Chapter 7 of Rebel or Madge?

A/N: Unedited. Thanks miriamjelder for following the story!
Yay! I got an extra three days to my Christmas break so I decided probably on the last day of snow days they're gonna give us, that I would write Chapter 7 and maybe start something of my own! Yay!
So shall we get on with the story? I think so!
As always…review (pretty please with a cherry on top and a kiss from whoever you like), favorite me or the story, and/or follow! Enjoy!

The night air is chilly and the wind beats across the left side of my cheek, like a slap to the face. I now see what the Engineer/Dad look-a-like was talking about, District 10's Peacekeepers are everywhere along the fence and the train station. Guess they aren't gonna let us explore, too bad I kind of need a break from all this drama.

The Engineer's comment keeps swirling inside my head. Who can't find who he is? Is it me? Is he my dad? It would explain the reason he's has been acting weird around me and only to me. No, it can't be, my father, Marcus Hawthorne, is dead. The body was never found. But…Katniss' dad…wasn't his name Nathan? God I'm confusing myself. They're both dead and I have to accept it. Am I really that desperate to have a father figure in tact? No, I'm Gale Hawthorne and I do not need anyone to baby me, or even care for me.

I tip my head towards the Peacekeepers and only one does it back to me. I can see the fiery red hair peek out of his helmet, a strand falling out of his helmet. He reminds me of Darius, but Darius' hair is a more ginger/more natural hair color.

I wrap my feeble coat closer around my body. The wind whips hard against me until my body is shivering. I keep a close eye on the Peacekeepers and vice versa. The wind picks up and the smell rushes to my head, feeling me with the sense of the woods outside the fence. I stumble, almost falling. I crouch low the ground to escape some of the harsh, vicious winds. I bury my nose into the collar of my coat to keep from sneezing.

A Peacekeeper steps out of line and walks slowly towards me, like I'm his prey. When he's within 20 feet of me, he holds out his hands in surrender. I still don't trust him. He isn't from District 12 so I don't know how he works, how any of them works. It's like starting a new job and not knowing what button does what.

"Why don't you go back inside so you don't get a cold? The winds are harsh tonight and I noticed it almost blew you over. I can help you in if you want?" It's the red-headed Peacekeeper, but I could have sworn he was behind me now, maybe a twin?

"No thank you, I would like to stay out a little while longer, if I may?" I'm not quite sure if he was politely telling there's a curfew and I was disobeying it, or he was just trying to help me, or even maybe trying to not have to yell at me and drag me to the train.

"Ok, if you need help getting back without the wind knocking you over, you can count on me or my brother down there." He points off into the distance behind me and I nod.

"I believe we exchanged gestures earlier this evening." I respond quietly. I plop down on the cold grass and tug the sweater under my jacket closer. I shiver again, but I don't want to back on the train, not ever. An idea rings through my mind that this can be practice for the games. No one has to know about it, just me.

My mind drifts off to the Engineer again. It was strange how he stared at me when I was changing. It doesn't help that I wasn't fully dressed and the way he took me in with his eyes scared me a little, like he wanted to devour every part of me because he didn't know when he would see me again or what the future would hold. Finnick Odair pops into my thoughts too. How he's pretty much a slave to the Capitol and a Prostitute. If – no when – I win the games I don't want to end up like him and have sex with random people who, like the Engineer, look at me with a strange desire to devour me whole and never let me leave.

I'm not afraid of most things, but the single thought of being devoured with their eyes and having to please their every request, kind of scares me until no end. My future isn't like a book, already written out and waiting for you to turn to the next page or chapter. No, I'm future is like a black hole, waiting to devour me whole (saying that I die in the Hunger Games), or going to push me through a whirlwind and parts of insanity to the other side, to another dimension (saying I win, and maybe it's not so bad after all).

