Disclaimer: All Hunger Games characters and uses of the original sentences or paragraphs are the property of Suzanne Collins. I own nothing, nor do I plan on profiting from using her work. No copyright infringement is intended.

A/N: Tada! I'm actually a little disappointed in this, but I've been working on it too long already. Hope you like it. Thanks for reading. Typos are bad. Reviews are nice. -Taryn(:

Chapter Twenty-One

"Put your arm around my shoulders," I advise Johanna loudly once we stumble into the cornucopia. Already we had made plenty of noise crawling up the knee-high tunnel. Johanna is so eager to show weakness she collapses into my side, nearly pulling me to the floor. "Watch it!"

"Oh, sorry, Your Highness. Let me just piece together my broken leg all myself. How could I have been so rude?" Johanna sneers.

I narrow my eyes at her, but say nothing. We limp our way toward the golden horn both of us alert. To the far right of the dome-like room I hear a faint whisking sound. The Careers? Mutts? Who else could it be? There really isn't anyone else. Only the Careers and our futile alliance keening for rescue.

The steps to the cornucopia seems like a hard task to drag Johanna up so I drop her to the floor at the very bottom. "Wait there, and keep watch. I'm going to get a new bow and some arrows."

"To replace the one you lost," she mumbles.

I want nothing more than to throw myself up the stairs two at a time, but the platform is much bigger than that, especially if I want to appear weak. I take my leisure time getting to the top, then make a point of showing fatigue when pulling free a golden bow and a quiver of arrows. I merely slide down the steps to reach Johanna's side again.

"Are they here?" she whispers to me.

"I think," I answer.

"Which tunnel is the right one?"

Peeta knew, I think. My eyes trace over the side tunnels with numb and determined eyes. Every time I try to recall the right one from the beginnings of these Games I cannot. My mind wanders away from the task at hand. Cinna, that's all I can remember from the beginning of these Hunger Games. And thoughts of Cinna bring me back to Prim. My innocent, pure Prim. My mother. Gale. Madge. I think of them taken into custody by Thread. Being punished as Cinna was. As Darius was. Punished because of me. Everybody I've ever cared about.. and then I think of Peeta, somewhere in these tunnels, ripped away from me. What are they doing to him? Who else am I unable to protect? I might not be able to protect or save all my other family members and my friends, but I can save Peeta. If there is still something left to save.

I want to cry at the frustration of it. But I know I must be strong. This is what President Snow wants. My breakdown and my death. Well he won't get it without cost. "That one," I say, voice thick. I pull Johanna's arm back around my shoulders and hobble our way toward a tunnel that seems vaguely familiar.

If the Careers are actually the ones I thought I heard then they will follow. Else, they're idiots. They clearly hid because they assumed that mine and Johanna's voice entitled a huge alliance, bigger than theirs. But as obvious to them her and I showed up alone, weak and vulnerable. Perhaps they are cautious of a trick. Or maybe they are hoping the rest of our alliance is in similar shape and they are anticipating we will lead them to the right place. That could be true, as far as I know, but at least I'm sure we have something against them that they will not be expecting.

Johanna tries to put on her glasses some ten minutes into our walk. "No," I say. "They could be stalking us. Don't tip them off." Grumbling, she tucks it away.

My bruised and battered shoulder starts to ache underneath the strain of Johanna's weight. I tell her to switch sides but that proves to only irritate my festering hand. Already Johanna is itching her neck, gnashing her teeth in irritation. "Don't scratch," I tell her, wanting badly to scratch myself. But I know it's the advice my mother would give. "You'll only help the infection."

"Do you think they'll really be there?" Johanna whispers. Her doubt is seeping through her wavering strength. I can feel it myself, gnawing at the lining of plans inside my mind. We both want to believe it, but for all we know we're soon to be delirious, walking alone down a dark corridor, being followed by the Careers.

A feeling of departure rolls over me, but I bite it off. I'm not one for goodbyes. I'll fight this to the end, before I even accept my time is near. Or maybe I've already accepted it.. that's why I'm so calm. Or am I?

Will they let anyone survive? I find myself thinking. Will there be a victor of the Seventy-fifth Hunger Games? Maybe not. After all, what is this Quarter Quell but...what was it President Snow read from the card?

"...a reminder to the rebels that even the strongest among them cannot overcome the power of the Capitol..."

