(A/N: I'm trying to make these chapters longer, I really am! I keep feeling like I'm missing something when I write [Talent. HA.] because I'm rarely satisfied with these chapters. It's hard for me to keep the reader's interest. And PLEASE, review. Knowing people actually read this keeps me motivated. I'm open to suggestions as to what else will happen between here and the end, so if you have any, feel free to send me a PM. I will also combine some of the earlier chapters at some point, so if my chapter count goes down, that's why.)

Flight

The chirping of birds wakes me, but a discordant squawking and a distant scream that suddenly falls silent with the boom of a cannon makes me bolt upright, ready to run. Azani snaps her gaze to me, knowing I heard it too. "Do you know…?" She shakes her head before attempting to climb a tree. "What are you doing?"

She points at a bird's nest above us. "Getting breakfast." She makes her way up slowly, not used to being off the ground. I could do it faster, but the branches are too thin to hold my weight. Best to let her rob the nest. "Incoming!" I look up to see one of the eggs falling towards my face. As soon as I catch that one, another falls from the tree and I have to dive for it. Azani returns with one more and a huge grin on her face. "Mission accomplished!"

"Hey, where's Celeste?"

"She went to see if she could find us some water. Wait, do you think that…?"

"No. It couldn't have been her earlier." Come on Celeste, don't make me a liar. "She couldn't have gone that far. It had to have been some other tribute. She's too smart to be killed that easily." I'm starting to ramble, trying to banish the thought. I don't want to lose another ally so soon.

"But Aera!"

I angrily shout, "It wasn't her, Azani!" and ram my fist into a nearby tree, cracking the bark with a sharp snap in my worried frustration.

She recoils as though I hit her, and curls into a ball, rocking herself back and forth with a faraway look in her eyes. "Ari, where are you?" Ari? Who's Ari?

"Azani, what are you talking about? Who is Ari?"

She goes on, unaware of me. "Ari, where are you? I need you!" Is she having a flashback? You have to bring her back.

I grab her shoulders and give her a small shake. "Azani, focus!"

She looks at me, relieved. "Ari! Hurry, I think mom's in trouble!" She gets up and tugs on my hand, but I'm not going anywhere. "Come on! Why aren't you following?" She's starting to cry now, lost in her memory.

I don't want to do this. "Sorry, Azani…" I slap her swiftly, the sound splitting the uncomfortable silence around us.

She shakes her head and the clouded look in her eyes fades. "Aera? What happened?" I don't say anything as I pull her into a tight hug, and now she knows something's wrong. When I let go, she asks again, "Aera?"

"Who's Ari?" Should I really be asking this? It's none of my business.

She looks at the ground and says, "My…my big sister, Arianna."

"Sister? You never told me you had a sister."

"I don't. Not anymore…" She whimpers and draws her arms around herself. "The Peacekeepers…they made me watch them shoot her. When I ran away, they said they'd come for me next. My brothers hid me, taught me to fight, kept me safe. But now…"

I can't stop myself from hugging her again. She's so young and she's already gone through more than anyone should in their entire lifetime. Being forced to watch your loved ones die? Not even the Peacekeepers in Seven did that. I realize with a sickening twist that this is exactly what the Capitol is doing. If Lavender and Mason were alive, they'd be watching their big sister fight to the death. But my allies are all I have left.

"I'll protect you," I whisper. "For as long as I possibly can, I'll take care of you. You don't have to be so afraid anymore, okay?"

"Thank you, Aera." I wipe away her tears and smile. Heh. I'm sure that if Hunter saw this, he'd call me a mother.

"Ha, you're such a mom." I whip around to find Celeste standing behind us with a triumphant expression and a full water bottle, along with a nice fat bird. She holds it up and asks, "Either of you know what this thing is? Is it edible? Well, everything is edible, but you know what I mean."

Azani's face lights up. "A turkey! It looks like the ones we raise back in District Ten, but that one's a lot smaller.

