“Before the reaping, I promised Tish that she wouldn’t be chosen,” said Martha. “Leo had to take out tesserae for a while when Dad was injured, so we were all afraid for him. I couldn’t believe it when they called Tish’s name. I just . . . I couldn’t let this happen to her, you know?”
Rose nodded. “Yeah. I don’t have any siblings, but I can’t imagine letting my little sister be chosen if I could volunteer for her. What’s your brother like?”
“Leo? He’s great. His girl’s about to have a baby. Her parents won’t let her get married until she’s eighteen, but that’s just a month after the baby’s due. I can’t wait to find out if it’s a boy or a girl.” A shadow passed over Martha’s face. “I hope I find out.”
Rose didn’t know what to say to that, so she told Martha about life on the Factory side, about her mom and Mickey and friends and Old Man Henrick, about her dad’s death, about growing up never seeing the stars, and about the gangs she’d had to dodge or fight all her life. It was as foreign to Martha as the forests of District 7 were to Rose.
As the two of them constructed a fishing net, Martha asked, “What did you mean last night when you talked about upsetting the balance of the Career pack?”
Rose shrugged. “They’ve got a lot of egos in there. If we could make something go wrong for them, really wrong, they might just turn on each other.”
“I’ve spied on them a little,” Martha said. “They took all the stuff from the Cornucopia and put it inside one of the buildings in the industrial area. It’s big, made of concrete, and the doors are rusted shut. The only way in is where part of the wall collapsed. Someone’s always there to guard it.” She made another knot in the net with an ease that was eluding Rose. “It looks pretty impressive, but I watched Elton - that’s the boy from Six - sneak in and steal some things from them.”
Rose watched Martha’s clever fingers and tried to imitate her movements. “Suppose we could do something to their supplies. Ruin them somehow. How long do you think they could survive without all the food and weapons and stuff in there?”
Martha grinned. “It’d be interesting to find out. Have anything in mind?”
“I thought you were the brains of the operation,” Rose teased. Martha giggled. “Once my leg is a little better, we can make our way over there and maybe find a way. It’s better than just sitting around trying not to get killed, anyway.”
“How many of us are left, anyway?” Martha wondered aloud. “Both from One and Two, Nokia, the boy from Four - are there any left from Five?”
“Yeah, Rodrick,” said Rose. “Elton from Six, you said, and then you, me, Furrow and Scooti. That’s twelve, right? Have you seen any of them?”
“Scooti was up on the bluff, last time I saw her. There’s a lake up past the factory, and I think both Elton and Furrow are near it. I haven’t seen Rodrick at all, and I only saw Nokia once, near the Cornucopia.”
Rose wondered how she was getting along, also being from an industrial district. If she’d made it this far, though, she had to be tougher than she looked.
She only hoped this respite would last. The willow bark tea took the edge off the pain in her leg, but it still hurt. Rose wasn’t recovered from her blood loss, either. Martha kept pushing fluid on her, which was all very well and good until she had to pee. That was not easy at all with an injured leg, and Rose sincerely hoped the cameras were following something else.
The day went by peacefully enough, though, and Rose felt she was learning more just watching Martha than she could have in weeks with the wilderness trainers. The younger girl could move so quietly, and she knew how to cover her tracks and practically disappear without half trying to. Rose couldn’t wait to see how she dealt with the forest, if she was this good with mere tall grass.
Dinner was rabbit and more katniss roots, with berries for dessert. Rose decided she could get used to fresh meat and vegetables that hadn’t been pickled or canned. She and Martha snuggled up together for the night, and only then did Rose realize that it was the first day since the Games began that no one had died.
***
The next morning, a tornado ripped through the arena. Not a big one, fortunately, but it tore apart the nearby thicket and peppered the cabin with debris. Rose and Martha were underneath when it hit, Rose pinning Martha against the side of the root cellar and protecting her with her body. It sounded like one of the big trains that brought in ore and took out steel from the Factory side.
Afterward, Rose and Martha surveyed the damage. Much of the tall grass had been flattened by the wind, and Rose felt uncomfortably exposed.
“The good news is, they don’t seem to be deliberately trying to kill us,” Martha said.
“Yeah,” Rose agreed. “This is just to keep us all from getting too comfortable. Speaking of which, did you want to take another look at my leg?”
Martha directed her to sit on a wide, flat rock near the pond. “How does it feel?” she asked as she removed the bandage.
“It’s better. Doesn’t hurt as much.” Martha poked at it. “Ow. That does.”
“But the good news is that the swelling’s going down, and there are no signs of infection.” Martha looked almost smug. “Only problem is, we’re running low on sterile dressings. I hope-“
A silver parachute landed next to them, interrupting whatever Martha was going to say. Rose picked it up and looked inside the small case attached to it. Martha gave a squeal at what she saw.
