I back with the next chapter! By the way, I've posted another story, it's in the category Young Justice, if you've seen the TV show. I am a total superhero geek, so I can't resist writing one. I won't neglect this story, though. You can still expect regular updates! So yay for multitasking!

Disclaimer: I do not own Hunger Games or Circle of Magic. If I did, I wouldn't have made Katniss so dimwitted. I mean, come on, how long does it take for someone to find out that she is in love? I certainly wouldn't have taken that long. I know they were in a war and all, I still think she should have been more observant.

Also, sorry to any Gale/Katniss fans, but I never did like Gale all that much as a partner to Katniss. She and Peeta are made for each other.

Chapter 7: Cat and Mouse

Random Soldier's POV: (this person is female by the way)

There was scurrying from around the corner. It instantly put me on alert. No one scurried around the complex. We always walked normally. Besides, this was a high security part, and no soldier would ever scurry. So, yeah, scurrying was not normal, and therefore equaled trouble.

I glanced around the wall quickly and saw a little boy sitting on the floor. He was clutching his leg and biting his lip. It was obvious that he was trying to hold back tears, and failing. They were spilling down his cheeks, and dripping off of his chin onto the dirty rag that could be called a shirt if you really tried to.

He looked so sad and forlorn, I just had to go and comfort him. Call it my motherly instinct if you will. I didn't have any children, but I had always wanting some. They were the sweetest things ever, and it had always felt right.

And so I went up to him. 'What!' you must be thinking. What did you do? You had no idea who he was or why he was there. Didn't you just say a moment before that scurrying was bad, and he had probably been the one scurrying.

And you know what I say to that? Screw it all. This was a little boy. No matter what he was capable of, even if he was from the Capitol, I would still have helped him. The children are raised in that sort of life, and can't really be blamed for it. And any hurting child deserves a chance to recover.

"Hello there." I whispered.

He jerked his head up and met my gaze. His mouth formed a perfect 'o', and his eyes were wide with fear and shock. He looked adorable. I had to resist the urge to pinch his little cheeks.

"What do you want?" He whispered right back.

Briar's POV:

When I looked up at the lady, I saw Lark. She was right there: golden cat's face, curling black hair, almond-shaped eyes, warm smile that always invited you to smile back.

It was torture.

I knew it wasn't her. It couldn't be. I had left Lark back in Summersea, and she definitely hadn't come with us to this land of horrors. But even still, it hurt to look at her.

"What do you want?" I whispered. I couldn't look away. She looked just like home. It hurt and healed me at the same time.

"I just want to know what happened. You look as if you've been chewed up and spit out again." She was looking at my broken leg.

It was an ugly sight. It was red and puffy, and it oozed in several different places. It was also bent at a sharp angle, and you could see bone sticking out at one end. I had been walking on it for the last minute or so when it had given. It had given a sharp cracking sound, and fire had raced up my leg, making me dizzy. I had barely made it to the wall before I had collapsed. That must have been what had caught the lady's attention.

"I'm going to take you to my room, okay? Get you fixed up." She smiled, probably meant to be reassuring. It wasn't.

I slid backwards until I hissed, my broken leg grating against the stone floor. I gritted my teeth. No weaknesses, no pain, no Snow, no torturers. I didn't trust anyone. Except the girls and our teachers. And although this woman looked like our teachers, she certainly wasn't one of them, and I wouldn't treat her like one.

"No no no no! Go away!" I whispered hard.

"Sweetie, I wont hurt you. Let me take you somewhere safe."

"No."

"Fine. Not my rooms then."

I crossed my arms and didn't reply.

"Where do you want to go, then? You have any parents that should know where you are?"

"No."

"Just tell me."

"…Green life," I whispered.

"Excuse me?"

"Plants."

"Weeellll, okay. I'll take you to the hummingbird room."

Gale's POV:

"Where on earth could he have gone?" I threw my hands up in the air in frustration.

We had been searching for the last half hour. The whole military complex was up in arms about the missing 'prisoner'. No one had seen a little boy hobbling off in any direction once so ever. It was as if he had vanished into the thin air.

"Well, you're the one who rescued him. Figure. It. Out." Coin was back in control of the situation, and she looked like she was enjoying it. She didn't even look upset about the fact that there was an out-of-control boy loose in the secret complex.

"Haymitch, what do you think?" I said once Coin had swept out.

"I don't know. We don't know anything about Briar, so we don't know where he would go to hide."

"What about his sisters? I think he'd try to find them, right?"

"…That's a good point. We'll set guards up there so that if he tries anything, we'll be ready."

"And until then?"

Haymitch sighed. It was filled with all the weariness and the hardships that he had faced. "We keep looking."

It was going to be a long day.

