Catching Fire

As the 75th Hunger Games begins, Katniss is left reeling from Cinna’s assault, even though she knows that it “was staged to unhinge [her]” (267). Katniss sees that they are surrounded by seawater, and as soon as the starting gong sounds, she heads for the fighting at the Cornucopia, a weapons cache, to get a bow. She runs into Finnick, but instead of killing her, Finnick shows her “A solid-gold bangle patterned with flames” on his wrist, and Katniss knows it is a signal from Haymitch “[to] trust Finnick” (270). She accepts Finnick as her ally, and they gather Peeta and Mags and head for the jungle surrounding the water. Once they are a safe distance away from the Cornucopia, Katniss climbs a tree to see the other tributes still fighting there. Katniss scolds herself for thinking that “the victors’ chain of locked hands last night would result in some sort of universal truce in the arena” (276), and she considers killing Finnick now because she is sure he will turn against her and Peeta soon. Despite the heavy distrust between Finnick and Katniss, they continue on together. Peeta leads the way through the jungle by swinging his knife to cut back the underbrush.