A/N: So, just a few notes here. I try and interpret RvB canon in ew ways for this fic, so this is my take on Carolina, and what happened to her. Though we know very little about what actually happened to her. Oh, by the way, I have written a bonus Maine oneshot, Reap What We Do. Some Maine backstory for y'all. Oh, and for the curious, my av now is what Maine looks like in RvB Carolina is singing is Latin.

There are two songs for this chapter. Moonlight and Madness by Trans-Siberian Orchestra, and A Thousand Angels by Rachel MacWhirter. (I always mess up spelling her last name but the lyrics are absolutely perfect for this chapter.

"Other experiments like the Dakotas were common towards the end. For instance, Agent Carolina was implanted with two A.I.s at one time."

"Two of them? That would drive me nuts."

"Indeed."

Delta: Reconstruction, Chapter 8

The trees here were worlds different from the ones Carolina was used to climbing—these were rough and covered in pine needles—but it felt good to stretch her legs the way she was used to. Her head still pounded, but it was easier to ignore as she hopped from branch to branch, the familiar movement bringing a smile to her face.

The forest was dense and thick, the air slightly sweet as the sun began to beat down upon the arena. Beads of sweat gathered at her temples, and she paused for a moment on a branch to tuck her hair up under her cap. Honestly, there wasn't much left of it to do so; her mother had cut it to just below her ears right before the reaping. At first she had hated it that way, but now she was ashamed of the small fuss she had kicked up back home. She hung her head and looked down to the forest floor, blinking back the tears. There were so many things she hadn't said, so many things she wished she could go back and change.

And now she never would.

Carolina knew she wouldn't come home. It was something that had tugged at her ever since the reaping. Sure, she could move through the trees easily, but that was nothing new for younger tributes from District 11. She had no physical strength like the Careers; the best she could hope for was to stay out of sight. Of course, there was always the slim hope that would work—it worked for Annie Cresta, seven years ago. But Carolina would rather not go mad if she could help it.

But maybe we're all mad. How could anyone manage to stay sane here?

She leaned up against the trunk of the tree, taking a deep breath. She knew she was supposed to go gather, but looking up at the sky, she knew she had a few hours left to do so. She took the moment to close her eyes, tilting her face up towards the sky.

That was when she heard it. A hum, a little chirp, one she knew so well. Her eyes snapped open again, she found herself with a companion, a flesh and blood version of her beloved token. The mockingjay took her in with its beady black eyes, tilting its head a little as she held out her finger to it.

"Hello there, old friend," she said softly, and the mockingjay jumped onto her hand, its short little talons biting into the skin on the palm of her hand. It wasn't painful, more of an odd feeling, but one she had missed terribly. Mockingjays were all over the orchards back home, and though there certainly wasn't much time for frivolity in District 11, the mockingjays near her group of trees had quickly become her friends.

So, without thinking, she began to sing. It was a simple song, really, made up of only three words—words in a language Carolina never understood. But her mother had sung it when she was a child, when she did the same rough job Carolina did. She had gotten too old and too tall to scramble amongst the highest branches now, but when she had been twelve; her mother had taught her the song that she had sung to the mockingjays, just as Carolina was now.

"Dona Nobis Pacem," Carolina sang out to the bird, who looked up at her for a few moments before mimicking the tune.

It became a round, a perfect harmony, as the bird did what it was born to do, matching Carolina's pitch perfectly, even filling in the weaknesses in her voice. Soon her song attracted other mockingjays, and they picked up the tune in an instant, filling the forest with their sound. Carolina belted out the final notes of the song, completely forgetting where she was. In her mind she was back home, working another long day, singing to keep herself productive. Music made even the worst chores bearable, and on some days it was the only thing that kept her going. But when the last notes faded from existence, she was reminded where she was. The arena. The Hunger Games.

And when the spear pierced the side of the tree trunk, just barely missing her torso, she knew she had made the biggest mistake of her short life.

