Thank you guys so much for reading and reviewing! (Keep it up, please. I'm greedy.) Also, this isn't a particularly good chapter. But bear with me. I swear that the next few chapters after this will blow your mind! And I'll probably post the next chapter sooner – if I get enough reviews *hint-hint*

Allies

(ANNIE)

The first thing I realize when I wake up is how comfortable I am. I'm lying on a big leather couch, covered in a sleeping bag.

Then I realize where I am. It looks like the lobby of a building. An empty elevator shaft lies to my left and across the room, there's another couch. With another person on it.

"Good morning, sunshine." Standing over me is Tachs.

There's a white jar in one of his hands, a canteen in the other. I try to sit up, but my side hurts too much.

"Don't try to sit up," says Tachs gently. He drops to his knees beside me and offers the canteen. "Drink, there's nothing in it. I just saved your life," he says. "Why would I try to poison you?"

So I take the canteen and drink the whole thing. The water is nice and cold.

Tachs unscrews the top of the white jar. Within is an opaque white paste. Tachs pulls up the side of my shirt and spreads the paste on a huge wound on my hip. I don't fight him, mostly because the paste alleviates the pain.

"Do you remember how you got this?" he asks.

No. I don't remember. I'm about to shake my head when an image of silver hair, matted with blood enters my mind.

The head. If it can even by called that. Cuts all over. Blood everywhere. Screaming, someone is screaming . . .

I clamp my hands over my ears to try and block out that awful noise.

"Whoa, whoa," Tachs says gently. He pulls away my hands. "It's all right. I'm sorry. Forget I brought it up. Okay?"

I manage to nod.

"Are you going to speak at all?" he asks. I just stare at him. "I'll take that as a 'no.' That's okay. I'll talk enough for the both of us."

And sure enough, he does.

Over the next six days, Tachs fills every waking second by haranguing me with fun facts or a story from his childhood. It's incredibly annoying, but at the same time, I'm grateful for it. I want to talk, but it's like I can't find my voice. And every moment he's speaking provides a distraction.

But when I sleep . . .

My dreams are dominated by images. Asper screaming, Egma with a knife between her eyes, the bloodthirsty look Balinor wore – they're all there, all the time.

I miss Finnick. I wish he was in my dreams.

Life with Tachs is fairly boring compared to the three days I spent as a Career. There's much less food. We're lucky to get a tiny roll of bread from our sponsors, or find something while we wander. It becomes easy to count my ribs and see every knot on my spine.

But somehow, Tachs always manages to keep a fresh supply of water. I don't know how he does it. It's always cold, too. I'm sure there's some sort of water purifier in his monumental green pack, which I have come to know as 'The Bag of Mysteries.'

Still, our biggest problem is the fact that our only weapon is a single sword. We don't cross paths with the other tributes often.

What's worse, Tachs killed the female from District 10 while I was out. So now we have her allies to deal with in addition to Shine and Balinor. Fun.

At around dawn on the sixth day, we stop inside a big building for lunch.

The building is really creepy. Its halls are decorated with suits of armor, the floors are polished marble, and massive pillars hold up the high vaulted roof.

We lean against a pillar and Tachs pulls out his canteen and a loaf of stale bread from home. He stabs it with the tip of his sword and begins to try cutting it in half.

"I've had worse than this," says Tachs, wiping his brow. "Back home, bread is a bit of a luxury." He hands me half of the green bread.

I like listening to stories about District 12. It's so different from home. At home, we have easy access to fish of all sorts – even seaweed, which we use as part of our bread (hence the green color.)

"But I hear bread makes you fat," Tachs continues, taking a huge bite of his piece. "No joke. And I can't afford to get fat. I mean, look at me. I'm a god."

I snort. Yeah, you keep believing that, buddy, I think.

"Are you laughing at me?" he demands, smiling. "How dare you mock –"

He's cut off by a loud creaking noise.

A suit of armor moves only the slightest bit. But that triggers it. The other suits start creaking, too. In unison, they step forward.

Tachs, ever the jokester, says, "I'm suddenly overcome by the urge to run for my life."

The suits turn to us, first their heads, then the rest of their bodies. They take one step forward, then another.

Tachs pulls his enormous pack over his shoulder and grabs me by the hand. We run down the hall, our footsteps echoing throughout the corridor.

We climb the slippery rotunda. When they reach the stairs, the suits of armor stop moving. We pause to watch as they draw spears and prepare to throw. I don't stick around for the rest.

The first spear lands in Tachs's upper back. He cries out. I stop, turn, and run back to him. He breaks off the spear's shaft, but he can't reach the head.

I put one arm around his waist and his around my shoulders. I pull him up the stairs as best as I can, but I can already tell my hip is bleeding again.

We're on the roof, now.

Tachs stuffs the spear's shaft through the door and arches his back over it. "Pull it out," he says.

. . . Excuse me?

"Are you deaf?" he asks. "I have a spear in my back. I'd get it myself, but I can't reach it. It hurts. Pull it out."

So I do. Just as I flick the spearhead away, a cannon blasts.

"Was that for me?" Tachs asks. He turns his head to the sky. "I'm not dead yet!"

I hit him in the stomach and he starts laughing.

Who could that have been?

Then the second cannon goes off.

"Damn," says Tachs. "That's twelve down."