I should probably finish this, so here it is, the last chapter.

Also, my writing style has changed a bit, but I've tried to keep this in the same style as the rest of the story.

Finch

It's quieter than usual. I notice this immediately, even though I've just woken up. I crawl out of the debris hut, not bothering to avoid Clove's sleeping form (due to the rainstorm last night, we decided that it would be for the best if we were to both sleep in the non-leaky shelter). Blinking against the bright light, I see the reason for the near-silence.

The stream bed is completely dry, what used to be running water now reduced to dust and rocks. Despite the storm yesterday, the entire place is dry as a desert. Not for the first time, I'm struck by how much power the Gamemakers have. To deplete the whole arena of water overnight—it's almost unimaginable. To hold life and death in your very hands, to kill with the push of a button.

I shake my head and take a long gulp from one of the water bottles. I probably won't be getting any more water anytime soon. It's already almost noon, and it'll take a while to reach the lake. Or Fire Girl, camped upstream.

I crouch next to the shelter and gently shake Clove awake. "Clove," I whisper. "Wake up." She stirs and I tell her about the river.

"I guess they want us to get a move on and find Fire Girl," she says, standing. "Let's eat and then head out. You said you knew where she was camped?"

I nod. "Yes, just upriver of here." Clove digs out the stew, which we'd sealed tight last night and hidden in a crevice under the log, and unwraps it. It smells just as good as it did last night and we eat about half of it before putting the remaining food into a backpack along with the water bottles and purifier. We leave the other supplies. If Fire Girl has already left her cave, we'll need to keep our strength up while we search for her.

I'm still not so keen on the idea of hunting someone down to kill them.

But once we do, we'll be out of here. Alive and, for once, safe. It still seems impossible. After—how long has it been? Two weeks, more?—so long in the arena, safety doesn't exactly seem real. And it wasn't like District Five was the safest place either, what with its lack of food and common power plant explosions.

Clove starts out carrying the backpack as we walk up the arid stream bed, rocks shifting under our feet. We each carry a knife. I look back downstream, aware that the Gamemakers probably want us to go towards the lake, but Fire Girl is upstream. Unless, maybe, she's already traveling to the lake? Besides, we might run into her that way, so it likely won't matter. The day is hot, so we tie our jackets around our waists.

"Do you think she's been getting sponsors?" Clove asks after a while. "I mean, we know she's alive, but what state is she in? Half-starved or ready to fight?"

Shrugging, I answer, "I don't know." I hadn't considered that. Since Fire Girl had gotten an eleven in training, I'd always been wary of her, especially since she got a hold of that bow. She certainly knew how to use it, and I'd made a point to never underestimate anyone, particularly in the Games. But Clove is right. There's a high chance that she'll be emaciated and weak. Maybe taking her out will be easier than I thought. I am pretty sure that Clove is better at hand-to-hand combat, having been trained to fight, while the Girl on Fire probably received that high score due to her apparent shooting skill.

The cave where I'd seen Twelve and her partner a few days back is deserted when we arrive. "You sure this is it?" Clove circles the place a few times, searching for signs of inhabitance.

"Yeah," I reply, poking my head into the concealed entrance of the cave. A pile of small animal bones sits inside, still gleaming with grease. "I think she just left."

"Well." Clove flexes her shoulders against the weight of the backpack. "To the lake, then." I hum in agreement and we set off.

Clove

Once we're in sight of the lake, the sun has begun to set. Finch and I put our jackets back on. The Cornucopia glints dully in the fading light, and I feel my heart quicken. It's almost over. Fire Girl is probably at the lake already, and once we find her, we'll be either home free or dead. If she doesn't pick us off from a distance, I'm certain that I'll be able to kill her. So, probably home free.

The thought doesn't give me as much relief as it should.

It's slightly muddier where the river feeds into the lake, and when we reach the lakeshore, we finish off the stew and water before refilling our water bottles and dripping in the purifier. I doubt that we'll need it, but the Gamemakers meant for us to come to the lake for water, and that's what we'll do. So we just stand on the bank and wait. Where is District Twelve?

The warmth quickly fades from the air as the sun sinks below the horizon and the chill seeps in. In the faint gray light, birds keep singing. Don't they usually stop once it's dark? Eh, it doesn't matter. What matters is . . .

"Where is she?" Finch says softly, giving voice to the thought cycling through my mind. I just shake my head. All I can hear are the birds trilling and the waves lapping at the shore. My own breathing, Finch's. We must have been waiting for an hour at the very least, and it's getting darker with every passing second. I'm not looking forward to a fight in pitch-blackness. I suppose, however, that it'll be more of a hindrance to Fire Girl than to me. She won't be able to aim in the dark, and while neither will I, I can fight in close quarters. Knives can be either hand or ranged weapons, but bows are strictly ranged.

