Admission

Even though I could completely understand Davion's reasons for abandoning me, it still pissed me off. Despite how much rational argument my mind was giving me it still stung that he had just up and left me in the middle of the night. While I know that my actions last night were one hundred percent honourable, I still kind of felt like I was walking the 'walk of shame' as I strutted around aimlessly hoping for some further sign of human life. What can I say, I had followed Davion around like a lost puppy, and in a similar way I had blindly put my faith and my trust in a person who quite obviously was never going to let himself get close to anyone. In hindsight, it was humiliating, hence the walk of shame. While I wasn't going to get any grief from anybody else I was giving myself plenty of it.

Day eleven in this hellhole. I almost couldn't believe that I was still here. If anyone had said to me three weeks ago that I would have survived almost a dozen days in the arena of the fifty-eighth Hunger Games I probably would have just laughed at them and said, 'yeah right. Nice joke.' Then again if someone had told me that during that period of time I would have not only killed a career but would have discovered that not one but two guys had feelings for me I would have suggested they get hospitalised. But yet, here I am, barely the same person I had been little over two weeks ago. That Eora was simply a plain, starving orphan girl who was just trying to make it through each day. This Eora was so many other things: Eora the fighter, Eora the murderer, Eora the survivor.

Looking down at my reflection as I bent over a little stream to fill my water flask I noticed that I barely even looked like the girl I remembered. True, structurally I still looked very much the same, light brown hair, deep green eyes, pale features and strong facial structure. But it was deeper than that: in some way...I looked older. Like someone who had actually lived. My eyes had lost their youthful hue, the lines of my face were more pronounced and harder. Any youthful innocence I had retained after all the terrors of my life was long gone, which I grieved. I didn't want to have grown up, I was never exactly an immature child but still it was nice to know that I still had time to be carefree if I so chose. Now that was all gone, just one more thing the games had stolen from me.

I felt even more aimless this time around then I had yesterday, probably because it was the morning and I was facing a whole day of being alone and doing nothing. I know: life is exciting. I was hoping that someone somewhere was doing something interesting because I knew I was providing absolutely zero entertainment for all the capitol viewers, and we all know what happens when the capitol people start to lose interest. Boredom + disinterest = the unleashing of some terrible, game changing monstrosity upon us unsuspecting tributes. Who knows, perhaps Angora and Tripp were stirring up some extremely well hidden whirlwind romance that none of us had ever predicted. No? You don't think so? I don't blame you. Well, maybe she was about to knock his head off his neck with that giant mace of hers. See, none of you are even slightly sceptical about that. You never know, I could have completely misread their personalities and they could actually be extremely passionate and emotional people. Why are you laughing? I'm just saying...

The thing is, this was a big arena. I had god knows how many hectares of land around me and the chances of running into an enemy and actually being able to do something worthwhile were pretty much slim to zero. And I hated it, every single second I spent walking with absolutely no purpose I loathed to the point where every time I saw any kind of animal I fired a knife at it just for the sense of actually doing something. That being said, by lunchtime I had a shitload of food.

After lunch, by which time the damn sight of this mountain was beginning to make me sick to my core, I got so desperate that I decided to head down to the base of the mountain and scan the valley to make sure no one was down there. Since I was already pretty low down it only took me close to twenty minutes to get down to the forest's fringe but from there I got considerably more cautious. Can you blame me? The last two times I had been into that valley I had been bitten by fatally venomous snakes and attacked by raging careers. Not exactly a great track record. Instead of actually venturing out into the valley I decided to ring around the base of the mountain and just see if there was anyone out there without actually having to go out there myself.

I marked the place where I had started by smearing a little of the blood from my last kill onto one of the tree trunks near me before I had started off and I would estimate it took me close to four hours to find my way back to that tree. While I hadn't seen anyone out there I had taken notice of the almost unidentifiable movements in the long auburn grass of the valley. If I hadn't been bitten by the vipers' one-two-three-four days ago now I would have been completely perplexed by what looked like the grass moving. But I knew better now, those vicious, slithering beasts were just prowling around out there, waiting for the chance to sink their teeth into their next unsuspecting victim. Call me hopeful, but I wanted Angora to venture out into that valley so bad. With all those vipers out there I wasn't nearly brave or stupid enough to make a break for the hillside. Plus, while I did know how to swim, I wasn't exactly enthusiastic about having to swim across that now heavily-flowing river. Why don't I remember that thing being quite so big? I guess it's just one of those things you don't really think you need to take notice of. But strange arena events aside, I still accomplished nothing. And it was completely demoralising. I hadn't felt quite this alone, or quite this wretched and weak, for a very long time.

