A/N: Oh, this was a hard chapter to write. Blarg.

Next chapter we're headed to the Capitol. I'm halfway done it, but if I could get reviews for this chapter it would make me post it faster(:

Oh&after this I'll be getting more into the characters' heads, of course. Their pasts and all that.

Trafford's POV

The next day, Bambi and I set up some traps. Neither of us speaks. Speaking is a mistake, because we'll most likely disagree on something and get into an argument I'd rather not be in right now.

But, anyways, these traps aren't for animals; they're for humans. Traps that will catch a tribute by their ankles and pull them so they're hanging upside-down. We even managed to rig it that as the tribute is being lifted into the air, they hit their head on a branch, hopefully knocking them unconscious and leaving them more vulnerable than ever.

Then Bambi and I climb back up into that really tall tree which overlooks every one of our traps. They're all skillfully hidden from a person walking near them, the twigs and vines covered with leaves and soil and under roots, and the vines that hang down from the trees look like they are naturally there.

I wonder vaguely who these traps might catch. Nobody will see it coming. Not even Ariel or Alexander. They could catch anyone who just happens to be walking by this place at this time, who happens to be in this wrong place at this wrong time.

Because whoever these traps happen to catch will die.

Ebony's POV

I slightly regret leaving Odyss's side. There's been a cannon sound. If that was him, then his dying is completely my fault.

But one of us was going to have to die eventually. Why not now? Then again, that same thing could be said for me, so I take it back. I'm not ready to die. These games, they just got started for me. I just proved at least a bit of bravery to the Capitol and dying now would mean all that would be gone, erased. Dying now would mean leaving my twin brother Emmett back in District Five, alone, to fend for himself.

Not that I was the main source of support between the two of us, or anything. I'd say it was about an equal split, bringing in food and money and tesserae and paying for some electricity. But that just makes me leaving all the more horrible; my half of the fending will vanish. He might end up getting caught as a minor living alone, and be sent to one of those terrible orphanages where they make you put in twice your share of tesserae to support for the place. Oh, that wouldn't be good.

This is why I clasp my bow and arrow tighter to my side. I need to appear strong on the outside despite my size, even if on the inside the strength isn't as convincing.

Just as I'm stepping over a high root poking out of the dirt, I notice a strange pattern on the ground. Vines are strewn in circles under patches of leaves and I take it has to be a trap. But those circles under leaves are all I see as one of them winds itself around my foot and I fly upwards by my ankle, about to bash my head on a branch, but somehow push my body away with the hand that isn't holding my bow and arrow. I feel like panicking, but I repress the urge. Stay calm. Think of a way out of this.

The fact that at a very distant tree I catch the sight of Trafford from Two and Bambi from Nine scaling down with some kinda homemade device doesn't help the whole staying-calm thing, but I take a deep breath and focus. I could shoot them, maybe. But I'm spinning around and upside-down and my aim will be affected.

Get down, I think. How can I get down? There must be something suspending me, right? I lift my head up painfully so I can see the top of the thick vine—the thickness too thick to break before the two careers reach me. The vine is tied around a branch a bunch of times, and also around a large rock that's on a branch above it. If I move too much the rock will fall on me.

Trafford and Bambi are just getting off the tree, and now running in my direction. They'll get here soon. I need a solution.

What would Emmett say? Emmett would say to use their own trap against them, because he's just that kind of person. But in this case there's no way to use a trap that holds you up by your ankle against the person that created it. They know where the other traps are, they wouldn't stumble into one on accident or something like that…

But I glance up at that large rock, thinking for a moment how they managed to get it up in the tree, but then thinking how I could get it down. If that rock falls it will break the branch the vine supporting me is tied to, but it's also placed directly above me, so it will crush me in the process.

Maybe, though, if I could move out of its path in time….

They're closer, now. Four hundred metres away at the most. They'll be here in a minute.

"Argh," I say, and use my bow and arrow to propel myself forwards, so I'm able to grab the trunk of the tree. The sharp bark digs into my hands. Those careers sure did pick a bad tree for this. Or good, depending on whose side you're on.

I don't have much upper-body strength, and trying to climb up without the strength of my legs would be useless. There's an escape here, if I can just get my thoughts un-jumbled…

Two hundred metres. And both are holding a javelin.

