A/N: Hey! So, so many reviews last chapter! That's awesome! Anyway, I won't incorporate any more couples until later, so you can still vote. Right now, the top two are: Clove/ Peeta and no other couples, so vote between those.

Anyway, Katniss's last remark of the last chapter was harsh, but it'll lead into something soon.

Everything is, now, up to me on this story, with no real book to follow. So weather, deaths, etc may be different than usual…

D2- 17- (Cato Allens)

Clove and I sit at the fire for watch. Her eyes are glued to Lover Boy, and flick to Katniss, me, and the fire every once and a while, and then she returns her furious glance at Lover Boy. I watch around, actually paying attention to the sounds, and look at girl on fire, thinking about the interviews. What is it about her that makes it so easy for her to get in my head and fend off my attempts at doing so for her?

"I want to kill him so bad, Cato," pipes up Clove. "And her." Her eyes flick to Katniss. "But at least she's of some use to us while she's in the alliance."

"If he dies, she goes, and we need her now," I explain.

"Yeah," Clove says stiffly. "You need her."

"What?" I spit fierily. What is she indicating? That I like the person District Twelve spit up and brought here? She can do nothing. She's okay with a bow, sure, but what's that in hand-to-hand? All of us are stronger than her! We could kill her in seconds. And I explain this to Clove, who doesn't say a word, but obviously agrees to everything I'm saying.

She nods her head, staring at the girl on fire. "That's your defense if someone said you couldn't kill her, Cato. What of someone saying you like her? What's your defense against that?"

"Everything about her," I spit.

Clove gets up, starting to walk towards where the line of trees begins again at the edge of our clearing. She shakes her head. Not knowing why frustrates me, but it's Clove, so half the time I don't, anyway. But this is different. This… These implications she has set on me and girl on fire makes me sick—absolutely sick. I don't see a reason why that would be the case whatsoever. It's like me saying Clove has something for Lover Boy—impossible.

"What do you think of her, though, Cato?" She smirks. "You finish the watch."

Her smirk gives her away, for once I see it, I know immediately that she just wants under my skin; she just wants me the squirm and squeal and get all wrapped up in the girl on fire until there's nothing left but a broken guy that can't kill his competition because he's not sure what he thinks. The only part that is true and that will ever be true is that I'll never know what I really think about her, but I can sure try, and try hard.

The watch isn't that much longer, and the most exciting thing without Clove talking to me or being peculiar so I have something to think about is a rabbit going by. None of us know how to hunt anything but tributes, and if something happens to the Cornucopia's bountiful meals or we can't get back to the Cornucopia, the girl on fire can hunt for us. We can make her. And sitting in a tree, waiting for something to come by, if she has to resort to such, is more than we can do on that and that only subject. Though I doubt our sponsors would let us get so hungry without sending something that we'd have to resort to squirrel and rabbit.

When it's finally over, I wake Glimmer and Marvel, going back to where I slept, close to the fire for warmth on this cold night. I lie awake because I'm still adrenaline-rushed and tiredness won't come. Luckily, Marvel and Glimmer start talking almost immediately and that keeps me from lying awake in silence, with nothing but thoughts that have become tired but still curious in my head—those being girl on fire and Clove. How annoying those two both are, and neither of them can I kill yet.

"I wish Cato would just let us kill them," says Glimmer. There are two requests for Lover Boy and girl on fire's death. Using them is a good way to humiliate them—especially girl on fire—for outshining us. Show the audience who they should really have put their hopes and shine on. So I'm not just going to kill them. It's like going down without a fight.

"Yeah," agrees Marvel. And there's number three.


When I wake up, unaware that I even fell asleep, it's to Glimmer shaking me. I roll my eyes and push her to the side, collecting my few things and getting up. Katniss puts out the fire and then we regroup and try to decide what we should do next, whether it's going to the Cornucopia and setting up a camp or going out to kill more.

"I say we make camp," demands Clove.

"Yeah, I do, too," says Peeta, followed by Fire Girl who briefly gives a terse nod, making me wonder what happened to her and Lover Boy on watch last night. More to take away my sponsors I bet.

"Yes," says Glimmer.

"So, we going?" asks Marvel.

I turn around and lead the way back to the Cornucopia, looking up to the sun as a guide to what direction we're going, and then start moving accordingly. It's not going to take long to get back to our base, considering that we didn't venture very far last night, but the lovers might hold us back somehow. I'm sure they can find a way to manage it.

In silence, we make it back to the Cornucopia. No one is in the mood to laugh and run anymore, ever since Fire Girl and Lover Boy came into the alliance. It's a relief and a reminder of how big a burden they are—well, Lover Boy is. Girl on fire is here for my entertainment, revenge, and sponsors.

"Set up camp," I order absently.

"Why don't you?" asks Clove.

"Because I don't have to," I snap.

"Neither do I," she spits.

"No, you don't." I roll my eyes. "Just those four."

Clove and I sit down by the lake and watch as the others assemble a camp near us, lugging things back and forth from the Cornucopia. Then girl on fire tells Marvel something, he nods, and she sets off, to the woods.