Not even the strongest of the strong will triumph. Ravage all hope. A ploy to swipe every last drop of mercy they have ever given us. Which is fairly insubstantial to start with. What was a handful of ill-minded, substance-addicted victors really? Not much, I think. I've never thought of them very expansively in my lifetime. I recall a person, a girl from the Seam, from two years ago. Scowling in disgust at the thought of these people, who I thought murderess, heartless, and cowards that suckled at the chance for fame and fortune.

Now, I'm raffling them–myself among their numbers–up as some form of mercy from the Capitol. One of twenty-four that survives. A person who gets to live; that they let live. It's not, and will never be, that simple. And with my sister.. my whole family, all those voices I heard from those jabberjays, all of them fresh in mind I'm unable to hold back a surge of great despair.

Perhaps they never intended to have a victor in these Games at all. Or perhaps the rescue mission forced their hand into such a conclusion. If it weren't for those people who made out to save me from this Hunger Game, would I be confident in the thought that Prim went untouched? That my mother and Gale and even Haymitch has survived this onslaught of proving that the government could not be made a fool of?

I'm sorry, Peeta, I will for him to know. I'm sorry I couldn't save you. Save him? More likely I stole his last chance at life, condemned him, by those berries. Maybe, if we had all played by the rules, they might have let him win. Let us taste that sliver of mercy one last time. Yet, no. There was the failed rescue mission. Our attempt to still go through with it.

"Did you hear that?" Johanna's voice protrudes on my thoughts. I lift my eyes that have been glued on the floor and look about us in our gloom. "Listen."

I listen. At first there is nothing but I soon hear the sound of footsteps behind us. The Careers, readying to end us. "Should we run?" I ask.

Johanna shakes her head and pulls away. I don't try to stop her when she pulls on her glasses. "I don't believe it," she says. At the sound of that I turn around on my toes and ready a bow. I won't go out without a fight. Except almost instantly I see what she had and my cracked lips tug at the corners.

Our alliance, most slouching and Beetee leaning heavily into Finnick, stumbles behind us. All of them are watching us and it's Peeta who breaks from the line first, running at me. I brace myself when he throws his arms around me. "Katniss," he laughs in relief, and hugs me tightly.

It takes me a moment to warm up to him. A numbing sigh escapes me and I allow him to pull me against a nearby wall, slowly sinking to the floor. "How did you find us?" I ask.

"I heard your voice," he confesses. "And we followed it to the cornucopia."

"She was talking loud enough," says Johanna.

I know I should be overjoyed. We're together again. We can be a strong alliance once more. Someone will watch over us as we fall helpless to infection. But I can't help and think of what conclusion I'd reached moments ago. The same emotions of loss and hopelessness and despair return. My eyes squeeze shut, willing away tears, and my muscles go too rigid to release. My walls are crumbling to pieces in the face of reality. Our alliance won't last long. The Gamemakers will make sure of it.

Peeta holds me on his lap, speaking soothing words, rocking me gently. It takes a long time before I begin to relax the iron grip on my body. And when I do, the trembling begins. "It's all right, Katniss," he whispers.

"No," I answer. He strokes my hair, a thumb running the length of my jaw to tuck underneath my chin and turn my face to his. I rip my face from his hand. All those times of us beforehand rush back. What I've done to him is unfair. Mistakes, most of them, and then the most recent one that could be worst of all. "We're going to die here, aren't we?"

"Who said that?" he asks.

"Snow," I say, uncaring of the cameras, the listening ears. I've never been afraid to be honest.

Peeta mauls that over and finally he says, "You don't really believe that. Are you.. was it the jabberjays that got to you?"

"I heard Prim," I tell him. "It was her. Somewhere. The jabberjays just recorded it."

"No, that's what they want you to think. The same way I wondered if Glimmer's eyes were in that mutt last year. But those weren't Glimmer's eyes. And that wasn't Prim's voice. Or if it was, they took it from an interview or something and distorted the sound. Made it say whatever she was saying," he says.

"No, they were torturing her," I answer. "She's probably dead."

"Katniss, Prim isn't dead. How could they kill Prim? We're already past the final eight of us. And what happens then?" Peeta says.

"Seven more of us die," I say hopelessly.

"No, back home. What happens when they reach the final eight tributes in the Games?" He lifts my chin so I have to look at him. Forces me to make eye contact. "What happens? At the final eight?"