Celeste holds it out to her. "So you know how to clean this thing?" Azani nods in affirmation. "Then let's eat." She hands the bird over and I give her one of my knives to skin it. She gets the job done quickly and Celeste lights a fire to cook it. We eat the eggs Azani stole earlier and wait for the turkey to cook. When it finally finishes cooking, we kick dirt over the embers and leave, each eating a piece of the bird. We'll save the rest for the boys if we see them later.

We wander into a stretch of dead forest, where all the trees and shrubs are bare, and no animals are to be seen. An unnerving chill hangs in the air, putting the three of us on edge. A few birds fly overhead, joining a flock of about ten. There's something about them, but I can't figure out what it is. I can't even see them clearly from this distance, but the mere sight of them twists my stomach. "Please tell me I'm not the only one getting that feeling from those birds."

Celeste answers, "Nope. Let's get outta here," and changes course. When we get close to the birds, the entire flock rises and dives for us, squawking and screeching in an infernal fury. And that's when I figure out exactly what they are.

Mutts.

"Run!" I don't know who screamed the command—hell, it might've even been me—but we all follow without hesitation. We turn tail and take off, quite literally running for our lives. The birds follow, surprisingly fast for their appearance. Their bodies are covered in a metallic armor and their beaks end cruel points, aimed at us. Their talons are no different. They're covered in blood, probably from the tribute we heard earlier.

We make it back to the regular forest with the birds still following. "Aera! We can't keep running! We have to fight them!" Celeste already has her spear out, bracing herself for the oncoming onslaught.

"Azani! Get under cover and wait for us!" Wait, why am I trying to save her? If I let her stay and the mutts kill her, then that's less competition, right? Focus, Aera. You're not a monster. You're not Capitol. She hesitates, unsure of whether she'll be a liability or not. "What are you waiting for?" The birds have caught up. "Get out of here! I'll come find you later, just take this and go!" She catches my backpack and disappears into the brush.

I take out my axe and swing at one of the creatures, wounding it. It slashes at my wounded arm with one of its wings adding plenty of small cuts. Damn birds. Their feathers are like razorblades. I take another swing at the metal bird and sever one of the wings as Celeste spears it. She's already killed three of them, but they look like they're calling reinforcements because there are definitely more than ten birds here, including the dead ones.

"Aera! Aim for the green and gold ones!" Right. The gold and green ones are calling more birds from Capitol knows where. I ignore silver and red avians, targeting their leaders. Working together, we bring down two of the five summoners without much trouble. I manage to pin a third to the ground, but before I can behead it, the damn mutt lashes out and rips open the back of my right knee with its talons. As I fall, I manage to land my axe on its neck, killing it anyway.

I'm not an exceptional fighter, and am starting to regret sending Azani away. I'm getting tired, making my swings sloppy. Celeste is slowing down too, the metal mutts scoring more and more hits on her. There's blood spattered all over her, but I can't tell if it's hers or the mutts'. We're down to the last five, but even then, it's too much. I don't think I'm going to make it to the end of the day.

I scream as I slide a knife from my boots and throw it at one of the wounded mutts. I don't care who hears me, I just want someone to appear and give the birds a new target. I take the knife from my other boot and fling it at the same bird, finally killing it as Celeste slays another. Three left now. The two of us are exhausted, and I can't even stand anymore. In a last-ditch effort, I call out, "Hunter, where are you? I know you're not dead yet!" Stupid, he's probably nowhere near here.

"We're right here." I whip my head around to see the boys appear.

"About time. A little help would be nice, you know." Celeste is struggling to keep the remaining birds at bay as they attack her relentlessly. She snarls at one of the birds, "Eat this!" and promptly shoves her spear down its throat.

Two left. Hunter and Lumen rush in to help Celeste finish the last mutts while the boy from Three helps me stand. I'm starting to get dizzy—I'm not dying, am I? I can't die yet! The three of them return, having just killed the last one. I pant, "Azani. We have to find her. I told her to run. Please, we have to find her."

Hunter checks my wounds and murmurs, "Don't worry, we'll find her." The cuts on my arm have already clotted, but the one behind my knee is still oozing. I wish I had my pack right now; we could really use that first aid kit. Again. I unwrap the bandage on my arm and transfer it to my leg. Probably not the best thing to do, but we have to make do with what we have. I curse the birds again before taking a few shaky steps toward our old camp.

