A/N: HELLO LOVELIES! This chapter is in Luke's POV. I love how attached you're all getting to Luke. He's certainly one of my favorite characters I've ever written, but this story is as much about Scarlett and Finnick as it is about Luke, and it's about to heat up in the next chapter, so hold on to your hats! There is a rumor that FF is actually doing a sweep for adult content. I think my Hunger Games works are safe, but some of my Harry Potter works (particularly Two Can Play This Game) might be in jeopardy. IF anything gets deleted, I'll be posting it again on my site, charlotteblackwood dot wordpress dot com. IF my account gets deleted, the same thing goes. I'll be putting up chapter installments of finished stories and oneshots first, finishing all stories, and even writing some new ones. There will also be updates on my original works on that site, if you want to check it out. I'm hoping to release a novel for eBook at the end of the year, and I'm nearly done with my first draft of my novel! Again, this is Luke's POV, so I hope you all enjoy, cheers, and keep your eyes peeled in case I disappear!

-J

Finley and I awoke to the sound of cannon fire. Ligeia and Sebastien weren't back yet, and my first thought was that Ligeia probably killed Sebastien in his sleep. Whatever the cause of the sound, however, it got us up and on alert.

"Who do you want for your next kill?" Finley asked me casually, picking a new javelin from our supplies.

"I don't really care," I sighed. "As long as I get them before they get me, it doesn't really matter to me who they are."

"I want the girl from Twelve," Finley said sharply. "It'd be nice to have a set."

I just shook my head, marveling at how he thought about the whole thing.

"Who do you think just died?" I asked, packing up a pack that would last us the day as we went hunting, apparently for the girl from Twelve. Finley looked over the javelins, choosing one for the journey.

"Hopefully not the girl from Twelve," he joked. "I don't know, maybe Draven. that'd give us all a good rest."

"We'd still have each other," I pointed out. After all, most years the Careers stuck together long enough to kill off most of the competition then took out each other. We would become enemies, sooner or later.

"Yeah," he sighed, grabbing a javelin. "We would. You ready to go?"

"Ready," I said, throwing the pack over my shoulder. "Did you happen to notice which direction your girl from Twelve went?"

"Follow me!" he said with a laugh, leading me onward. There was no point in us sneaking around. The girl from Twelve wasn't a threat at all when both of us were armed. After a bit of walking, Finley seemed to become aware of the possibility that the cameras were on us and he started chatting.

"So what do you think you'll do if you win, Luke?" he asked, playing with his javelin as we walked.

"I'll sleep a lot more," I joked. "And I'll not really know what to do with myself as far as mentoring. Finnick's a great mentor. It would be better if Ligeia won, gave Mags a nice retirement, but I don't know how easy that would be for future tributes, working with Ligeia and Finnick. I think there would be a lot less cooperation."

We both laughed.

"I think I'd buy something really big and expensive," he said thoughtfully, "like a desk."

I laughed and said, "Don't the victor's houses come furnished?"

"Exactly," he said with a shrug. "It would be extravagant. I could afford to be extravagant as a victor. Better than buying booze."

I nodded in agreement and I spotted a figure in the distance, trotting along in the sand dejectedly. I squinted.

"Female up ahead," I muttered, pointing out. "Who do you think it is?"

He squinted too, grinning.

"Dark hair," he said. "It's not Ligeia because she's with Sebastien. I think it's Twelve."

"Wait until we get closer to kill her, all right?" I sighed. "I want to be sure it's not Ligeia. If that was Sebastien that died this morning she wouldn't be with him, would she?"

"Good point," he muttered, and we got close enough for him to confirm that it was the girl from District Twelve before he loosed his javelin, getting her right in the chest. It didn't take long for the sound of the cannon to confirm the hit and the hovercraft came to scoop her up. We headed back to camp.

"You left the javelin in her again," I sighed, realizing that we were down another weapon.

Finley shrugged and said, "It's not a problem. We've got plenty back at the camp. Now that we're down to four of us we have more weapons and supplies between us. That'll probably increase the chances that one of us is going to win, especially since I haven't seen any good water anywhere that isn't straight from the packs."

It was true, we'd been keeping an eye out for somewhere to find water in case we ran out, but when we hadn't found anything on our several trips out into the arena we decided it would be easier to get it from sponsors. if we got sponsors, which I had full confidence that Finnick would be able to accomplish for me.

As we walked, there was another cannon and I raised an eyebrow at Finley but he just shrugged.