I know he's trying to help me, so I make myself think. "At the final eight?" I repeat. "They interview your family and friends back home."

"That's right," says Peeta. "They interview your family and friends. And doesn't it make sense that they've just used their voices to make those distorted screams?"

"Yes?" I ask, still unsure. "But.. Johanna's family is dead and she heard their voices."

"Johanna won the Hunger Games before and made it past the final eight. They've got all of the voices they need from before this. Even yours. The one they used against me. Have you ever screamed like the jabberjays showed you doing?"

"No." I want to believe him. Badly. It's just...those voices...

"No," he agrees. "It was a trick, Katniss. A horrible one. But we're the only ones who can be hurt by it. We're the ones in the Games. Not them."

"You really believe that?" I say.

"I really do," says Peeta. I waver, thinking of how Peeta can make anyone believe anything. I look over at Johanna for confirmation, see she's fixated on Peeta, his words.

"Do you believe it, Johanna?" I ask.

"It could be true. I don't know," she says. "Could they do that, Volts? Take someone's regular voice and make it..."

"Oh, yes. It's not even that difficult, Johanna. Our children learn a similar technique in school," croaks Beetee from the place on the floor where Finnick set him.

"Peeta gave me the same speech," says Finnick. I look to him, seeing his waned face and he gives me a small tug of his lips. "I believe it."

For a long while our alliance sits on the floor too exhausted to even move. That is until Johanna and Finnick start to collect vines to make water, and the spent Beetee lays out against the cold rock floor with his eyes closed. I feel something restless stir in my chest, too, to do something but I stay in Peeta's arms, still too shaken to move.

I can't bring it in myself to break away from their warmth.

"Who did they use against Johanna?" he asks.

"A few people, I think her parents. And a toddler," I say.

He takes a moment to answer. "It must have been her brother."

"Brother?"

"I remember her Game. It was only a couple years ago and plus we reviewed it just before the Quarter Quell, and in her family's interview she had a little brother named Jordan."

Losing them must have hurt. I wonder what she meant when she yelled they had killed them, meaning the Capitol. Had she been more disobedient to President Snow than I've thought? More than just this present time rescue plan? Whatever she did, I think, she doesn't seem to regret it.

We sit there for a minute and I keep hearing in the back of my mind that infants wailing. It's more disturbing than painful, but when I think of the reason for it, the why begins to tug at my thoughts. Without knowing it, not until Peeta's fingers are wiping them away, I've got tears streaming down my cheeks.

"Shh," Peeta hushes. "It's over. I promise. I won't let that happen ever again."

"You...you didn't hear her, Peeta," I whisper, my eyes seeking out his. "It was meant to be..."

Peeta is confused. "Who?"

I try to recall the fuzzy picture of the little girl. His little girl that my fevered mind built into the lining of my memory. Of course Peeta wouldn't know. I shouldn't have even brought it up. Furiously I wipe away the tears that continue to come, but when Peeta snatches my hand from my cheek I stiffen.

"What happened?" he asks. The ugly red and yellowing claw marks running over my knuckles and palm hangs in the space between us. Before I can answer he's already got another hand feeling my brow. "You're warm."

"I'll be fine, it's just like last time," I say. I've still got a clear head, so I'm not worried. "We were dropped back into the underground spring before we climbed to the cornucopia."

He frowns at me worriedly. Peeta doesn't talk much for awhile, clasping my hand into one of his and pulling me close into his chest so that my head is tucked underneath his chin. Then quietly, "Who is her, Katniss?"

I don't want to answer. I shake my head. All I want to do is forget. That screeching infant. Prim's shrill cries of agony. The fact that I feel as though another cave in would happen in a moments notice, just like what happened to my father. My hand is throbbing painfully.

"Her," I say. My voice is muffled against his chest. "Our" –the word is hard to get out, sticking to my throat– "little girl."

It takes a moment for what I mean to come across Peeta and almost instantly, when he gets it, I feel him shift underneath me. Would he know what I'm fearing? That our mistake could have led to more? Maybe he wasn't lying when he said that in his interview I was pregnant. But then I realize, does he think I'm just appealing to the cameras right now? By mentioning the fake pregnant claims does Peeta think me only playing for sponsor sympathy? "I'm sorry you had to hear it," he says.

