Chapter 20

Serena

When I wake up, Marvel's gone.

"Where are the others?" I ask Glimmer, rubbing my eyes. I really don't get why Cato insists on hunting at night- wouldn't it be easier to chase the other tributes in full daylight, when they are searching for food and water? We only found that girl because she was dumb enough to light a fire at four in the morning. And I really hate sleeping during the day.

"They went on a recon mission," she replies, as she shoots an arrow to a nearby tree. "To the wheat field," she adds, tilting her head towards Thresh's territory. I shiver, thinking about what could be happening there; despite my most recent doubts, I can't help but worry about Marvel, and what Thresh might do to him.

Don't be stupid. It's three against one.

"Why didn't you wake me?" I get up and fetch a pack of biscuits from a bag of supplies and start eating them. "I could have gone, too," I say, not very convincingly. Truth is that field is the last place where I want to go.

"Cato wanted you to go, but Marvel talked him out of it." Glimmer rolls her eyes. "I'm glad he did it, otherwise I would be spending the day with Lover Boy and Mr. Ticking Bomb over there."

I follow her gaze, to see Peeta speaking to Chip with a spear in his hand; Chip has his back turned to him, and I can tell by his nervous look that he's not done yet with his trap. "What is taking him so long?" I ask, to no one in particular.

Glimmer shrugs. "Who knows? All I know is that thanks to him we have to be here, watching the supplies. As if someone is about to storm out of the woods and steal all our food"

I smile, as I grab some of the knives Clove leaves around. "Can I join?" I ask, referring to the target she's drawn on the tree.

"Sure."

I throw a knife, then two, then three. I let out a resigned sigh when none of them hits the center of the target. "I keep missing," I complain. "If I wasn't this terrible, we wouldn't have to worry about Lover Boy anymore." When Glimmer shoots me an inquiring look, I explain how I ran into Peeta strangling Marvel, then panicked and aimed at his back, only to end up almost hitting Marvel's hand. "I should have killed him when I had the chance," I whisper.

Glimmer glances at Peeta, who is now studying the bandage I put on his arm, and then turns back to me. "I think he's bad news, too," she confesses. "But even if he's not helping us find Katniss, I'm sure she's looking for him, and we'll end up catching her anyway. I mean," Glimmer shoots another arrow, missing the center of the target- she's awfully stubborn, just like me- and squints at me. "If she holds half of the feelings you do for Marvel, she's probably curled up somewhere crying right now."

"I don't know what you're talking about," I grunt, throwing my fourth knife; this time, I manage to cut off a twig.

"I mean it," Glimmer goes on, as if she hasn't heard me. "You need to be careful. What happened yesterday in the lake… I had never seen someone as shocked as Mr. Ticking Bomb. It took him nearly five minutes to stop stuttering."

I smile. "I think he's convinced we were doing something more than kissing"

"It certainly seemed like it," Glimmer says amusingly, raising her eyebrows. "And judging from the way you can't keep your hands off each other, I wouldn't doubt it for a second. But seriously," Glimmer looks at me with her emerald green eyes full of concern. "I know you like him, but you have to remember where we are. Besides," Her voice drops to a whisper. "Cato is keeping an eye on both of you. I think his plan is to team up with Clove and Marvel once the alliance is over, with them having the highest training scores and all, but you're ruining everything. Because there's no way Marvel would team up with them when he has you."

"You don't know that," I say tonelessly.

"Are you out of your mind? He's always following you around." Glimmer is now staring at me with admiration. "He's crazy about you. Too crazy for his- and your- own good. But it's still an advantage."

"I'm not so sure about that," I mumble. Whose advantage is it? Mine?

Or his?

Marvel

I don't like it here. But there's no way I'll let Cato and Clove know that.

Everywhere I turn my head, all I can see is grass and grain- wheat, maybe-, lazily swaying in the afternoon breeze. Since I'm the tallest out of the three of us, the grass only goes up to my chest, but it's still very difficult to detect anything in this field; there are no paths, and Thresh could be right behind us that we wouldn't even notice him.

Suddenly, I hear Clove gasp behind me. I turn around, prepared to face her mangled body and Thresh's wrath, but apparently it was only a snake; Clove has managed to behead it with her knife, but she still looks pretty shaken. "Was it venomous?" she asks.

I kneel next to the animal- I'm no expert in snakes, but I don't think the Gamemakers would ever throw us something as harmless as a non-venomous snake; who knows, as far as I'm concerned, it could even be a mutt. "I don't know. Probably was." I straighten up and turn my head, looking for Cato, but he's nowhere to be seen. "Hey, man!" I shout.

