Thank you HogwartsDreamer113, Jamez S, QuinnDeRavensborough and Guest for reviewing! :)

XXXVI. Deal Or No Deal?

Gloss already has his things packed up and is on his way out the Mentor's Room. He leaves but not before kissing Cashmere's cheek and shoving my head against the screen, none too gently - but not too roughly either. We easily laugh it off and he says, "See you next year, Odair."

"Aren't mentors supposed to stay back for the Victor's ceremonies?" I ponder.

"Yeah but Gloss has a kid now and he's off the hook for the meantime," Cashmere responds. "Your girl is one cunning devil, I'm telling you."

I allow myself to grin. "Oh, I know."

My grin fades away almost as quickly as it appeared when I see the rest of Marlene's alliance wake up. "Who did this?!" Topaz screeched, fanning herself and breathing heavily. She looks like she's having a seizure with the way she's acting - wide eyes, slack jaw, frantic movements and what not.

Marlene pretends to wake up, yawning and rubs at her eyes. "Who was on guard last?"

"Orion," Dee scowls, picking at the plastic bag floating around his head. "What a useless shit."

"He must've crawled into this sleeping bag for warmth and fell asleep, then some stupid other tribute did this." Lance shakes his head in disappointment. "He didn't even die in the midst of a fight. How disrespectful."

"Go back to sleep," Dee barks at everyone. "I'll take the next shift."

"I'll join," Marlene offers, unwilling to allow Dee to be the only one awake. The monstrous girl only nods and scowls in response, though it seems like she's always scowling.

That night goes by with one more death: the girl form Seven dies of the cold. As the remaining five Careers swap shifts every so often, the remaining eight mentors are gathered backstage for the interviews. The arena's down to the final eight now and it's only been five days. The tributes and the arena this year are ruthless. Throughout my interview, I'm desperate to go back to check Marlene's screen, to make sure she's okay and to make sure Dee hasn't chopped her head off. As Caesar attempts to strike up a conversation between the two of us in front of the cameras, my level of patience starts to run thin.

"So, Finnick," he says, leaning forward. "How do you think Marlene's going right now? Do you think she can win? Because we've sure seen quite a lot of potential from her."

"She's doing her absolute best," I reply, firmly. "I don't doubt for a second that she can't win, because she can and she will. Marlene Summers has been one of my friends for years and I trust that she'll be able to return. Don't you dare think otherwise, Caesar."

He bobs his head up and down with his typical grin. "Ah, yes. I heard you were friends. Now, if I recall, you mentored her younger brother two years back, didn't you? Maxwell, was it?"

"Yes."

"How do you feel about that? I mean, I think we're all curious here. Did that change anything between yourself and Marlene?"

"Actually, if anything, it's brought us closer." Kind of, I add in mind. "And that's all I'm telling you." I smirk, pretending to zip my lips up and toss the imaginary key into the crowd of women.

"Ah, mysterious as always," Caesar replies with a shake of his head. He smiles, nonetheless. "Well Finnick, unfortunately, that's all we have time for. I imagine you're dying to get back to mentoring. Good luck."

"Thank you, Caesar. It's been a pleasure."

I shake his hand onstage and blow a few kisses out into the audience, and sprint all the way back to my station. For a few hours, I eat and watch as the Careers sleep, staying alert for any potential threats to them.

And it turns out, they do. When the sun rises, a mutated mountain lion manages to sneak up on them as Topaz picks at her nails, carelessly. When she lifts her head up, she wails a loud, ear-shattering scream. She doesn't even need to scream, 'RUN!' before the rest of the Careers are picking themselves up onto their feet and running for their lives. Marlene and Dee seem to be the slowest, as they had originally slept closest to Topaz and spend a few moments to gather their weapons before sprinting towards the trees in the desert.

They stumble over their own feet, and squint to see through the harsh glare of the sun, its rays reflecting off the ice. My heart seems to pound erratically, faster than it should, as I watch the mountain lion lunge towards Marlene. She releases a shocked cry as it latches its large jaw around her left leg, and she falls to the ground with a loud thump. Its paws claw at her arms, leaving angry red marks behind.

"No, no, no," I shake my head and repeat the words over again. "Come on, Summers."