Tris's POV:

As the medics tended to my injuries, I stretched out my mind. Sandry was off limits at the moment, as she was still experiencing her mental breakdown. And Daja was right next to me. There was no need to reassure myself of her safety. That left Briar.

We had seen him only briefly in the flying metal machine before he had been wheeled off on a gurney by the people here. It was a horrible reminder of just how easily it would be for things to return to the way they were before, with captors strapping us down and questioning us mercilessly.

I just hoped it wouldn't come to that.

I thought we should cooperate for the time being. These people obviously had a lot of power at their disposal, and someone had trained them all well. If we could get on their good side, we had a better chance of finding a way back home than if we ran now. I didn't think we could last being chased by another powerful group, let alone too.

The only down-side to this plan was Briar. He wasn't the best at being polite and diplomatic to elders, to put it mildly. To be blunt, he was downright rude and belligerent, and he was good at fighting and didn't hesitate to use force. Yep, if something happened with him, we would be in big trouble.

Briar, I reached my mind out, can you hear me? Where are you? Is everything going alright wherever you are?

There was no reply.

Of course there wouldn't be. Of course. I cursed my luck and all our luck with words that I had learned from Briar.

"Miss, could you please lie down and relax while we treat your injuries?" A nurse, that was what they called healer here (weird, huh), pushed on my shoulder.

I obediently lied down and let them do their work. And although my muscles were relaxed, my mind was abuzz with all my different thoughts. I had a really bad feeling about Briar, and I hoped that it wasn't true.

Random Soldier's POV: (same one as before)

I carried the small boy in my arms and walked forward purposefully. He obviously hadn't like this treatment, but I had reasoned with him that he couldn't walk on his bad leg, and this made it much less painful for him. After considering this, he had reluctantly agreed.

While he was still fearful of everything, I was on cloud nine. Even though I knew that this wasn't my child and that he would probably have to go back home soon, I couldn't help but fantasize about taking him in and raising him as my own.

When this war was over, if we won, maybe I would be able to find a man and settle down somewhere. District 7 perhaps. The forest would certainly be a peaceful place.

Soldiers were rushing every which way and I navigated between them all with difficulty. I didn't know what the hurry was. The mission had been finished hours ago; we had rescued the victors. I clutched the boy tighter to me and walked a little faster. Once we were in the hummingbird room, I would check my comm. unit for orders. I would find out what the issue was when I got the boy to calm down.

And he certainly wasn't calm right now. His eyes were darting every which way and he would bury his face in my shirt whenever a soldier passed particularly close to us. Poor little tyke. He must be shy, I thought, smiling down at him.

Haymitch's POV:

We had searched the entire lower level that was open to everyone. Briar wasn't anywhere. All that were left were the restricted sections, and you had to have an access card to get into those. And fingerprint identification. Unless he had knocked out a soldier and dragged their body to the scanner, he had no way of getting past the locked doors.

I buried my head in my hands. Why did everything have to go wrong? Couldn't something just go the way we wanted to for once? I mean, even when we get Peeta back, it turns out that something happened in the Capitol. He tried to strangle Katniss, for pete's sake. Now that was something that I hadn't seen coming. Peeta was the last person that would ever hurt her, and he was the one who had wrapped his fingers around her neck.

And now the boy was gone. Gale had been so happy for a moment; he had thought that he had done something good, something right. And it was all blowing up in his face. We didn't even know if Briar was working for the Capitol or not. All we knew was that he had no idea of the Hunger Games. That didn't give us much to go on. We didn't even know if his name was a real one, or if it was a code name.

We were blindly staggering in the dark, trying to find the door, only to trip over our own feet. We were searching for a needle in a haystack.

Briar's POV:

I watched fascinated as the soldier girl, she had told me her name was Lily, swiped a small, shiny rectangle through a slot in the wall. She put her hand on a black square on the wall, and I jumped when it started to glow a greenish-blue.

She laughed at this, and explained that it was to make sure no one could break into these parts of the building. She said no one was allowed in here without permission.

Good. They wouldn't think to look here then.

She walked past room filled with swords and knives, and bows and arrows. And some of the stick-things that the bad men had wielded; I didn't like how they had them here.

But past all of that, past all the ugliness, was a garden. It was filled with tropical plants, and hummingbirds flitted from flower to flower. It was warm and buggy and humid, but it was home. It was safety. I wanted to touch every single plant in this room and just lie in the grass forever, but I knew I couldn't.

I would stay here and regain strength. Put a splint on my leg maybe. I would hide in here and let the soldier people let their guard down. And then I would strike. I would rescue my sisters and we would run. But for now I was safe.

The soldier people would never know what hit them.

Wow! Seven chapters! It's gone by so fast!

Please R and R!