A/N: Just a warning that the parts where they cross paths with Katniss, etc, will be more like in the film than the book since it's been so long since I read it. And the timeline's wonky, it happened over a longer space of time in the published version. Also, I only noticed how short this was when I typed it up, so I decided to merge it with the next chapter. Remember to review :)

Lover boy pulled through in the end. We found her the next day, injured and alone. Like a squirrel, she'd scurried up a tree.

"I've had enough of this," I groaned, starting to follow her, but I was too heavy. In the time it took me to firmly position my foot on a branch, she had climbed five more. They were all yelling at me, all but lover boy, and I wouldn't have been surprised if he'd run off. I wouldn't have cared. He'd done his job, and he wasn't a survivor. I picked Clove's holler out of the others—"Come on, Cato! Kill her, Cato!"—and was shocked by how demanding it was. She sounded unstable. Regardless, she was still Clove, and her voice encouraged me to climb another branch, and another.

I got cocky. Grabbing onto one and putting my entire weight on it as I reached out for another, it snapped. All I heard was a crack, rushing wind, silence, and then a thud as I landed on the forest floor.

I opened my eyes and was met by three disappointed faces looking down at me. I pushed myself to my feet. Glimmer immediately pulled her bow, firing an arrow without taking pause to aim. Suffice to say, she didn't even get close. And then I heard it. A snigger, high up above our heads. Bitch was laughing at us.

"Let's just wait her out," lover boy perked up. All eyes turned to him. "She's gotta come down sometime, it's either that or starve to death. Let's just kill her then."

I was torn. Part of me appreciated how practical he was being. The rest of me supposed this was a way to save her life. My own sanity prevailed. "Okay," I decided. "Somebody make a fire." A sudden thought struck me: when had I become the leader? I certainly hadn't put myself forward. But somehow, it felt right.

Our group dispersed, but lover boy lingered. He was looking up, right into her eyes, before he turned away. I would have fallen for his dismissal if I hadn't been playing a game myself. The way he avoided her eyes was so similar to the way I'd been avoiding Clove's, that that's all it took to see it. His feelings were real. It was her who was pretending.

Glimmer was the first of us to fall.

Last night, she'd fallen asleep on me, and as I slept, I'd felt her nuzzling closer. I couldn't push her off, lest blow our cover, but I couldn't sleep soundly with her nails breaking my skin and her nose pressed against my arm, which she seemed to have claimed as a pillow.

I was awoken by a girl's scream. I jumped up with no consideration for Glimmer, only to then realise she was no longer there. It had been her scream. I couldn't see her. I couldn't see much of anything. I just stumbled to the edge of the clearing as my eyes adjusted. A Glimmer-like figure was charging towards me, but all I took in were the tracker jackers which were suffocating her.

Clove. Where was Clove? They were coming for me, now. But where was she? With a burst of relief, I caught sight of her retreating, as fast as her legs would carry her. I heard her screams on the wind, and that was all it took. I set off at a run.

"Cato! CATO!"

Glimmer was calling me, but I didn't even look back. I just kept running, until I came upon a lake. Marvel was wading through it, sporting several swellings on his face. Clove had submerged herself entirely, spurting water from her mouth. She'd abandoned her jacket, and it looked like she'd received a nasty sting to the eye. Lover boy sat on the rocks, his feet dangling in the lake, and the sudden sound of a cannon infuriated me.

Not because it signified Glimmer's death, but because it meant Twelve had got away. And, most of all, because it meant that Clove almost had. Clove could have died back there, and I held him personally responsible.

In an adrenaline rush, I charged forward with my sword and took a slice of lover boy's leg. Ignoring his cry of pure pain and agony, I hit him, and he fell sideways. Blood gushing from where I'd struck him, he put a hand to his leg as if expecting to close up with wound with nothing but wishes to God. I looked upon him with disgust and turned to face the others. Marvel was smirking, clearly satisfied with this result, but Clove only looked at me with sympathy. She knew it hadn't been a moment of total cruelty.

"Let's move," I told them, wading to the other side of the river and ignoring the fact that Marvel had extended his hand to Clove to help her out of the water. She didn't need it, but she accepted his help. I tried to remind myself that she was playing a game, that Marvel was her pawn as Glimmer had been mine, but I didn't fully believe it. Not until I glanced behind me and exchanged a look with Clove which reaffirmed my belief that this girl was worth dying for.