I get a hold of the tears before I pull back to look at his face. "All I can think is that we've lost already."

He shakes his head. "Don't think about it. We're still in for the win." He pauses and nuzzles his face into my neck, lips damp against my ear. "We'll get to the rebels. They'll get us out of here. There's still some hours before midnight, surely."

One of his hand slips onto my stomach and begins to trace images. At first it tickled and annoyed me, so I tried to shake it off, but then I became entranced. The strokes are calming and I lay back in his lap, my head resting into his shoulder as I watch his fingertips. I feel what he's drawing more than see; a star, a cloud, a handful of hearts, rainbows, intertwining vines, flowers.

Focusing so hard on what he's tracing, I start to forget the jabberjays mimicry or the hopeless, closed-in feel these caves give me, and instead all my thoughts slow, go out the window, until there's nothing but the pictures. My eyes close, no longer needing to watch.

Minutes later, I open them again, because he's tracing a new shape I didn't quite catch. His eyes meet mine the second I can see, and he's asking me silently. Do you know what it is? I stare at him, look down at his fingers and watch him retrace it three times.

Suddenly, I'm smiling. "A loaf of bread."

Peeta nods. Before he has anything to say, I swoop forward the few inches between our faces and capture his lips into mine. Should I really be doing this? I know probably not. It's not going to help me say goodbye. It's not really what I should want from Peeta; my friend, and only pretend lover. We did become lovers, I remind myself. Once.

"So we're agreed then?" Finnick says loudly, breaking us apart. I turn to see him and the rest of the alliance huddled in their own semi-circle with a few vines. "We're still in this for the fight?"

"Yes," I say.

"But we only have maybe two hours, less probably," says Beetee. He chews thoughtfully on the end of his vine and looks to Peeta. "We can retrace our steps to the cornucopia and find the right tunnel. Do you still remember which one it is?"

Peeta smiles. "That's what I'm useful for. Remembering scenery."

That quick, our alliance sparks themselves anew. We all take a few vines to chew and suck on as we walk. Even the smallest amount of water gives me a little more energy. Still, Finnick holds close to Johanna and Peeta never so much as lifts his hands from my body. There is only so much time our heads will remain level and our limbs fully controlled.

Even the anthem begins and we don't pause to watch the face of Chaff flashing against the rock wall. Instead, I take the moment to overlook our supplies and my alliance members. Johanna, Finnick, Peeta, and I still possess our night vision glasses so only Beetee is a problem on that scale, while weapon wise only Johanna needs to grab an axe at the cornucopia.

True to his word, Peeta knows which tunnel is the right one and we hasten down it. We don't talk nor acknowledge the fact that we need the Careers, we are relying solely on the fact that our plan takes the Gamemakers by surprise, seeing as they do not know we think anything of the natural waterfall. Or maybe they know. We will try anyway.

The more the time passes the more anxious we grow. I know I feel a little antsy. What if the water is already rising? Has already risen? If we are too late.. what then? But I muzzle these thoughts, locking that pessimistic piece of myself away from everyone else.

"We must act quickly," wheezes Beetee. Before the Capitol can puzzle out what we truly mean to do. The end of the tunnel is in sight. "Finnick first, because he is the strongest swimmer." No one argues. Moments after we reach the pit that leads to the underground water I can see that the water hasn't risen yet, but it's only a matter of minutes.

Finnick takes the glasses off his face and hands them to me. I tuck them into the fanny pack around my waist. He throws the net he had against the nearby wall, but keeps a clenched fist around his trident. "Keep the prongs pointing away from you," I advise. He gives me a wide smile and nods.

Beetee turns to us. "Finnick when you get down there wait for me and lead me to a wall, where I can pull myself through the water. This way your trident arm is not occupied. The same goes for Johanna, she will be third. Help her to the wall. With the light of the crystals we will not even need glasses." With that Johanna steps up to me and hands me her glasses.

"Well then, jump Pretty Boy," Johanna says. Clearly she isn't enthused about being blind again.

Finnick gives us all a glance, though he can't see, then gracefully leaps into the abyss, diving. That doesn't seem like a good idea to me. Then again, what do I know of swimming? Instead, we wait a minute or two in dragging silence. "Katniss, Peeta. You two are last. Katniss is a good enough swimmer to help you to the wall since Finnick has his hands full with us to start. Katniss first, then Peeta. Give her time to right herself before you jump," Beetee says. Peeta acknowledges what he's said and we watch the man of District 3 jump halfheartedly to the below.

