A/N: First and foremost, CAT IS NOT GOING TO DIE. In the words of Sikowitz, GOOD GANDHI. Anyway, HELLOOO! Hope everyone is still hanging in there with me. I know my last chapter downright sucked. But I hope this one is better!

Peeta POV

When I woke the following morning, I heard two voices talking quickly in a heated discussion. One voice was Katniss's, and judging by the somewhat deep, edgy voice that responded to Katniss's, she was talking to Jade. Or arguing? I don't know.

"Morning," I said, coming up to Katniss with a smile. She glanced at me and smiled quickly, kissed me, then turned quickly to Jade again.

I raised an eyebrow at the two of them, wondering what they were talking about.

"Okay so we know the arena is a a clock-"

"The arena WHAT?" I interrupted her. When did this get figured out?!

She glanced over at me. "Jade and I figured the arena out! It's a clock! You know how there's twelve bongs at noon and midnight? Well we figured out that each area of the arena is lethal at a certain point in the day."

"Wow," I said, not knowing really what to say. That was pretty impressive for them to have figured that all out.

"So should we draw out a map?" asked another familiar voice. I turned around and saw that not only was Beetee awake (he was the one who asked the question) but everyone else minus Cat and Lulu were awake.

"Yeah, I think that'd be good," Jade said. "Not now though."

Johanna groaned. "Oh, sorry, is it too early for anyone to do anything yet?"

I shot a glare at her. Does she have to be mean to EVERYONE?

"No. We can't stay in one place, because if each area is lethal at a certain hour, then obviously we'll get hit with something whenever we stay somewhere for too long," Finnick explained, coming up and joining our group. We were now all sitting around the area where the fire had been. Even though we had likely all just woken up (except for Jade and Katniss), we were all wide awake now with this new important realization.

"We gotta move. We don't want anything, or anyone, for that matter, to find us," I urged. This new information made me really antsy, and I just wanted to keep moving.

Finnick nodded and yawned, stretching out his muscles which were probably stiff. Laying on the ground isn't fun.

"I'll go wake Lulu and Cat up," Katniss said, her frantic voice softening. I threw a sympathetic look at her as she went to go wake the two sleeping girls.

Cat POV

"Cat."

I woke to the sound of my name being called softly.

"Cat."

Katniss. That's who was calling me. Had I fallen asleep in the Meadow? What were we doing last night, anyway?

"Cat, wake up," came another voice. Lulu's.

I opened my eyes slowly. My head pounded and all my symptoms from yesterday seemed to only be getting worse. I felt absolutely horrible.

Suddenly everything came back to me in a rush. We were in the arena. This was the Quarter Quell, third one to be exact. We had a really big alliance going on. I think Johanna and Beetee were with us now, but I couldn't remember everything. Oh yeah, and I was really sick, because I got a gash in my leg and it got infected. I have blood poisoning.

Wonderful.

Katniss smiled a little bit down at me. "Morning, Cat."

I forced a tiny smile. "Hi," I squeaked.

"Are you thirsty or hungry?" Katniss asked me, brushing some hair out my face.

"I just want to drink something," I said. My stomach felt horrible, but my throat and mouth were parched, and the thirst was awful. I just wanted water, nothing else.

Katniss nodded, then got up for a moment, probably to go get water.

I glanced down at Lulu. It was then that I noticed that my arm was around her. She looked up at me, a look of pure devastation in her eyes.

"I'm okay," I assured her, hugging her as tight as I could possibly hug her in my weakened state.

Katniss returned with a tin full of water, and I drank every bit of it. I felt a little guilty afterwards.

"Sorry," I said sheepishly, licking my lips.

"Don't worry about it, you need that," Katniss explained.

Lulu stood up and stretched. She too took a drink after Peeta came and refilled the tin of water. Jade joined Katniss at my side.

"How do you feel?" Jade asked me, feeling my forehead and neck. She winced.

I sighed and coughed.

There was a moment of silence and Katniss and Jade looked at me expectantly.

"I really don't feel good, Jadey," I said. Jade let out a breath and closed her eyes for a moment, a look of pain crossing her face. I frowned. I don't like it when she's hurting.

Katniss put a hand on Jade's back comfortingly. I smiled a little.