"Could be anyone," he pointed out reasonably. "Ligeia and Sebastien might still be out on the hunt, and Draven and his lackeys are fairly well-armed and a couple of them are decently talented. We're not the only ones killing people."

It felt strange to think in terms of kill or be killed, but it was what I had trained for, what I had volunteered for. Why had I done that? Something about glory and honor... It seemed fuzzy standing there in the hot sun of the arena.

Speaking of the hot sun, apparently the tributes weren't the only living things in the arena. A herd of lizards had destroyed the majority of supplies, we found, when we returned to camp. Only a few lingered when we got there and I managed to kill them quickly but our food and water stash was effectively down to what was in my pack.

My pack.

Finley and I looked at each other, realizing this at the same moment. My knife was on my belt, but the javelins were just behind him. It was quite clear to me from the look in his eyes that if I didn't get to him first, he would kill me for the pack on my back. I wasn't about to go down that easily.

I pulled out my knife, jumping on Finley, trying to keep him from the javelins, but he was struggling to much for me to actually stab him.

"Finley, you don't have to do this," I hissed. "Sebastien and Ligeia have supplies too! We're not going to starve, we have sponsors!"

"I'm not counting on that and you shouldn't either, Luke. You know," he growled, trying to push me off him so he could get to a javelin, "maybe they were right about you. Brutus said you were soft. You really don't have what it takes to win this thing. Why don't you let me stick you? You know between Sebastien and me I'm the one who's going to be nice about it. I'll make it quick and painless as I can."

Weak. The mentors thought I was weak, that I had no chance of winning.

I wasn't going to go out like that, letting Finley tell me I was going to lose anyway and then just letting him kill me. The shame of just giving up was not something I was going to subject my family to. A plan formed in my mind, though, and I began to loosen my grip, slowly moving off Finley, causing him to think that I'd given up, that I'd decided to let him kill me.

When he breathed a sigh of relief I knew I'd succeeded in tricking him, and probably all of Panem. Finley didn't bother scrambling to his feet, instead getting up slowly, turning slowly, moving quite slowly toward the javelins, giving me plenty of time to come up quietly behind him and slit his throat in one swift, fluid motion. Finley choked sickly, floundering as he fell to his knees in my arms, bleeding all over my hands, looking up at me with wide eyes.

"I'm sorry," I said honestly. "I never wanted to kill you, but I'm not going to be the one who goes out without a fight. You got your District Twelve set. I hope your District forgives me."

"They will," he managed to choke out, sounding strangled and strange as the blood gushed and gurgled from his throat. "I do."

I nodded, wondering what to do, realizing he must be in a lot of pain. He was still blinking, the cannon wasn't coming, and so held up my knife questioningly, watching him nod just a little bit, and then I stabbed him hard in the chest, praying I hit my target.

The cannon sounded moments later, ensuring me that I put Finley out of his misery.

My misery, on the other hand, was far from over.

My hands were covered in Luke's blood, as was my knife, and I didn't want to risk using water that I could need later to clean them, so I got as much as I could get off with the sand and shuddered as I looked at my blood-stained hands. They weren't as bad, but I would probably spend the rest of my time in the Games thinking about how I'd killed Finley, the only person I'd actually come to think of as a friend an ally in the whole arena. I'd killed him in cold blood because... because... because he was going to kill me.

Finley couldn't have been my friend if he had been so willing to kill me, could he?

But then, I thought about Finnick, Mags, Scarlett, Blight, all the other mentors I saw them talking to when I was in the Capitol. Anyone who saw them couldn't think of them as anything other than friends, closer than most friends because of their shared experience as Hunger Games victors. On the other hand, only a fool would think that if you put all of those victors back into the arena together that they would do anything but kill each other without hesitation when the time was right, just as Finley had been ready to do to me.

Maybe he'd been my friend after all, but it didn't matter right then. I could mourn his loss later, when I had time and resources for guilt and wallowing. At that moment, I didn't even have the time and resources to keep myself alive for a few days. There was nothing for it: I had to learn how to hunt and I had to learn fast.

It couldn't be too different from killing a person, I thought to myself, rubbing more sand on my hands to trying cleaning them a bit.

It ran across my mind to spit on my hands and use that to clean them, but I wasn't sure if that would cause me to dehydrate faster. It was ironic to me that Finnick had asked me what I would do if there wasn't any water. He couldn't have known, of course, that I was going to end up being in the situation I found myself in, but he must have known it was a possibility, and I knew I wouldn't have thought about it otherwise.