From everything I'd heard about what people from home had thought of me, none of them had any kind of idea what kind of person I really was. After what had happened to my mother and my step-father people seemed to come to this delusion of me being this unearthly, godlike, martyr whose mental strength was so unbreakable that they all began to think I was literally faultless. I was hardly oblivious to this; I saw the awing glances in my direction, heard the not so subtle whispers about me that would begin as soon as I turned a corner. People came to think of me in such an idolising way that it felt almost dehumanising. And I gave them every reason to think I was that strong, I was the perfect actress. In the open I took on a character, a girl who had absolutely nothing to be unhappy about. I smiled as often as I could, I laughed louder than I normally would have, I went out of my way to show everyone that I was perfectly fine. Hence, everyone believed I was one of the strongest little girls they had ever known. They were wrong.

Behind closed doors, I was a wreck. Their deaths had just been so sudden, so unexpected that I had been completely shattered by them. For the first week I had cried myself to sleep, my despair simply uncontainable. I would wake up, wash my face to hide the evidence of the tears, practice how to smile, how to stand so that I looked just like the girl I had been before and head out the door looking as brave faced and confident as ever. Then as soon as I stepped back through the door to my home I would break down, my misery completely consuming me, before it all started again. Because of the sudden trauma and the stress of having to look after two newborns I lost so much weight that none of my clothes fit me anymore and I could feel my shoulder bones and my hip bones sticking out. Mentally, I spent every spare moment in anguish, each memory of my parents tainted with the absolute sting of their deaths. I can't say when exactly living became bearable, but somehow over an excruciatingly long period of time the pain seemed to fade to the point where it didn't hurt to think of them anymore. But until then no one, not even Alara, knew just how damaged I was. So since people couldn't see my pain they assumed it wasn't there at all.

They mistook my pride for bravery, two completely polar attributes yet they are so often confused. What everyone was really seeing was my reluctance to let anyone see my weakness. The thought that anyone could know just how scared, how weak and how broken I had felt had been almost worse than the actually despair I had felt. Almost. I have said it before and will say it again, I am a fairly proud person, and the idea of being pitied on such a large scale as that was so completely humiliating to me that I refused to give them any reason to think I needed their pity. And it worked, which I supposed was a good thing. But at the same time, it was awfully isolating to know that not one person in the world knew just how much you were hurting.

But maybe...maybe one person had known. One person in particular.

Caden had said before that he could see that I had changed after my mother died. What had he said? Something about there being something in my eyes that gave away how broken, how sad I really had been. Could he have known? Could he have known me so well, loved me that much, that he could see past every defence I had put up and noticed what everyone else had missed.

Caden...

It was crazy, how even just thinking of him could make my pulse rush like it had. How simply picturing him in my mind could cause that tight, twisting feeling in my stomach and an inexplicable shortness of breath. For a few precious seconds, just imagining the way his arms had felt around me made me forget just how alone I was. But when I opened my eyes and that rapturous feeling was shattered I remembered and the feeling of complete isolation came back with even more fervour than before. And in a habitual kind of way, I did what I had done all those years ago when I had felt as desperately miserable as this, I thought of my mother. However the memory of her that came to mind when I pictured her was quite surprising.

I had just turned ten years old when a few weeks later my mother had told me that she was going to be marrying my step father. It was no surprise for me of course that the two of them were involved, you can't exactly become involved with a widowed woman with a child without forming some kind of connection with her kid, but I couldn't quite understand why they needed to get married. The idea that she was replacing my dad with this new man had upset me more than my mother had hoped. She could tell that this distressed me so she wasn't exactly surprised when eventually I, being my pertinent and confident little ten year old I was, had confronted her about it.

"Don't you love daddy anymore?" I had asked her one night when she had come to tuck me in to bed.

"What makes you say that?" My mother had this rich timbre to her voice that made her sound unbelievably sincere no matter what she was saying.

"Well you can't love him anymore. Not if you're getting married again." I could remember very clearly how accusing I had sounded.

"Sweetheart, you're very young. You can't quite understand how this kind of thing feels."

"Yes I can," I had rebutted, "I'm ten. I'm not a baby. If you're marrying him you have to love him more than anybody. More than dad...and more than me."