Recuperating at the Cornucopia, Marvel suddenly stood. Clove followed his example, but I remained where I was. "Did you hear that?" he asked, but before I could ask what he meant, he was off. I pushed myself to my feet and went to stand by Clove. We stood there in silence, waiting. Rustling. And then…

Marvel emerged with something in his hand: a boy. He looked vaguely familiar, but I couldn't place him. "Lookie, lookie, lookie," Marvel purred, "what we have here." We were silent, and he rolled his eyes. "He's District Three, ain't he?"

He was met with blank expressions. "Technology?"

He turned to give Clove his full attention and repeated, teasingly, "Technology." Her face slowly but surely spread into a look of realisation and enlightenment. She grinned.

"Nice catch," she praised, her eyes glowing with admiration. I couldn't help it. I imagined flattening his skull with an iron. If, you know, I had an iron.

Marvel and Clove turned to interrogate him, and all of a sudden I felt like the third wheel. She crossed her arms over her chest, somehow making herself look bigger and more threatening.

Marvel dug something into his back, making him squeal. "You know anything about bombs?" he demanded. Three didn't answer right away, and my guess is Marvel stuck him again, because next I knew, he was gushing, "Yes, yes, yes," with his eyes closed in a prayer.

Feeling Clove's eyes on me, I turned to give her a look that said what the hell? But her mouth simply fell into a crooked tease before she placed her gaze on Marvel and the boy again. As much as I hated to admit it, Marvel was doing a pretty good job of scaring the kid, leaning towards him, his smile crooked and his eyebrows arched, his head moving in a slight nod. Three was trembling.

"In that case, Kevin… We've got a little job for you." He gave him a push.

I puzzled. "How do you know his name?" Marvel didn't seem like the type to associate with other districts if he wasn't using them to survive.

"Who said I did?" he asked, pushing our captive in the direction of the Cornucopia.

"You called him Kevin."

"So?"

Clove snickered and glanced at me in passing. "He doesn't like referring to them by numbers, and real names are too personal."

Raising one eyebrow, I looked at Marvel and realised with a sense of dread that if Clove knew his habits, he knew hers. And that would not work to our advantage. Clove may be smarter than him, but he was stronger, and if he knew her mind, he would prove to be deadly. I'd have to watch him from now on. She may not be able to look after herself this time.

Marvel pulled "Kevin" away, and I was just about to follow him when Clove slid up to me. "So instead of asking what you really want to know, you decide to ask about his name?" she asked me under her breath.

"And what is it I really want to know, if you know everything?"

"I do. And, paraphrased, 'what the hell is going on?'" The heat rising in my cheeks informed her that she was right, and she chuckled soundlessly. "Three's technology," she repeated, less secretively. "Bombs. If we can reposition the mines into a defence system, we could eliminate more threats and not have to worry so much about standing guard. We just have to make sure we don't trample on them ourselves." She tapped my shoulder and uncharacteristically flounced off to join Marvel.

I was hit by a wave of disappointment. Marvel's plan was a good plan. Maybe I'd underestimated him. He had brains, too. And I hadn't thought of it. I hadn't even caught on to it. I'd needed it spoon fed to me. I felt so incompetent in my role. What did I add to the effort, really? What was to stop Marvel slaying me instead of the other way around? It was starting to look more and more likely that that would be the case.

"You sure this'll work?" I asked.

Marvel looked at me like I was insane. "Of course it'll work," he snapped, and I experienced a weird sensation. Since when had we changed places? Tell me, when had I become the annoying accomplice rather than the scheming adversary? I hated it.

I had just decided I would survey the arena when Clove came back over to me. "Can you promise me something?" she asked quietly. It wasn't a whisper, but it was by no means loud enough for Marvel or "Kevin" to hear. Her question wasn't like Glimmer's—Promise?—if only in her delivery. Glimmer's had been pathetic, weak, flirtatious. Clove's was serious, contained… contemplative.

I waited.

"If this blows up in our faces—literally—don't kill him. Not for this. Be smart about it."

On anyone else, her wide eyes would have been interpreted as pleading in all the wrong ways—but I knew that she was only concerned for me. So I promised her.

With a thankful blink, she started to back away as she told me, "You know, you may not think it, but we'll need him. For a while."

I took her word for it, and believed her.