A/N: Okay, so, I know the chapter is early, but that's because I'm really busy this afternoon and my school internet doesn't like the website for whatever reason, but next chapter will be up right back on track! Thanks again to Tasteless Rain for being a great beta, and you guys should definitely check out her Dantana story Stay if you haven't already.

Chapter Eleven: Blasted Cannons

"What the actual living fuck, Santana?" Puck whispered, spit flying from his mouth in his aggression. "Explain to me why the fucking hell we just had our asses saved by Quinn freaking Fabray of all people!"

"Keep it down, Puck, the Careers aren't the only people in the city." Santana deadpanned.

"San! I promised your mum that I'd keep you safe, stop making that harder than it needs to be and tell me what just happened!"

"Okay, fine!" Santana exclaimed. "I have an alliance with her and Dani."

"What about me?" Puck said, his voice losing its vigour. Santana shook her head.

"I don't know. I'm not even sure what's happening about it now. I think she's going to find me and Dani when the Career pack dissolves or something. For now she's just keeping them off our backs."

"And what about me and Elliot?" Puck asked. Santana arched an eyebrow at him.

"What do you know about Elliot?"

"Oh, as if we weren't going to notice that our best friends were up to something. What do you take us for?" Puck growled. Santana jabbed her finger in his chest.

"What did you talk to him about?"

"We called a truce! I won't hurt Dani and he won't hurt you. Now come on, Quinn may have them held back for now but we still need somewhere to stay for the night."

"My Quinn would never have made an alliance with your girls!" Sue was shouting so loudly that the rafters were shaking, but it was all Holly could do to keep a straight face. Adam was sitting next to her, slightly more shaken by her outburst, but every now and then Holly would nudge him as if to say that she knew it was his first time working in the same area as Sue, and that he shouldn't let himself get intimidated.

"What did you do!?" She pointed viciously at Adam and Holly decided that she'd had enough.

"Okay, okay, look. If there's a person in this room who isn't aware that Quinn Fabray is the smartest person in those Games, I'm sure you know now. My guess is that she saw something valuable in our girls and decided to take advantage of it." She paused for a second to gather her thoughts. "It's obvious, isn't it? She's going to split off from the Careers and meet with San and Danielle-"

"Dani." Adam said.

"With San and Dani and they're not going to try and kill her because she could overpower them in a heartbeat! They must've done something damn good in Training, because she's obviously protecting San."

"Would you all relax a little bit and stop shouting?" April called. "It's not even the second day yet!" She hiccupped. Holly nodded firmly and sat back down beside Adam.

The next morning, Dani woke up cold and wet. She groaned and rolled over, into Elliot, who groaned back at her.

"Why are you wet?" he said, his voice thick with sleep.

"Let me out of the tent and I'll tell you, cause I have an idea." She sat up and shook herself awake before she unzipped the tent and crawled into the open.

"Whoa, yeah. I was right." She said. Elliot frowned and crawled after her, to see what she was looking at. The grass they had pitched their tent on was covered in dew, as was their tent. "I was resting against the side." Dani mumbled, looking up at the city. They were far enough away from the buildings to receive the full affect of the way fog was encompassing the entire city. Even though the sun was up, everything had a gloomy feeling to it and the air was heavy with the condensation. Dani reached out for their backpack and pulled her jumper out.

"Why didn't you sleep with that on?" Elliot asked. "You're going to get sick if you aren't careful. That'd be a lame way to go."

"It's a good thing I didn't, or it'd be soaked." Dani grumbled, pulling it on and hugging her arms to her chest. "It's definitely colder than it was yesterday, I'm not making that up, am I?"

"No," Elliot nodded. "It's colder. We'll need to find jackets if we want to make it through tonight without freezing."

"More clothes? I think you're just saying that so you can have the familiarity." Dani's stomach growled. "Before we do anything else, we're getting food."

"Deal. I'm starving." They packed up the tent and put it back into the bag before setting off to find a place where they could eat.

Brody needed a jacket. His original one was with Bree, because when he ran she tried to grab him, caught the end of his jacket and he ditched it there and then because he didn't think keeping his jacket was worth dying for at the time. He stood by that, but he was also really pissed off by the idea that he had no jacket and Bree had two. His leg wasn't bleeding anymore, but there was a massive black bruise that covered most of his right shin, and stepping on it hurt. It hurt a lot. There was only so much he could do, even with the ample supply of medical supplies he had stumbled across. He reckoned that she managed to chip off some of his bone, so while he really needed a jacket if he didn't want to freeze that night, he also had to stand up and walk to do that.

And he wasn't sure if he could do that.

He had found a box of pills labelled 'painkillers', and when he read the back of the box he found the idea of them very attractive, but at the same time he wasn't sure if it was a good idea to have any. In the end he caved and had two, and sat for another twenty minutes while he waited for them to start working. When he didn't die or get chest pains or anything of the sort and his leg stopped throbbing, he got to his feet and shuffled to the street. He needed food as well, and water. Rubbing his hands up and down his bare arms to generate warmth, he walked as quickly as he was able. On top of this, though he liked basic hand-to-hand combat more than any other method of fighting, he needed a weapon. He was in no condition to fight anyone like this. From what he observed, that meant he would need to go back to the Cornucopia. Which would risk being caught by the Careers, or worse. Bree.

"We should be out there! Hunting!" Sam snarled.

"I'm telling you, we can't leave the supplies." Quinn said, sitting on a box, one leg crossed over the other and inspecting her fingernails with a bored expression.

"And why's that?" Kitty asked.

"Because we have the weapons." Jesse muttered, leaning back again the Cornucopia.

"So? Who cares, no one's going to bother to come back here!" Jake was as frustrated as Sam.