I settled in, checking to see what was salvageable of our supplies, expecting to see Ligeia and Sebastien coming back to camp at any time. There wasn't much worth keeping, that wouldn't spoil quickly with having been broken into by the lizards.

There was another cannon fired and I looked around to see if the hovercraft was anywhere near me.

It wasn't. The body that was lifted into the air was also mauled, looking like something had gotten to it, either a brutal tribute or a muttation of some kind. I preferred to think it was a muttation, that we didn't have another Titus on our hands.

It grew darker and darker and still nobody returned to the site. I was growing worried. Had Ligeia finished off Sebastien and decided not to face us without him? Had lizards eaten them? Had they decided to abandon us and work together alone?

I rationed out the food as though I was the only person left needing our food, even then thinking it could be a long time until I managed to catch descent food. It wasn't much, but it would get me through the night.

The sound of the national anthem of Panem sounded and I looked up at the sky, wanting to see Finley's face one last time before I put it forcefully from my mind.

The first face, I was surprised to find, was Sebastien's. Then Finley. then Ligeia.

I really was alone.

Vin was shown, as well as the girl from District Six and the girl from District Twelve.

There were nine of us left after six days, and other than Catriona, who'd run off with Draven and his group, I was the only Career Tribute left.

I was pretty certain that nobody saw that coming, especially not me.

I went through the packs, reorganizing them, thinking over who was left of the tributes.

Draven, Catriona, Daisy, Maggie, Charlotte, Hannah, the boy from Nine, the boy from Three. Catriona was dangerous, that was certain, and Draven was maybe even more dangerous because I couldn't be sure what he would have learned or not in his life. Catriona would have been trained in much the same way Ligeia and I were, so I could more or less know what to expect from her.

Draven was a wildcard, as far as I was concerned, and he certainly had a lot of power on his side with such a large alliance.

I sighed, shivering. Deserts were cold at night, hot in the day. I'd learned that during training when we learned about how to deal with our environment. It was only going to get colder, but I could make do. What I couldn't make do without was water. I could go thirsty fast in the desert.

"I could use some water, Finnick," I sighed. "I can hunt, I can kill, I can collect the supplies of other tributes, but if I die of thirst I can't do any of that."

I didn't expect much. I wasn't sure if he'd even managed to get me a single sponsor. He hadn't sent me anything yet. I curled into a ball to get all my body heat feeding off itself, wishing I had a jacket or blanket or something to cocoon in, but alas I didn't have anything. We'd had a blanket, but Sebastien and Ligeia had brought it with them when we parted. It was the gentlemanly thing to do, giving the blanket to the pack the female would be using, but I had a sudden rush of anger at my own good manners. I should have kept it for myself.

There were no stars in the fake sky of the arena... the top of the arena. It was eerie, looking up at the false sky with no stars and a moon that was probably just a spotlight so that the cameras could pick up all of the action happening across the desert. I wondered what sort of action might be going on in the dead of night. Maybe somewhere someone was trying to light a fire, or was trying to find shelter form the lizards.

There was a thought. Did the lizards have the capability to be predators for the tributes? They certainly were capable of causing trouble for us, but eating us? The Capitol had created a long line of muttations, some dangerous, some more of a nuisance than anything, but while the lizards didn't seem dangerous, they still had the potential to come at me in a pack and rip me to pieces.

They also were potentially a quality source of food. I wasn't sure how edible lizards were, but they definitely had some meat on them which was more than the rocks that were around me. It was a chance.

I rolled over onto my side and saw a silver parachute fall right in front of me onto the sand. It was a sponsor gift, which meant that Finnick, and now Mags as well, had managed to get me some sponsors. Inside were a large canteen full of water and a large collection of iodine tablets to purify other water, which meant that there was bad water somewhere in the arena to be found, water that could be purified if I waited the full half hour. My heart began to race with hope.

"Thanks, Finnick," I muttered, pressing the canteen to my lips and taking a few small sips. It might have to last me a while, as the iodine would only go so far as well, and would only be useful if I managed to find water. And it would only be more expensive for sponsors to help me over time. I didn't want Finnick to use up all the gifts on water only for me to get blood poisoning or starve to death. So I put my canteen in the most protected part of my pack and slept with my knife in hand, just in case interesting things did occur in the arena in the dead of night.