Cato kicks me awake late at night during his night watch. "Wake up Clove. We're going night hunting for your little girlfriend," he says with a sickening grin. Before he goes to wake Glimmer, he adds with intriguing neutrality, "Take away her knife first or she'll kill you before you can say 'Get up.'"

I heed his warning, naturally, and slide her weapon out of her hand before shaking her gently. "Clove, wake up," I whisper. Her eyes open slowly and she almost looks sweet in her dream-like state. As soon as she hears Cato's voice waking up the others, they become dark and jaded.

"Get off me, Loverboy," she snarls, and grabs the knife out of my hand.

As soon as everyone's awake, we gather our weapons and leave Rue and Darwin to guard the camp. They're pretty useless in terms of fighting, so it doesn't really make sense leaving them there alone as guards and bringing the entire Career pack on the expedition to kill "the invisible girl," but Cato decides it's a good idea, and it's clear that he's the leader of the group, so nobody else questions it.

"Alright, Loverboy. Where would she have gone?" Cato demands. The rest of the Careers stare at me, expecting me to immediately divine where she is. Based on where her podium is, I can tell where exactly she went according to my plan. If she listened to my instructions, she would have gone straight into the forest and gone in as straight a line as possible as far as she could before stopping to rest in a tree. I make up a quick lie on the spot and hope they don't see through it.

"She's not stupid. She wouldn't have gone out of her way to get into the forest, but she probably knows you'll be tracking her. She's right hand dominant, so she would have headed into the forest straight and then veered right, and gone diagonally up the mountain. I'd guess she's somewhere around there," I lie, pointing miles away from where she really is, based on where I told her to go.

They all continue to stare at me, but I maintain a straight face and look at Cato for the game plan. He just nods his head and says, "Okay," then turns towards the forest without even ordering us to follow. He's clearly the leader, so he just expects we do as he does.

All goes smoothly when we're in the forest; there are no traces of Katniss other than the tracks I pretend to see and follow intently. The pack is completely convinced by all of my feigned insight; I pretend to come upon something that will lead towards Katniss, and follow it even further to the right, away from where I know Katniss would have gone. Unless…

What if she had to move in a different direction, because someone was attacking her? Because she needed to find food or water? Because the Gamemakers sent a mutt after her? I think my worries are proved to be true, because all of a sudden, Cato leads us quietly in the direction of a girl sitting alone by a fire about 100 yards away. My stomach drops, but I follow closely behind Cato, who leads us silently towards her. My breathing quickens, and my mind swirls. Could it be Katniss? Or some dim-witted girl stupid enough to light a fire in the middle of the night? Surely Katniss wouldn't have done this. I hope she would know better than to attract so much attention to herself.

When we come within 10 yards of her, I am relieved to see it's not her – I can tell because even though she's sitting down, she's obviously too short and stout to be Katniss. And her hair isn't braided over her right shoulder; it's wavy and left down. It's Saxony, the girl from 8, Paisley's district partner. I'm left with the thought, though, of what they're going to do to her. Cato speaks up first, the whole pack gathered just behind her. Get up! Run! My mind screams. But I can't. I'm powerless.

"What do we have here?" he leers into her frightened face. Her eyes grow wide as she realizes she's met her doom, and she's about to lose the Hunger Games in the most painful way possible. Cato pulls his sword in front of her and stabs her quickly in the stomach, laughing at her shrill scream that pierces through the arena. She lays on the ground, dying, when the pack begins to run away at a faster pace, Cato joking with Orabel about how terrified she looked. "Wait a second," he says, stopping in his tracks. "Shouldn't we have heard a cannon by now?" The rest of them look around and start to head back, but I don't want her to die that way.

"I'll handle it," I volunteer, drawing attention to myself accidentally.

Cato looks at the others. "Okay. You sure she went this way?" he asks, gesturing towards where I directed them before.

"Yeah," I lie. "I saw a snare back there, and I think it was hers. She's probably hunting out there right now. Go ahead, I'll catch up." My face betrays nothing as he stares me down, but all I think is, She's actually probably hidden away in the trees from you people.

I head back to where we found Saxony, and she's still lying there, suffering. When she hears me coming, she whimpers and moans, trying to kick away from me.

"It's okay, Saxony. I'm a friend. I'm Peeta, from 12," I soothe as I kneel next to her. I pull my jacket off and fold it up, then gently tuck it under her head. I can tell her wound is too deep to heal, and if the Careers don't hear the cannon they'll kill her anyway. I simply hold her hand and brush hair away from her face while I try to coax her into her death. "You're from 8, right?" I ask. She makes a noise that sounds like "uh-huh," and lets out a few small cries, to which I respond with a comforting "shhhh," and brush tears from her cheek. "I'm sorry they did this to you. I'm so sorry." I could have stopped it. I could have done something.

Start with something simple, something simple. I think to myself. Make her death easy and maybe you'll be forgiven.

"Remember waking up this morning?" I ask, and she nods at me, her eyes trained on mine. "You know that moment when you're about to wake up but you're still asleep, and you feel like you're in between dream land and reality? I think that's my favorite part of the day, because anything can happen in a dream, you can be anyone you want to and it doesn't matter if it's plausible or not because it's not real. You feel like you're coming into consciousness, but you're still asleep. You're aware of who you are, but at the same time, you still have the comfort and beauty of complete peace."

She's starting to drift off, so I just keep talking. "It's the most beautiful moment of the day, when you're in between asleep and awake, and even though you're about to get up and force yourself to go through your daily routine, you still have that calm of knowing everything is perfect and tranquil. It's a blur because you might not remember it later, but it's always there." Finally her eyes fog over and I know she's put out of her misery. I close her eyes, remove my jacket from underneath her head, and walk away towards the other Careers.

Boom.

At a face-paced run, I know can catch up to them in minutes, and my agility gained from years of hiking through the forest makes that easy. When I'm about 200 yards away from Saxony, I hear a sound up in the trees. When I look up, I see her. It's dark, but the moon lights her face. Her visage only reads, How could you do this to me? How could you betray me? How could you lie to me? I want to explain, but it's too late. She's curled around the other side of the tree and she probably won't listen to anything I say, even though I just want to explain that I was trying to protect her. Katniss, the love of my life, will never trust me again, but I have no choice but to turn away and find the rest of the Career pack.

When I catch up, closely following their tracks, Cato barks at me, "Did you get her?"

"Yeah, Saxony's dead."

"What the hell took so long?"

"I did something… a little special for the audience. Have you seen Katniss?"

Cato sneers, clearly pleased because he thinks I mean that I made her death painful and gruesome. "Not once. Are you sure we're heading towards her?"

"Positive. Let's just keep looking. I think I saw another snare back there, so we're probably getting closer." Cato eyes me suspiciously, but continues.

We keep searching for Katniss for what feels like hours, and then make camp finally in the middle of the woods. I fall asleep wondering if she'll ever forgive me before I die for her.