I don't know how long I have sat here, or what time I got out here, but the sunrise is peaking over the horizon. The horizon is a golden orange color and it is magnificent. I stare it until there's a hand around my bicep, pulling off the ground. It's the Peacekeeper who talked to me last night. "It's time for you to go inside, shift change and we're not allowed to have any tributes outside during this time. I will escort you back to the train."

"Why can't I be outside during shift change?"

"Because it could take up to 5 minutes for all of us to fully get into position. I shouldn't be telling you this, but it's true. Now get in your bed and go to sleep, 12."

I hesitate before questioning, "How did you know I'm from District 12?"

"Well the fact that the only person to come out last night, you, came from the end of the train, indicating that you're from 12." He answers honestly.

I shuffle through the room cart and hardly relies there's someone sitting on my bed until my back smacks into their knee. I jump a foot into the air, the sleep being knocked right out of me. It's Aubrey. Oh thank god!

"Good morning?" she says startled.

"It isn't good morning until I wake up, and I have not slept since_"

"Since leaving 12?" she answers for me.

"No, since like midnight for something that." She rolls her eyes at me and shakes her head.

"Then clearly, dumbass, that you were up at least a second pasted midnight making it morning." It's my turn to roll my eyes then.

"If it's still dark out, it's still nighttime."

"Stubborn, aren't you."

"Look, Aubrey, I'm not picking a fight with you. If you want that, then go throw a spoon at Effie's head and then there's your fight." I climb under the cold, wrinkled covers in attempt to get some sleep tonight when she shakes me shoulder annoyingly.

"What?" I scream at her, I'm absolutely livid.

"I want to talk about the game?"

"Wh-what about the game? I don't want to talk about it?"

"Well at least can you tell me what Thom said to you?" she grasps my hand tightly, like her life depends on it.

"He told me good luck, that's all." There's no way in hell I'm telling her what he said to me.

"He told me goodbye, like goodbye goodbye, so that means he didn't just tell you good luck. Now what did he tell you?"

"It's none of your business what he said to me. It's my knowledge and only meant for me!" Anger boils in my stomach.

"He told you to kill me, didn't he? You can come clean, I understand. I was never gonna win in the first place. That's why I came to you…"

"He told me to kick your ass. Why did you come to me, what for?"

"I'm not asking for an alliance, but I don't want to die by someone I don't know, I want you to do it. I want to know that you will make it fast and easy. I don't care when in the games, but you have to do it. I trust you."

What the hell? No way I'm gonna carry the burden of her death on me, especially if I have to kill her!

"No! No! No! No way!"

"Don't think of it as killing, think of it as doing me a favor."

"No, I couldn't…I couldn't possibly. Never…no…" I can't even form proper sentences.

"Think about it, I'm only one more person in your way of coming home. Just…think about it."

My breathing hitches. God I haven't had a panic attack since I was 15. Why now? Why is she pressuring me to kill her? Why can't I just do it? I don't even like her? No, I'm not a murderer…yet.

"Get some sleep, I'll tell Effie and Haymitch that you aren't hungry and if that doesn't work then I'll tell them you want some time to process everything. Would you like me to bring you back some food?" I shake my head.

When she finally leaves, I curl into a ball and squeeze my eyes shut. I will not panic. I will not panic here. I will not cry. Not here, not ever. I'm not a little kid anymore, I can't do that anymore. Grow up, Hawthorne! Stop being such a little kid!

They have decided to have our training sessions here, in District 10. Apparently it wasn't just my little game with the electrically wires that set the train from running. It appears to be a bigger problem than the Capitol workers can handle, they're calling backup from District 3.

The trainers have just arrived and a crew came along with them. The camera crew is setting up cameras and sound devices to watch and capture our every move. Later this evening, the data captured throughout the day will be sent to the Gamemakers headquarters for them the analyze and review our work through the day.