"Well, ain't that a pretty little song."

Another spear lodged itself into the tree; it would had stabbed her straight in the palm had she not reacted at the last moment. The mockingjays were gone now, and when Carolina looked down she met the hateful, determined gaze of the boy from District 4. Carolina scrambled to her feet and, taking a deep breath, leaped to the next tree. For a split second her hands slipped on the branch, but she was able to regain her grip. She sighed with relief, and prepared herself to move to the next. She knew she couldn't outrun him forever, but maybe he'd run out of weapons or energy before she did.

"You really should have been my kill," he continued, half a dozen small spears in his hand. "If the girl from District 12 hadn't gotten there first. But then—" A spear went flying in her direction and she dodged it, just barely. "But then you just wouldn't stay dead."

Carolina could barely process what he was telling her. The girl from District 12 had tried to kill her? It didn't seem possible. York had saved her; the people from District 12 had never been vicious the way the person who had hit her must have been. It was a lie. It had to be a lie. But she had seen a flash of blonde hair right before she had been knocked out…

"And if Massachusetts hadn't been so busy distracting me by her idiotic insistence that your partner wasn't her boyfriend—"

Carolina had been teetering on the edge of a branch, just about to jump, but the impact of his words made her sway a little, about to lose her balance. Maine and Massa? She knew they had talked before the parade, and she had seen the way he looked at her, but there was no way…was there?

He's just trying to psych you out. Just trying to get to you by telling lies. Don't listen to him, Cara. It's all false. Just jump. Do what you were born to do.

"Even if she wasn't such a terrible liar, I might have believed her. That is, until she picked the most obvious spot in the world to kiss him." He snorted in disgust, and readied another spear.

Carolina's head was spinning, her legs beginning to shake. She knew she had to move, now, but she felt frozen in place. The adrenaline running through her veins and pounding with each beat of her heart was supposed to help her survive, help her move on and outrun the threat, left her jittery and anxious. Her lungs constricted and she found herself panting, as if she couldn't breathe. She doubled over, and she heard the boy's cruel laughter.

"Poor little Carolina," he taunted. "So small. So weak."

Don't listen, don't listen, don't listen, don't listen…

She willed herself to move, and using all of her strength, jumped to the next tree. Her hands slipped again, and she gripped the branch, tried to force herself to hold on, to pull herself up to safety.

"You thought you were in love with him, didn't you?"

That was when her hands, sweating and bleeding, lost their hold on the tree, and she fell.

It was a strange sensation, falling.

Eighty feet up, she knew she was going to die when she hit the ground. She wondered if it would hurt terribly, or if her life would just be snuffed out in an instant. She wondered if it would have been better to have died at the hand of the boy's spear. But for now she almost enjoyed the weightlessness of it, the wind rustling through her air, how everything else in the world receded, and it was just sky and light and gravity all in a rush.

Crack!

She had stopped, but instead of finding hard packed earth beneath her, there was a tree branch. She looked down; she couldn't have been more than 25 feet above ground now. Her entire body throbbed, especially the right side of her torso, and she bit her lower lip to keep herself from screaming with pain. She didn't even want to think about moving, and so when she felt the branch beneath her give in and break away, she let herself fall once again.

This time she was brought back to Earth with a thump, landing directly on her behind. She could feel as well as hear the bone crack beneath her, and she groaned, her head spinning. Her lower ribs were being licked with flaming hot pain, and when the District 4 boy straddled her she began to sob, unable to hold back the excruciating wavelets of agony that ran rampant throughout her body. His spear was positioned right above her heart, and the last, conscious part of her told her to fight back. But with what?

The knife.

Though moving her arm brought a new level of despair to her broken anatomy, she reached for the knife tucked into her belt. Yes, it was still there; secure despite her nosedive, and she gripped the hilt.