"Darling, I will always love your father, every day from now until I die. And I will never love anyone more than I love you." I can't believe that I hadn't believed her back then.

"If you still love dad, why are you marrying Hal?"

"It's...complicated sweetie. When you're older, you'll understand that being in love with someone means that above everything else you want that person to be happy. And if you're very, very lucky, what will make that person happy is you. Your father loved me as much as I love him, so even though he's not here anymore he would want me to be happy, no matter what. And Halden makes me happy."

"But do you love Hal?" Hal was my nickname for him, no one else ever called him that, in fact my mother really hated it, but he thought it was cute so he'd let me stick with it. My name being a four letter name with three vowels made it very hard for anyone to nickname so he never came up with one in retaliation, but he did invent some pretty strange ones that never really caught on.

"Of course I do honey. Why else would I be marrying him?" I could still see the way she had smiled at me, like I was so perfectly naive.

"But how can you love both dad and Hal?"

"I can't tell you darling, and I hope for your sake that you never have to find out."

I had frowned a little in thought at that. She had laughed at my confused face with her beautifully heartfelt laugh before bending down to kiss me on the forehead. Before she turned around and made it to the door to turn out the light I had quickly fired in another quick question that had been bothering me.

"Hey mum?"

"Yes sweetheart?"

"How do you know that you love Hal?"

She had sighed and looked at me with a mixture of amusement and exasperation. The trials of having a highly intuitive and questioning child I suppose.

"Everybody's different Eora," she had told me softly, "I can't tell you what it will be like for you. But for me it really isn't hard to see. You think about them all the time, sometimes at the strangest of times without even meaning to, and when you think about him, you can feel a smile come across your face and your heart pick up a little. The prospect of seeing him, even if it's only to do nothing, seems like the absolute highlight of the day. And when you haven't seen them for a while, you begin to miss them without any cause to. Most of all, you should be willing to risk being yourself around him. And like I said, more than anything, you just want him to be happy, no matter what it costs you."

I had considered it quickly before promptly declaring, "Love is stupid."

My mother had laughed at me so genuinely it made me smile a little as well, "You'll see my angel. You'll see."

How on earth did that memory pop into my mind? One minute I was thinking about Caden, the next...

No...there's no way...I can't be...

Everything my mother had said that night about what it felt like to love someone, I had already felt. My mother, the most loving and sensible woman on the planet had described what love had been like for her, and now I was developing the same symptoms.

Holy Shit. I think...I think...

I think I'm in love with Caden Rhoades.

As soon as I thought it a whole wave of emotion that I had subconsciously been subduing came crashing down on me. All my denial, all my aversion, had all been for nothing. My actions and reactions over the past few weeks all suddenly started to make sense; the way I felt whenever he was around, how flustered I felt whenever he was close to me, the way body had responded and my heart had sky rocketed when he kissed me. Holy shit. Holy shit.

But this is crazy! I mean I can't be in love with Caden. I've only known him for like three weeks!

Some people fall in love in seconds. Three weeks is a perfectly respectable amount time to fall in love with someone.

And we're so different in so many ways.

And also so similar.

He didn't even want me to fall in love with him.

So he said, when he thought you were completely indifferent and he didn't want to scare you off. But deep down, do you really think he doesn't hope you can return his feelings?

Great, now I was arguing with my subconscious, and it was winning. I'm definitely going crazy.

But I hadn't even thought about the most pressing issue yet; we were both in the Hunger Games. AT best, only one of us was going to make it out of this arena alive, and he was so damn determined to die for me. The very idea made me feel physically sick to my core and ridiculously panicked. He couldn't die, he just couldn't. But at the same time, I didn't want to die either.

What the hell am I going to do?

I couldn't think about it, because simply the thought of the near future made me want to break down and cry in the decomposing leaves at my feet, and I refused to let these Gamemakers break me. Not here, not now, not when I was so terribly alone. And not when I had just embraced the fact that I was in love with someone who had become one of my closest friends. And that thought stirred another memory from my brain.

Oh crap. What about Jett...