"Well we figured out the arena. And what we do know is that we have to keep moving," Katniss explained to me. I swallowed and waited for her to continue.

"We'll carry you around, okay? Don't worry about a thing," said Jade. "Don't want to hurt you even more."

Don't want to hurt you even more. Because if I get hurt any more, I'll be dead for sure.

I thought of Sammy back at home, probably sitting in front of Elizabeth and Prim's television, watching this whole thing happen. My eyes started to burn.

"Shh, it's alright," Katniss assured me, and Lulu came back and sat down with us. Well, she crawled underneath my arm again.

A tear slid down my cheek. "I just wanna go home."

Jade squeezed my hand tightly. "We'll get you home. We won't let anything happen to you."

I sniffled and tried to pull myself together. Katniss, Lulu, and Jade just sat there and whispered comforting words to me.

Soon enough though, the three of them went to gather up all the supplies we had, and surprisingly it was Lulu who came and picked me up. She didn't seem to be struggling at all.

"You're strong," I said, and Lulu laughed.

"Adrenaline. I can't even pick up a big rock normally," she joked. I smiled.

Jade POV

Once we had gathered everything up, including the spile and Beetee's strange metal object (which turned out to be wire), and we headed back to the beach. Finnick led the way.

It didn't take us too long, but we went to a different area of the beach than the one that we had been going to for the past day or so. This was close to the Cornucopia, where everyone had first gotten into the real part of the arena. I glanced at Finn questioningly. He just shrugged. I guess he just wanted to come here, of all places.

We sat down in the sand. Lulu laid Cat down so that her head was in my lap. She had already fallen back asleep, so I didn't bother her.

I noticed that there were birds chirping happily and smiled a little, remembering the sound of the Meadow.

Peeta took an arrow and began to draw the arena as we told him what we knew. In about five minutes, we had an almost completed version of the arena. I felt accomplished.

There was a moment of silence after Peeta was done, and I realized something. It was too silent.

The birds had stopped singing.

What happened next seemed to be a blur but in slow motion at the same time. Katniss and Johanna instantly spun around, and there were some enemy tributes behind us getting ready to attack. Johanna hacked at one of them with her axe and Katniss drew an arrow quicker than I had ever seen anyone do it, and hit the enemy right in the throat.

Gloss and Cashmere fell to the ground, blood seeping from their wounds. Two cannons proved our victory.

The other two attackers, who I recognized as Enobaria and Brutus, scampered away into the woods before anyone could catch them.

My heart was beating quickly and I felt like I couldn't breathe. I noticed that Cat had pulled together the strength to crawl up into my lap and hide her face in my neck. My arms were wrapped tightly around her.

"They're gone. It's okay," I told her, and she looked up at me. Her eyes were red and bloodshot.

I helped her lay back down as Katniss, Finn, and Johanna came to sit down with us again in front of Peeta's map of the arena.

Glad that's over… I thought to myself, clutching my sword and glancing around nervously.

Suddenly, the ground started to vibrate. I glanced at the others with a questioning look.

It started to vibrate more, so we stood up, looking down to see if we could see anything. I held onto Cat tightly.

The vibration intensified suddenly into a horrifying earthquake. Katniss came over to me and Cat and threw herself onto the two of us in an attempt to keep us on the ground. I saw Beetee get thrown into the water and vaguely wondered if he was going to be alright.

The earthquake continued on and on, and we could barely move or we would get thrown off into the water. Mine and Katniss's faces were a deep red in the effort to keep Cat safe and to remain standing.

Lulu POV

The earthquake cut off much more suddenly than it had begun, and I stumbled for a moment before falling face first into the sand. The knife I was clutching cut my face, but I held my tongue and just wiped away the blood that streamed from my new wound.

I looked around. Katniss, Cat, and Jade were alright. Cat opened her eyes and glanced around, and I saw her say "Is it over?"

Katniss nodded as I walked up to them.

We looked around. Finn and Peeta had jumped into the water to go save Beetee, who must've gotten thrown off during the quake. Johanna had dug her axe into the sandy ground and held onto it tightly. She was dislodging it and walking over to us.

"Is the kid alright?" she asked, brushing herself off as she pointed briefly to Cat.