I get up immediately taking out my sword, my feet scraping the dirt as I fly the distance in between Katniss and I. She's jogging into the tree line, her bow loaded and ready. Did Marvel really just give girl on fire to run off or even just hunt alone? I think. She needs to be supervised at all times, so that she doesn't run away. Just like Clove needs to be supervised so she doesn't kill on of them. It's really better to keep them close—

Clove is all alone with no more supervision than the two idiots from One, and Lover Boy. He'll get killed. And I'll kill Katniss before she can run back into her pretty little woods to live her days with that blasted bow. How the fuck does she even know how to use it? And how did she get an eleven with that?

I stop and watch the girl on fire search around, almost certainly about to dart, when I speak up. "Don't go too far. The woods get pretty dense here in the middle," I tell her, startling her, and smiling when she jumps—the reaction I wanted. "I thought I might as well tell you that before we… lost you."

"That's kind," she comments.

"Uh-huh."

She scowls, looking at me. "I need aloneness when hunting. I don't like to be watched over."

"Oh, that's too bad, because I'm really not leaving," I inform her, smirking and sitting by a tree. "You know, we have food back there. You don't need to hunt."

She stays silent. She knew this. She was going to run. I guide her back to the Cornucopia, where a mediocre camp is set up. A few large tents are set up that we'll sleep under when we stay here. A fire pit has been dug and rocks have been set around it to give it a campy feeling or whatever they were aiming for.

D12- 16- (Katniss Everdeen)

There goes my rudimentary attempt at escaping.

I go back with Cato, furious that he followed me. Getting out of here as soon as possible is important. There was no way to get out of that tree yesterday, so even if I was thinking straight and didn't ally with them, I was treed. They probably can't climb, but we can all starve, and they could've sent people back to get food when they got hungry.

I sit at the lake, refusing to make the camp. But away from the killers from Two. Instead, I decide to watch the girl from One pout and look at the supplies, not daring to even lift a finger and work. I think it's a safe bet she won't win unless it's out of sheer luck. I doubt she's hiding mass murdering skill.

It takes about another half hour before the camp is set up. Two large tents, one campfire spot, logs around it, our stuff compiled around it and under its own third tent. It's an alright camp and luxurious compared to living in the trees for days. Though, I'd honestly prefer the trees, and more preferably, I'd take to going home—alive—for these next weeks to come.

Cato tells someone to start a fire so we can look through supplies for food, when it starts to rain. Peeta sets tarp under our tents and we pile under them; any attempt at eating next to the fire and planning what's to do next is gone. The tents are so close together, we can all see each other as we are under them. Cat, of course, devises the tent plans. I desperately hope to be hooked with those from One.

But the odds are never in my favor, are they?

"Clove, Marvel, and Glimmer are under this tent," Cato says. I can almost hear him gagging as he assigns the rest of us. "Girl on fire, Lover Boy, and I are in that one." He points to the tent I'm in. While some of us transport, I really take in how freezing cold it is. I zip my jacket up and curl in a sleeping bag that Peeta laid out. Maybe he's still somewhat like the boy with the bread…

No. He's not, though.

And there's nothing to do. Clove sharpens her knives. Cato stares longingly at the forest, keeping entertained by obviously thinking of ways to slaughter tributes. Marvel and Glimmer lightly chat about District One. And Peeta, who had the good fortune to bring food with him when he came, looking for me, eats on a nice feast of soup and apples with peanut butter and bread. Unless he allied with the Careers right after the bloodbath, the star-crossed lovers bit somehow got him a sponsors.

Surely it was for us. He did something to make up for what I said yesterday. I don't feel a bit bad. He deserved it. He's just being childish and not giving me any because I damaged our angle.

And I really come to notice how warm it is inside this sleeping bag, so I curl up and go to sleep, thinking of my family—even the dead—and think of a happy reunion. It's disappointing that such awful nightmares plague me after what great ideas and thoughts unfold.


It's late afternoon when Peeta shakes me awake. "They're out at the lake."

I nod. "Why…?"

"Swimming," Peeta answers coldly.

I get up and move past Peeta. If he's not giving it up, neither am I. I go to the lake. They are swimming. All except Clove. But it's not actual swimming—just splashing around in shallow water and doing dogpaddle. I sit by the lake, but not next to Clove, as Peeta wades as far away from the Careers as possible.

Though I'd love to swim right now, to feel the water and to imagine it's my lake back home, I'd really rather not try and explain it to the very questioning and curious Careers how I'm able to swim. The three Careers get out, dripping wet, and sit in the rain-soaked grass, drying in the newly-arrived sun.

I stare straightforward at the vacant field of grass as tall as me—probably taller. I wonder if it really is vacant or if some tribute chose it as their home and is reveling in either the safe haven of grass, or facing its terrors in their entirety, since all its terrors will be directed at the unlucky tribute. I don't suppose more than three chose that as their place to stay.

It really is a beautiful day. Too bad some other tribute is probably dying right now.

A/N: Sorry for the delay. Yada, yada, yada—excuses, excuses, excuses.

Remember:

A. Clove/Peeta

B. No other couples.

REVIEW! I got so many last chapter—fifteen! Yay!