"Twelve down, eleven to go!" I hear Marvel exclaim as I emerge through the trees.

Clove, Glimmer and the girl from District 4 whose name I haven't bothered to learn all give a cheer. Lover Boy smiles half-heartedly but doesn't say anything.

"Cato!" Says Clove when she catches sight of me. She opens her mouth to continue when Glimmer pushes past her and bounds over to me.

"Where've you been?" Glimmer asks, touching her right hand against my left arm. "I was worried about you!"

Behind her I can see Clove glaring at the back of Glimmer's head and I have to suppress a smirk.

"My shoe laces came undone." I lie.

This seems to satisfy Glimmer but not Clove. She's watching me closely, trying to discern my thoughts. I know that she suspects. She's suspected ever since the tribute parade, but she'll never know for sure. No one will ever know. I'll never admit it out loud. I will be the one to kill Katniss, I'll kill them all, return home as a Victor and no one need ever know about my preoccupation with the girl from District 12.


Confused. That's really all I'm feeling right now. Confusion.

Why has Peeta joined the Careers? He seemed to hate him just as much as I do before the Games. Then again, I already know how good a liar he is. He's convinced the whole of Panem that he's in love with me, hasn't he? Pretending to hate the Careers would have been no problem.

What I'm really confused about, though, is why Cato didn't kill me. He saw me up in my tree and came back for me. But didn't kill me. He didn't even try. Why? What angle is he playing here? Is he trying to lure me into a false sense of security so that he can attack when I least expect it?

Is he going to come after me with his sword time and time again only to lower it and walk away so many times that when he finally intends to run me through with it I won't believe him?

I don't understand. Cato is a ruthless killing machine. This is what he's been trained to do. He kills first and asks questions later, not the other way around. Why did he walk away? It can't have been because I was also armed. We both know that he could overpower me all too easily.

What the hell is going on? This isn't supposed to be happening. I'm not supposed to be second guessing the motives of the Career from District 2.

Haymitch's words from after the interviews ring in my ears and for the first time I'm considering the impossible.

"He made you desirable. Now they all want you."

I frown. Is that what's going on here? Could it be that, after Peeta's confession, I was made desirable in the eyes of the boy from District 2? Could it be that Cato can't bring himself to kill me because-?

No. No. That's definitely not what's going on. Peeta may have made me desirable but anyone who's spoken to me for even a second when I'm not spinning around and trying to make the Captiol like me knows that I'm not desirable. I'm not the kind of girl who boys stare at as they walk past. I'm the kind of girl who hunts illegally and volunteers for her sister at the reaping. I'm from District 12 and he's from District 2. Even if we weren't both in the Games, the idea that he might find me even a little bit attractive isn't plausible.

He's playing with me, I decide, I outscored him and now he wants revenge, so he's stringing me along. He'll draw it out as long as he possibly can, try and turn me into a nervous wreck, awaiting the moment he decides to kill me.

I won't give him the satisfaction of knowing that he's getting to me. Which he is. He's a Career, he has a natural advantage in these Games.

The next time I see him, neither of us are in great shape. I only just escaped from the Gamemaker fire which they embellished nicely with a few fireballs. I survived, but only just. My hands and my calf are burnt and blistered and excruciatingly painful. It's all I can do not to cry out loud, but weakness doesn't get you sponsors. The stronger I am, the less pain I show, the more likely I am to get help.

The chances of me receiving medicine are unlikely. I can't even begin to imagine how expensive such items are. But I can hope, right?

The Careers must have been in the forest when the fire struck, because all of them are retching and wheezing. Their faces have smudges of soot and they have a few minor burns. They're nothing compared to mine, though.

In an attempt to evade them I've climbed as quickly as I can up a tree. My hands scream in agony as they make contact with the coarse bark of the trunk. It hurts, oh, it hurts so badly. I want to cry. They find me, though, as I knew they eventually would. The tributes from 1 are laughing up at me sitting up here in the tree. They don't know I'm injured. If they did, it would only heighten the hilarity for them. Cato and Clove are both glaring up at me. I see Clove fingering her knives but I know she won't throw them; she's already lost one of them to me, she isn't going to waste another.

Cato, on the other hand, is regarding me with an expression I can't quite place. I see his hands rove over my inflamed palms and the burnt, blistered skin on my calf but he doesn't say anything. Peeta is stood a few feet behind, watching me closely. He's holding a spear. I look down at him, my gaze unforgiving. We both know that by teaming up with the Careers he's ultimately betrayed me. Not that there was much trust to begin with, but this? This is a betrayal like no other.


She's injured. I can tell just by looking at her. It's ironic, really, that the Girl on Fire would be maimed by an inferno. I wonder if the Gamemakers engineered that specifically. I know that the Capitol must be getting a good laugh out of it right now.