As the monstrous creature removes its vice grip from Marlene, it bares its teeth at her, revealing the pointy ends of the rows of teeth. A mountain lion with shark teeth seems to be such an atrocious thought at the moment.

Corbin from Seven, thankfully - but not so fortunately for him - drags Marlene back up to her feet. Wrong move, I think. Before I can even blink, Marlene's shoved the poor guy onto the ground and he's sent sprawling, groaning as he makes a futile attempt to get back up to his feet. While I'm not in the arena, simply witnessing the scene seems to send a rush of adrenaline pumping through my veins, and I'm barely aware of Blight's exclamation. "Finnick Odair!"

The mountain lion pounces onto Corbin barely a second later, tearing a section of his torso off, revealing the audience an abundant sight of blood and guts. The kid roars in agony and he writhes on the ground to no avail as the mutt claws its paws at him and chews parts of his body off.

"Ugh, gross," Seeder from Eleven comments, wrinkling her nose in disgust.

The cannon sounds.

Now there are only the remaining Careers, Thomas, the boy from Three and the Seeder's girl. I'd expected the alliance to have broken up at this point of the Games, but I reckon the short duration of the Games so far are a contributing factor to why they're still banded together.

The mountain lion backs off, leaving the Careers be and the four of them stop in the middle of the desert's clearing catching their breaths. It's still funny to call the area a desert clearing. In most cases - if not, all - deserts would usually consist of sand dunes, sand storms and minimal plant life; cacti would be a typical sight. But trees that I've dealt with in my own arena - a rainforest of sorts - are planted not only into the desert floor, but also the ice. The ice has somehow been kept frozen despite the harsh beatings of sunrays and tree trunks have been rooted into place. Trees are abundant in both regions. None of the other mentors seem to be big fans of the arena this year either.

Blood soaks through the pant leg of Marlene's left calf, and she grimaces as she attempts to pull the fabric away from her skin. I make a mental note to give her some medication and antiseptics when she's in a safer area and when she's alone. "Ouch," Topaz says sympathetically, as if feeling her pain. Marlene shrugs it off.

"You stupid boy!" Joseph screams at his screen, thumping his fist against the desk. "Thomas, you bloody idiot."

Enobaria and Drakula, on Beetee's other side cackle loudly, anticipating the death of District Four's male tribute. It seems that Thomas has horrible luck. He stumbles across the clearing, evidently having run a lot through the dense foliage and comes to an abrupt stop, his eyes wide open. Marlene freezes too as the pair from Two advances on Thomas.

Dee who's been feared by everyone ever since Day One, and Lance who seems to always take her side, pose as an imminent threat as they grin, sadistically at each other before turning to the punier tribute. "What am I going to do with you?" Dee croons, running a thick finger down Thomas' cheek and he shudders, whimpering to himself softly. "Don't kill me, please."

Lance sniggers and hunches over, mocking Thomas' back condition. "Don't kill me! Please! I have family and friends back home," he squeaks out in a high-pitched tone. Topaz and Marlene barely crack a smile as they share a knowing look with each other. Thomas trembles under Dee's touch and Lance's taunts as they gracefully advance towards him slowly.

"Actually," Dee says, "It'd be so much more entertaining if we had Marlene here to finish him off, wouldn't it?" Marlene gulps and pales. "But unfortunately, I want to claim a kill for myself today so I guess you're lucky."

"Please, your boy hasn't even killed anyone yet," I hear Enobaria mutter to Drakula.

Marlene and Topaz take a few steps back and the former takes a spear in hand, readying herself. Her winces tell me that even moving her arm hurts, due to the bruises and scratches from the mountain lion. Nevertheless, Marlene moves into the correct spear-throwing stance and aligns her aim, quickly and carefully. She misses.

Marlene never misses.

The spear lands a foot away from Dee and the pair from Two snap their heads back to Marlene and Topaz. There's a grim, tense silence in the arena. Seconds later, the two girls are on the move. Thomas uses this moment's distraction to his advantage and makes a break for it. Lance and Dee pause momentarily. "Which way do we go?"

Lance ends up chasing after the girls and Dee stumbles in the direction Thomas had run off to. It'd be pretty hard to track him down since he's smaller and lighter, leaving fewer tracks in the dirt. With much effort, Marlene drags her left leg and mostly relies on her right leg, and Topaz has to drag her along.

