A/N: Okay, I'm back with a chapter once more.

Will today be the day? No. Day Ten will be the day. But... will Marvel live today? Will Marissa? Katniss? Cato?

I am now accepting title suggestions for my next book of this series. But you don't know who wins (I do!) so you can't really guess. I'd prefer if it had to do with diamonds and flames. You'll know why today.

This will be an extremely short chapter, but I'm in Arkansas on a short vacation. What do you expect?

Check out IAmBeautifulBecauseOfMyFlaws. She's amazing and is a fantastical (it's a real word!) author. So check her stories out!

Title: The Diamond and the Flame

POV: Marissa Markison

Day Eight, right where the last chapter ended, and around... oh, let's say ten

Marvel snaps around, hearing a twig. "Just a rabbit," I assure him, seeing a fat one come to us. He spears it and smiles at his accomplishment, holding the dead animal up when he takes out the spear. "Very nice, very nice."

"Thank you, sarcastic," he says, smiling.

"Your welcome, obnoxious," I shoot back playfully. "What now? And don't say light a fire. I'm too tired and still a bit shaken from earlier-I will admit-to fight off Cato or Katniss."

"Katniss won't come to a fire," Marvel says. "She's not the type to pick a fight, either. I can tell."

"Fine. Then I'd rather not fight Cato," I tell him, taking my knife from the ground. "There's hot coals by the river."

Marvel snaps to me. "There is?"

"From Katniss and Peeta or Thresh, I bet," I tell him casually. Katniss is long gone from the hideout. She isn't going to come back. Not to the same place she was. She's going to go to places of the arena she's never been so as to throw Cato off. At least, that's what I'd do, and I guess-if she's smart enough to figure it out-she'll do the same. And Thresh is dead. And he came from the opposite side of the Cornucopia. And Peeta is dead. So Peeta's death is another reason for Katniss not to return here. I wouldn't want to return to the exact place I had spent nights and nights with Marvel if he was dead. It would hurt too much. "They aren't coming back, Marvel. Trust me."

"We're not going back," he says.

"Our stuff is all there!" I protest.

"Yes, the other spears. We so need those," he spits. "Marissa, it's unsafe for you.

"For me?" I snap. "If you aren't aware, I made it far enough without you! I would still be alive without you!"

I hate it when he underestimates me, especially after times like this. After times like the feast. I practically saved him back there, and now he's trying to protect me from a depressed archer? If she comes, tears will probably be in her eyes so overwhelmingly for her that she can't shoot straight. Times like this I really wish he'd just let me be in charge like he promised so I could really show him just what I can do and how much better at certain things than he is. I bet if it weren't for me a couple times, he'd have died! And if it weren't for him, I wouldn't have gotten into the dangerous situations he saved me from!

But I know I can't think like that. Marvel and I are one another's half to the whole now.

But then again, we just met. And when we did, it was training to kill each other. Trust is still a small issue for me. Maybe not for him, but for me, I'll confirm it here and now. And what I really regret about that is the fact that I'll never be able to fix it. We'll be parted forever before I can.

"Then go," he says, interrupting my thoughts.

Stunned. That's the first feeling that comes up. I'm shocked, stunned, bewildered. Then betrayal and hate. Then regret once more. But what comes out is the feeling of hate. Hate is-out of all the feelings that arose when he said that-what shows itself. Luckily, though, before I can say anything, he starts to talk again.

"Just go. Just go if I caused you a million years of trouble, because, Marissa, I'm not something to hold you back from going off," he explains coldly. Never has his black eyes looked so freezing cold, as if they were a cold white, not a warm black.

"I'm not leaving!" I snap defensively. But I don't mean to be so cold, so hostile, so closed. I just want him to realize that I can do more than steal a loaf of bread. And he probably thinks that if I try to, I'll get caught and killed.

Really, it's not just him, but the whole country that I want to prove wrong.

And really, it's not him I'm angry with, but the Capitol.

I throw my arms around his neck and kiss him. "Sorry, okay? I know I'm being rude tonight, alright? Just don't tell me to leaving, okay, Marvel?"

"That whole string of sentences was each needlessly a string of questions," he says. I kiss him again. "To the cave?"

"Oh, no!" I say in a sarcastic voice. "We can't! The coals! They'll turn into Katniss and shoot us with her magic powers of archery and shape-shifting!"

"Are you mockingjaying me?" he asks in a ridiculous, high-pitched, squeaky voice that isn't even like any Capitol accent I've ever heard. Then, in his regular voice, he says, "Like mocking? And mockingjay? Get it? It was a good one, right?"

It surprises me how quickly he can go from such a serious attitude to a fun, giddy-like attitude. Honestly, for lack of better term, a Marvel-like attitude.

"Yes, I get it," I say. We start to walk back to the cave, laughing quietly all the way, so as to not attract an insane maniac who has just lost his girlfriend or a depressed archer that is just trying to stay away from the maniac. Also known as Cato and Katniss. Though Marvel is, I am not in the mood-nor am I ready-to be in a battle of any sorts tonight. Tonight may be the only night I actually get to fully relax in the arena. And I want to relax.

So when we return to the cave once more and lie down like we did earlier, so tired we could burst at one mildly wrong comment, I lay my head in his arm and breathe, glad to be safe with Marvel for one more night at the least. But that's just at the least.

His head buries itself in my neck as he kisses it and his lips brush across my hair and chin. He combs my hair gently with his fingers and declares that he's washing my hair tomorrow in the stream if we have time. His fingers caress my cheek. I lie there, waiting for tiredness to take me over completely and pull me under. I wait to relive how Marvel almost died over and over again. I wait for something to take me away from this arena, even if to somewhere far worse. And what does take me away surprises me. His voice-of all things-is what takes me away.

"Don't leave yet, my flame," he says.

It slips out of my mouth when I say, "I won't go." He's my diamond. "My diamond."

I turn to face him and he does the same. We kiss for a long time, over and over. And it hurts to think that this is a luxury, not something I can just keep. Of course, every kiss you share with your loved one is a luxury, because tomorrow may not exist. Not for you, or not for them, maybe. But others. Others outside the arena. They can certainly take a bit more advantage of their loved one's kisses because they aren't dead certain that one of them will die very, very soon.

I drift off to sleep, and I don't want to, for I want to stay with my diamond for as long as possible, and sleep only takes that away from us.

It hurts how much I love him. And still don't have time to learn how to completely trust him.

It hurts how much of a perfect diamond he is, while I am nothing more than a flickering flame.

A\N: Do I write better in Arkansas? I genuinely am curious of that fact... so... tell me in reviews?

Also, please give title suggestions if you think of any. It's not required, but will be appreciated very much, and you can suggest as many as you like... as long as they involve something along the lines of diamonds and flames.

Check out IAmBeautifulBecauseOfMyFlaws!