“Do you know what those are?” She didn’t give Rose time to answer, but snatched the case out of her hands. “These are the kind of wound dressings they use at hospitals. You don’t need padding or even stitches, and they’re impregnated with antibiotics and healing agents.”
It didn’t look like anything except clear tape with a slightly squishy texture. Martha cleaned the area around Rose’s wound and applied the clear sheet, which immediately brought a cooling sensation.
“It’ll bond to your skin. Don’t pick at the edges!” Martha smacked Rose’s fingers away from it. “Completely waterproof and sweatproof, and it’ll seal out dirt and germs. Best of all, you don’t have to worry about popping the stitches now. Not that it’ll feel great if you try to do any tree climbing, of course.”
Rose looked at the wound dressing, and she understood that the Doctor was sending her a message. “In that case, I think we should move on from here.”
They gathered up their few belongings, and Martha said she knew where there was a spring in the woods. It would be a better place to rest than along the stream, so Rose agreed to go there.
First, though, she decided to do a little practice with the longbow. Martha used some charcoal to make a target on the side of the cabin, and Rose found a spot she thought was about the distance between the archery stand and the dummies from the gym. The bow was a little stiffer than the ones she’d used in the gym, and her first shot went astray. She refocused, and she managed to hit the target with each ensuing shot, and the bull’s-eye twice.
“I think you killed it,” said Martha. They collected the arrows and headed into the woods.
It was slow going. Rose watched Martha, how she moved and where she put her feet, and did her best to imitate her. Martha could move almost soundlessly through the woods. She stopped a few times to point things out to Rose, like ways to figure out what direction she was headed, or signs that game was nearby.
As educational as it was, though, Rose was done by mid-afternoon. Her leg ached, and she had no energy left.
“Why don’t you rest a bit?” Martha suggested. “The spring’s not too far from here. We can head there when you’re ready.”
Rose sat down with her back against a fallen log, grateful for the respite. “Thanks. You don’t have any more willow bark, do you?”
“No, but I know where to get some.” Martha pulled out her knife. “I won’t be long.”
She left, and Rose leaned back, closing her eyes. The woods were quiet, and she began to drift into a half-doze, just at the edge of sleep . . .
And a nightmare came crashing through the bushes. It was almost unrecognizable as a human, so covered with blood and dirt that the only clear features that stood out were two bulging eyes. It screamed, and it attacked.
Rose was completely unprepared. She forced herself to her feet, but the maddened tribute was on her before she could find her balance. A hot pain ripped through her injured leg, and she was being forced back and down against the log, trying desperately to keep those hands from her neck-
Thunk!
-her attacker buckled and fell to the ground with an axe in the back of his neck. Rose pushed him away and saw Martha a few feet away, horror in her face.
Rose’s brain caught up with the situation. Her attacker was Rodrick, his once-handsome features twisted with fear and hate and tracker jacker stings. He’d torn at his own flesh in agony and delirium in the day or so that had followed, and it was only Martha’s axe that had ended his torment.
Martha bent over, retching, as the cannon went off. Understanding, Rose went to Rodrick’s body and dislodged the axe. Then she closed his eyes and stepped away so the hovercraft could take him.
Rose cleaned the axe with some moss before going to Martha. She rubbed the younger girl’s back.
“It was the tracker jackers,” she said. “The stings drove him insane. There wasn’t anything you could’ve done for him except what you did.” She put the axe back into Martha’s belt. “There. Now I owe you another one.”
Martha took a few deep breaths. “Thanks, Rose. I don’t think we need to keep score, do we?”
“No. Not us.” Rose hugged her. “Let’s find that spring now, okay?”
The spring was situated in a good place, with enough foliage about it that it wasn’t immediately visible against a small bluff. Rose had left “exhausted” back at the scene of Rodrick’s death, and she took Martha up on her offer to keep watch while Rose napped.
When she awoke, Martha was sitting on a rock, staring into the bubbling spring. “Do you want to talk?” Rose asked.
“It just doesn’t make sense,” Martha said. “I want to be a healer. Why do I have to kill?” She wiped a tear away.
It didn’t make sense, and Rose knew nothing she could say would help. She tried anyway. “Sarah Jane - she’s one of the living victors from Nine, along with the Doctor and Donna - told me, before I left, to remember that what we do, we do to survive. I think I understand what she was trying to get across to me now. I understand why she took over the community home after she got back. And why the Doctor does what he does, and why Donna works at the community home, too.”
Martha looked at Rose with those too-wise-for-her-age eyes. “In other words, find something to keep you from hating yourself?”