It happened too quickly. The boy's spear was racing towards her, and she threw up her left arm for protection, her right still gripping the knife. The spear stabbing through the skin caused her to let out a sound that seemed otherworldly—beyond animal, beyond anything she had ever heard before. The movements with her right hand were erratic and wild—she swiped, she stabbed, she did anything until she made contact with his skin.

And contact she did—while at first impact she had squeezed her eyes shut, she opened them again to see the blade lodged in his neck, as he had turned. Her hand shook as she pulled it out, and blood began to spurt wildly, covering her jacket, her pants, his shirt, and her face. Warm and smelling like copper and salt, she gagged as it sprayed her. The color began to drain from his face as he regarded her the way a feral dog would, his breath in snarls, his words barely intelligible.

"You…little…whore…can't…get…away….bitch…"

He tried to pick up another spear but his hands were trembling so badly, so slick with blood that it fell from his grip. His skin was turning ashen now; she had no idea what she had hit with that single stab, but it must have been something important, at the rate he was losing blood. Blind luck, nothing more.

She wasn't sure what possessed her to do it. What force in her mind told her to keep stabbing, but she could feel her mind cleaving in two; the old Carolina floating in the background while a vicious new voice, one she had never made contact with before, pressed her forward. The old Carolina watched her new self stab the boy over and over again, stab him wherever she could. In the chest, the neck, the face—so many times in his face that his features began to recede and all that was left was blood. It was something beyond any nightmare she had before, something beyond any Hunger Games she had seen on television. This was all too real, yet at the same time she couldn't believe it was happening. Couldn't believe that she was the one doing this, inflicting such horror. The boy had slumped over completely, his hands twitching as he tried to reach for a weapon, but he no longer had the strength to move.

Finally, his body crumpled completely, and he fell on top of her, his breaths shallow and barely audible. She could feel his faint heartbeat, the blood from his wounds oozing into her hair. His weight was crushing and though her muscle in her body screamed in protest, she tossed the knife to one side, not caring where it went.

She could no longer hear his heartbeat, no longer feel his warm breath on her skin. The cannon fired and somehow she knew he was dead, but she was unable to fully register it. At least, for a split second. Then the sound, still ringing in her ears, disappeared, and it hit her.

I have a dead body on top of me.

Though the thought was strangely calm, her reaction was not. It took every ounce of strength she had, but she pushed him away. She began to wiggle to the right, to slide underneath him. This was more than she could handle, and she began to scream—from the pain, from the horror in front of her, from the world which seemed to pitch in and out of view. She didn't feel in touch with anything; not the pine needles beneath her, or the oxygen she was breathing, or the sun caking the blood on her face into a sticky, foul layer. Instead she just continued screaming, so shrill and lost. The screams of someone who had lost her head completely. She could see the old Carolina before her, standing right above her in the white dress she wore the night of the interview. Shaking her head at her, a disapproving angel.

Tears rolled down Cara's cheeks, washing away some of the blood. But it wasn't nearly enough; she was breaking into pieces. Breaking into places she didn't even know, split into many minds and many selves, all of whom looked above her, appearing one by one next to the Carolina in the white dress. So many different versions of her, and Carolina couldn't tell what was real and what was false anymore. Her hands clutched some pine needles from the ground, the smell began to ground her a little, and the other selves before her began to shimmer, and disappear.

She wanted her mother. She wanted a sister. She wanted a friend. She wanted York. She wanted Maine. Somebody, anybody to hold her hand and tell her it would be all right. That she would be okay, and she could go home now. That this wasn't really happening. That it was impossible.

Her cries began to die out, her throat hoarse and dry. But when she saw the figure approaching, when she saw the broad shoulders and big feet and bright red hair, she managed a smile.

"Tex," she croaked, grateful for the company, grateful for anyone at all.

Tex, however, didn't say a word. She bent down next to the girl, grabbing Carolina's knife from the ground.

"Tex, I—"

But she never finished that sentence. In fact, she would never speak again. Because Tex's knife came down upon her, and slit her throat in a single, clean stroke.