I think of the pain that weapon will cause, and push off of the tree trunk. I swing back, grasp onto it, and then push off again. The rock moves a little, the vine looks thinner. So I keep swinging. When the vine is about to break, and Trafford is lunging to throw the javelin, I give one final push off the trunk and back, pressing up against it as much as I can, and I hear Bambi scream and curse and my branch breaks, and I fall to the ground, waiting to be made into a human pancake by the boulder.

But it doesn't come. I look up, already untying the vine from my ankle, and see that Trafford was in the path of the rock, rather than me. He's on the ground with the rock off to his right and Bambi checking his pulse on his left. Which has to be fine. There wasn't a cannon.

I consider shooting one of them, but don't. In the time it would take me to raise my bow and draw the arrow would be three times the time it would take Bambi to throw that javelin straight through my heart. So instead of killing, I run.

Trafford's POV

As soon as the trap goes off I snap back to attention. I see a small figure, looking as small as an ant, flying into the air and I'm already halfway down the tree trunk. I hear Bambi above me, seemingly scrambling to keep up. But I haven't had a kill since… Robert, was it? And I'm a career. I have to prove something of myself somehow, especially for Marina, my district partner.

Bambi made me the javelin that's in my hand. She had said, "You don't know how freaking long it took me to make this, so if you lose it or break it I'm going to kill you." I attempt not to break the thing while I hurriedly make my limbs move quicker, and more gracefully, further and further downwards.

And we're both running to the small ant-like figure, who really seems to be as small as an ant, the little one from District Five I'm going to say, who is also trying to make a desperate escape from the vine. Maybe to break the branch? No matter, that rock is suspended to solve that purpose.

I smile, feeling a bit too evil, but these are the Hunger Games nevertheless, and just feet away, less room for error, I grasp my javelin in a throwing position. I plant my feet. My arm is halfway through the air when something hits me on the shoulder, something really heavy and hard, and I hear a yell from Bambi before falling to the ground and blacking out.

Krow's POV

It's the cannon that wakes me up. Mara looks over at me the same time I look over at her, and we come to the conclusion that neither of us have died and were the cause of the cannon. But after that, we know that we're not going to get back to sleep, so we discuss what we discuss after every cannon blast.

"One of the smaller ones," Mara guesses. "Like, Trawny or Ebony. Their time is well up."

I don't mention that ours must be well up then, too. "Alexander or Ariel. One of them ought to have killed the other this far in."

She takes it in. "Yeah, that's true. Can I change mine?"

I give her an exaggerated appalled face. "You can't change your guess. Especially not to my guess. I can't believe you would even suggest that, Mara."

A smile is what I receive, and it's more than worth it. Mara's smiles aren't exactly rare or whatever, but when you do get one from her, it's like getting the world. I return the grin and pop a berry in my mouth, which Mara confirmed completely safe yesterday. I forget their names but apparently they're extremely uncommon, especially in her District Eight, and she was absolutely ecstatic when we found them.

"Goodness," she says. "I'm sorry. I didn't know you were so protective of your guesses."

"It's fine." I shake my head and look away. "Just don't make the same mistake again."

A berry is thrown at me, and I throw a berry back. She laughs, telling me that we're going to play a game her and her friends invented. You have to throw the berry in the other person's mouth, and if you succeed, then you get a point and another berry. Then the other person keeps moving backwards and you see how far you can get. It is little things like these that nobody actually does get to experience during the games, so I don't refuse the offer.

Turns out, sabotaging the other person's throw is considered cheating. And I'm disqualified because that's just how the rules work. Mara declares she wins and we get into another fight throwing the berries around and I'm left to do nothing but soak everything up. Life. Nobody should take something as precise and delicate as it for granted. And I won't; definitely not in the Hunger Games.

Ebony's POV

I run through the trees away from Bambi and Trafford. There hasn't been a cannon, so Trafford still must be alive. It's hard to say how long that will last, though. That rock was big.

I concentrate on running. Move my feet faster and faster, they hit the ground at an increased rate; make my smaller legs take larger strides, they fly like a deer's; force my arms to propel me forward, they swing back and forth as fast as a fan. Getting away from Trafford and Bambi is my number one priority right now—and who knows where Ariel and Alexander are hiding.

