"Clove, you know what Lyme said. Remember it."

Cato was never one to beat around the bush. His words cut sharply through the air, and his breath was visible in the dark dawn's light.

"I think you're underestimating me."

I replied, matching his tone and stepping onto my tiptoes to reach his eyes a little easier.

Speaking of which, the blue colour that they were happened to be dark today, somewhat filled with fear.

'Cato doesn't fear anything,' I reminded myself, 'at least that's what he says.'

"Oh, Little One," he started with the nickname he bestowed upon me years before that he knew grated on me, "I learned my lesson ten years ago; I'd sooner meet those knives of yours again than repeat my mistake."

He smirked his one-sided, knowing smile.

He was correct, of course. He has his scars - or had, thanks to the Capitol polish- and if they were left not even a centimetre to the right, he would not be standing with me as my ally in this arena.

Small, I may have been. Little One was perhaps a fitting nickname, but I described myself as small yet powerful.

Others, well, they didn't call me The Girl With the Knives for nothing.

"Same thing, really, I suppose." Cato continued, "But you could've been nicer when we first met."

"True," I admitted, "But how else would I have shut you up?"

He laughed at that, and I was positive that around 20 birds flew away from the racket he was creating. I turned away, shaking my head at him. I couldn't help the smile that was playing on my lips, and I also couldn't help savouring the way it felt.

There are few things to marvel at in this arena. Not all are good, either. Whether it's the way a knife can draw life from something so quickly, or the earthy smell of nature and blooming flowers…they fascinate you.

'Then you realise what you're doing,' I thought to myself. Correct again.

The way my knives shoot through the air is always something to look at, the pool of scarlet on the floor is what makes you look away. Then a cannon sounds and you're faced with what you just did. Took a life, a future, a family member and a friend all at once.

On the complete other side of the spectrum, fluttering your eyelashes open and letting them focus on the shadows that light creates in the forest can be incredible. Hearing a twig snap and expecting your immediate death is far from it.

Living in the arena is like…being in-between everything.

You're in-between certain death and unlikely life.

You're in-between being a monster and being yourself.

You're in-between familiar nature and cruel technology.

You're in-between 'reality' and a terrifying Reality.

I close my eyes tightly and this does something to clear the thoughts of the dead, even though I'm not sure how. Once I open them again, I breathe slowly and walk over to our small stack of supplies, and feel the absence of the smile that I wore not long ago.

"I'm not that funny, but I see why you'd laugh if you saw our supplies," I murmured.

Lyme sent us gifts at least every night, but we're always in need of more. It's good we have sponsors, yes, but Lyme can't seem to see that what we want and what we need are different things. Cato has probably 4 swords now, beautifully crafted, and they balance him perfectly. I have several daggers and blades, each of them seemingly getting sharper as the days go on. And bloodier.

What we really need is water that we don't have to purify with our dwindling iodine supply. Medicine that we can patch ourselves together with. Glimmer was good with handling the supplies, Peeta was perhaps better before he ran off. Leave it to Marvel and Cato to argue over the tiniest details; to destroy most of what we had left. Leave it to me to be pushed aside and injured because I was too small to stop it.

That particular night…that was one of the darkest so far. The morning after, one of the best.

With Glimmer gone days prior, there was just a definite gaping hole in our circle of allies. She may have been annoying at times, but she was a clever one. Knew just how to act to get all the sponsors; with a bat of the eyelashes she had Marvel and even Cato doing her bidding. Maybe cruel, she could have been described. She was with that aura whenever she smiled at another dead tribute.

Marvel was devastated she was gone. She was his district partner, I suppose, and there's some kind of bond when you know somebody before you're hunting them down and slitting their throats. All he wanted was a roll of bread, and Cato insisted -with edge in his voice, the kind I learned to recognise long ago- that we had to stop relying on sponsors. We had to hunt if we wanted to be fed.

Misguided minds, mistaken words.

They were at each other's throats, acting like dogs snapping at the other's neck. Cato blamed Marvel for the reason our pyramid of supplies was blown up. It was his idea to recruit District Three and his idea, after all. We had practically nothing left.

