I just got so gosh darn excited for this chapter… I just had to write it right away! The next one might even be out today, I'm in that good of a mood =D

"Clove," I wake to the sound of a soft voice from above me. "Clove," it says again, a little more firmly this time. I crack open my eyes a little to see Cato crouching next to me. He grins and I straighten up, looking around. He and Marvel are the only two up, and Marvel is sitting by a small fire. I shake my head and realize that the sun is just rising.

"We're going to hunt down some tributes today," his voice lowers before he continues; "remember what I told you. What's happening between Glimmer and I is nothing, I swear." I nod slowly, and push myself to my feet as I slide out of the sleeping bag. I look around quickly, praying that there are no cameras nearby, and in a flash I kiss him on the cheek, so quickly it couldn't have been noticed by anyone but the two of us. Then, I head over to where Marvel is sitting.

"Morning, Marvel," I say, sitting cross-legged next to the fire. I see him blush a little out of the corner of my eye and hold back a chuckle; it's good to know that I can be loved by people who don't realize that I have a soul. He rubs the back of his neck nervously and glances at me quickly, before returning his eyes back to the flickering orange flames.

"Oh, uh, morning, Clove. Sleep well?" he asks, his voice shaking slightly at the beginning of his words. I let a lazy smile slide across my face and enjoy the feeling of the heat of the fire on my face. I give him a little shrug, listening to the fire crackle and the sound of Cato's voice as he wakes up Glimmer, Kylie, the boy from three, and Peeta.

"I suppose so," I say, then add jokingly, "as well as you can sleep knowing that you could be killed any time. Though I do feel better knowing I'm surrounded by people who have been training their whole lives for this, and knowing that I myself have been training my whole life for this. By the way," I continue as I remember that I still haven't been told one of our allies' names, "What's the boy from three's name?"

Marvel gives me a surprised and almost upset look as he says, "Why, do you like him?" I laugh a little, letting the sound escape me before I can tell myself not to laugh. I never expected to be laughing and having friendly conversations in the Hunger Games, and as strange as it seems, it feels nice.

"No," I say through my gentle, easy laughter, "no I don't like him. I just feel like I ought to know my teammates' names, you know? And I already know yours, Cato's obviously, Glimmer's, and Peeta's, but I don't know his yet, and it doesn't feel right to not know his name when I know everyone else's." He grins at my laughter and turns his head to look at me again.

"Oh, well, his name's William, but he says he'd rather be called Will. I can't imagine why. William is such a normal name. I'd give anything for a normal name! Even if it was a name I hated, if it was normal, I'd like it, but I mean come on, Marvel? Marvel's such a weird name! Don't you think?" He says, and I smile.

"I don't know," I respond, thinking about it for a moment, "Marvel seems like a unique name to me. Why would you want to be part of a crowd, when you could be great, and you could shine, and really be something, you know? I for one would rather have an insanely weird name than be in the shadows along with a billion other people with the same name as me." He nods, seeming to see my point.

"True, true, but still, it's MARVEL. It's like Marbles, and I'm pretty sure I lost my marbles a long time ago," he jokes. I start to laugh, and not too long after I start laughing he joins in, and soon we're both laughing hysterically. The others wander over to us, and it takes me a few minutes to notice that they're all staring at us like we're crazy.

I choke back my laughter and wipe my watering eyes and say, "Sorry, sorry, he just said something pretty funny, sorry!" Then I break into another fit of laughter, this one much shorter than the first fit. I glance at Marvel and see that we're both sharing the same joyous and almost mischievous looking grin.

Cato says, "Well, now that that's done, do you guys want to head out?" I nod, more eagerly than I anticipated, surprised at my own desire to… to kill. The thought sickens me for a moment and the grin as well as Marvel's conversation are immediately dropped and forgotten. But then I remind myself that I'm a Career, and force the smile and joy back on my face. Unfortunately for me, Cato seems to notice my sudden loss of cheerfulness, because he continuously glances at me with a confused and concerned look out of the corner of his eye.