It's only when I bump into Odyss that I stop running. I knock right into his chest and fall backwards, but he catches my elbow and places me back on my feet. "Odyss," I say, out of breath and exasperated. I can only stop for a moment. I must keep running. "We have to get out of here. Bambi and Trafford, they're back there. Trafford got a rock to the head, I think, but I don't know if—"

I'm cut short by a sharp pain that stabs through my neck. I reach up, feel a long piece of carved wood, and pull it out, toss it to the ground. Blood fills my hands, my mouth, I feel it overpowering me. Odyss is saying my name, telling me not to let go and to hold on, just for that brother I told him about earlier. But the blood, it's sickening how there's so much blood. I can't breathe; it's drowning me. I hope for a second Emmett turned away from the television before this.

Struggling for breath, I fall to my knees and see Odyss's own hands covered in blood. His hands are on my neck. He's trying to stop to blood flow, but I'm not stupid. I know it's no use.

I stop struggling.

Trafford's POV

I'm only out for a few seconds. Bambi tells me that the boulder just missed the top of my head, hitting my shoulder, which explains the splitting throbbing coming from there. I'm pretty sure my bone is sticking out of my skin, because blood is trickling down my shirt and Bambi has a disgusted look on her face, but I promptly remember that District Five girl. Not only did she get away from us, from careers, but she injured me! It's too embarrassing to stand, so I stand up with my javelin and run in the direction Bambi tells me she went in.

Far ahead I hear footsteps I assume are the Five's. Just behind me I hear Bambi telling me to stop. Let her go. It's no use. But I keep going. Sprinting faster through the trees. I must be faster than that little girl, I must, otherwise I have failed everyone.

I see her. Up ahead, her long dark hair flowing behind her with a bow and arrow in her right hand. I can kill her from here, I know I can, especially now that's she's stopped dashing away for some reason and stopped. If I could make a shot from one end of the training centre to the other, I can easily make this one. Easily.

Taking two steps forward I throw the weapon. It slices through the air, spinning round and round, until I can see I've hit her; the District Five girl falls to the ground. There's another figure there, too, a larger one with black hair. Her district partner, maybe? Whatever. He's no threat to me.

I turn away to look at Bambi, who is shaking her head and turning on her heel in the other direction like she's disappointed I killed a thirteen-year-old, when she suddenly lets out an ear piercing scream and tells me to duck. I duck, but it isn't in time. The javelin pierces right through my abdomen; I can hear the familiar whoosh before it hits, while Bambi's scream echoes through my ears, over and over. I can't tell if she's still screaming or it's that one that continues to ring.

"Trafford," she says, and kneels down beside me. I fight for breath. "Look at me. Look at me." I look at her, but she's blurry. And there's three of her. "Don't go. Hold on. We have sponsors. We can get sponsors."

I shrug, which is difficult 'cause of the bone sticking out of my shoulder, and shake my head. I got too caught up in these games. I wouldn't let the Five go. I, in the end, caused my own death by the way you stay alive in these games. Not to mention the fact I recognize this javelin poking out of me—it's the one Bambi made. The one I threw, seconds ago, for the purpose of killing someone else and keeping myself alive.

Marina would be disappointed in that, so I whisper a sorry to my district partner. Then I feel myself being lifted out of my aching body, up and away.

Odyss's POV

After killing Trafford I run. Seeing Ebony die—seeing that javelin kill her—it set me off. Because I didn't see Ebony there, I saw Jacklyn, I saw my little sister battling to the death, and I saw my little sister drown in her own blood. I felt my heart speed up, pounding against my ribcage, as her cannon went off and I saw her killer, a career, turning away triumphantly.

But instead of walking away I picked up that same javelin and threw it the hardest I've ever thrown anything, ever, and heard the cannon go off for that same career. Adding to the list of many careers that are now dead.

The only real careers left are Ariel, Alexander and Bambi, and maybe Cheyenne. Then there's Violet and Trawny, and Mara and Krow, and me. But one of the others is already dead, if that cannon that went this morning means anything.

Whatever. I guess I'll find out tonight.