Here is your next chapter! Thanks for the reviews (Up to ten, go desperation!) Love you guys!

Rose pov:

The warm, almost hot water splashes around my ankle as I step in to the hot spring. The pain in my side wasn't at sharp but it was still painful when I walked for a while. The guys were mostly clean but Demetri and I were in the splash zone during the bloodbath. The hot spring is within sight of our camp but if the guys waited there while we bathed they wouldn't do us much good of we were attacked. The guys were waiting behind the large willow tree.

Demetri's and my clothes were waiting on a tree branch aside from my stained tree shirt which I was washing now. I finished scrubbing it then hung it on the branch and sank below the warm waves. I scrubbed away the blood stains on my tan skin then washed out my hair.

I dried myself near a steam geyser which was way faster than a towel by the way. Then I dressed in my underclothes then my shirt, jacket and pants. Instead of my shirt I'm using a scrap of blanket as a bandage. Demetri dresses as well and we join the group as I twist my now dry, blonde hair into a messy bun.

We are not like the careers; we are not setting off to pick off tributes we are going hunting. We make our way towards the volcanoes, hoping to find better game. After a couple hours of hunting through dry cracked land with the heat of the sun and the heat of the volcanoes proximity we have a beaver, three squirrels and a rabbit.

We are walking down a narrow stretch of dry earth near a stream, joking about random things when a knife whizzes towards Joeys face. I pull him back just in time and we all take shelter behind a huge fallen log. Through the trees I can see the district four tributes, all of them are alive and wielding weapons.

Before I couldn't tell about how old the tributes were but no I see one of them is young, twelve or thirteen tops. I don't want to kill him, I don't want to kill anyone but especially not him, maybe because he reminds me of Xander.

Demetri pulls out her slingshot and a spiky seed ball (those giant sticker things) that she dipped in poison. She shoots is across the river at towards them. It hits the older boy and he just laughs. "Nice one, a sticker!" he shouts tossing it away. He goes for his sword but he stumbles forward and spits out blood then falls to the ground, a canon goes off signaling his death.

"Magnus!" a girl shouts. It's clear she liked him. She looks up eyes full of hatred and throws a knife that s ticks in a tree behind me. I go to receive it but it's pulled behind a branch and before I can grab it, it flings back and hits my jaw, hard. I clutch my hand to my jaw and pop it back in place, it hurts badly but I will be in more pain in we stay here.

We start to retreat but they follow in pursuit. Joey turns and throws and axe which hits the girl but with but butt of the axe which makes her fly back a few feet and fall to the ground. It gives us a few seconds more to get away. Joey turns to throw another axe when another knife slices along his chest and flies into the brush across from him. "Joey!" I shriek and Jackson helps me pull him along. We lost them but they aren't far behind.

We pull Joey into the brush along the side of the river and help cover him. It's decided that I will stay with him and they will lead them away so I can get Joey back to the camp. They take off and we hide, breathing lightly and praying that we won't be found.

They run straight past following the sounds of trampling feet from the rest of my group and don't take notice of us. "Joey, Joey please stay with me, stay awake I'm going to get you back to camp and you'll be fine, I promise" I say to him with my hand pressing over the cut on his stomach. "Rosie you have to go" he manages to say. "No, no I'm not going anywhere come on let's go" I say than help him stand

We manage to get back to the bottom of the tree out camp sits in and I lay him down carefully. He looks like he's in a lot of pain but at least he's conscious. Somehow I manage to get him up the tree and into the little alcove we made at our campsite.

I strip off his shirt and survey the damage on his chest, a very muscular chest I might add. I dip the shirt in a bowl I filled with water and wash away the blood then I hold it in the wound. It's not deep and it won't kill him but that's only if I can help him out. No pressure right?

I pull back his shaggy dark hair and lay a wet cloth on his forehead when I realize that his temperature is high. I keep pressure on his wound and don't even realize that my own wound has opened up again. I search through the medical kits and find a needle and thread. I know what I have to do, but that doesn't mean I want to.

I rub a pain reliever over the cut then tell him "Jo this is going to hurt, and I'm sorry but I have to" he nods on understanding. I sew up the wound as gently as I can but I can tell Joey is about to pass out from pain. I go to get him water but before I return with the bottle he is out. He will be fine but then I realize that I am exhausted. I flop down on the sleeping bag next to Joey and forget about my own wound and fall asleep.

XOXO

I wake up when I feel hands on my side. My eyes flash open and I see Joey returning the favor of healing him.

"Wha…?" I trail off.

"Your cut reopened" he explains, tearing a scrap of blanket with the intent to use it as a bandage for my side. My shirt is pulled up, exposing my thin, whiter than normal stomach with a small wound with warm blood dripping down onto the blanket. "What happened to your face?" he asks touching it gently.