We all grab our weapons and go, heading towards the forest where we assume the other tributes are. Cato turns to look at Peeta as we walk and says, "Lover Boy, you're going to take us to Fire Girl, alright? The sooner we get her out of the way, the better, the damn girl and her damn score of eleven…" he shakes his head in irritation and says, "you ran away, just like her, and being from the same district, you must have some idea of where to find her."

Peeta's eyes flash with nervousness and worry, and I feel a slight pang of pity for the poor boy from twelve. Outlying districts are hardly ever allowed in Career packs; for one thing, so he probably assumes that if he fails us, we'll kill him- which, I think guiltily, we probably will kill him once we find Fire Girl. Also, he's leading us to kill his crush. If I ever had to kill Cato… well, I wouldn't. I'd rather die. I can only imagine how hard this is for him. But Peeta just nods.

"Our trainer told us to run away and find water, that water is our best friend in these games, because it'll lead us to food and keep us from dehydrating… if we can find a stream or river, we'll probably find her." Cato nods slowly and then starts towards the area of the forest where there appears to be more undergrowth. Of course; the more plant life there is, the more water there must be. We walk for a while before we hear the sound of a river- and the sound of a splash.

"There she is!" Glimmer shouts, and we all break into a run as we run across the slab of rock overlooking the river. We all begin shouting and racing toward the helpless girl in the water, laughing as she hurries to scramble out and we run easily after her. We chase her through the woods, laughing and cheering at the discovery of the infamous Fire Girl.

Eventually we chase her up a tree; I glare at her perfect little face and watch as Cato starts up the tree after her. "GET HER CATO!" I scream, letting all of my anger and frustration out at twelve, "KILL HER CATO!" Suddenly, I realize that the branch he is headed for is too weak to hold anybody. I open my mouth to warn him, but it's too late. He reaches for the thin branch and it snaps, sending him back down the trunk of the tree.

"I'll kill her myself," Glimmer snarls, her voice and facial expression seeming to portray the same anger and frustration that I feel towards twelve. She lifts her bow quickly, grabbing an arrow and snapping it back, breathing out as her aim sets, and shooting the arrow. For a moment, I think that it's going to hit the sorry excuse for a tribute, but instead, it whisks past her head, cutting a few strands of hair off. She gasps and hugs the tree, staring down in fear. Well, we may not be able to kill her yet but at least she fears us.

Peeta steps forward, the only one who seems calm out of all of the Career pack, and not ready to kill his district partner, and says, "Why don't we just camp here? I mean, she's got to come down eventually, or else starve to death. We'll just kill her then." Everyone else agrees, but I think that I am the only one who notices Peeta's knowing look that he shares with Katniss. For a moment, I consider telling Cato or Glimmer or Kylie, but then I remember the sympathy I felt for him earlier. We're all in the same boat here, Career or not. Some of us just have more of a step up than others. I decide not to tell anyone that the tributes from twelve may or may not be planning something.

Marvel takes out the box of matches he had in his pocket, and we make a fire. Soon, it begins to grow dark. I glare at Glimmer as she curls up, resting her head on Cato's shoulder. I take a small knife off my belt and fling it at a lizard on the ground. It cuts the small creature's head clean off its shoulders. I retrieve the knife and then take out some dried fruit I put in my pocket. I eat the fruit in silence, watching everyone else lay down to go to sleep. I can't help but feel, though, that something isn't totally right. I lie down and stare at the stars for a long while before taking my knife in my hand and falling asleep on the dead leaves of the forest floor.

I wake to the sound of buzzing and hear screams around me. I bolt up, seeing a beehive on the ground and tracker jackers swarming us. I feel multiple stings and turn to run. I see Cato, Marvel and Will running ahead of me and I chase after them desperately, the screams of Glimmer and Kylie echoing in my ears. I hear Peeta yelling at Katniss to run; the traitor. Not that I blame him.