The irritated answer comes from a few yards ahead of me. "What?"

"I think we should return now."

Two seconds later, Cato appears, angrily cutting the grass standing in his way with his sword. "We're still only a mile in. Come on, don't be a pussy."

I choose to ignore his insult. "It's obvious we won't be able to find Thresh here. He's from District 11- do you really want to fight him in his environment?" Cato seems about to behead me with his sword, just like Clove did with the snake, but I just stare back at him calmly. Cato may be able to engender plans, but he's so impulsive that sometimes he doesn't even think straight.

"We've already ran into a snake. We don't know what else we'll find here." Clove has recomposed herself, but luckily she still agrees with me. "Let's go back."

Cato frowns and opens his mouth to argue, but something in Clove's expression seems to makes him reconsider, so he agrees. Clove shoots me a meaningful look; we will never admit it, but the truth is this place gives us the chills.

Serena is sitting on her sleeping bag, peacefully tangling a net; she has her back turned to me, and I don't think she noticed my arrival. I tiptoe my way to her and, before Serena has time to process what's happening and turn around, I bend down, flinging my arms around her waist and placing a kiss below her ear; but instead of kissing me back, Serena stiffens and struggles to free herself from my arms.

"Hey, hey! Relax, it's me," I say, as I tighten the grip around her and gently bite her earlobe.

Serena, however, doesn't relax, so I let her go and allow her to turn around and face me. I can tell that she's scared, but of what? "Hi," she says faintly. "Did you find anything?"

"Of course not." I look at her inquiringly; I'm already used to her attitude changes, but she's never said no to a kiss, and she always looks happy to see me. "If I had, you would have heard a cannon."

"Oh. Right." Serena goes back to her net and keeps tangling it; her expression is calm, but she can't hide how much her fingers are shaking. "How's your chest?" Serena asks calmly. "Do you need me to change the bandage again?"

"No, I'm fine." I circle around Serena and kneel right in front of her, but she still won't look at me; I put my hand over hers and she stops what she's doing, eyeing our entwined fingers. "But you aren't. What is it this time?" I ask kindly.

"I'm okay." She manages to smile, though unconvincingly. "I'm just tired, that's all. Maybe I'll take a nap later."

I stare into Serena's eyes a bit longer before saying "Alright, suit yourself. Cato said we'll go hunting when the sun sets."

"Okay. Don't forget to wake me." Serena lays down on her sleeping bag, curls up and closes her eyes. She's obviously not asleep, but I decide to leave her alone; when she feels ready to tell me what came over her, she'll come back.

I walk away, intending to get some water from the lake, when I notice Peeta observing me; his expression is a mix of pity and mockery, but it's the way he glances at Serena that really annoys me. "Where are you looking at, Lover Boy?" I ask grouchily, before proceeding to fill my bottle. Something tells me he listened to everything Serena and I were saying, but I really don't care.

There haven't been any deaths for over a day, and Cato is getting impatient- we've been trying to track down Katniss for over four hours, and he still hasn't allowed us to stop and rest, let alone return to our camping site. "We're not going back until we find her," Cato shouts, his voice loud and clear over the sound of the animals and the rustle of the wind on the trees. "Even if it takes all night, we won't rest until she's dead."

"It's a cold night," I hear Serena say. "She's probably curled up in some hole, and she won't come out until dawn."

"Then we'll be waiting for her when she does," Cato snarls. "But if you're tired, you can stay here and find the way back on your own."

I don't need to look at Serena to realize she's flushing with anger. I turn my head, trying to meet her gaze, but it's so dark I only see a shadow behind Glimmer, who is holding a flashlight. I tell myself that the fact Serena has spent the entire night walking with Glimmer doesn't bother me at all, but it's of no use- Serena hasn't spoken to me ever since I got back from Thresh's field, and she was already acting strange then. Come to think of it, she started behaving like this after she went hunting with Cato and Lover Boy. I grit my teeth; what have they done to her? Cato is always dismissing everything Serena says and reminding her that she fled the bloodbath when we needed her the most- even though I did the same, he's smart enough not to bring that up, since I'm more likely to beat him to a bloody pulp than Serena- but what can I do? Cato's our leader, and he's stronger than me. But Serena is smart, she knows better than to listen to Cato's angry ranting.

That leaves Lover Boy, then; if I find out he did or said anything to upset her, I'll forget about Katniss and kill him myself with my bare hands.

After two hours, Glimmer interrupts my thoughts- I had been fantasizing about different ways to catch Lover Boy off-guard, mainly in his sleep- by asking "Is it just me or is the sun rising?"