Simply thinking of him brought a pang of something sharp to my chest, something that felt eerily like guilt. Of course I cared about Jett, that hadn't changed simply because of my new revelation about Caden, and admittedly my feelings towards him were far more complicated than that of simply a friend. But...I didn't love him in the same way that it appeared I loved Caden. I can't even explain how it was different, it was so painfully complicated. But Caden was Caden and Jett was Jett. They themselves are both so different in so many ways and in other so infuriatingly similar. Which kind of paralleled my feelings for them both; similar in that I cared for them, different in the ways in which I cared for them. But I couldn't tell Jett that, not when I knew that his hopes and intentions were not the same as mine were. He'd be crushed, he'd feel betrayed if he knew that now, from somewhere deep in my core, he was second to Caden. He'd probably hate me, which is in no way what I wanted.

In frustration I looked up through the canopy of the trees and to the sky. When did this become my life? How did all of this happen to me without me knowing anything about it? The only people I could blame were them, the Gamemakers, and by extension, the Capitol. They did this to me. They twisted my life into this pathetic excuse for a life, nothing but torture and pain, in every from of the word. Even the previously good things about this, like Caden or like Jett, were going to be warped and manipulated by them. They were going to take everything I've ever had and I'd ever want. And I hated them for it. I had never loathed anything so much as I detested the Capitol of Panem in that moment. I'd never been rebellious, rebellion is for the desperate, stupid or the crazy, but in that moment I felt like I could walk right into Snow's mansions and rip my knife right across his throat for what he'd turned me into.

But yet, I was still stuck in this arena, still all on my own and still had no idea where to go. So I did what I had done all day, I walked. I walked without a break until the sun had basically set over the top of the mountain. Except this time I had some kind of plan. I walked up. I was heading for the summit, hoping desperately that there was some kind human activity up there, and hopefully someone that I could sink one of my knives into. But as I got higher and higher I noticed something that had been concealed by the mountain before. Something that was an absolute guarantee for finding someone. A tendril of smoke, slowly clawing towards the sky.

The fire looked like it was only a few kilometres to the west of me, so I immediately made a beeline towards it. I ran for the first kilometre and a half but once I thought I was within a certain distance I slowed down to the point where my footsteps where inaudible against the ground. I decided to climb up into the trees and make my way towards the person from above, so that I would be able to see who it was before getting to close and so that I had a good vantage point from which to attack if necessary. Slowly I glided silently from tree to tree, and before too long I could see the light of the fire glowing bright against the dusky setting. I was prepared to sneak up and analyse whoever it was I had stumbled upon, but once I got to within hearing distance that was completely unnecessary.

"Look Blondie, if I'm doing such a terrible job why don't you quit giving yourself a mani-pedi and come cook the meat yourself."

"Watch it Rhoades. It's not my fault your cooking is worse than my cousin Velma's; and that woman used to literally deep fry her butter before she layered it onto her special barbequed snake eye sausages."

"Well how bout next time you actually catch something worth eating then you can decide what you want to do with it."

I nearly fell out of the tree at the sounds of their voices. I almost couldn't quite believe my ears, and considered the thought that I was simply imagining it. I quickly darted my way across a few more trees until I came to rest in one above where they had set up camp. They were really there, Caden and Jett, real flesh and bone. And somehow, beyond all realms of human possibility, they were there together. I considered just staying there and watching them for a little while longer to make sure they were really there and my eyes weren't playing tricks on me but I simply couldn't hold in my laughter at seeing them.

"Look at you two," I yelled down at them from above, laughing as I did so, "Bickering like an old married couple. Some things will never change."

They looked up in almost perfect unison, and the delight and astonishment on their faces probably mirrored mine to a tee. While Caden looked almost disbelieving, like he too couldn't quite believe that I was there, Jett looked absolutely ecstatic and immediately broke out into laughter as well. Then he turned around to Caden with a huge, smug smile on his face.

"See Rhoades! I told you our Eora was smart enough to figure out that we'd be the only ones brave enough to light a fire so openly and follow the smoke to us."

Caden rolled his eyes at Jett before looking back up at me and I had to catch my breath as our eyes locked. How could someone's face show so much expression in barely one moment? He seemed completely enraptured by me and at the same time I could feel all the emotion he felt simply by looking at him. And god was he gorgeous. I had forgotten just how damn good-looking he was, with his perfectly olive skin, his tall, strong frame, his dark tussled hair and of course those amazingly stunning dark blue eyes.

I felt my cheeks flushing under his adoring gaze, before remembering that I was still in a tree, and it was probably a good idea to get out of said tree before I broke my neck. I scrambled down the branches as fast as I possibly could and the moment my feet hit the ground and I was facing the right way Jett's arms enveloped me in a massive bear hug. I rapped my arms around him as he squeezed me so damn tight that it was hard to breathe. I could feel myself smiling as I held onto him and I could feel the drumming of his heart beneath his skin as well as hear his laughter.