Cat opened her eyes a crack and then shut them again, a pained look crossing her face.

Peeta and Finn returned, and a sputtering Beetee walked along with them, hanging onto Finn's shoulder.

Once they got up to us, I turned to glance at Finn. His eyes widened and he immediately leaned down to look at my face.

"Jeez Lu, you shouldn't just let that go like that. Come on, let's go clean it out and try to bandage it," Finn said, putting an arm around my shoulders and leading me to the water.

Lu. He had called me Lu. Not Lulu, Lu.

I smiled up at him.

"Thanks Finn," I said, and he smiled. He put some water in his hands and splashed it on my face. It stung, but I didn't say anything.

Once he was done, he tore of a bit of his shirt, went into the woods quickly and made some sort of weird paste, and put the pasted "bandage" over my cut.

"There," he said. I smiled.

Suddenly he reached down into the water and splashed me, soaking my shirt.

I gasped at the cold water. "FINNICK!"

He smiled sheepishly.

I splashed him too. "Two can play THAT game."

"Oh really?" he said, splashing me again. "Whatcha gonna do about it?"

I splashed him, soaking him from head to toe. Suddenly it was an all-out water war, and for a while I wasn't scared.

Once we were done, Finnick smiled at me and led me out of the water, and the two of us were dripping wet. I saw the others smiling at us.

"You got a brother at home?" asked Finn, sitting down with me next to Jade. I felt Cat's forehead and tried to cool her down with my wet hands. I found a shell and went and got more water.

"No, I don't," I said, pouring it gently onto her forehead. Cat sighed.

Finn chuckled a little. "Well then I'll be your big brother. How's that sound?"

I looked up at him, awestruck.

I smiled and hugged him tight.

"What now?" asked Johanna, obviously not interested in my newly found friend. Excuse me, older brother. Man it feels great to say that.

"I don't know. Wanna go back to the woods?" asked Katniss, drawing a little pattern in the sand.

We looked around at each other, and I shrugged.

"Better idea than anything," I said, and the others muttered sounds of agreement. Katniss took Cat from Jade's arms, and Jade took Katniss's bow for her. Finnick and I walked alongside Katniss and Cat. Peeta led the way into the woods.

After about ten minutes of silent walking, we settled down in an empty clearing. Out of nowhere, Jade drew three arrows and shot them as fast as Katniss. I raised an eyebrow at her and she went to pick up three of those little rodent things we ate earlier. I noticed that we were close to the edge of the arena, because when you looked over the edge a little, there was just a huge canyon below.

Jade threw the now-skinned rodents at the force field, which cooked them, and Katniss laid Cat down so that her head was in my lap. Jade tore off some meat for the both of us.

"Cat, you need to try to eat," I said, shaking her gently. I didn't know if she was awake.

"Mmm.." she groaned, and turned her head away.

"Cat, please?" I asked in my best begging voice.

She turned to me and opened her eyes.

She sighed. "Okay."

Slowly but surely, she reached up and grabbed the meat and took little bites of it. Thankfully, oh so thankfully, she managed to keep it down even though her stomach tried to protest. Eventually, her stomach quit lurching, and she was able to relax again.

After everyone had eaten, Finn and Katniss went to go get water. They took the tin we had and the spile and headed over to a thick tree.

Katniss POV

I grabbed a knife and walked over with Finnick to try and get some water from a tree.

"That's really nice, what you're doing," I told him as I began stabbing at the tree.

"What?" he asked me, glancing up from my work. My eyes met with his sea green ones.

"Being Lulu's 'big brother'. Do you know how much that means to her?" I asked him.

He was silent as he waited for me to continue.

"Lulu has no family. Just two friends. You're the closest to family that she has, and that she'll probably ever have," I told him as my eyes started to water from the realization that she might not make it out of here.

Finnick's eyes did the same. "Well I'm glad I could help."

I smiled and sniffed.

Just as I was about to return to hacking away at the tree, a bloodcurdling scream sounded through the trees.

This wasn't just any scream. Not some random tribute's. This wasn't any of us, either.

My eyes widened and my stomach leaped. I dropped my knife.

"PRIM!"

A/N: CLIFFHANGER! Haha. Hope this was better than the last chapter, enjoy please review!