Marvel really got angry, then. I remember he clenched his fists and walked over to the smouldering scraps that we had salvaged. He destroyed it all. Declaring that the only way it was his fault, was if he had physically detonated them himself. Our small supply was the demonstration.

When I ran into the storm, I expected them to stop it. To just stop. It wasn't much to ask for, but it was too much to ask of them.

"Guys, just shut the hell up before there's another cannon! Worse yet, you're creating enough noise that you'll get us all killed." I was screaming at them, and begging. Out of us all, I was -incredibly- the least murderous member of the group.

Cato grabbed my shoulder and told me to move. Told me that I shouldn't be here or I was going to get hurt. Well, too late.

Marvel had a hand around my neck, cutting off the pleading wails I was making. His hands were bloody and dirty, and his nails were pressing in so hard with rage that I felt blood being drawn from my throat. I couldn't breathe, and I thought that my death was arriving that night.

I was crying, I wondered where Cato went. After everything, would he really leave me to die and run to save himself? Years of friendship seemed to have went out the window, and the abandonment and betrayal hurt worse than the fire in my windpipe.

Marvel wasn't doing this on purpose, it was highly unlikely of him. If he realised it was me he'd let go instantly. If I could reach my knives I'd make sure he'd remember. My sight was dimming, and everything was blurring together. It was sort of pretty, and it took the focus away from the pain.

I think he looked at me and briefly recognised who I was for a moment, because his grip loosened for a total of 3 seconds. I breathed and used all I had to call out for Cato; for somebody to save me. Marvel finally put me down, and I ended up collapsed on the floor searching for air. I felt the dull aching subside from my throat as soon as I discovered the knives in my jacket finding their way into my abdomen due to the way I had fallen.

I still couldn't see anything properly, I could only feel pain and the trickling of blood seeping from my wounds. I could also hear, and it seemed that somebody was screaming at Marvel. Marvel was yelling apologies to somebody, and I couldn't recognise if it was supposed to be me or someone else receiving them.

He sounded like a little boy, when really he was 17 years old and supposed to be acting like a man. The arena did things to people, though. I guess we are only children, no matter how many times we try to say we aren't.

Somebody collided into a tree, as I was gasping, and crying, and bleeding, and dying.

The more hysteric of the two voices continued to screech his sorrow, and in my state all I could think of was the sound of the birdsong that carried haunting screams and a pretty four-note whistle. They made for quite a lovely melody for the last song I would hear.

A deeper voice, more angry, banished the first voice. Told Marvel to leave and never come back. Slow steps turned into a run. The metallic clink of weapons being removed from their rests was around. Then, there was nothing.

Before I blacked out, a flicker of recognition crossed my mind when I was staring into bright blue eyes. There was that whistling again, a frantic whistling from the black birds with snowy patches. I didn't know why, though. I wasn't in danger any longer. Cato came back. He was the one that made Marvel put me down; he saved me.

When I woke up, it hurt to move. My sides were patched up with slightly-burnt bandages from the explosion. My knives were clean again, and back in their organised array instead of wedged inside my skin. Another parachute was a few metres to my right, and it had been opened quickly as far as I could tell from the way it was practically broken in half. More weapons. Less supplies.

Still, there was a feel of something rubbing against my skin and clothes, and it was some sort of gel. I supposed it was medicine of some kind, and that's when I realised my jacket wasn't with me, my shirt was rolled up a little way above my navel, and Cato was the one that tended to me.

I remember being embarrassed as I knew he had seen me when he was taking care of the knives. My throat was significantly better though, so I focused on the thought of being alive rather than the fact that Panem and my best friend had seen places I preferred to be , it was a little bit too quiet for my liking. Even the birds had stopped their incessant rendition of the four note whistle. Cato was sitting beside a small fire, just the right size for two people to share without the worry that smoke would reveal their location.

I could hardly stand, so I shuffled myself through the dirt and leaves that was the ground until I was next to him. He didn't seem surprised I was suddenly next to him, but I supposed he had heard me. Something didn't seem right. I thought that if he had heard me he'd turn around.