"Guess it's my turn then," say Johanna when the painstaking seconds reach a minute. "See you below." She jumps heedlessly over the edge, curling her knees to her chest, and her head tucking close to her shoulders.

We wait. Peeta still has a hand on my side and with it he turns me to him. "Katniss," he starts.

"Don't."

"I love you."

I turn my face away to the plunge at our right. "I know."

"I don't want you to forget that. Especially when it comes to a moment it'll matter. I want you to remember that I can't go on living if you're gone. That it means more for you to live than me.." Peeta pulls the chain with the gold disk from around his neck. He holds it in the air so I can clearly see the mockingjay. Then his thumb slides along a catch I didn't notice before and the disk pops open. It's not solid, as I had thought, but a locket. And within the locket are photos. On the right side, my mother and Prim, laughing. And on the left, Gale. Actually smiling.

There is nothing in the world that could break me faster at this moment than these three faces. After what I heard this afternoon. It is the perfect weapon.

"Your family needs you, Katniss," Peeta says. He touches the mockingjay pin on my shirt. The country needs you, too, I can almost hear him telling me. He knows. Or at least he's guessed enough to know what the mockingjay represents.

Slowly, silently the tears start to fall again. There is no Finnick here to blame hormones. No reasons I can think of to explain it. I don't even know why.

"What?" Peeta whispers, eyes scanning my face. "What's the matter?" Nothing. I want to say that, but instead he reaches for my face and winces at the heat he feels there.

He puts the chain with the locket around my neck, then rests his hand against the side of my face. It is such a tender, heartfelt action that I want to turn my head away again. The weakness I have been feeling for the past few hours since the jabberjays makes me feel young again.

"I love you, Katniss," Peeta murmurs. There is another immeasurable moment where he stares at me, then he traces softly the shape of a heart on my cheek. Immediately I find the strength to turn my face away. Doesn't he know that I know? Don't you think I know! I want to snap.

Instead I feel queasy and fevered and uncertain. My lips part without my permission, and draw in the breath against my will. And just before I say it, before the words, you, too slip from me, a movement of shadows catches my eyes and Peeta cries out.

The knife is sunk into his forearm and my hands fly to it, but he pushes them away, pulls me behind his back, just as Enorbaria throws herself out of the shadows straight at me. Peeta rams into her with a shoulder and she stumbles right over the edge of the crater. "Gloss!" she shouts as she falls.

I see Gloss first, slinking along the side of the tunnel. In his hands he has a sword. Already I can see the blood staining scarlet down the side of Peeta's arm. Either I stand back and let Peeta fight Gloss..or...

With a painstaking indecision I take ahold Peeta's shoulders from behind and swing him around, right over the edge of the vertical tunnel. He tries to grab my hand, nearly throwing me in after him, but his fingers slip through mine like greasy.

My bow is still hanging on my back. An arm gets tangled into the string when I try to pull it off. Hands shaking I try to load my weapon, but too late. Gloss is already on me. In an instant I brace my feet, turning the golden bow in my hands, the string towards my body as the other side acts as my barrier.

The blade and gold give a squeal on contact. A bright white spark of light bouncing from the screeching metals. I stagger underneath the force of the blow, my hands stinging because of the surge of District 1's strength behind it.

Our weapons are crossed and he leans into the sword heavily, my arms shaking with the weight to keep my bow up, the blade of his weapons away from my chest. His face is so close to mine that I can see his teeth baring at me. Gloss tries to throw all his weight at me. My muscles are screaming for release. I refuse to back down. Were locked against each other.

Trying as much as he can, Gloss can't break the bow to get to me. With a cry of frustration he rips the sword back for a new vicious swing. My chance. I throw myself at him, using the metal of my bow to deflect the sword and catch his chin. I'm not nearly heavy enough to throw a grown man over, but I use his weight against him, tangling my foot around his. The two steps he takes to get away from me causes him to spin to find the right footing. Except he spins the wrong way. Gloss' foot and mine fall into open air, and the two us lurch into the abyss.

In the shock of the misstep Gloss' hands fly out to grab onto something, and his sword goes flying, landing somewhere above while his weight and mine drags us down. My bow already gone, we are both weaponless. And Gloss decides to use his hands, wrapping them around my throat.