I can't help it but shivers run down my spine at his touch. There has never been anything romantic between Joey and me and I don't know why u shiver but I do. I think back to the capitol when he complimented me…over and over. Maybe he does like me... I push the thought out of my head, there's no time for crushes in the Hunger Games.

It's not that it's impossible to like Joey; it's just that he has always been my best friend, ever since we were little kids in second grade. The memory was once of my favorites, it had been a normal day and I was almost eight years old. While I was at school a teacher friends with my mother told me that she was in labor. I was allowed to leave school early that day but I didn't know the way, the new school I was going to was far from my house and I was only eight and I couldn't go that far by myself, especially when I barely know the way.

Joey offered to walk me back to my house and ever since we had been best friends. We started our herd one day when we were in the seventh grade. A butcher in town had a few cows that got sick and we found it and with time and help it got better. The butcher didn't care that it was gone because it was sick, therefore he didn't send out a search party and we prospered off of it.

We couldn't really keep a cow in our living room forever and by this point we had already discovered the hole in the fence. Out there we had found some edible plants that we would collect when food was scarce and so we build a fence out of boulders along a small ridge in the ground.

We kept the cow there and one day when we returned the wall was broken, we thought that it was a big animal, maybe even another bull. Out suspicions were confirmed when the cow became pregnant. A couple months later we had two cows to handle. We would take and nurse the sick cows from the butcher back to health and add them to our herd.

During this long time of accumulating cows and finding food, Joey and I became really good friends. We finally stopped adding to our herd once we reached twelve cows and set about finding better ways to feed them and ourselves. There was hardly a day that we didn't see each other.

But now I was getting chills as he touched my face. I can't like him; there is no time, too much at stake. And if either of us gets hurt (more so) or worse, it would just hurt the other more if we did have feelings for each other.

"The knife hit me" I whisper, answering Joey's question. "You should be lying down" I say gently pushing him down on his makeshift bed "I can take care of myself".

"I know, but so can I and you helped me so instead of calling it helping you, I'm calling it payback" he says then grins a grin that makes my heart stop. He sits back up and holds a cloth to my side, trying to stop the bleeding.

I glare at him playfully. "Are you alright? You aren't bleeding are you?" I ask worried.

"I'm fine mom" he says jokingly "Thanks to your stitches. Thanks Rosie" he says taking my hand and squeezing it. There goes my heart again. No stop it Rose! You don't like him! Oh yes you do. No you don't!

"Thanks to you I guess" I joke smiling. With his help I manage to sit up and make my way over to the area where we keep our food and water. I really wish we could have fire up here because it has been getting really cold here at night and during the day too. I hear a clanking noise from above that sounds like a knife and in two seconds flat I have an axe in my hand and an ready for an attacker.

A heavily leafed branch shakes and I'm ready to fight when something with a silver parachute floats down farther. It looks like a small wash tub but it has a fabric that looks like the same material as pot holders around it.

"What's that?" Joey asks

"I think it's a fire pit type thing" I reply and climb up to receive it, feeling confident on my feet despite my injury. I grasp the edge of the parachute and pull to down to me. I see a note attached to the inside. It reads:

Just kiss that boy already! -Bell

I grin then stuff the note into my pocket. "Shut up!" I whisper up to the sky where I know a camera is somewhere. I unhook the gift from the tree and let it float down to Joey and I follow it.

We look it over then climb out of the tree and gather roots and firewood for a fire and stew. We don't see any other tributes while were out but that's also bad, we haven't seen Demetri or Jackson since early this afternoon and now it looks to be about seven. But at least we haven't heard any cannons.

Before long we have a small fire warming the tree space and I have a stew of squirrel and roots cooking. Our wounds are healing well and we are practicing walking around so we won't be a liability later when we can hunt and fight again.

After a couple of hours of darkness we eat the stew, deciding that if they come back tonight we can make them more food. We could go out and search for them but we are wounded too badly to go against the careers.

After eating we re-bandage our wounds and settle down beside each other and I snuggle into the blankets. Joey wraps his arm around my shoulders and pulls me closer to him.

"What if they don't come back?" I ask worried for my friend Demetri and Jackson too.

"They will" he responds

"How do you know?" I ask

"Because Jackson is built like an ox and Demetri is a freaking mad scientist" he responds rubbing my arm soothingly.

"Thanks" I say

"For what?" he asks

"Always being my best friend"

He smiles a little "Ditto"

Joey pov:

Friendzoned.

Yup. Not much to say. =)

Quote: Nobody can destroy your dreams.

Thanks for reading!

xoxo -Bellabear