"That's what you think. We lost a cloth last night." Quinn said. The rest of the Careers, including Jesse, frowned at her.

"Even if we had, it easily could've been blown away in the breeze or something." Jake said. Quinn rolled her eyes.

"Not if it was sitting under the head of an axe."

"Did we lose the axe?" Kitty asked. Quinn shook her head.

"No. That's why I noticed that we lost the cloth."

"I still don't understand why this matters. It's a rag!" Sam pressed. Quinn resisted the urge to grind her teeth together as she looked up at him.

"It means, you thick-skulled, dim-witted brute, that someone is following us. And if someone is following us and we haven't noticed them yet," She got to her feet and advanced on him. "It means that we're all going to get killed in our fucking sleep." She was standing right up close to him now, and if the circumstances were different she would appear completely dwarfed beside the blonde boy, but much to the contrary, he looked so unsettled by her cold fury that he was leaning away slightly. Her look was so fearsome that he actually took a step back. She turned away and sat back down, shutting her eyes and holding her hands to her temples. If she stayed then they could protect the supplies and keep Santana and Dani out of harms way. She didn't know what she was going to do about their District partners, but she would worry about them if they were still alive when the Career alliance dissolved. But, if she did stay here, the other Careers could try to kill her as well. It wasn't completely out of the realms of possibility, and if Sam remained this determined to kill Puck, he could easily become too dangerous to be a value to their group. If they went, Puck would be killed, without a doubt. The weapons would be open for anyone to access and take, and Santana may end up hating her for not protecting him. Then again, she didn't seem like the kind of person to blur the line of protecting her and protecting him. They still had enough supplies to last for two more days, so she wasn't worried about that. Quinn sighed.

"Everyone grab a weapon."

Seneca smiled at Quinn's words.

"Show me the city." The screen in front of him changed so that he could see the entire Arena, including the locations of the Tributes.

"I want the fastest path to 7 set out and these three buildings gone to drive them back." He said, pointing at some buildings on the street Puck and Santana were walking through.

The rumbling was softer this time. That didn't prevent Dani from halting and looking back. Elliot stopped as well, mostly to scout the area while Dani remained fixated on the top of the building that was collapsing. And then another one toppled out of the sky, just a little further away. And finally a third one dropped, further still, and the rumbling stopped. Elliot put his hand on Dani's shoulder.

"No cannon."

"We might've missed it."

"They wouldn't have us miss it this early on."

"I need to know that she's okay, El."

"She's fine, Dani, believe me." Elliot reassured, but they still didn't move. Dani's breathing evened out eventually and she started walking again, Elliot tailing after her.

"See? I told you." He said.

Boom.

Dani's reaction was instantaneous. She whirled around, Elliot wrapped his arms around her waist to keep her from running off, and she screamed.

"San!"

It was Quinn's job to notice things. Without her guidance, the other Careers probably would've gotten lost. Without Jesse or Kitty, they would've been trapped in that city. As it was, Quinn was the only person who could lead them the right way. She noticed the little things in the fog, like marks on the walls, lights on deep inside of shops and doors being left ajar. They passed through the same block she had found Santana in the previous night, and then the first building fell, and she knew they had to be close. With the building's destruction the little signs ceased and Quinn bit her lip.

Things could go horribly out of her control very soon.

But she pressed on anyway, prompted by the second building tumbling down. Jesse, Kitty and Jake started to cheer and holler again, leaving Quinn and Sam unnervingly quiet in comparison. A third building crumbled and they rounded the final corner. Quinn came face to face with Puck and Santana, Puck standing a little bit in front of his friend. He glanced right at her and then at Santana and Quinn's eyes widened, alarms going off in her head.

He has to die.

Quinn needn't have worried, because barely a second later Sam charged forward.

"Take this!" Quinn read the words on Puck's lips as he pushed the axe into Santana's hands and pushed her off, away from the Careers. "Go, Santana! Run!"

"Puck I-"

"I promised!" His roar shook the ground, and obviously Santana as well. "Now go!" So, reluctantly Santana took a step back as Sam met Puck, his trident twirling in his hand expertly. Puck bypassed the weapon and went right for a low punch to Sam's stomach, winding him. Quinn watched the fight, her focus on the girl just behind it, who was gripping the axe so tightly her knuckles had gone white.

"I promised your mother I would protect you, now go!" Puck shouted, avoiding another one of Sam's stabs.

"Should we do something?" Kitty asked. Quinn shook her head.

"Sam's got this. We should probably turn back, actually." Quinn muttered, her mind whirring away as she tried to keep Santana out of trouble.

"What about her?" Jake asked. Quinn gave a perfectly sadistic laugh and allowed a small light to dance in her eyes with it.

"We'll come back for her later. We're going to send her mad before we kill her. The best kind of torture." Quinn smirked coldly. Jake made a chuffed sort of sound and the three kept watching the fight, just in time to see Sam catch Puck in the arm. An idea hit Quinn.

"Kitty, do you remember the way back?"

"Yeah."

"You take J's back; I'll keep an eye on Sam here. Just in case." Quinn said. Kitty rolled her eyes.

"You really want to keep those weapons under wraps. Alright, I will."

"Oh and, don't forget," Quinn looked at her. "You're only leading the way. Jesse is in charge in my absence."

"How could I have ever assumed anything else. C'mon, boys." The three Tributes had just vanished down the other side of the block when Sam finally drove the trident through Puck's chest.

"And that was for Brittany." He said, making the moment so overdramatic Quinn felt the urge to chuckle. She didn't, however, on the grounds that Santana was still right there.

Having developed a personality in the last five days, Quinn discovered that she wasn't that bad, really.