Falling, my head throbbing and my injured hand feeling dead, I only have one hand to claw weakly at his eyes and cheeks. He screams, I'm choking. The less air I get, the more plentiful the hot liquid running along his face grows. Desperate, I plunge my fingers into his eyes and he retaliates by finally releasing my neck and kneeing my so hard in the stomach I'm thrown away from him.

The moment I hit the water I jerk back to the surface, reeling for air. And my first thought is, Where's Peeta? I hear shouting. There is Johanna's voice, encouraging. The loudly splashing noise I follow with my eyes, seeing Finnick and Enorbaria locked into a aquatic combat.

I feel someone grasp me by the shoulders, and I whirl around, ready to face Gloss. Instead it's Peeta. He swims lamely, one side lacking, mouth barely above the surface. I pull myself against him. Together we struggle to the nearest wall that the light of the crystals enable us to see. "How are you?" he asks.

"Fine," I pant in return. I can feel the bruises already forming and throbbing around my throat. One of my hands and arms are completely useless, but for odd reasons I do not feel too fevered to think. Maybe it is that the scratch was not near any major blood supply for my brain. Beetee's was on his neck just as my first wound had been, and Johanna's had been on the inner thigh. All near major veins, or arteries, one of those. "Fine," I repeat, hoping to convince both him and myself.

One scan of the room tells me all is chaos. Beetee is having a hard time hauling a limp and mumbling Johanna toward the natural waterfall across the way. They are some fifty feet away from it, using the wall to help them along. Peeta and I are about a hundred more feet from it, while Finnick and Enorbaria struggle in the middle of the water. I can't tell who has the upper hand, only that both their techniques seem to be dunk, dunk, dunk.

Peeta points to Gloss, who has just pulled himself out of the water onto the land near the knee-high tunnel. "Leave him," I say. I can breathe again. I begin to urge Peeta toward the natural waterfall after Beetee and Johanna.

"What about Finnick?"

"I'll figure something out."

Peeta is loosing color in his face. We both have a useless arm and we try to use each other and the wall to make up for it. My mind is racing, throbbing. Finally I turn to him, an apology in my eyes as I rip the knife from his forearm. He tries to restrain the scream that escapes him. Without thinking I press my lips to his to swallow the sound, to make up for it. "Go help Beetee," I order and then push myself away from him using the wall.

Finnick is the stronger swimmer of the two, that is obvious. He doesn't seem to need that much help though he looks extremely grateful when we catch eyes over her head. I use both my feet furiously to keep above water and my one hand clenching the knife in my fingers for direction, steering myself behind the Career. I'm just there, when Gloss shouts her a warning from land.

Enorbaria swivels around to meet me face to face. Her long, brown hair floats around her face like a darkened pool of blood, the golden fangs in her mouth flashing menacingly at me. Two hands reach at my body underwater, but Finnick's arm winds around her throat, pulling her against him. "Do it," he says to me.

I think of Peeta when I plunge her own knife into her shoulder. She twists in pain, struggling, then weakening herself. Finnick kicks himself off of her and twirls around at the surface of the water. It takes me a moment longer to swim after him. He's much faster and reaches the waterfall first, lost into the mist with the rest of our allies.

That's when the water starts rising. Just when I can feel the powerful, stinging spray of the waterfall hitting my cheeks. Around me I feel the whole body of water lurch, and it's an effort to keep my face above the surface. I see Peeta through the mist, a hand of his reaching for mine. I grasp it and feel him pull me to him, my body lying flat into his side as he uses his other weaker hand to hold onto the uneven rocks of the waterfall's walls.

I turn to watch the Careers. Because it just seems too good to be true. Maybe we're wrong, maybe this waterfall isn't natural. Maybe it won't lead us to above ground. Or perhaps the water won't rise high enough to matter, we'll all drown of exhaustion..

Gloss has swam out to help Enorbaria and both of them know what's happening. At first it seems the pained Enorbaria just wants to wait underneath the other hole in the ceiling. Gloss disagrees and cuts through the water with one arm, the other one around Enorbaria's waist. They are racing the rise of the water. Already it has reached ten feet. Five more and then the water will have reached past the ceiling height, and they are drowned.