It was morning, I noticed. The dark night had passed. It took me a few seconds to realise why the mood was so tense. Why Cato was so broken. The Fallen would have lit up the sky while I had inevitably succumbed to unconsciousness.

"Marvel." I whispered, not knowing what else I could possibly say.

My voice was more hoarse than usual, which could be put down to the grip around my neck last night. Possibly the last marks he left on the world, and I wore them like a necklace.

"It was her, you know. Twelve." he muttered back, voice completely broken and tears behind his eyes.

"It would be, wouldn't it? Glimmer and now Marvel. It'll be one of us next, she'll be after us."

Cato looked at me, and I could feel his happiness I was okay beneath the sadness we were both close to drowning in.

"I'm not letting her take you away, I didn't let him do it, and I'm not letting her."

His gaze was intense, so I opted to look away and pay attention to the sunrise instead.

"I'm not letting you go, either." I started, then decided to change the subject, "Was there anyone else?"

"Eleven." Cato's voice was dead, and his eyes looked vacant.

"You mean the giant? Thresh?" I asked, surprised and almost glad. He could be vicious, and he didn't have to pretend to be.

"Eleven." He repeated, and I found the tears coming to my own eyes but I kept them hidden for the cameras.

"Rue, you mean…" I trailed off.

The youngest of the 74th tributes. Gone in a breath of wind, no more dreams to dream or songs to sing. It cut me worse than my own knives, the idea that the little girl I most hoped could find a way out of here was now unable to do so. I wanted Cato or myself to go home, obviously. Yet somehow it seemed fairer that we died so she could live.

There wasn't much else to say. What could we say? We just sort of devoted the time we had to feel the absence of the tributes passed. I kept on thinking of the little girl. If Marvel was killed by Twelve…by that Katniss girl…had she murdered the innocent Rue as well?

I felt so furious with the 'Girl on Fire'. She should've been killed when we had the chance to. It seemed it would have saved more lives than it took.

I recall that time blurred together then. I think I went for my knives and started aim practice, throwing them again and again and again.

I never missed.

It was calming me down, but I still felt that if Twelve showed her face I would only be satisfied if she received all of my best weapons at once.

Cato was stamping out the fire, and turned to me. He kept a fair distance from me, which I expected. It wouldn't end well if he stepped in front of my aim, I would look at him but not see him. He'd end up with a dagger in his heart, and another cannon would sound.

I was in one of those moments where you do all of your actions without being conscious you're doing them. I was staring dead ahead, lost in thought. I can't remember if I was crying or not, but I felt as empty as I did when Glimmer died.

Lost in my numbness, feeling like I was underwater but unable to drown, I couldn't hear anything. Not even the song of the birds that filled the previous night with their haunting calls.

It was only hours later that I realised Cato would have been trying to get my attention when I wasn't listening, but at that time he did something dangerous. Especially as I still had my knives at hand, and was throwing them at everything that moved and didn't move.

Something jabbed underneath my ribs, and in a flash I turned around and let a particularly cruel blade sail through the air and stick in a tree with a pleasing noise which signalled I had reached my target.

"Cato, what the hell just touch-" I started, then my voice quickly faded into silence.

Looking strangely sheepish, his tall shadow appeared behind the base of the tree and then Cato emerged shortly after. His once-blonde hair was now caked in mud from our previous weak attempts at camouflage, but it was still painfully obvious that he was (shockingly) not part of the tree.

Something was twinkling though, and I guessed that his eyes were once again lit up with mischief, and judging by the crinkling around his temple, he was on the brink of laughter.

I narrowed my eyes as his raucous voice cut through the air, in several bursts of what could only be described as a giggle.

"So now you listen, Little One," he finally managed, "I'm sorry I had to go to such extreme measures but when you're murderous I really can't make you listen."

My fist clenched around a knife, and I began throwing again. This time I was careful to listen as I imagined a nearby fallen branch to be Cato. We may be close, but sometimes you can be closer to killing the ones you hold dear than loving them.

After several moments of torturous silence, I knew that he was keeping me in the dark purposely to annoy me.

"Say what you wanted to say, then." I muttered, hoisting myself up into a tree to collect the morning's usual round of parachutes.