“That’s about the size of it, yeah.” Rose squeezed her hand. “Let’s eat something, and then you need to rest.”
They took turns watching during the night. Neither slept well.
***
The next morning, they foraged for food. Martha chided Rose for not having an arrow on string while they walked through the woods. Martha herself always had her pistol bow loaded and ready. Rose obediently drew an arrow from her quiver and kept it on the string. Good thing, too; she managed to nail a rabbit a few minutes later.
It was also good that they were on high alert for the Gamemakers’ mid-morning terror, because the only warning they had was a sharp, high-pitched hiss. Suddenly, the trees were full of lizards with razor-sharp teeth. And they looked way too interested in Martha and Rose.
“This way!” shouted Martha, whipping around and setting off at a run. Rose trusted her sense of direction and followed.
Something landed on her backpack, and Rose knocked it off with her bow. She ignored the pain in her leg, instinctively understanding it would be a bad, bad thing to let these things get their teeth into her. She hit another one off of Martha as they ran.
The lizards kept up with them, leaping through the trees. One would occasionally leap for the girls, only to get batted aside. Rose didn’t want to know what would happen if they started getting more aggressive. The only thing she could do was to follow Martha, racing hard for the edge of the woods. Branches whipped across their faces, and Rose nearly turned her ankle on roots several times, but she kept running as hard as she could.
And then they burst out into the field with the Cornucopia. They both turned to look back at the woods, where the lizards clustered on branches and hissed angrily. One or two jumped to the ground, but they were clumsy there, easy to kick away.
As if there’d been some kind of signal - which Rose supposed there was - the lizards then melted away, retreating back where they’d come from.
Rose was on high alert for any other tributes, knowing that if she and Martha had been chased out of the woods, it was possible others had, too. Movement caught her eye, and she had her bow up and pointing at the small figure stumbling out of the woods before she processed that it was Nokia. The District 3 tribute seemed to be holding something.
Martha gasped, and Rose, knowing Nokia wasn’t a threat, not now, lowered her bow.
“Rose?” came Nokia’s voice, sounding faint and distant.
Martha moved first, but Rose wasn’t far behind as they both ran for the girl. By the time they reached her, she’d crumpled to the ground. Livid bites covered her exposed skin.
It was obvious, even to Rose, that Nokia wasn’t long for the world. Her face had gone gray, and she was having trouble breathing. Some kind of venom, then, perhaps not very strong, but, with the number of bites and Nokia’s emaciated body . . .
“I’ve got you,” said Martha, gathering Nokia up to lean back against her.
“Water,” Nokia wheezed. Martha gave her a drink from her canteen.
Rose touched the strange device she held in her hands. “What’s this?”
“I made,” Nokia began, and had to stop to breathe. “I made a . . . bomb. Thought . . . I’d blow up . . . the Careers. Don’t . . . think I can now.”
“You’re fine,” Martha said, sounding a little hysterical. “You’ll be fine. Just rest.”
“How do you use it?” Rose asked. It looked like two ceramic discs held together with a lot of wires, with a flat button on top and a metal lever sticking out the side. Rose suddenly remembered noticing that the ground near one of the launch pads had been dug up. Nokia had built this thing out of some of the land mines.
Nokia’s lips were turning blue, but she answered. “Button . . . ten seconds. Lever . . . disarms.” She drew in a painful-sounding breath. “Take it.”
Rose took it, very gingerly. “We’ll put it to good use. I promise.”
Nokia looked at Rose and then at Martha, who was starting to cry. “Strange. We . . . should have . . . been . . . friends . . .”
She died. A cannon fired.
Martha started sobbing. Rose laid the bomb aside and, as gently as she could, pulled Martha away from Nokia’s corpse. Once they were clear, she let Martha collapse, and Rose just held her, murmuring comfort. A hovercraft appeared and took the body away.
“Not fair,” gasped Martha. “We should’ve been friends! It’s not fair!”
“No,” Rose agreed. “It’s not fair.”
She let Martha cry, letting the strain of the arena, of having to kill Rodrick, of witnessing Nokia’s death, work itself out. The younger girl finally cried herself to sleep, and Rose decided to let her rest. They were in a relatively sheltered area at the edge of the woods, and Rose could see the whole clearing without them being immediately noticeable themselves.
It was a few hours later when Martha awoke, and, without a word, she led Rose back to the spring, where they roasted the rabbit Rose had shot earlier and ate.
“What now?” she finally asked as they finished their meal.
Rose lifted Nokia’s bomb. “Well, Nokia made a present for the Careers,” she said. “I think we ought to deliver it.”
Chapter 7