Almost 100 reviews! Wow! Thank you to everyone who has read this or supported me over the past... year? It's got to have been about a year now... maybe I should get on top of that...

Anyway, thank you to all. Here's the next chapter. We're very near the end. Hope you enjoy.

Foxface

The very sight of it paralysed me. It galloped towards us, lolling its gigantic head such that its slack jaw bounced, revealing a saliva-slicked tongue and great, ugly teeth. Its breath was its forewarning, a stench of decaying flesh and simultaneous hunger- a stench of death. It was enormous, it was powerful... and we were its playthings.

Clove seized me by the shoulders and pushed me up the metal. "Climb, dammit!"

I obeyed, too blinded by fear to think beyond that.

The wall was almost sheer, near impossible to find purchase upon. But I was used to this. I knew just how much pressure to exert on the wall such that I didn't slip, and at the same time, didn't exert too much energy. It was instinct by now. A flurry of limbs carried me to level ground. I threw down a hand for Clove. She grabbed my wrist and braced herself against the metal. There was a world of anxiety in her eyes. We both knew she wasn't very good at this. She scraped wildly, searching for a seam in the metal. The doglike beast made a lunge for her leg...

With one final tug, she collapsed on the top of the Cornucopia. The behemoth creature made a forceful attempt to follow, but to our great relief, he hadn't been engineered with opposable thumbs. After making a final bash against the metal, he gave up and left.

We lay gasping against the biting cold. I found Clove's jacket and pulled her to me. I felt her rapid breath against my cheek, matching my heart rate in its frequency and desperation. She wrapped a quivering arm around my neck and forced herself to exhale. I stroked her hair.

"It's over. It's all right, I've got you."

I lifted my head from her shoulder and glanced at her legs, sprawled behind her. There was a fresh gash on one of them, oozing scarlet in the pale moonlight.

"It got me."

Oh no. I freed myself from Clove's grasp and carefully turned her over so I could examine the wound. It was long, extending from the inside of her thigh to the back of her calf. It wasn't as deep as it could have been, thank God, but it was enough to cause pain and to cripple her significantly.

There was very little I could do about it. All our supplies had been ditched. The best I could do now was to restrict the blood loss and encourage the flesh to heal the best it could.

I removed my jacket and began to tear at the already tattered hem of my shirt. Clove looked at me in a mixture of confusion and slight horror.

"What are you doing, Fox?!"

"I'm going to bind your wound. Don't freak out... it might sting a little bit."

I held the first strip over the length of the wound. Clove winced and I felt her calf muscle tighten under my hands. A dark stain flooded the surface of the material, in some places oozing beyond its bounds.

"Relax as much as you can, or you'll lose more blood than you need to."

"I didn't really need to lose any blood in the first place."

"Shh. Relax. Don't be snarky."

"Fine," she sighed, reclining against my jacket.

I tore smaller strips from my shirt, tying them carefully around Clove's leg. It seemed to seal the wound and stem the bleeding, but Clove didn't look much happier.

I smiled weakly at her. "You can sit up now. I need my jacket back."

She smirked back just as weakly, and feebly threw my jacket back to me. Clove shuffled herself over to rest on my shoulder. I could see it was painful for her to move, even a little.

We didn't speak for a little while. I used the time to review things. We had to be one of only a few left, but the problem remained that those few were excessively dangerous. Now we were exhausted, vulnerable, and Clove was injured. It was something she wouldn't have been used to, vulnerability. It was understandable that she would be freaking out. I remembered all the times I was at her mercy, and yet here I remained. Now Clove was completely dependent on me, and it was about time I returned the favour. Still, the timing was anything but optimal.

I checked Clove's wound a little while later. She had passed out, so hopefully I wouldn't cause her as much pain as I had when putting the bandages on. As I pulled back the fabric, a congealed substance fell from the gash. The edges of the wound had begun to bruise. It didn't look very good. Her skin was mottled in brown and yellow and green. It occurred to me that this was no ordinary wound. It had somehow been infected, despite my best efforts. The beast's teeth would be riddled with disease, but the gash was in such a position that it would have been caused by claws. It seems unlikely that they would be as dangerous... but what if that was what they were meant to do? I wouldn't put it past the Capitol to make something with venom in its paws. It was also unlike the Capitol to give it a weapon with no cure. The venom was only meant to debilitate, not kill- the killing would be left to the creature's brute force.

I had to fix this.

I thought of all the possible cures for infection, tried to remember all the plants I had seen out here... every one of which would be at least fifty metre's run, enough to de discovered and shot at, stabbed... it was a risk. A risk that, despite my best instincts, I was inclined to take.

I gently shook Clove, and she stirred.

"What is it, Fox?'

"Your wound's gotten worse. I need to go get some stuff for it."

"But what if someone finds you?"

"It's a miracle we haven't been found already. I'll take the risk."

"Fox, don't-"

I looked her in the eyes, my glare intense. "You'd do this for me, wouldn't you?"

"That's not the point-"

"I owe you this much, Clove. Don't try to stop me- you'll hurt yourself."

She lowered her gaze from mine. That had her. She was at my mercy, and I would help her, whether she wanted me to or not.