The head trainer, Atala, explains every station to us. And she goes over the rules of saving the fighting for the arena. If anyone breaks into a fight there will be consequences for our action, such as being kick out of the training center (more like training meadow) for the rest of the day, sitting for 15 minutes, or being handcuffed to a District 10 Peacekeeper for 2 hours while still training and one of them has to be hand to hand combat. So pretty on the last one, they're setting us up to fail.

"Dismissed!" Atala yells and walks towards the train. She sits with her bottom on the open threshold of one of the train cars. I scan over the Victors sitting on the thresholds of the train. I see Haymitch and Effie sitting in District 12's dining cart. At least Haymitch is holding his promise tight not to get drunk. He nods towards me and I know he wants me to go to hand to hand combat. When I look I see some of the Careers are there. I don't want to get mixed up with them.

I look back at Haymitch, he nods again. He knows I'm good at hand to hand combat from being in to many fights. He told me to stay away from the bow and arrows, and knives for the day. He said maybe on the third day of training, just to pick up the skill with a different bow and different knives.

I stride over the station. The Careers' eye my frame up and down with a threaten look. I try not to cover my body with my arms to hide the skinny frame and thin bones from their sights. Instead I busy myself with looking at the trainer and demanding them to show us something or let's start fighting now, that they are wasting my time.

One of the Careers decide to speak up, "I don't remember inviting you." He uses as much malice on the last word as possible. Useless for him, and he sounds stupid saying it that way, like he's trying too hard to be scary.

"I'm sorry; I didn't realize I needed an invitation. Too bad I don't care." I let it come out breathy, like it's just a waste of time for me to say it. He growls at me like an animal and quite frankly I don't care. They aren't as scary as they always seem to be, but maybe it's because this one's trying too hard.

"Ok," the trainer claps his hands, and then rubs them together. He sizes us up and I wonder briefly if he's gonna pair us off and teach us that way. That's until his eyes linger on me and he seems to not know what to do with me. There's an even number of us so he could just be my partner and go easy on me. He seems to be puzzled on what to do and now the Careers are laughing at me. I don't pay them any attention.

"I want him." I state and point to the biggest, rudest person I know. He laughs harder at me. Anger boils within me, and I have the slightest bit of doubt that I can't beat him.

"Sure, why not." He says and sneers at me. He knows I can't beat him. But I can, I will beat him. "Trying to prove something 12, or do you really have no dignity and are willing to make 12 look like a fool that they are?"

I finally look from the trainer to him, "You think you're all big and macho and I'm tiny and fragile, well let's just see who can beat the other first. Shall we?" I smirk before adding in a voice that I would mock a baby with, "Or are you too scared a tiny little guy is gonna beat your ass?"

He moves towards my end of the train. "Let's go!" he stomps the rest of the way there. I stand my ground with a lazy posture.

"What…too afraid to be beaten in front of your mentors, big boy?"

He spins around and points his beefy finger in the general direction of my face. "You just wish you could beat me." Now he is in front of me with his hairy, beefy finger on my chest. His mentors are a few feet to our right, a couple of yards behind me.

"I'll say this one last time, so listen up, we'll just have to see."

We both stalk over to where my train carts are and his mentors follow close behind me. I can hear the other District 1 and 2 mentors inside the train jump off and follow. Haymitch stands up and claps me on the back. The Trainer from the combat station has left a Peacekeeper in charge of his station so he could monitor our battle.

The camera crew moves cameras down before us in 4 different places. District 2 cracks his knuckles and I visually flinch. He sees and does it again. I cross my arms over my chest waiting for him to hurry up his macho warm up so we can get started.

He comes within 5 feet of me. His stance is determined and poised to start. I stand with my hands at me sides and wink at him. My stance is not poised at all, but lazily standing there. He grunts in attempt to tell me to get into stance.

"What? Are we wrestling? I'm ready, let's go!"

"Oh your mark, get set, go!" the trainer yells.