Then, she stops. She fucking stops in front of a large tree trunk and leans against it, catching her breath. "Are you stupid?!" I exclaim to the screen, and Beetee shoots me an odd look.

"Stop," Marlene breathes out. The heat evidently seems to have taken a huge toll on her for the moment, and she's almost sweating through her shirt. "It's just Lance. I can't even run, fuck."

"Just Lance? Look, Mar, you said when our alliance split, it'd be the two of us against them. I'm not going to just stop in the middle of nowhere with Lance on our heels. He's goin-"

Topaz is cut off by the spoken boy who appears through the mass of foliage. He starts to speak but Marlene raises a hand up, silently commanding him to shut up. "I have a proposal," she states.

"No, don't you dare listen to her!" Drakula roars at the screen.

The male tribute from Two waves his sword, as if threatening her. "Well, it'd better be quick or I might just impale this sword through your neck."

"Look here, Lance. If you stick with Dee, she'll kill you without any trouble or hesitation. None of us can take her down, single-handedly-"

"How do you know I won't?"

"Mate, you got a lower score than I did in training and my score was lower than hers - now don't interrupt. We have to band together and take her down, and then you can do whatever. You have an advantage with Topaz and I more than with Dee." Finally, he looks interested - but then again, he probably has the IQ of about an eleven year old. "We'll be fair. Once Dee's dead, we'll split up and we can't attack each other for twenty fours. After that, we do whatever we want."

Lance grimaces and admits, "She is pretty good. We'll have to stick together then." I breathe out a sigh of relief as he offers a hand out to the girls. "Deal?"

"Deal."

The alliance goes on well without much disruption and it's uneventful for three days. They constantly migrate around, hunting for tributes but come across none other than Thomas.

"Stand down," Marlene commands with such a forceful tone that even Enobaria and Drakula shut up. "He's tagging along with us. He's no threat."

Thomas visibly relaxes and I do too, thankful that Marlene even has the heart to express sympathy at this point of the Games. "He's going to die anyway," Lance grumbles under his breath and Marlene makes a point out of ignoring his snide comment. He doesn't disagree though, and neither does Topaz since Marlene has pretty much been appointed their new leader.

"Let's just settle down here and camp for the night," Topaz suggests. "We're in dire need of a rest."

It's true. Despite the medication and bandages I've sent down to Marlene, her leg's barely even close to healed. The gashes on her arms are still evident and both injuries are still bothering her. She can walk fine with the occasionally limp, but running takes a lot out of her.

A brightly coloured creature captures Marlene's attention and she whips her head around to find this thing a few metres away from her. "Hey guys, I'm going to go look for food," she says and heads off towards the direction where the thing's hopping.

"Hey," I nudge Joseph. "Is that a poison dart frog?"

When he nods, I ask, "What's it doing in a desert?"

Joseph shrugs and takes a swig of his water. "I don't know, man. The arena this year is fucked up but I can tell you one thing. Marlene's definitely going to use that frog on the others."

I'm not sure if that's a good or bad thing. Knowing the Gamemakers, they've probably designed a mutated poison dart frog, which secretes excessive amounts of poison and one touch could even kill a person. But Marlene already knows that or at least, I presume she does. She's smart and we've learnt it at school. Bringing her smallest dagger out, she looks up at the sky. "Yo, Finnick. If you're not busy fucking some random girl, I'd like a nice, hot pot of broth please."

With a roll of my eyes, I don't hesitate to do so, because I'm curious with what she'll do and because she has plenty of sponsor money to spare. So, I think, Why the hell not?

The silver parachute drifts down and Marlene grins. "You're the best!" she exclaims, opening the pot.

With the pointy tip of her dagger, she stabs it into the poison dart frog, not hard enough to kill it, and drops it into the pot of broth. "I actually thought she was going to have the broth," I say with a scowl. Marlene turns around and launches the dagger through the trees and the clutter of it landing echoes through the speakers. She places the lid back on and grins deviously.

Shit just got real.

A/N: Phew! For the first time in a while, I actually wrote a chapter without much trouble. There should be about one or two more chapters before the Games finish :) Hope you liked it!