"Don't be such a blonde, Glimmer." Clove's joke could have been mistaken for an insult- no one would doubt that, coming from her- if she wasn't almost as blonde as Glimmer. "We still have more than an hour left until dawn."

Clove might be right, but it's definitely getting easier to distinguish the trees around me. Then we hear the steps- running, non-human steps- at the same time Serena screams because she almost gets knocked over by a deer. "What the-" she exclaims; she stops mid-sentence, gaping at the woods behind her. I follow her gaze, but there was no need for it: the smell of the smoke is getting stronger, invading the air and leaving no suspicion on what's coming.

"RUN!" I shout to the others, although I'm sure they've spotted the wall of fire consuming everything on its dangerously quick way towards us.

"Follow the animals!" Cato orders, from somewhere ahead of me, as we set off running from the approaching flames. All of a sudden, the tiredness caused by the long walk is gone, and all I can think of is that if we don't move faster, we will be burned alive.

I dart away from the fire, blindly trying to keep the branches away from my face with my hands as the smoke grows thicker and makes it impossible to see anything; I lost sight of Lover Boy, Clove, and Cato, but I can still hear Serena and Glimmer behind me, panting and tripping on whatever lies on the ground, in their attempt to escape.

Goddamn those Gamemakers! I think furiously after twenty minutes, when the trees on both my sides burst into flames, cracking under the unnatural storm the Gamemakers have sent to punish us for not having killed anyone in what they consider to be a long time. If I didn't know better, I'd say they're trying to off the six of us, and not leading us to the other tributes- my eyes are stinging, my throat is dry, and I'm finding it really hard to breathe; it's like my lungs are bleeding.

Suddenly, I hear Serena scream.

It takes me a few seconds to process the sound- even though I could recognize it anywhere- and what it means, because my mind is a little blurry from all the smoke I inhaled, but next thing I know I'm running back. The cry was faint, but still loud enough to send me towards the flames, against everything my instincts tell me to do- which is, of course, to leave her behind and keep running. But I made a promise to myself- and Finnick Odair- that I would keep Serena out of danger.

I don't run into Glimmer as I make my way to Serena's sitting figure, which means she's probably already ahead of me. Serena seems to have fallen down, and she's grabbing her ankle with a look of pain on her blood-drained face. "Look out!" she shrieks, when I'm almost by her side.

I don't even have time to find out what's causing the hiss behind me. I jump forward and collide with Serena, feeling something really hot whiz over my back and explode against a tree as I cover her with my body. I look up and barely manage to realize the Gamemakers are now throwing fireballs at us before they fire again, this time aiming at our heads. I roll over to the left, still protecting Serena, and the fireball violently hits the ground next to us. The pain on my cheek tells me it only missed my face by a matter of inches.

"We have to move!" I urge in a raspy voice, as I help Serena get up and put my arm around her waist so she can rely on me for support. "Put your arm around my shoulders!"

"What do you think you're doing?" She's panicking, but she still does as I say.

I ignore her question and start running down the path we were following; we still have to duck in order to avoid a couple more fireballs, but soon we seem to be out of their action range. That doesn't mean, however, that we have escaped the fire, still blazing menacingly behind us. I'm practically dragging Serena, since she can't run as fast as before; I'm starting to think this is it, and that we're both going to die, when the fire abruptly stops. The daylight gradually takes its place, and I begin slowing down, as the adrenaline disappears from my body and I'm overcome by fatigue.

"Can you walk?" I ask, almost unable to speak. When Serena doesn't answer, I look at her; she's pale, covered in ash and she seems about to collapse- I'm not sure if she even heard me. I slip an arm behind her knees and lift her up with a groan- luckily she's not heavy- and carry her for the rest of the way, until we find the others: Glimmer is lying on the ground and not moving; Lover Boy is resting his back against a tree, trying to catch his breath, and a very shaken-looking Clove is next to Cato, who is throwing up. I carefully lay Serena down before falling flat on my stomach with a thump.

We're alright, I think, as I reach my hand to hers.

I'm so sorry I have been a crappy uploader lately, but it has been kind of hard to come here... Anyway, I'll go away for the holidays, so I don't know if I will be able to upload Chapter 21 soon :(

What did you think of this chapter?

As usual, special thanks to Luli Cullen, julesjumper (I hope your exam went for the best ^^), Allygrlfrnd and Behold-Pandora's-Box (Thank you so much! I'm glad you like this story- and Glimmer's personality as well, haha! I wanted to present her in a sympathetic light, something that doesn't usually happen in a Marvel fanfic- unless they're Glarvel, of course. As for your question- if this will be AU-... well, let's just say the story will be canon, but the epilogue will be AU. Does it make sense? xD)