I walk out to find Marvel. He's standing by Cato, laughing at Clove who was picking up clumps of her hair.
"Hey, Marvel, I, um, I think you should go and see Glimmer," I say.
"Why?" asks Marvel.
"Um, you'll see when you get there," I reply.
Everyone goes silent, and at that precise moment, Glimmer lets out a sob.
"Oh, I see," he says. He enters the tent and the crying stops.
"Well, at least that's over," says Cato.
Cato decides that we should go and hunt some lunch.
I am allowed to stay at the base this time, deciding that leaving Clove alone is a bad idea.
"So, what do you think of the events so far, Lover Boy?" Clove asks after a while.
"I think that things have been going too… slowly. I think that the Capitol will be getting restless, there haven't been any deaths since yesterday," I say.
"Well, I think we will have to provide them with some. Cato will want another kill, anyway," she says, a malicious smirk creeping on to her face.
"Clove, when did you start training?" I ask.
"Age nine. My parents are trainers, so I got to be trained early. You?" she replies.
"Age 11, my dad made me go out and lift the heavy flour bags to bring them to the bakery. Why'd you choose knives?" I ask.
"Too small for anything else. Why'd you pick maces?" she asks.
"I hadn't handled weapons before training, and I didn't want to pick swords or spears, because Cato or Marvel would get angry. Maces were what I was best at," I say.
"Well, you're pretty good for a first go. Want me to teach you some knife skills?" she asks.
I nod my head.
We walk over to a nearby tree, and she shows me the basics. She takes some fruit from the pyramid of supplies and puts it on a branch.
"Hit the apple, and I'll take over your hunting duties," she says, her dark brown eyes shining in anticipation.
"And if I miss?" I ask.
"You'll take over mine," she says.
I square my shoulders and get in position, one foot forward, one foot back. The handle of the knife is close to my face, and the blade is close to my lips. It feels cold. I breathe out, breathe in and throw. I close my eyes, afraid to see if it made it, or missed. I open them and see the apple on the floor, my knife right through the middle.
"Wow, nice one, Lover Boy. Looks like I'll be taking over hunting duties," sighs Clove.
Glimmer emerges from her tent.
"I'm sorry, Clove, for calling you all of those bad names. Will you forgive me?" she asks.
"Alright, Glimmer," replies Clove.
Cato comes back with some rabbits and three fish.
We get the fire started and I take Clove out to the woods to show her how to identify safe fruits and berries. She picks some and we head back.
Once the meat is cooked, we sit around the fire. After a bit of chat, Cato stands up.
"Look, we're the careers pack of the 74th hunger games. I think it's about time we said who we wanted to kill," he says.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see a movement near the Cornucopia. I pick up my mace and walk to the Cornucopia very slowly, making no noise.
I see her; it's the girl from 4.
She turns, seeing me approaching her, and tries to run. I hit her leg with my mace and she falls.
"Hey, Cato, look what I found," I say, shouting to Cato. He picks up his sword and walks over.
"Good catch, Lover Boy. Now, what do we have here?" Cato says with a sneer on his face.
"Girl from 4, trying to steal supplies," I replied.
"I-I-I c-c-c-can f-f-fight," stutters the girl.
"We'll see about that," says Cato. "Clove! Come over here, we've got some fresh meat for you to… fight."
Clove gets up and comes over. "Weapon of choice?" she asks the girl, a malicious smile on her face.
"Knives," the girl replies.
The tension is so thick it could be cut with a knife.
"Well then," Clove says, picking out a knife.
The girl does the same and as soon as the knife is in her hand Clove jumps her and pins her down. Somehow, the girl manages to get up and soon has Clove in a headlock.
"Wow, you can stop now. You can join us, if you'd like," says Cato, outstretching his hand.
"I would very much like that," she says.
"I'm sorry about your leg," I say.
She shakes her head, her long dark hair shining as it moved.
"Doesn't matter. It's not like I was a contender in these games, anyway," she says.
"You and I must think alike, I said something not so different to that on the last night in the training centre," I say.
"Apparently so. What's your name?" she asks.
"Adriana. You?" she replies.
"Peeta Mellark."
We head back to the fire, Cato cooking another fish for Adriana.
We keep talking, kind of separating from the crowd. Clove moves into Cato's tent, Glimmer into Marvel's and Adriana into mine.
We sit in our tents and talk until we hear the anthem play. We all stand outside, knowing what we are going to see.
Nothing.
Our predictions are correct, so we gear up and decide to go hunting for tributes. I stay at the back with Adriana. We talk a bit along the way, but we're mostly silent. Cato tells everybody that he sees a fire, so we should be quiet, as not to alert the tribute.
We get closer to the fire and see a girl, from district 8, I think, warming over a fire. We approach her. She doesn't know we're there until Cato puts her in a headlock and tells her, "Give me a reason why I shouldn't kill you."
She whimpers, and says, "P-p-please, d-d-don't k-kill m-m-me, my f-f-family back home is c-c-counting on me."
"Sorry, wrong answer," says Cato.
She lets out a high pitched squeal and Cato stabs her through the heart.
We start to head back, Cato and Clove saying things like "Did you see her face?" or "Pathetic. 'P-p-please don't kill me.'
We notice that the canon hadn't gone off. I volunteer to go back and finish the job.
I put my head to her chest and see that she's still breathing. I bend down and whisper in her ear, "Your family wouldn't want to see you suffer. I'll make it quick."
I take out a knife and stab her again. Her body goes limp and a canon sounds.
We head back to camp and all I can think about is her face. She didn't deserve to die.
None of us do.
A/N: Yeah, I know it took me forever to update. I'm sorry, I'll try to update faster. Reviews? :D