"Nah, I prefer to get revenge for myself nearly getting killed for snapping you out of your trance."

"Ugh," I said to myself quietly, beginning to untie the parachute and cutting stubborn strands, "Why don't you tell me what touched me, then? It was hardly you, you can't run faster than I can throw."

Cato called up to me, resting against the trunk.

"Well…let's just say I've gotten better at knot-tying. There are a lot of branches down here too. Some might say they're perfect for making a pointy stick."

Retrieving the first pieces of food we had gotten from Lyme for perhaps a week, I swung my legs over the branch and hung upside down like I once did when I was little. I took joy in holding the food higher than even Cato could reach, and began to tear into fine, hearty bread.

"Others may call a pointy stick the reason for the death of District 2's male tribute. Such a tragedy." I smiled into my bread, voice muffled as I chewed.

Back in District 2, I quite liked the idea of being flexible. It would help in a lot of certain incidences, and made knife-throwing look even more like an art than it already was. Besides, there's a certain beauty to being able to annoy Cato by avoiding every hit he tries to make.

I neatly completed a back flip from my branch and landed on one that was slightly lower down and closer to my district partner. Liking the way the blood flowed to my head, I dropped upside-down again.

"Yeah, well. We need to go hunting today." Cato said, stepping away from the trunk and slightly nearer to me and my perch.

"But Lyme sent us food just now. See?" I signalled to the bread I was eating, and the various other ingredients of a picnic basket she had given us.

"Not that kind of hunt." Was all he replied.

Suddenly the bread wasn't very appetising. Of course, tribute hunting. I figured we weren't doing that anymore as we had lost most of our valuable pack. Even Marina of District Four had been useful for a time, though she never said much.

"We have to make it count, then." I swallowed, my target in mind.

"Flame Girl."

"I concur."

"For Marvel."

"For Glimmer."

"For Marina."

"For us." I concluded.

There was the matter of small, young Rue. Without evidence, I couldn't say that she had killed Rue as well. She seemed so ruthless, maybe she had.

"For Rue?" I started again, my statement much more like a question.

"For Rue…" He agreed, seemingly conflicted, "but not because Twelve killed her."

There. Now I had my answer. Now my blood ran cold.

"Marvel did?"

"He did." Cato murmured, pinching the bridge of his nose.

I had so many questions, my curiosity bubbled inside me and it would only stop if I received my answers. Naturally, I sought these answers from the one that seemed to know everything.

"You seem to understand a lot of these events. Is this what you were trying to tell me?" I asked, trying to draw the response out of him while also fulfilling the need to understand what he was holding from me previously.

"It's not exactly what I'm refusing to tell you…yet. It happened around the same time, though. You were out cold, so I figured I'd get you looked after and head off to find Marvel to stop him from doing anything stupid. I thought maybe I could convince him to stay, it'd be safer for us all anyway if we kept our group going." Cato began his account of the events.

He paused for a moment, which was a moment too long. I threw a roll of bread at his face and he caught it with perfect reflexes. In between bites, he continued to tell me.

"So, you know how easy he is to track. We're both heavy-footed, but he was carrying too much and it was too obvious where he had went. I was running, and I thought I could catch up to him in time."

"And?" I prompted.

"And I nearly did. There was this frustratingly urgent whistling that was all I could hear an-"

"I know the one. Four notes, right?" I interrupted, curious.

"Uh, yes. Anyway, stop interrupting."

I mimed zipping my lips and sat up straight for a little while, swinging my legs backwards and forwards.

"So I followed the whistling, and then I realised that the whistling track was the same as Marvel's track. They were going to the same place. Next, I think I heard Rue. This little, musical voice was screaming and wouldn't stop. She was screaming 'Katniss' over and over, so I started running to see what was going on. Thought I could get rid of Twelve once and for all. I nearly ran out of the trees, but then somebody yelled 'Rue' in return and I stayed put. She ran straight past me, with Glimmer's bow. I guess she blew up our supplies and not that annoying little Byte-" he referenced the District Three boy I had barely known and seen murdered the day before, "-and she just kept on running. Then she stopped and had an arrow at hand in seconds. She got Marvel in the neck, right after he threw his spear and got Rue."

