Chapter Eleven

I tossed the tiny pill between my hands, watching it as it fell through the air before my hand would swoop in and stop it's fall. The Capitol seemed to have created pills for everything over the years; pills that made you sleep, pills that made you feel wide awake, pills that made you sleep dreamlessly, pills that made you have happy carefree dreams, pills that made your worst nightmares play over and over again in your mind. If I took it, it meant I'd given up. It meant I couldn't live with what I'd done in the Games.

Would it really be that bad if I couldn't? I mean sure it'd prove I wasn't a real Career, living for the chance to rip someone's throat out and watch the life drain from their body, but why was that wrong? At what point did my humanity disappear? I gave up thinking and wandered through to the living room, not because I needed anything more for the chance to feel like I was doing something. I lay myself along the couch and switched the screen on hoping for some form of decent distraction. I wasn't surprised when I was disappointed. The victory tour was about to begin so naturally Katniss and Peeta were being shown over and over again to amuse the Capitol. Their darling star-crossed-lovers. It just made me feel sick.

Giving up on the shows I decided I'd best go for a walk. Not that I had anywhere in particular I wanted to go; I just needed to feel like I was doing something. My footsteps echoed eerily through the dark corridors, the sound of flesh on concrete was never going to seem normal in my mind. I tried to note which corridors I turned down, but they were all just greys that made the task impossible. I knew I'd end up lost but for some reason that didn't worry me.

I still hadn't worked out the general layout of the place, I knew there were lots of sections that all linked together but how they were set out was another thing entirely. I headed in what I thought was the way to the cafeteria, apparently it was open all hours, hoping to get some warm milk or something to help me sleep, an wish I could of headed anywhere else.

"Clove!" Glimmers arms were around me in seconds flat. Oh joy. "Oh it's so good to see you how have you been?" Wow she really was that dumb. She knew exactly how I felt about her, how I used to debate if she'd be as pretty if she was bald and after deciding she wouldn't how easy it would be to cut off her hair while she slept.

"Tired do you guys know where the cafeteria is?" I asked, enduring the hug for as long as I could before squirming away from her. I looked hopefully at Marvel, praying he could lead her off somewhere else.

"Of course! We were just heading there ourselves. So is Cato here too somewhere?" she looked past me hopefully, as if there was even anywhere to hide. I rolled my eyes at her, which she missed thankfully. Much as I hated her she would still easily take me in hand-to-hand combat.

"No he's, umm, taking an early night," I lied. To be honest I was pretty sure that he was still in the training center but I doubted he'd want Glimmers company. Even if he didn't I hated the thought of her and him alone there.

"Oh, oh well never mind it'll be nice to have a catch-up," she didn't even try to hide the disappointment in her voice. How was it that in a confined space with over 500 males she still had to cling to Cato? "So isn't this great! I mean sure we didn't win but life here seems pretty good. I heard they even have balls and we can pick our own dresses from the Capitol!" Good God how had she lived so long… why hadn't someone actually killed her yet.

"Yeah, I'm thinking a nice blue one myself, Clove?" Marvel joked, sensing the tension between Glimmer and me. I had liked Marvel, I was kind of sad when he'd died. He'd helped to actually keep us together as allies and I had had a nice talk with him about home once.

"Marvel do you have to be so silly all the time?" Glimmer whined. She was one to talk. She was the reason Katniss had been able to drop the tracker jacker nest on us after all. Funny how that worked out for her.

"I don't have to. But it's more amusing for me," Marvel appealed to her with a smile. Clove smiled back at him to make up for Glimmer storming off, clearly fed up with both of them already. "So how is he coping?"

"I dunno. Do you know what happened to him in the arena?" I prayed Marvel had some how managed to sneak some place and catch a glimpse of the footage.

"No idea. None of us have been able to get even a glimpse of our Games. Plus none of the older tributes are allowed to tell us. I guess we'll just need to wait and see."

