Gaston starts stirring a couple of hours later, and I let out a quick breath of relief. As I watched the time pass, I started getting nervous that we wouldn't have time to do anything else today. Well, and my arm had been falling asleep.

"What time is it?" he mutters, his rough voice even more gravelly than usual. He sits up straight and paws at his eyes with the back of his hand, a gesture that makes him look about five years old. I have to bite my tongue to hold back a laugh.

"I don't know," I say. "Still light out. Maybe five or six?"

"Shit," he curses, getting unsteadily to his feet. "The careers could be doubling back over here by now. We've got to either hurry, or leave half the coastline open and hope the fire spreads."

"If you're well enough, we should try to finish it. If I know Dylan at all, he's going to scour that entire forest over there until he's sure that he has all the tributes. He won't let any go."

As if to prove my point, a cannon booms in the distance.

Gaston runs a hand through his hair as looks in the direction of the coastline, then nods.

"I'm trusting you on this," he says, looking straight at me. "So we better not wind up dead."

I swallow nervously. I don't know when it happened, but now I really don't want to let him down.

"We won't," I say with as much confidence as I can muster. His dark eyes stare straight at me for a moment before he nods.

"Okay, let's go, then. My arm feels good enough to move grass, and with that brute from Eleven out of the way, I don't think there are any tributes to worry about other than the Careers."

With that, we make out way back to where it's clear we stopped, and resume what we were doing before the panther attack. I can see that Gaston is working more stiffly and slowly now, but we're still making really good time, and no one seems to be anywhere in sight. To my immense relief, we finish the second half of the coastline quickly and without incident.

"Now what?" Gaston pants, continually looking over his shoulder nervously. Like him, I can't take my eyes away from the forest that stretches out behind us and wraps around the main set of mountains. The Careers are somewhere in there, and if we don't hurry…

"Double back for a while, squirting bug spray on the grass every few yards. It should be late enough that we'll have to light the fire as soon as we get back to the other end of the coastline, so it won't have time to evaporate."

"Do you think you can jog most of it?" he asks.

Jog? Three miles?

"Um."

"We'll start out jogging, how about that? Get away from the Careers, and then we can slow down."

"Okay, that sounds fine," I tell him, and then we start back down the coastline. After only a few hundred yards, I hear what sounds an awful lot like footsteps echoing along the forest floor. A moment later, a pale face peeks at us from around one of the thin trees. I kick Gaston in the shin, probably not very discreetly, and his sword is raised in a moment.

The face quickly disappears, but Gaston must have gotten a glimpse because he jumps in the direction of the tree. The cannon fires, and he's back a moment later, not even panting, his sword stained with fresh blood. I swallow. Gaston purses his lips.

"I hate taking ones like that out because they aren't even threats." I give him a questioning look, and he says, "It was that girl from Ten." With a shake of his head, he continues, "I doubt she was any older than fourteen, she had no weapons, and she couldn't have been doing anything more than investigating the noise."

I bite my lip as my face pales, my stomach clenching with guilt. The girl I ate lunch with that day. Why did I need to point her out?

"Why'd you kill her, then?" I ask, not able to really get mad at him because it was half my fault.

"Would you rather I give her a quick, painless death, or do you want her to burn in the fire?"

I take a shaky breath, conceding his point.

"Okay, fine, I get what you're saying." He's also saying that another thirteen or fourteen kids could end up dying very painfully in the fire, but I choose to ignore that fact. "We, we should get back to work."

He nods in agreement, and we continue on our way down the shoreline. Eventually, I see the cornucopia in the distance after I peek out of the trees, meaning that we only have a little over a mile to go. Gaston makes me pick up the pace just slightly, and we get to the end of the shoreline in a half an hour with no other interference.

It all seems much, much, too easy, but I'm not going to complain.

I glance up and see the sun, just peeking over the horizon.