"You survived out there in the wild on your own alright princess?" he teased, still in a bone-crushing hug.

"More or less," I admitted, but I said it in such a way that it sounded like I was kidding, "And who you calling princess? I'm not the one from district one. P.s. Oxygen is kind of important for the human respiration process and right now I'm getting very little."

He finally let go of me and pulled me back so that we were looking at each other and I couldn't help but smile at the joy in his face.

"I'm sorry I can't stop smiling," he said with a chuckle, "I'm just so relieved you're okay."

I beamed back at him quickly before he stepped aside so that I could see Caden behind him. For a few seconds I just stood there and looked at him giving me that gorgeous, closed lipped smiled. What would I have normally done in this situation? If I had run into them yesterday how would I have acted around him? Would I have run up to him and thrown my arms around him? Probably; but now that I knew how I felt that action seemed to have obvious connotations. Looking at him standing there like that I knew that I couldn't tell him, not if I wanted him to survive. If I told him I was in love with him he'd become so worried that I'd do something stupid to protect him that he'd go even further out of his way to die for me. And I couldn't let that happen. I loved him. No doubting it now.

But he can't know.

What should I do? How do I just pretend that I'm nothing more than his friend now that the only thing I can do when I'm looking at him is remember how softly and how expertly his lips had ensnared mine? Just looking at him I was crazy nervous. What did he want me to do? How would he expect me to react? Considering I had run to him and flung myself at him after he'd only been gone half an hour the day that Jett found me I imagine it wouldn't be all that different if I did it now, would it?

I didn't run this time, I walked toward him with long, impatient strides, and he walked towards me. Once we finally did reach each other I threw my arms around his neck, pulling myself up to his height. One of his hands went against the back of my head and the other went around my waist and held me up, pressing me against him. His hold on me was strong and secure, but at the same time gentle, in a soft and compassionate way. I could feel every heaved breath through his body and his warm breath against my neck made my skin tingle.

"I was so worried. But I knew you'd be okay." he breathed into my ear and the very words made my heart do summersaults inside my chest, "But I missed you."

"I missed you too," I whispered back. I had to restrain myself from saying 'more than you could ever know.'

"Alright now that we're all reunited what do you say we all eat something?" Jett suggested and I immediately took a step back from Caden and nervously avoided eye contact with him, "I'm starving."

"Why am I not surprised?" I said with a teasing smile, "Well what are we eating then?"

Jett stuck his tongue out at me, "Well now that you're here you can be the mediator for us. Rhoades here wanted to simply cook the meat on skewers but I wanted to make a stew out of it for a little variety."

I thought about it, "I could go some stew," to which Jett cheered and Caden groaned, "But I have so much meat from hunting today that we have to use some of it. And we might as well chuck some greens in there as well."

"Alrighty then," Jett said, his ridiculously ecstatic mood so contagious that I couldn't quite help but laugh at him, "I'll go get Aylin's pot out of my bag."

"Do you need me to go get water for the stew?" I asked, getting up as I did.

"No we've got plenty," Caden responded quickly, "Don't worry about it."

"Trust me, water is definitely not going to be a problem anytime soon," Jett said, in the kind of tone that suggested he was dropping some kind of hint but it was completely lost on me.

Caden rolled his eyes as he walked over to the fire to put more kindling on it, "Great, here we go again."

"Look, just because you refuse to listen to me doesn't mean I'm wrong," Jett yelled after him.

"Okay, I'm kind of confused." I interrupted, since I had a feeling they could go on at each other for a while without actually explaining anything.

"Your painfully blonde friend over here thinks that the arena is being flooded," Caden explained with a shrug as he walked back and sat down near us. I couldn't quite make eye contact with him, which made him frown.

"What?"

"Oi, my theory, I get to explain." Jett butted in, glaring at Caden in such a childish way it almost made me laugh.

Caden looked at me and winked before whispering, "Ignore him. He's just going crazy; it's nothing to worry about." When I didn't make any kind of acknowledgement of what he said he looked a little perplexed, but in all honesty just being near him was making me want to explode.

It was quite obvious that Jett had heard him but he ignored him and turned to me, "Did you notice how quickly we ran into that river yesterday when those locusts drove us off the mountain?"