District 2 lunges at me, but I dodge and spin around, my fist up by my face, ready to strike. He stands there analyzing me, planning his next hit. I can see he is gonna go left, to force me to pull my right arm across my body to hit him, giving him seconds to hit me first and do some damage to me. He doesn't know I'm left-handed, he just assumes I'm right-handed like most of the world. He lunges towards my left and halfway through my left fist strikes his cheek. The only downfall is my fist has to carry his body over to the right before he topples over. To speed the process up I balance on my right side and use my left foot to kick his side so his downfall is faster, but his recovery is slower. Good for me (gives me time to plan my next attack or to decide to keep deflecting his to show I won't make the first move, only respond to his attempts at attack), bad for him (I can attack faster than him).

His hand clutches his side for a second before scrambling up, or struggling too. My left foot hits him square in the chest, sure to knock the air out of him. This time I let him recovery, in a real life situation I would have made a run for it but not today. He gets up, anger evident in his eyes. Well he is being beaten by District 12 after all. District 4's mentors and Victors make their way over to us to watch. Ya know, Careers got to explore the outer District's ability.

He lunges again and I do a back flip away from him. My feet barely plant on the ground before he swings his foot under mine, causing me to fall backwards. Not today kid! I do a 360 circular flip and land solidly on my feet. District 2 growls at me and I hear clapping in the background. Most Victors and Mentors have approving looks on their tired faces. Haymitch is beaming and clapping as well. I spend too much time look at them clapping to notice him move towards me. His hands land squarely on my chest and shoving me with all his might. I fly a few feet behind me and land on my back. He jumps on top of me, our breathing mingles in a hot frenzy of domination. We flip over and over again on the ground, fighting for the dominance of overpowering the other. I get it first and I raise my fist and slam it into his nose, there's gonna be a nice bruise there tomorrow. Meanwhile he slams his fist into my stomach hard enough to make my body fly into a stand position. Now I have control. I crash my foot into his stomach and then I pin his feet down with mine so he can't kick me and grab his shirt and yank him to his feet. Fire reflects in both our eyes. We are both out to win and I will not give up until I win.

I push him back a few feet and he stumbles. I back up 10 feet, putting 13 feet in between us. Not much distance, if we reach out our fingers would cross each other's.

"Let's make this interesting. Let's back up 50 feet, leaving only that much in-between us and lets run at each other and see what happens…up for it?" it's not very interesting but I know exactly what do to, I just have to make him come at me first.

"Sure, but let's change cardinal points." I move 25 degrees to my left, he does the same. I now face the crowd of Victors. They're all waiting to see what I have planned. I nod to the boy I'm fighting and he nods to me. He wastes no time running at me. He thinks he has the element of surprise…he doesn't. I run towards him at full speed like he is doing to me. I hear someone whisper that we're gonna knock each other out. When I'm within an arm's length away from him I grab onto his shoulder and push off the ground on the balls of my feet. My body suspends into the air and I push off his shoulders in a 120 degree angle. I curl my torso up to my knee and go tumbling through the arm like tumbleweeds do in the desert. I flatten out at the right moment so I won't hit the train. Victors move fast out of my way, their afraid I'm gonna hit them. When my legs are pointed to the ground I move my arms above my head to force myself to the ground. I land in a crouch. Another round of applause waves through.

District 2 has his mouth hanging open. He recoveries soon after and comes running at me. I can't move out of the way fast enough. He grabs my elbow and condemns me to the side of the train. He's heavier than me so I'm pined there. Everyone probably thinks it's over, he has me. I wrap my legs around his waist and consider my options. I could head butt him but it might completely fail and I look like a complete idiot, or I shove my legs between him and me and push him off me.

I decide the latter may work better and I would look less like a fool. Since when am I trying to impress these people? Am I looking for allies? Well I can tell you now, there's no way I'm allying with the Careers. That's just asking to die. Hmm, maybe Aubrey should join them.

Once my legs get in-between us, I push up higher on the train. He pushes my bent legs under me more. My ankles feel like the muscles are gonna rip right off of the bone and my knees can't go under me that far at that angle.

