Chapter 43 : Stockpiling
The apothecary didn't ask questions when I bought out his bandage supply.
"Medical training," I said, counting coins onto his counter. "Never know when it might come in handy."
He nodded, wrapped the packages, and accepted payment without meeting my eyes. Everyone in District 12 knew what was coming. Everyone understood why a victor might want to stock up on supplies before being thrown back into the arena.
The bandages went into storage the moment I stepped outside—one touch, one thought, and they vanished into the space that existed somewhere between my mind and reality. Sixty-seven items now. Room for more.
I moved through the district like a ghost, touching and taking.
Preserved meat from the butcher. Rope from the mining supply store. Wire from the electrical depot—the same kind I'd stolen from maintenance panels before the first Games. Fire-starting materials. Water purification tablets. A small hand-ax that the tool merchant was happy to sell at triple price.
Each item expanded my arsenal. Each item pushed the limits of my storage space.
Sixty-eight. Seventy. Seventy-three.
The capacity was growing. I could feel it stretching, like a muscle exercised past its previous limits. Whatever this ability was, it responded to use. Responded to need.
I needed a lot right now.
Katniss found me at the fence line, sorting through a pile of potential supplies.
"You're obsessing."
"I'm preparing. There's a difference." I held up a coil of thin wire. "This could save our lives in the arena."
"So could rest. So could clear thinking." She sat beside me, bow across her knees. "When did you last sleep more than three hours?"
"Sleep is for people who aren't going back to fight twenty-three killers."
"Sleep is for everyone." Her hand found mine, stilled my sorting. "You won't help anyone if you collapse before we reach the Capitol."
She wasn't wrong. The past week had been a blur of acquisition and planning, my mind racing through scenarios while my body moved through District 12 gathering supplies. I'd eaten when Katniss reminded me, slept when exhaustion overwhelmed vigilance.
"I keep thinking about the first Games," I admitted. "How unprepared we were. How much we didn't know."
"We survived."
"Barely. Against children." I met her eyes. "This time, we're fighting people who've done exactly what we did. People who've survived for years. Decades, some of them."
"Then we prepare smarter, not just harder." She pulled me to my feet. "Come on. If you won't rest, at least train. Use some of that energy for something useful."
The woods beyond the fence became our training ground.
Katniss set up targets—improvised rings hung from branches, distances varying from close to ridiculous. She worked her bow with the focus of someone preparing for surgery, each arrow finding its mark with mechanical precision.
I practiced with knives.
The combat training from the first Games had been basic—enough to survive, not enough to dominate. Now I drilled the movements until they became reflexive. Throw, retrieve, throw again. Close quarters work—slash, block, counter. The motions burning into muscle memory.
"You fight like you expect to get hit," Katniss observed during a sparring session.
"I heal from hits. Might as well use that." I dodged her practice swing, countered with a controlled strike. "My style is 'absorb damage, keep coming.' Not elegant, but effective."
"It's reckless."
"It's honest." I stepped back, lowered my practice blade. "I'm not the fastest or the strongest. But I'm very hard to kill. Playing to your advantages is just good strategy."
She considered this, then nodded. "Show me the knife throw again. The spinning one."
We trained until the light faded, then trained more by touch and sound. My body ached in ways that felt productive. Every bruise was a lesson learned. Every sore muscle was preparation for what came next.
Seventy-seven items in storage. Three more knives I'd found in the woods, abandoned by hunters who'd never returned for them.
Haymitch disappeared for hours at a time.
He'd vanish in the morning, return at sunset, offer nothing but cryptic comments about "old friends" and "preparations." When I pressed for details, he deflected.
"The less you know, the less you can reveal."
"Reveal to who?"
"Anyone who asks the right questions the wrong way." His eyes were clearer than I'd ever seen them—barely touched by alcohol, sharp with purpose. "Trust me when I say it's better this way."
I didn't like it. But I recognized the pattern—someone playing a longer game, holding cards close. Haymitch had survived twenty-five years as a victor, navigating Capitol politics and Gamemaker whims. He knew things about how this world worked that I was only beginning to understand.
"Is it about the rebellion?"
He went still. "What do you know about rebellion?"
"I know the mockingjay symbol keeps appearing on walls. I know District 11 erupted after our tour speech. I know Snow is scared enough to throw victors back into the Games." I met his gaze. "Something is building. Has been building since before we won."
"You're perceptive." Not confirmation. Not denial. "But perception can be dangerous. The wrong word to the wrong person..."
"I'm not going to say anything to anyone."
"Good." He stood, headed for the door. "Keep preparing. Store whatever you can. And when the time comes to trust someone unexpected... trust them."
"Who?"
But he was already gone.
The weight of meta-knowledge pressed down on me at night.
I knew things. Things from a story I'd read in another life, details that might save us or doom us depending on how I used them. The clock arena. The alliance with Finnick. The rebellion's extraction plan.
But how much could I act on without exposing myself?
If I suggested the arena might be organized like a clock, how would I explain the insight? If I pushed too hard for certain alliances, would it seem suspicious? The balance between using what I knew and appearing to discover it naturally was impossible to maintain perfectly.
Some things I could guide. Suggesting Beetee and Wiress as allies was natural—their technical skills were public knowledge. Being open to Johanna Mason made sense given her obvious hatred of the Capitol. These were conclusions anyone might reach.
Other things had to unfold on their own.
I couldn't know about the rebellion's plan to extract tributes. Couldn't know which victors were secretly working against Snow. Had to let Haymitch's mysterious preparations remain mysterious, even when I suspected what they meant.
The hardest part was Rue.
I knew she'd survived the first Games because I'd intervened. Changed the story, saved her life. But I couldn't know if that change rippled forward—if the rebellion's plans accounted for a living Rue, if the extraction would include her.
Some things, you just had to hope.
I cooked dinner for Katniss on the fourteenth night before reaping.
Simple food—roasted rabbit from our hunt, vegetables from the garden I'd started behind my house, bread I'd learned to make from her family's recipe. Nothing fancy. Just sustenance, prepared with care.
She ate everything and asked for seconds.
"You've gotten better at this," she said around a mouthful.
"Practice." I refilled her plate. "Figured if I'm going to die, I might as well know how to cook first."
"Dark humor isn't actually humor."
"It's a coping mechanism. I cope darkly." But I smiled, and she smiled back, and for a moment the approaching horror felt distant.
Eighty-three items in storage now. Medical kits, weapons, tools, food. Everything I could touch, everything I could gather.
"What's your limit?" she asked, watching me add another coil of wire to my invisible inventory.
"I don't know yet. But I'm going to find out."
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