Apparently the odds are not in our favors today, because not only does Gloss make it to the waterfall before too late, but almost twenty feet of water later, and ten minutes.. I can see silver moonlight overhead.

Finnick, who has taken Johanna's axe from her resisting hands, tries to hold it up against Gloss. Enorbaria mutters darkly to the Career. Gloss though, only glares at us, through the spray of water falling on top of our heads. He knows that he can't let go of Enorbaria without her drowning. Won't be able to take all of us at once.

We stare at each other on opposite sides of the somewhat circular space. There's about maybe ten feet between uneven rock wall to rock wall. Which turns into twenty feet, then thirty, until the whole thing widens so much that the moonlight is so apparent it is almost blinding.

Around us, as the water rises us into a whole new world, I can feel the nightly breeze. I can taste the scent of grass and when I look upward, I see cliffs, jagged against the skyline. The stars are already out but they are nothing compared to the full moon floating overhead. I don't think I've ever seen anything so beautiful.

When the water stops rising I have only moments to take in the whole area. It turns out that the waterfall still continues from somewhere above us, off one of the cliffs that is some, fifty feet over head. Around us seems to be a world of rocks and cliffs, with small patches of grass or twisted, gnarled trees that have naked branches reaching for the heavens. For some reason I get the sense that we shouldn't be here, that this is not the arena. A strange, thrilling and terrifying feel of freedom flints through my heart as we break free from that tunneled hell.

Beetee is the first one to pull us away from the mist of the waterfall and out into what seems to be a large pond. It isn't much, and it must have been empty before the water started to rise from below, because now that it is full the waterfall's rapid flow quivers across its surface.

The sound of wildlife is everywhere. Frogs croaking in the distance, a lone wolf howl miles away. Even a flamed colored fox flees from a nearby boulder as my alliance stumbles onto shore. We're all in an awful shape, but I don't have to warn them against the inevitable Capitol interference.

Johanna speaks first, her voice slightly off. "We need to get away from this.." she motions to the pond. She eyes it with distrust. "They could send a.. something after us. Mutts from the water.."

"Yes," Finnick agrees. With one hand he has the axe and uses the free one to pull Johanna against his side. He nods toward the cliff where the waterfall originated. "We should get to the highest point. It'll be the easiest place for the rebels to rescue us."

Already the feeling of freedom escapes me. We are either saved by the hope the rebels will come or we are doomed to die because of furious Gamemakers and President Snow for having escaped their arena. I suppose they thought we wouldn't escape. There is no force field like in Haymitch's Game because who would have thought we'd escape those damned tunnels? I certainly didn't.

The trek to the cliff isn't too hard with so many rocks to hold onto and scramble over. The only thing I worry about is the fact that the rebels might not even show up. Or we're too late. And the Careers. They are no where in sight as I scan our silver stained surroundings.

Thirty feet up a rock slips from underneath Peeta. He falls forward and the hand he had in mine, nearly slips free, but I clench my fingers. I use all my strength to help him back to his feet and he smiles. "I hate heights."

"I hate underground," I retort. The heights are mine. They are freeing and full of fresh air. "Trust me, I won't let you fall."

"Okay," he says and we continue to climb.

Finnick and Johanna are the first to reach the top. And Johanna's girlish scream, so unlike her, makes the hair on the back of my neck prickle. "Snakes!" she says.

"Mutts," I hear Finnick correct.

I am five feet from the top. I could surge right over it if I let go Peeta's hand, but instead, I calm myself, and wait the extra two minutes it takes him to climb. Then, I see why Johanna shrieked. A huge pit of snakes awaits us at the top of the cliff. All of them longer than my legs and thicker than my thighs, wriggling around themselves. A hulking hissing mass.

Peeta pulls me around. "Beetee needs help," he says, too late. Beetee is the slowest climber, he's some twenty feet away from us at the top, and Gloss has got a hold of the man. There isn't much of a struggle on Beetee's part before the kindly intelligent man I've come to like is thrown from the rocks, tumbling some thirty feet back to the ground. He does not get back up.

Gloss climbs faster toward us. I turn back to Finnick and Johanna, who are inching their way around the pit of snakes. On the other side of the pit is the source of the water for the waterfall, a somewhat slim river, that leads somewhere beyond my sight. Basically, fall in the pit, face snakes. Fall into the water, take a tumble. Or then again, there's still Gloss who won't hesitate to throw us down the rocks.