"Do you think we should start it?" I ask. He polishes off the second can of bug spray along a ten foot stretch of grass, which is probably what we're supposed to be lighting.

"It's ready. I don't see why not. Can you grab a match from the pack?"

I listen to him and grab one, then hand it to him, praying that this is going to work.

"You do realize that you'll have to get yourself up most of the mountain, right?" he asks me. I nod. Then he takes a deep breath an strikes the match against a tree before dropping it on top of the bug spray soaked grass. It flares up and starts burning instantly, and Gaston turns and starts running. I follow after him, the smell of smoke trailing after us.

I'm tired, and exhausted, and my legs are completely dead from going six miles already today, but I can almost feel the fire flaring up, can sense the smoke starting to rise, and that pushes me to force my body to go beyond its normal limits. Even when my arms feel like rubber, and my legs start shaking with exhaustion, I keep pulling myself up that stupid mountain beyond Gaston, who's struggling this time around as well, no doubt due to his arm.

We reach the edge of the tree line within twenty minutes, and both of us catch our breath, then turn around. For a moment I pray that the fire caught, and then I see that praying is completely unnecessary. It's already spread across a good half mile of the coastline, and I can see the flames burning brightly, too close for comfort. The smell of smoke is already starting to get stronger.

"Gaston," I whisper worriedly. "You don't think that it's going to burn more than just the shoreline, do you?"

"As in 'do I think it's going to come up the mountain'?" he asks hoarsely. He shrugs. "Let me just tell you, if it does, you'd better pray that it takes everyone else out before it gets near us."

I groan.

"I probably should have thought of that before."

"No shit," he snaps, drawing his sword. For a moment I flinch back, sure that he's going to kill me for it, but he chuckles harshly and says, "Damnit, Griffin. I think that you know I could take you out whenever I want. I don't need to yet. Now take out that sword you found, and give it to me."

I listen and hand him Byre's sword.

"Okay," he says. "Now get on my back and do not touch my left arm."

"But-"

"I can handle it," he says harshly. "I have a different idea this time."

I hesitantly get on his back, being extremely careful not to get anywhere near his arm. Once my arms are wrapped tightly around his neck, and my legs around his waist, he starts basically walking forward, stabbing the swords into the ground to that he can keep his balance. His shoulders tense every time he has to use his left arm, but he isn't throwing that much force into any of his movements, nothing like he would be if he'd kept up his whole jumping idea.

I'm almost convinced that we're going to make it over easily when the wind picks up, blowing straight towards us. The smell of smoke begins to get unbearably strong, and soot begins to coat our skin and hair. I start coughing terribly, and Gaston barks at me to cover my mouth with my shirt. He does the same thing and continues to force his way to the top of the mountain, his breathing turning labored and raspy, and his movements becoming jerky and unpredictable.

We're ten feet away from the top when the smoke gets to the point that I start getting dizzy. Gaston keeps grunting his way forward, even though he's in about ten times worse shape than I am.

Then, finally, he throws himself onto the flat ground on top, crying out loudly when his bad arm thuds against the ground. I roll off of his back awkwardly, something in the pack digging into my skin when I land on it. I don't care. I want to stay there forever and never move. My head is foggy, and I'm not sure what's going on, and all that I know is that I'm tired, and breathing hurts, and there's too much smoke.

Then someone is dragging me awkwardly, and I feel like I'm falling, or maybe rolling, but I can't really tell and I don't really care either way. I feel the sensation of landing on something hard and uncomfortable, and then everything goes black.

A/N-

Yeah, I know that they're whole little 'make the fire' thing was really easy, but don't worry, this isn't going to be the end of the Games or anything, so there's still a lot more time for plenty of bad things to happen. The only other thing that I have to say is that Spreading the Fire should be updated around Saturday or Sunday, probably, for everyone reading that story.

Thanks to Hahukum Konn, silver cat 777, and brooke13243546 for reviewing, and I hope that everyone liked the chapter.

~bballgirl32~