Celeste puts a hand on my shoulder. "Hey now, where do you think you're going?"

"I want to go back. I feel like that's where she'd go."

"Do you realize how far that is? We were walking for hours before we were attacked."

"We weren't walking in a straight line."

"So? You won't make it a mile with that leg, sunshine."

Annoyed, I snap, "She has our supplies, Celeste. I don't think not finding her is an option." Remembering my knives, I move back to the birds' bodies to find them. After realizing it's useless to kick the corpses around because I can no longer put my full weight on my right leg, I resort to nudging them around with my axe. "Stupid mutts," I mutter. "Why were they even here?"

These Games are the first to feature the infamous Capitol muttations. Just my luck. The things I fear most, only second to death itself, get introduced during my Games. Great. Just great. What are they sending after us next, tracker jackers? At least if we come across those, we can smoke them out and burn the nests. But the birds we just fought are new breeds. What else will they throw at us?

I finally find my blades In the mess of bodies and stumble over one of the wings I severed in the battle. I pick it up and swing it like a sword, and it makes a sound like hundreds of wind chimes as the feathers rattle in the air. This would actually make a good weapon (and make me live up to my name of 'Savage'), but it would eventually rot, and it's noisy. I settle for plucking the primary feathers, which have surprising weight, and stow them away for later use as knives.

I say we can go and the five of us clear out, with Celeste at point and Lumen bringing up the rear. We wander the woods for a long time, searching for Azani and finding nothing. At one point we come across what we called a manticore during the Dark Days. A manticore is a grotesque fusion of a lion with a bat's wings and a scorpion's tail. Though basic compared to most mutts, manticores are killing machines. Luckily, this one is asleep when we come across it. Celeste and the boys quickly destroy it before we continue our search.

Another cannon booms and I have to fight the rising feeling of dread. It wasn't her, it wasn't her, it wasn't her. Azani had all our supplies. If she just died, then we have nothing. If we have nothing, the alliance will split. If the alliance splits, we're all doomed. I'm going to die, Hunter will follow, a Career will be the winner…

"Aera." Hunter's voice snaps me back to reality. "Come on, we have to keep moving." I limp beside him as we find ourselves facing a river. While the others bend down to take a drink, I move downstream a bit to clean my wounds. When I finish and bend to take a drink, something white catches my eye and I can't help but give a small yelp as I fall backwards in surprise. There's a skeleton on the river bed, a gruesome reminder of our impending deaths.

Ugh. I'm never this open. My reputation at home is that I'm a cold, emotionally detached person that shows little, if any emotion to anyone, save for a select few. I'm not like this under normal circumstances. Then again, nothing is normal in the Games. We're all going crazy.

Before the others can even stand, I just point to the bones in the river, and they have pretty much the same reaction. At least I'm not alone. There's a rustling in the bushes to my right and I draw my axe and get up, forcing myself to look in better condition than I am. What appears is neither natural animal nor mutt.

It's the girl from District Eight. She's injured so badly that I know she won't be around much longer. She drags herself to me and rasps, "The C-Careers. Found me and my partner. Killed him. They're…they're looking for others, but they're wounded. Don't let them win…" She collapses and her cannon fires and there's no reason for me to do anything other than close her eyes. Celeste checks her body for supplies and we move on to let the hovercraft collect the girl's body.

"All she had was a water bottle. Better than nothing," Celeste says. No, she had more than that. Now we know that Azani's still alive and that the Careers are hunting, but hurt. The sun's starting to set, so we make camp for the night. I climb partway up a tree to see the faces of the dead. Today it's the boy from One and both from Eight.

I come down to see that Celeste and Lumen have made beds of leaves for us, and Hunter is scavenging for food nearby. I look around and see nothing that needs to be done. "Thanks for making me feel useless, guys."

Celeste practically sings back, "Don't worry, we'll have plenty of work for you in the morning."

"Oh joy, I can't wait. And I call first watch."

"Yeah, your cannon will let us know if we're under attack."

"Even I found that in bad taste, and I love dark humor."

"You only say that because it's about you."

"I'm still taking first watch."