At the last possible second before I'm going to be pretty much standing up against his chest I push with as much strength I can find in my legs. He goes airborne and I land hard on my back. I hear a pop and know my shoulder may or may not be in the joint right. When I put my hands by my ears and push with them, making my body do some sort of handstand and fling my legs out to land in a standing position with my knees to some extent bent. The pain that rips through my right shoulder is almost unbearable and I have to shake my arm out a little, which only causes more pain. He stands in front of me again and I swing my arm and sucker punch him in the side of his head and he goes down. He's out like a light and I lean against the train trying to catch my breath. I eye his body for a minute to make sure he doesn't get back up and that this isn't a fluke.

It isn't.

Medics come over to us both. They haul him to a table to examine the damage I've done and they rotate my shoulder to see if it's ok. It is. They said I just pull the muscle wrong and it should be okay before the games. I sigh in relief. At least I won't be going into the arena with an injury.

Victors pat me on the back and say good job. One Victor lingers behind the rest. My back is to him, but I know he's there. He grabs my good shoulder and spins me around.

It's Finnick Odair.

"How did you do that?" he demands.

"How did I do what exactly?" I question him.

"What you just did. It's nearly impossible without the right strength, ability, and practice. And District 12 of all places can do it!" he throws his hands up in the air and rolls his sea green eyes.

Bile rises in the throat and I feel suffocated, "I just took a chance. Clearly it worked out." I'm not gonna tell him I know a few things here and there from watching my dad train with the British Army and my own experience with simple Martial Arts when my dad said it might come in handy one day. Other than that I was a good gymnast, world champion in my age group. I had to something with my free time in Clock City, Royal Establishment.

"That," he shoves a finger towards the field I was moments ago fighting in, "isn't chance. That is skill that takes time to prefect. There was no way in God's great earth you did that by chance!" He spits in my face.

"Well it was, believe it or not, I don't care!"

"You'll tell me someday, after the arena." He whispers the last part. After the arena…does he really think I can win?

Dinner was to say… awkward. Aubrey figured out she can't yield a sword or throw knives. She even exclaimed it took her forever to learn the basic plants. She mutters over and over again how she won't last a second.

"God damn it! Aubrey, why don't you at least try to make it to the final 8!? Why – no how – can you just give up so easily!? My best friend is back home waiting for you! And ya know what!? I'm not gonna be the one who kills you, by request or not!"

Her mouth falls open, "It's my life and I can do what I want too!"

"Well then," I say annoyed with irritation lacing through my voice, "find somebody else to kill you."

"Why can't you just do it, for me!?"

"Because I'm not killing my District partner, above all people!"

"Boys and Girls, no need to fight; let's just have a peaceful dinner with me and your mentor. Can we not?" Effie interjects.

"What? So you can fatten us up like pigs before you make us slaughter each other!?" I yell at her. I'm royally pissed. That's the only way to say it.

Why can't Madge be here? She would know how to fix it.

Why did I just think that?

I go to my compartment early in hopes of going to bed, but it just doesn't look like that's gonna happen. The Engineer is sitting on my bed, alongside another guy that I suppose is Nathan. It remind me very little of Mr. Everdeen, but I must only be thinking that.

"Come with us." The Engineer says.

Ok this is getting really freaky.

A/N: Ok guys, that's chapter 7! Did ya like it? I'm kind of indecisive about it. Anyway, 2 reviews, follows, favorites, anything as long as there 2 whatever (don't have to be the same thing) then I will update. That's the rule. I'm not asking much.
However, I do want to hear what you guys think of the fight scene. I don't know if it's realistic or not, so you tell me. Is it a good fight scene or what? And I want to hear what you think about the Engineer and his buddy. What do you think their role is gonna be in this story. They kind of just came spontaneous while writing so I added them as I went along.
Oh and I decided to split the training days in half!