"Katniss," says Finnick, he's returned to the edge of the climbable side of the cliff. He has the axe braced between his hands. "Normally I'd just let Johanna throw this at him, but she's already too out of it. Take her and find a way around the snakes. I'll fend off Gloss."

I don't want to let him do it because I can see he's doing this because of the Mockingjay influence. Instead I kiss his cheek and pull Peeta over to Johanna, who is slumped on the ground, staring worriedly at the snakes.

"Let me hold her, you find the way around," offers Peeta. I nod distractedly. He picks up Johanna and she clings her arms around her neck. She says something and Peeta looks so confused that I have to bite into my cheek to remind myself that the fever will pass her soon enough. She'll be herself again.

My current worry is the snakes. They don't seem to want to leave their little ditch. Some of them have raised their heads at the sound of our voices or maybe our scents. I don't know much about snakes. Only that once Gale had been bitten by a garden snake and my mother had said it was a harmless kind. These on the other hand are mutts. Much more lethal.

"Okay." I finally decide, I turn to Peeta and pull Johanna off him. "Jump it," I tell him.

He looks uncertain. The blood is still leaking weakly from the knife wound in his forearm. If it's hurting him, he's not showing it. "Better me than you, I guess," he mumbles. Peeta takes in a long breath, gathering his courage, then leaps.

The snakes seem to watch him with their gleaming black eyes, but only when he lands on the other side do they begin to move toward him. I'm hit with a surge of panic. I want to tell him to jump back. That though, would only have him coming toward them. Peeta backs away from them, and his eyes find mine. He has no weapon.

"Finnick!" My only option is to drag myself to District 4's side. "Help him," I say and almost instantly Finnick turns his back on the nearing Career and throws himself over the pit of snakes, going to Peeta's side.

It's a mess, I realize. This whole plan. Where are the rebels? They're not coming. A pain blares to life at the back of my scalp and it takes me a moment to realize Johanna has grasped onto my braid to keep herself standing. I lower her to the ground instead, careful of the cliff. "Katniss," she says, weakly. "Don't die..."

It is almost as if she's threatening me. Then her eyes are wide open again, awake, alive. She shoves me to the side and just in time too, because Gloss hovers beside us. I can't believe it when I see her throw herself at him, the two of them falling and rolling toward the waterfall.

They are all fists and feet, struggling for someone to be on top. I thought his extra weight on her would give him the advantage, instead she uses it to sink him underneath her, finally drawing the roll to a close. I scramble to my feet, readying to help her, just barely reaching them when Gloss puts his powerful feet underneath her, against her stomach and flings her over the edge of the waterfall.

"Johanna!" I shout uselessly. I can hear the violent splash below. Gloss rolls expertly back to his feet, crouched and ready to come at me. Everything has gone so, so wrong and I feel like pulling out my hair. Instead, I take that frustration and prepare myself to spring at Gloss, only to be stopped by the axe that flies out of no where and splits open District 1's face.

Finnick. Landing painfully onto my knees, my face swings around to find Finnick and Peeta teetering on the edge of the small river that leads to the waterfall. The snakes are closing in around them, though a few have been killed and chopped to pieces. Their innards running red and black in the moonlight.

Peeta looks at me just as helplessly as I do him.

"Behind you!" he warns me.

Enorbaria, blood bubbling from her lips and a hand pressed into the wound on her shoulder is just clearing the edge of the cliff. She spots me near where Gloss' body lies limp and broken, and her mouth twist into a grimace-like smile. "Where are you going to run?" she asks, no one in particular.

The woman starts stumbling toward me. I don't know what to do. What am I suppose to do? How could I help Peeta? The snakes chorus of hissing and slithering, their large bodies hitting the ground with a thud, makes my head spin. I almost don't feel it when Enorbaria's fingernails curl into my shoulders. Nor do I hear the words Peeta and Finnick are shouting. I can't make my feet work no matter what I do, so my weight draws both me and Enorbaria backward, toward Gloss' corpse. We trip over it easily, and she slams into my chest. Our rolling bodies are struggling to untangle when I feel the water against my skin.

As I'm falling, for a moment, I think I see a hovercraft materialize in the sky. Then the water rushes up to meet my fall with such a force, my head is sent whirling into black unconsciousness and the depths of the pond swallow me.