"GOT HIM!"
Marvel grabs our target and pins the boy to the ground. I run into the clearing, panting. We've been chasing the kid for nearly an hour; gotta give him credit, he's damn sneaky.
Cato (always the one to make a dramatic entrance) steps into the clearing behind me, walking slowly and looking like he barely broke a sweat. Which he did. But not the point.
"Well, well," he says, chuckling darkly. "You're a fast little thing, aren't you?" The boy struggles under Marvel's grasp. Cato laughs again, kicking him hard in the ribs. "And scrawny, too." He nods to Marvel. "Kill him."
As Marvel draws his spear, I catch a glimpse of the boys face: pure fear. Nothing I'm new to, but… something's chilling about this. He looks so young, barely thirteen, probably. Other than the girl from Eleven, he's the youngest in here.
And something about this makes me not want to see him die.
"Wait!" I call. Marvel was millimeters from stabbing him, and appears disappointed at the order to stop. Cato looks at me exasperatedly, obviously not trusting my judgment. Surprise, surprise.
"Clove," he starts, "this is not the time to-"
I glare icily at him, something that would scare most but simply makes Cato quiet so he can avoid a time- and energy-costing fight. I walk to the boy on the ground and push Marvel aside. The boy is far too scared and confused to notice his momentary freedom, and I place my foot hard on his chest, pinning him down.
"What's your name?" I ask, trying to sound as threatening as possible.
He swallows hard. "G-Gasket."
"District Three?"
"Yeah."
I smirk, trying to appear confident. "Well, Gasket of Three, give me one reason it would be useful to us to keep you alive."
"S-sorry?"
"What can you do for us that would be worth keeping you in the Games?"
He pauses. Please think of something, I think. Because I can't kill you.
He finally speaks. "I can do stuff with technology. Like, bombs and stuff."
All of us perk up. "Could you rewire the landmines?" asks Marvel. It's an idea we've been talking about for a long time, ever since Glimmer brought it up (she was anything but a "dumb blonde"), but none of us have had enough knowledge to do anything with the idea. If we had those in our arsenal, one of us would win for sure.
Gasket thinks for a moment. "Sure, I think so. It'd need some real good power to start it and possibly some new wires for the circuit breaker, but I could probably do it in a few days."
Cato smiles, a creepy, insane, evil smile that appears quite scarily when we least expect it. "Well then," he says, reaching down to help the boy up. "Welcome to the Careers, Gasket of Three."