While I admit it wasn't the first thing that came to mind when I look back at what happened yesterday but I did remember almost falling into the river after breaking out of the forest, "Yeah...so what?"

"And how much smaller the valley looked?" He looked incredible earnest considering how weird this conversation was.

"Umm...no?"

"Well it wasn't that valley was shrinking," he said matter-of-factly and I had to restrain myself from saying no shit brainiac, "The river broke its banks and is rising. I went back after we all got separated and it had risen even further, there is almost no land left between the mountain and the hillside."

"Okay..."I myself had been back to the valley today and while I had noticed that the river looked bigger I thought he was exaggerating a little.

He threw his hands in the air in frustration, "Don't you see what this means? They're shrinking the arena so that they can hurry things up. Before we know it we're going to have every other tribute breathing down our necks!"

"Yeah, but it's not like we can do anything about it," I argued back, "I agree that it is an issue, and it's a good thing we know about it, but right now I think we should focus on the kids out there with maces and knives rather than a river rising by a millimetre."

"Exactly," Caden said with a smug smile.

"Fine," Jett said coldly, "If you guys want to ignore a problem rather than address it that's fine. But when we wake up one morning and find that this mountain has very quickly become an island perhaps you'll wish you had listened to me."

That was the last we discussed of that topic for the rest of the night.

"So what have you two been doing for the last day and a half?" I asked in between mouthfuls of the surprisingly good stew.

Caden and Jett exchanged glances before Caden spoke, "Nothing much. We ran into each other just before dusk yesterday and decided that we'd have a better chance of finding you together." I couldn't make myself turn and look at him so I kept my eyes fixed down on my food. But at that I had looked up at Jett.

"Wait. So the two of you have been together, alone, for more than twenty-four hours. And neither one of you has strangled the other?"

Jett smiled coyly at me, "It was not without difficulty." From the corner of my eye I saw Caden roll his eyes.

"Did you run into anyone else over that time? Like the career pack?" I asked, once again directing my question to Jett rather than Caden.

"The career pack doesn't exist anymore," Jett said bluntly.

"How do you know?"

"We ran into Velvet last night," Caden explained, looking quite confused by the fact that I wasn't acknowledging him, "She was alone and she fled about as fast as possible the moment she saw us. Well, not before she could remind Jett that we were down to the final seven and that he could leave the district twelve whore alone and come be with her now." Caden gave Jett a mocking grin.

I looked up at Jett with a raised eyebrow, "Did she really say that?"

Jett looked almost like he was about to be sick, "Unfortunately."

I immediately burst out laughing and I almost choked on my stew from laughing so hard.

"She's completely lost it," I said in between breaths, "Did either of you hear her down on that valley yesterday. Mental, absolutely mental."

Caden nodded, "Mental, but still dangerous."

Well, that was a conversation killer. We all went back to silently eating our meals but when his eyes were down on his food I caught myself staring at Caden. I couldn't remember exactly when I started staring at him but he must have felt the weight of my gaze on him because he quickly looked up at me, forcing me to quickly avert my gaze. His brow furrowed a little but then we both went back to eating our food and pretended that had never happened.

By the time that we had all finished dinner it was so late that I was practically falling asleep on top of my food. While I may not have achieved much all day it was still physically draining to walk for all that time. From the lack of stars in the sky tonight we predicted some rain, so we decided to set up the tent just in case. Now that the three of us were together again we set up normal watch schedules again so the obviousness of the tent wasn't a major factor. Jett volunteered to take the first watch and I was in no way conscious enough to try and talk him out of it so I let him have it and quickly went off into the tent.

I'll admit I the idea of Caden and I sleeping together in such close proximity was making me extremely nervous, to the point where I could actually hear my heartbeat thundering inside my ears. Knowing that he was within my arms reach was torture. This feeling, this wanting to be close to him, it was something completely foreign and alien to me. I could picture myself just casually rolling over and him quickly pulling me towards him and kissing me before I even had time to understand what was happening. But of course nothing like that was going to happen, he still thought I was completely indifferent towards him. I couldn't help but wonder whether he was feeling this too, this desire, did he feel it? Did he imagine scenarios where I would suddenly kiss him out of the blue? Did being this close to me make him feel nervous? And if so, how the hell did he hide it from me for so long?

"Okay, what's wrong?" I felt Caden breath from behind me and I just about had a coronary.

I turned around and looked into his piercing blue eyes, and it took absolutely all my self-control to simply say, "Nothing."