She's putting on a brave face but her injuries are relatively severe. I can tell my the way she bites her lip as she places her hands against the bark. She's trying not to cry out in pain and alert us that she's weaker than we think. I'm not an idiot though, it's not hard to read her.

She reaches a branch high up and stops there. She rests her forehead against the trunk for a moment before looking down at us. Glimmer, Marvel, Clove and the girl from District 4 have all been engaged in a heated debate over who's going to go after her.

"Why don't you come on up?" She calls down, tauntingly. "The air's much nicer up here."

I decide to take the wheel.

Gripping my sword in my left hand I began to scale up the tree as fast I can. She's injured so she'll be an easy kill. She's in no position to be wielding that bow.

When the others realise what I'm doing, they start to shout words of encouragement. Like I need that the spur me on.

"Get her, Cato!" Glimmer cries at the same time that Clove tells me to kill her. Marvel whoops and laughs, excited at the prospect of another kill. The girl from District 4 watches, grinning.

Katniss watches me as I climb towards her. She doesn't attempt to get away. Maybe she's accepted that her death is imminent. Maybe she wants me to kill her. Perhaps the pain from her burns are so bad that she welcomes death.

It's not until her eyes move from mine to the branch that I've just grasped hold of that I realise my mistake.


Cato doesn't realise what I do until it's too late. There's a reason it's me who climbs the trees back home and not Gale. He grasps a branch that is too brittle to take his weight and it snaps in his hand, sending him tumbling down. I suppose it's too much to hope that the fall will break his neck because he gets up painfully and fixes me with a glare that is, to put it lightly, livid.

Clove, incensed at her partner's failure, decides that she can spare me one of her knives after all. She throws one up at me, right at my face. She almost gets me, as well, but I veer to the left, behind the tree, and it embeds itself in the bark instead. I pull it out and survey it for a moment. It's a decent knife. I stow it away in my backpack before smiling down at Clove. I know that my taking possession of two of her knives now must be driving her crazy.

They begin muttering between themselves, the Careers, and throwing me filthy glares every once in a while. Cato especially.

Peeta, who up until this point hasn't said a word, looks up at me and then steps forward.

"We'll just wait her out." He says. "She can't stay up there forever. She'll starve to death."

The Careers look at each other before shrugging.

"Fine." Cato says finally. "I'll take first watch."


She knew. She knew I'd fall. She wanted me to. That's why she taunted me, tempted me to come climbing after her. That's another strike against her. If she's trying to get herself killed, she's doing a great job.

If I wanted to kill her before, it's nothing to how I feel now. She's humiliated me not only in front of the other tributes, but in front of the whole of Panem.

She must be special, they'll think, if she can outsmart a boy from District 2.

They're wrong. She's not special, she got lucky.


There are no faces in the sky tonight. No one has died today. Nevertheless, I'm sure it's been a rather entertaining one what with me stuck in the tree with the Careers setting up camp below me in an attempt to wait me out.

Most of them are asleep now. Everyone except for Cato who's sat at the base of my tree, watching the flames in their campfire.

My burns are still horribly painful. I've yet to come up with a plan but how can I even attempt to execute one when I'm so terribly injured?

Almost in answer to my thoughts, a small, silver parachute lands in my lap. I fumble to open it, trying hard not to make any noise. I can't believe my eyes. Inside lies a small pot. It can't be?

I open it and to my utmost relief, it's medicine. What a godsend. Without hesitation, I scoop some of it up and smear it over my hands and my calf. The effect is instantaneous. I have to stop myself from moaning out loud because the sensation of the heat being leached from my burns is so incredible.

"Did you know?"

I jump and almost drop the pot of medicine when Cato's voice rips through the silence. I'd almost forgotten he was there.

"What?"

"Did you know that I would fall?"

I pause for a moment. I could lie, deny it, but what's the point? "Yes."

He's silent, but I can practically feel the heat radiating from him. The anger.

"You don't know who you're messing with, 12." He snaps. I note the change from Everdeen to simply my District number.

"Oh, I do. Brutal, bloody Cato from District 2. You've been training for this for god knows how long, and I've shown you up multiple times already. What are you going to do? Kill me? No, you've had that chance already and you walked away." I say. I feel braver up here in the tree with my medicine working on my injuries. Soon I'll be able to handle my bow and I'll be taking out my competitors one by one. And I'll start with Cato.

"You're injured, 12. You're no match for us."

I don't answer, and he doesn't prompt me for one. Perhaps he thinks he's scared me into speechlessness. I'll let him think that. At least that way he'll be caught off guard when I attack.