"It's killing me. Why do we need to wait until they show us?"

"So it's on their terms. The Capitol likes power remember? Any chance they have to assert their power they'll take."

"I guess so. Cato said he wasn't surprised by this," I indicated around us.

"Huh. I guess I figured he was always thinking about something, I just thought it was food and killing."

"I guess that's what we all thought. I mean he's never been the stupidest, but I never knew he knew this much. Had thought about things this much."

"Yeah, but I guess he's more than just a pretty face then," Marvel nudged me slightly before winking at me. He spent most of his last few days in the games feeling like a third wheel as Cato and I had talked about our past and what we'd do once we left the Games. I looked at him like he was crazy, which he was but not just for this reason.

"Yeah unlike that one," I muttered in the general direction of Glimmer, who had left the two of us to our own discussion.

"She's not so bad. She just… doesn't know how to show what she's really feeling so she just tries to act like everything's perfect all the time," he mumbled. He'd always had a soft spot for her, he'd attacked three trees after she'd died scaring the crap outta me. I didn't know much about their relationship but I suspected there was something deeper than them just being tributes in the same Games. Not that it was possible to tell with Glimmer, she flirted with anything and everything that looked at her for more than three seconds.

"I guess. How you coping anyway?" I asked, genuinely worried about him. He was strong physically, but emotionally it was getting difficult to tell with people.

"Ah I'm ok. I'm just happy they have spears for me to throw. You?"

"I'm ok I guess, I just wish Cato would quit being so weird."

"I know but just, give him time. For him he's gone through a lot. I mean both his brothers won the Games, his parents too he just kind of expected to win, which was fair enough. I guess we'll never really know what changed unless he tells us," I liked how Marvel said exactly what I was thinking, reassuring me that I wasn't alone in my thoughts.

"I guess not but I-"

"Here we are!" Glimmer exclaimed excitedly opening the doors wide into the cafeteria. It was huge, well they were catering for over 1000 teenagers, but even then it was huge. It was easily half the length of the Capitol with every kind of food available 24 hours a day. The cafeteria was a ridiculous name for it in my mind; it was more like a food village.

Even in the small hours of the morning people flowed around the area, chattering about the new arrivals. Everywhere we went now people stared at us in curiosity, muttering about how we had coped in the Games, what they could teach us, where we went wrong. It unnerved me, but then again they'd all made the mistakes to, the mistake that meant they were here, rather than in the lap of luxury.

Glimmer was amusing herself with male company, much to the seeming dismay of Marvel. He simply hung back with me as we made the odd comment about some previous tributes we recognized.

"So is she always so…" I let my words trail off, figuring he'd know what I meant.

"Out going? Yeah I guess so. I mean she can afford to be just look at her," as Marvel spoke I realized he had spent a fair amount of time looking at Glimmer. I pondered over the thought for a moment and then realized how much of an idiot I'd been.

"You like her," I said teasingly, elbowing him in the side.

"What no," he blushed slightly as he spoke though. "I just have eyes and can accept the fact that she's quite beautiful."

"Oh just quite beautiful. Not she shines brighter than the sun beautiful? Not so beautiful that the stars shy away from her beauty?" I laughed as he attempted to hit me over the back of the head and I dodged out the way.

"You're such a pain sometimes," he sighed but his smiled revealed he didn't care what I thought of the situation. I looked up and caught Glimmer staring at us, well more him that me, like she was in utter shock at the situation. Of course, she was well out of the Games by the time me and Marvel had had our heart-to-heart and was probably surprised we knew each other's names. I found it strange how with everything that had happened recently, this was the thing that seemed to be surprising her the most.

Author's Note: Hello all hope you are still enjoying the story and if you are then review! And if not then definitely review! Just pretty please let me know what you're thinking! I know some author's have the whole "ten reviews until the next update" thing but since I'm writing for myself I don't wanna do that, but then I realized that I can write for me and not have to upload… so if you want uploads pretty please review! :)