"They were allies…" I whispered, not wanting to interrupt again.

"I was about to go to Marvel, but his cannon went off. Then I figured I could get Twelve but I had no weapon. I just turned around, to try and find you again. If you were awake I know you wouldn't miss. As I was coming back, I didn't hear the whistle again for a while. Just this song. It wouldn't stop, it just kept on going like a lullaby until another cannon sounded."

I couldn't say anything to his tale. It's just one of those things in the arena that you have to accept and deal with. I simply sighed a deep, pained sigh and rested against the tree. I was finished with my bread so started on an apple. Everything was silent except for the crunching of the fruit as I bit into it.

"There's more, you know." Cato said, voice slightly broken.

"How can there possibly be?" I asked, amazed at all the entertainment the Capitol would have had last night.

"It's simply the matter of what I've not been telling you." I looked down, and there he was, smirking as he lay at the base of the tree.

Too heavy to balance in the trees like myself, he couldn't climb two feet without falling. As he teased me with his knowledge of information I did not know, I teased him with my ability to hang on branches like he would never be able to. I dropped down to another branch, just the right height for me to meet his eyes upside-down if he was at his full height.

"So why don't you tell me, Cato? I thought we were friends after all."

"Foolish mistake to make in the Games, Little One. Let's see, I think I can vaguely remember after all this time ignoring this gem of information." He tormented me again.

Figuring I would be bored for a while at the rate he was going, I once again swung around so I saw the world in the complete opposite way it was intended.

"Hmm. To do the accent or not?" He smiled, pacing as he spoke.

"An announcement?" I raised my eyebrow, or rather, lowered it as it would look considering my being topsy-turvy.

"I believe so. How did it go again, Little One?"

"I wouldn't know, being unconscious and dying and all that fun."

"Well. I recall I was walking back, and still without a weapon thanks to my stupidity. There was smoke, but I couldn't exactly pursue it if I couldn't kill anyone. Then came the lovely voice of Claudius Templesmith."

I sighed, wishing with all my heart that he would get to the point.

A

He stopped his pacing and turned around to face me, before continuing his tale.

"So our announcer congratulates the six of us still alive. Us, Five, Thresh and miraculously, Twenty Four."

"Twenty Four?"

"Twenty Four. Twelve and Twelve. Lover Boy and Flame Girl."

"I see, please continue."

"Claudius then graces the arena with the news of a rule change."

I spit the piece of apple I am chewing out of my mouth, and I know my eyes are wide and my lips are apart in what can only be described as the utmost surprised facial expression.

Cato starts to slowly step towards me, smirking at my stupid face.

"And our rule change…well, that's one heck of a twist." he starts his accent, which makes me laugh uncontrollably, "Both tributes from the same district will be declared winners if they are the last two alive."

I still haven't stopped laughing, and it is only as he is right before me, mouth so close to my ear that it tickles when I feel his breath, that I understand what he said.

"Clove?"

"Yes?" I manage to utter, pale-faced and without competent thought.

"We can go home."

And it is in that instant, upside-down, apple lying forgotten on the ground below; that instant when the lonely 'one can go home' becomes 'we can go home', that I lose all feeling entirely and feel the tears pouring down my face. That moment when I forget everything about appearance before the cameras, all the deaths I have caused, every single thing wrong with the Games.

That moment, when all I can think of is my family back home, my friends at the academy. That moment when I remember the times with this boy before me, when we were too young to understand and we fought in our backyards with wooden swords that drew no blood, when I successfully hit my first target with a knife and he was there. That moment when I think of everything my life has been.

That moment when every single thing I thought had been stripped from me was given back in just four words.

Well, I can't help it.

I fell from my tree and tackled Cato with so much force, he nearly fell himself. I was crying and screaming with joy and smiling so much I thought I would be unable to frown again.

I hugged him tightly, like I was hugging my parents or my brother. I was hugging my friends and feeling them close again. It was like I was back home in District 2 again, feeling the safety and the earthy smell of the woods. I found all of this in Cato, I was embracing my best friend, my family, my friends and above all; my life.

"We can go home."