A few minutes later, I ask, "You think we should find somewhere that—"

Eyes widening, Finch slams into me from the side and I'm sent sprawling in the mud. An arrow whizzes over our heads. Fire Girl's been here the whole time, watching, waiting. My head snaps up, whipping from side to side, searching, and I see her perched in a tree farther down the shoreline.

Finch and I scramble to our feet and dart behind a thick tree, and I change the hold on my knife from a throwing position to a close-combat grip. I hear Twelve's boots hit the ground as she drops from her tree. Then it's quiet again—just birds, waves, and nothing else because neither Finch nor I dare to breathe—but I know she's moving towards us.

Then the birds start screeching, an awful shriek that builds up, more and more cries adding to it until the night air is filled with pure, discordant noise. I tighten my grip on my knife, tensing so that I don't clap my hands over my ears.

A lone howl.

Silence again.

Another howl, closer, joined by several more.

Loud footsteps, from Twelve's position. More footsteps—not human—following, and then I see Fire Girl as she races past us. I start after her instinctively, then, considering what I'd just heard, twist around—

—see the mutts—

—and sprint even faster towards the Cornucopia, to hell with my injury.

They could be wolves, but they're larger than any wolves I've ever seen, far larger, and probably faster too. I hear ragged breathing just behind me and fear shoots through me anew before I realize it's Finch. Finch! I'd almost forgotten, but now she's made it several yards ahead of me, she's closer to the horn now—

She falters, glancing back at me. "GO!" I yell, and after another split second she dashes the rest of the way to the Cornucopia and starts climbing. A moment later, my momentum slams me into the Cornucopia. Hot metal searing against my skin, I clamber up the side of the horn as well as I can with a knife in one hand. Once I'm nearly at the top, Finch reaches down to help me—

She slumps over, breath coming in short gasps, and I haul myself onto the top of the golden horn. Fire Girl is standing behind her and I realize she must have hit Finch with her bow.

Bad plan. Should've shot one of us, I find myself thinking, smirking a little. Still sprawled next to Finch, I flip my knife back into a throwing position and fling it at Fire Girl. It misses her neck but grazes her shoulder, and she recoils, hissing in pain. It gives me enough time to get to my feet, and help Finch to hers, but not enough to get another knife out.

Now Twelve has an arrow nocked to her bow, but it's not pointing at me, it's pointing at a mutt leaping up the side of the Cornucopia. She lets it fly and the mutt drops dead with the projectile sticking out of its eye.

Their eyes...

Their eyes are human.

And each mutt wears a collar, engraved with a number. A district.

Now I see them. The tributes. The two scrawny boys I killed in the bloodbath. A dark-furred one, much smaller than the others, who must be the girl from Eleven. Glimmer, blond and green-eyed. Marvel. Marina.

Cato, lunging at Finch, teeth bared in a savage snarl and eyes glinting with fierce, raging light. Does it have Cato's mind? I wonder. Does it know I killed him?

Doesn't matter; it needs to die. As he leaps again, I pull out another knife and throw it; it buries itself up to the hilt in the mutt's—Cato's?—throat. Blood pours out of the wound and, falling, he—it—thrashes for several seconds before going still.

Fire Girl is still occupied holding off the rest of the pack. She skewers the Glimmer-mutt with an arrow and then whirls around, another arrow already nocked, aimed at another huge mutt, probably the boy from Eleven.

"Clove," Finch whispers, "it's them. . . ."

I nod, taking a deep breath and grabbing a third knife. "Yeah."

Another wolf-mutt—Marvel, maybe—springs at us. "Get away from the edge!" I shout, and Finch scrambles back. I launch my knife at the mutt's open maw and less than a second after the blade leaves my hand, I see its jaws snap shut and feel harsh pressure closing around my right wrist and hand. I rip my arm back and clutch it to my chest; Finch seizes my shoulder and pulls me back before the dead mutt's weight drags me off the horn. I collapse on the Cornucopia, now sitting instead of standing. Finch's gaze darts frantically between Fire Girl, the growling mutts, and my arm, and for a few seconds that's all I'm aware of before I glance down.

Jagged red gashes have mangled the wrist and hand of my knife arm. I stare at it for a moment, uncomprehending, before I register the pain.

Finch

Not until nearly a minute after she's been mauled by the mutt does Clove scream. Suddenly she's shaking, violently trembling and jolting, her breathing rattling and harsh. Her bloody fingers twitch and I think I can see bone—

I immediately look away, and realize . . .