I trip over a branch I didn't notice before and watch as the outlines of my allies begin to grow smaller and smaller. "Cato!" I cry out as loud as I can despite my sudden dizziness and hallucinations, tears streaming down my face in fear and pain. "Cato," I say again, more softly this time. The forest seems to stretch, everything seems to grow brighter, and just as I see feet enter my vision- I pray that they're Cato's- I black out.

"Clove," a voice echoes in my ears. "Clove, please wake up," the voice echoes again. I open my eyes slowly. Cato is sitting beside me, and Will is pacing around in silence, looking around as though waiting for enemies to ambush, though I'm sure he just wants to keep our pile of goods safe. I rub my eyes and sit up slowly. Cato places a gentle hand on my back to steady me.

"Where's everyone else?" I ask, confused, thinking of Kylie and Glimmer and Marvel and Lover Boy… then I remember what happened, just as Cato begins to fill me in on everything.

"Glimmer and Kylie are dead, thanks to Fire Girl," he spits out the words 'Fire Girl' venomously. "Peeta betrayed us. I always knew he was trouble, but at least we know Fire Girl's general whereabouts. She may have pulled a fantastic stunt with that tracker jacker hive, but I'm sure she had to have gotten more tracker jacker stings than you, even. I found him after we brought you here. Cut his leg half-off. It's bound to get infected. He's still alive, for now, but not for long. Marvel's out looking for more tributes to fall victim to the Careers. You didn't miss much, but Marvel and I were pretty worried. You had a lot of… fits while you were out, and you didn't look too good."

I nod, then look quickly to the side. The leaves of a bush are swaying slightly, an effect of the breeze maybe, but I could've sworn they rustled, as if… as if someone was hiding in them. As if someone was watching us. "Hey, Cato…" I say slowly, "Did you see that bush move? I wonder if someone's watching us." I look at him and see that he looks confused. He shakes his head and gently helps me lay down.

"Nobody's watching us Clove. And if they are, we'll kill them. But you might just be hallucinating. I'm not sure how long the effects of those stings are going to last. You ought to rest; I don't want you to get hurt, Clove. I love you," he says, leaning down and kissing me gently. I don't pull away; in fact, I kiss back for a while, but when we stop, I shake my head in confusion.

"I thought you didn't want to show affection towards me, in case the other tributes react badly," I say, confused. He gently caresses my face and gives me a small smile, kissing me again, this time a short fleeting kiss.

"It doesn't matter now. It's not like they're going to announce that we're in love all over the arena. And even if they do, I don't care. I won't let anybody hurt you, Clove. I promise." I smile and close my eyes, letting out a short, contented sigh.

"Well then, I love you too Cato." I drift off to sleep.

I don't know how long I drift in and out of sleep. There are multiple short periods of time where I wake for a few minutes, eat something or drink some water, and fall back to sleep, so many that I can't really keep track of time. However, when I do really wake up, Cato informs me that I was out for a few days. I stand up and stretch, and talk to Marvel a bit. Just small talk, nothing like the fun conversations we had on the first couple days. Marvel has dark rings under his eyes. Also, he talks about Glimmer quite a bit. As it turns out, they were almost like brother and sister, sort of like Cato and I.

Suddenly, we see a huge amount of smoke float up from the trees near where we are. Cato and I exchange glances and he says, "Marvel, Clove, you two, come with me. We're going to see what that smoke is. Will, stay here and guard the camp. I don't want anything bad happening, understood? Something strange is going on. No normal fire smokes that much. We're going to find out what's going on."

I follow Cato and Marvel as we head toward the smoke. When we get there, we see a fire of pine needles fizzling out, and another plume of smoke rises farther on. And then, we hear an explosion. I turn to look in the direction and my mouth drops open. "Cato," I say sharply, "someone just blew up our camp." He turns to look where I am and tells Marvel quickly to follow the smoke and kill whoever is behind it. Then, the two of us run back to camp.