He looked at my sympathetically, "Come on."

"Seriously, nothing's wrong. I'm perfectly fine."

He frowned a little at me, "Really? You're perfectly fine? Then how come you're acting so strange? You fidget and fiddle with your clothes all the time, almost subconsciously. You're breathing is so quick and sharp that you almost sound like you're hyperventilating. You watch me when you think I'm not noticing but then when my eyes go to you, you won't even look at me."

"I'm looking at you now aren't I?" I said feebly, a pathetic attempt at contradicting him.

"Eora."

"Caden, I'm sorry but really I'm fine."

"Eora I thought we were past all this," he breathed, his voice so sincere it tore at my chest, "I thought you trusted me."

"I do trust you," I said, barely a whisper, "But I don't know what you want me to say."

"I know you. I can see that something's not right and I just want to help."

"You knowing won't help," I admitted finally, hating the way my voice sounded, "If you trust me as much as you claim to just, believe me. I can't tell you. I can't tell you."

The way his eyes darkened and looked at me accusingly stung more than if he had slapped me.

"Fine then," Caden said, rolling over so that his back was to me, "why don't you go find your buddy Jett. I'm sure he'd love to be the one you confide in."

"Caden-" I started but he quickly cut me off.

"Goodnight Eora," he said, sounding painfully final.

I wanted nothing more than be able to try and explain everything but the more I told him the more damage it would do the both of us.

He can't know.

Nothing I could say would make him feel any better, not without actually explaining everything, so I regretfully turned back over and tried to just forget about it. But I couldn't, not when the picture of the way he had looked at me was burned into the back of my eyes. I think it was the mental strain that eventually knocked me out but being asleep provided no comfort for me. In my dream I was standing in a large open clearing, tied to a tree by thick, strong rope, with a pile of bodies at my feet, each covered in splashes of dark red blood. I could recognise most of them, Porter, Aylin, Selah, Bo, Serenity, Sylas and Kaia among them. In fact, I think I counted seventeen in total, all the dead tributes. Behind them stood the six remaining tributes in a perfect line, Tripp, Davion, Jett, Velvet, Caden and Angora, each one of them carrying a glistening diamond dagger.

"Get away from them!" I screamed to Caden, Jett and Davion, "They're armed! They'll kill you! Get away from them."

All three of them shook their heads, before saying in unison, "It will not be them."

"Run!" I screamed, "They'll stab you in the back! Run while you have the chance!"

And yet none of them moved. The silence was almost eerie, considering all the frightening things around me I suppose it was strange that the silence was what scared me the most. Suddenly Davion broke out of the line, taking strong, purposeful steps towards me. He walked up on top of the bodies, stepping on Porter's lifeless face in the process, until he was about three metres directly in front of me. He slowly but surely raised his dagger out in front of him.

"What are you doing?" I yelled in panic.

His eyes, dazed and emotionless, locked with mine as he quickly thrust his knife into his own chest. I screamed as blood started to pool out of his wound and he collapsed onto the floor with all the rest of the dead tributes.

Next came Jett, his path almost identical to Davion's as he made his way up onto the pile of bodies in front of me.

"Jett! Jett snap out of this!" I shouted, desperately hoping to get his attention, "Come on Jett. This isn't you! "

He didn't even look like he heard what I had said. His eyes as void and as empty as Davion's had been locked with mine in the same way, right before he plunged the knife into his heart. I screamed again as the life fled from Jett's face and his feet gave way, his body falling on top of Davion's. The tears falling from my eyes felt like they were burning against my chin.

To my surprise, the next one to walk up towards me was Velvet. She was crying as well, but when her eyes met mine they burned with an unsurpassable hate. She kept her abhorrent look on me until she came to stand on top of Jett's lifeless body. The fire behind her glare burned one more time as she raised the dagger out in front of her but she slowly turned her head down to look into Jett's closed eyes. That expressionless look overcame her face and she kept her eyes down on him as the dagged pierced her skin and she fell, joining the rest of the pile.

As Caden started making his stride towards me I started screaming and thrashing, fighting as hard as I possibly could against the roped binding me but they were tighter than anything I had ever seen.

"Caden! No! No! No!"

The closer he got to me the more I flailed and thrashed, kicking my legs out and pushing all my weight against my impenetrable bindings, but to no avail.