Fire Girl is out of arrows.

At least nine or ten mutts remain, but they're the smaller ones, their jumps falling several feet short of the top of the Cornucopia. And Twelve can't hold them off any longer. She doesn't even need to.

Which means that she'll come after us next.

Without her arrows, her bow is useless, so she throws it over the side and pulls out a knife. It's serrated near the handle, making it look particularly nasty. Still, Twelve doesn't move, still sizing us up for a fight.

"Clove," I say, shaking her shoulder while not looking away from Fire Girl, "Clove, you have to snap out of it. I can't—" How are we going to get out of this when Clove's hurt this badly? This is all going to be over in the next few minutes, but now that she's hardly in fighting condition and I've never been able to fight, I'm not so sure about who's getting out alive.

She's shaking her head, groaning. She works up the energy to curse—at herself, I think—but then just keeps shuddering and shaking her head.

"Come on, please—"

Fire Girl's apparently decided that Clove isn't a threat at the moment because she leaps at me and thankfully I've got my knife out because then we're tussling on top of the Cornucopia. She's about my size but definitely stronger and more experienced. However, she's more focused on keeping my knife away from her than stabbing me with her own, though I'm in that situation too.

I kick and lash out wildly with my blade, unable to think properly and plan my movements. The knife catches on flesh but doesn't do anything to slow Twelve. Then I'm slammed into the Cornucopia, her pinning me flat on my back, with each of us holding the other's knife arm away. Her grip is strong, pressing against the nerves on the inside of my wrist, and I can feel as my hand goes limp and my knife slips from my fingers and goes skittering across the metal surface of the horn before sliding off of the edge.

I focus all of my strength on keeping her serrated knife away from me, but she shoves her forearm across my throat, crushing my windpipe. I can't breathe—my vision's starting to swim—I can't breathe—

—she's trying to kill me I'm going to die I can't fight it's too loud here I don't know how I don't I can't—

I dig my nails into her arm, scratching futilely and thrashing even though she's too heavy. I'm going to die, right here, right now.

The realization isn't as panicked anymore. Just an observation.

I wonder if Laurel's still alive, flashes through my head.

And so does I hope Clove's okay with this, even though I know she won't be.

Then the weight's gone and I'm left gasping for air for a moment before I see Clove slashing Fire Girl's throat with a knife.

Clove

Blood spatters my face, my hands. It's warm. My left hand is wrapped tightly around a knife. My right still hurts. Completely mutilated.

Doesn't matter.

I've won.

I shove the corpse off of the horn and stand as the cannon sounds. Hack out a bitter laugh and shout, "Ha! Look at that!" at the sky. At District Two. At everyone watching. "I've won!" I fling the knife away, off the side of the Cornucopia. "I've won, am I worth something now?" I scream.

It doesn't feel like victory. It was just . . . hating myself enough that I forced myself to move. To kill District Twelve. To prove myself. I was weak and useless after the mutt shredded my hand, and I couldn't let that be how everyone saw me.

So. I'd 'won' because I was afraid.

Ragged breathing pulls me out of my trance. I can hear it now that the mutts are no longer snarling and clawing at the metal horn. (They're gone. When did they leave?)

Finch! I spin around and kneel beside her. She grasps my uninjured hand with hers, careful of my ruined one. "You . . . we . . . the cannon," she pants.

I nod. "Yeah. We won."

Now she's smiling, and then I'm smiling too, finally realizing what that means. It's not just being enough. It's Finch, too. We're both alive. We're both staying alive.

A hovercraft seems to materialize out of thin air and collects Fire Girl's body. Then the trumpets blare, and Templesmith's voice rises above them: "Ladies and gentlemen, may I present the victors of the Seventy-Fourth Hunger Games, Clove Anderson and Finch Crossfly!"

I'm still grinning like an idiot despite everything. "We won!" I say, and kiss her. It's light and quick and when I pull away, Finch is still smiling.

I don't care if we're on live television right now. I don't care what District Two will think. I've already made choices disregarding my district—this is just one more.

Another hovercraft appears to pick us up. We're going home. I don't really want to go back to Two. Maybe I can live in Five with Finch. Maybe things will be okay from now on, or at least better.

I probably shouldn't still be smiling, but I am anyway. What's going to happen now? The worst is over. I don't let go of Finch's hand.

Maybe things can be okay.

I don't really know how to write action or romance, so...anyway, the fic's complete now.

Thank you to everyone who's favorited, followed and/or reviewed this story. This is the first multi-chapter fic I've finished, so thanks for helping it along.