"Cato, don't kill him," I try to say before he kills William. But he doesn't hear me. He yells something angrily at Will and then snaps his neck. Will falls to the ground, and just like that, our teammate is dead. I stare in horror and surprise at Will's dead body on the ground, and I slowly start backing away, covering my mouth with my hand to keep from crying out.

"Clove, I didn't mean to… oh, oh my gosh… Clove…" I shake my head, still mute from the shock, and I turn and sprint away. I don't even know where I'm going. As I run, I try to ask myself, well, what did I expect? This is a fight to the death, and Cato has been training for this. But I just can't bring myself to think these thoughts. He killed a teammate. Nothing is more dishonorable than that, right? I hear three cannons fire. I slow down while running through the woods. Why were there three cannons? There is one for the fire starter, one for Will, but who is the last cannon for?

I pray that it isn't Marvel, that it's eleven or someone- anyone else. I need to talk to Marvel. There's no one else left to talk to. I can't talk to Cato about what happened, because he was the one who killed his teammate. And then everyone else is dead. I race in the direction of the second fire, and continue on, looking for Marvel. And then I see it.

The girl from eleven, covered in flowers and… Marvel. Marvel is dead, with an arrow in his neck. He was killed by Fire Girl. I scream in anger and desperation. A girl runs past. I don't know who it is, but I don't wait to find out. In moments, there is a knife in her heart. I storm away before stopping next to a tree and collapsing at its base. I curl up, splaying my hand against the soft grass, toying with the little blades in my fingers and smiling. I close my eyes and fall asleep.

I wake to the announcer saying, "I'd like to announce a slight rule change." I sit up curiously, leaning my back against the trunk of the tree and waiting for the voice to continue speaking. "Instead of just one tribute winning, if both tributes from the same district survive and remain the last two standing, both of them will win." I blink in surprise. That isn't what I expected at all. But still, it means that Cato and I can both go home.

After the grief earlier, my thoughts have calmed down, and I can analyze what happened more carefully and logically. As I think about it, I realize that Cato was just doing what we have been trained to do since we were young. Technically, he did nothing wrong. Alliances always fall apart eventually. I stand up and start heading back to where our camp had been before Fire Girl and eleven ruined it.

I run into Cato on the way there. When he sees me, he braces himself with his sword out, but then relaxes when he sees that it's me. "Clove, thank goodness," he breathes, gathering me in his arms and hugging me tightly to his chest. "I heard all those cannons and I got so worried… but you're okay. We can both win, Clove. We can go home." I smile and hug him as tightly as I can, which being me, isn't very tight.

"We can," I murmur, "but Marvel's dead. I was going to talk to him. Katniss shot him. I have to kill her Cato. She's killed everyone. Kylie, Glimmer, and now Marvel. And she made you kill Will. She's destroyed our alliance." I narrow my eyes and say the next words as a growl, "I'll kill her."

"Whoa, Clove," Cato says, pushing me back by the shoulders. "What's gotten into you? Just a few hours ago you were running away at the sight of someone dying. Suddenly you want to kill someone?"

"Not just anyone," I say in a deadly voice.

"Katniss Everdeen."

Here you go guys =D Everything's played out… and soon it'll get to the plot twist. =D =D =D So, like it? Don't like it? Tips? Questions? Comments? Review! I'll start doing reviewer replies now… add some interesting stuff to the author's notes.

BUT FIRST, to all of my lovely fans, it is time you have earned your FAN TRUCK BADGES OF AWESOMENESS AAAAAAAAHHHHHH! You are all official members of the England Fan Truck. On the England Fan Truck, we all sit in the back and it drives around randomly and we are basically just huge fan and fandom freaks all together3 So join my fan truck3 We have cookies. And we play ukulele. And banjo. So come join the England Fan Truck =D! I LOVE YOU GUYS! Have some cookies.

Emmy98- Thanks for that note of happiness ^-^ Hope you continue to enjoy the story

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Alright, hope you enjoy this chapter,

XOXO,

England