"Caden! Caden, I love you! Please listen to me, you can't do this!" Just like Jett, I saw absolutely no recognition in his face, "Please Caden! Please, I love you!"

I had seen Caden mask his emotions before but this was worse than anything he has ever produced before. He just looked, empty, soulless, like a corpse already. I screamed his name as loud and as high as I could as I watched his arm extend out in front of him. And when that knife dove into his chest I completely snapped. I screamed and screamed and screamed over and over, unable to take my eyes away from Caden's lifeless body.

Now only Angora and Tripp stood behind the pile of ex-tributes, neither one of them making any inclination to move or acknowledging the sounds of my screams. After a few still moments Angora turned to face Tripp and with a speed that was almost so fast I missed it, she jabbed her knife into Tripp's heart, and as she pulled it out he crumpled onto the soft grass beneath him. She turned back to me and started towards me, however her face didn't look as empty as and void as all the other's had. She just looked like she normally did, strong and pensive, more disinterested than emotionless. I started shouting curses on her as she tred on the bodies of Jett, Davion and Caden, but to my surprise she didn't stop where all the others had stopped. She walked up right in front of me, so close in fact that I could smell her distinctly musky and masculine scent. Her eyes, like all the others, locked with mine as she stood so close to me I could feel her breathing. However, when she lifted the her knife out in front of her, it wasn't positioned in front of her heart, it was raised above mine.

My screaming and thrashing became even more frantic as I tried desperately to free myself but it was beyond use. I watched through tears strained eyes as she slowly but strongly brought the knife down to my chest.

I awoke with a start, sitting up with a jolt, sweat dripping down my face, my breath short and ragged. Despite the sweat on my face it was so cold that I was shivering, and quickly wrapped my arms around my knees to try and keep myself warm. I felt a hand brush against my hair and I flinched back at the touch, remembering that the last person to touch me had been Angora. Caden look startled at my reaction and quickly drew his hand away, his eyes full of concern.

"Hey, it's okay," he said reassuringly, "it was just a dream."

Just a dream. Just a dream. Then why did it feel so real? Why could I still picture all those people dead at my feet and remember watching Caden, Davion, Velvet and Jett all kill each other in turn? Why did my heart start to thunder in my chest when I pictured Angora slowly walking towards me, and then again when she had plunged her knife into my chest? Looking back, I knew it was a dream, but that doesn't mean it didn't still scare the hell out of me.

Quit panicking Eora. It was just a dream. Just breathe. Breathe and forget.

As I focused in on breathing slowly and deeply some of the fear and paranoia seemed to ebb away. It didn't disappear, but it became manageable. I turned to Caden and tried to smile so he'd be less worried, but I don't think I was very reassuring.

"It's okay. I'm alright. I'm fine."

I think hearing those words reminded him of what had happened before I went to sleep because his expression immediately hardened and he lay back down, once again facing away from me. Without thinking I reached out and grabbed his hand before he could pull it away, entwining my fingers in his. He looked back over at me with a puzzled expression, but I simply lay down next to him and rested my head against his chest, focusing on the warmth of his body and the strong yet surprisingly fast sound of his heartbeat. I didn't want to go back to sleep and see what I had seen again but maybe if I went to sleep knowing he was right next to me it would be harder to dream of him dying. He stayed stiff and surprised for a few seconds, probably wondering what the hell had come over me, but soon enough I felt him relax and he slowly put one of his arms around me, holding me against him softly.

And so I tethered my mind to the feel of his warm hand locked with mine and the soothing sound of his heart beating beneath my ear, and suddenly the thought of going back to sleep didn't sound all so terrifying.

A/N: Okay first off, I realise that I am apologising a lot recently, but I'm sorry I took so long again! I've had a ridiculous amount of school work recently and this chapter wasn't easy to write or to find time for. But anyways I've decided on developing a new system to try out: giving myself a deadline. Warning, it might not work because I've tried it before and I just casually push back the deadlines but this time I'm going to make it official. If I haven't updated by the 11th of March, that's two weeks from today, I want you all to PM me and yell at me and abuse me until I update. Okay? I know many of you will enjoy that ;) Hopefully that will get me off my ass and into work because I know I'm going to stall writing this next chapter.

Anyways I'm glad that most of you are up for the idea of a sequel to this story, and for anyone who hasn't given me a yay or nay please feel free to and hopefully I'll see you all before the 11th of March! As always please R&R and I hope you all enjoyed this mammoth of a chapter!

xxC