Katniss wakes from brutal tracker jacker nightmares and slowly realizes the venom has finally left her system. Weak, dehydrated, and aching from burns, cuts, bruises, and stings, Katniss tries to judge how much time has passed and who may have survived the attack. Katniss thinks Peeta may have saved her while she was delirious, but Katniss cannot tell whether that was real, why Peeta was with the Careers, or whether Peeta’s actions were strategy or genuine concern. Still, Glimmer’s bow and arrows restore Katniss’s confidence, and Katniss begins to see herself as a hunter again rather than only prey.

Knowing Katniss needs water and food to recover, Katniss treats her burns, leaves the area of the tracker jacker attack, and moves carefully through the woods. Katniss quickly kills a rabbit, finds a stream, purifies water, washes soot and blood from her body, cleans her clothes, and eats enough to regain some strength. After cleaning her weapons, Katniss follows the stream uphill, kills a wild bird, and decides to risk a small fire at dusk so Katniss can cook the meat before nightfall.

Rue appears near the fire, and Katniss immediately invites Rue into an alliance, thanking Rue for saving her from the tracker jackers. Rue accepts food and offers something equally valuable: leaves from District 11 that can draw out tracker jacker poison. Rue chews the leaves and applies them to Katniss’s stings, giving Katniss instant relief, while Katniss uses burn medicine on Rue’s injured arm. As they eat, Katniss shares meat generously, and the two girls talk about conditions in District 11, where people are whipped for eating crops and even a harmless boy was killed for stealing night-vision glasses.

Katniss and Rue compare supplies, divide food so each can survive if separated, and discuss Rue’s scavenged equipment. Rue identifies Katniss’s odd glasses as tools for seeing in total darkness, and Katniss gives Rue matches while Rue gives Katniss extra healing leaves. They climb into a tree together for the night, and Katniss offers Rue space in her sleeping bag, deepening the trust between them.

During the anthem, Rue quietly tells Katniss that Katniss was unconscious for two days, the girls from Districts 1 and 4 are dead, and ten tributes remain. Rue also reveals that Peeta is no longer with the Careers, which supports the idea that Peeta may really have helped Katniss. After testing the glasses and seeing clearly in the dark, Katniss recognizes a weakness in the Careers: they depend on the large supply stockpile at their lakeside camp. That realization gives Katniss her first true offensive strategy, and Katniss decides that she and Rue must destroy the Careers’ food.