Author's Note.

I'm back! And… yeah, I have no real reason for my long, unannounced hiatus beyond being busy and having a down period mentally. This story is fully written though, it just might take some time to be fully posted. With that out the way, here's the next chapter!

(I do not own the Hunger Games)

They ran, though Four protested, demanding to know what they were running from, struggling through the trees that seemed even thicker than before. hyperion couldn't hear anything behind them, not shouting nor footfalls nor snarling, and neither could he catch any glimpse of movement through the trees.

And yet he could feel it still.

Cold.

Black.

Hating.

Evil.

What do I do, he called out to Luciente, what do I do?

This was beyond him.

He could fight for her, he could kill and track and hunt and bleed for her, but he didn't have what she had and he couldn't see whatever it was that was behind them, couldn't do anything to stop it – if there was anything that would stop it.

"What are we running from?" Four shouted over the noise of their feet crashing through the undergrowth.

"Shut up and keep up!" Hyperion snapped back.

"I'd just like to know what our enemy is! Like, tributes, or mutts, or a trap, or what? Why are we running Ten?"

He bounced the answer and forth in his head, and in the end gave her the truth.

"Because we're not safe."

"What's that meant to mean?"

It occurred to him that maybe he should throw her to the thing.

It might buy him some time.

He was still considering it when they crashed into the stream, hitting the water with a splash. Four stumbled, windmilling her good arm and waving the spear as she fought to catch her balance.

Luciente, but no answer came.

The world felt very empty, and the cold was getting closer.

They would never outrun it.

Hyperion spun round, raising his own spear and turning to the trees.

If he was going down to whatever this was, he was going down fighting.

And then there was a blast of heat, red hot, burning, fire, fury, and the cold stopped, shrinking.

Retreating.

Hyperion adjusted his hold on his spear. Four turned on him. She was huffing, panting, and there was blood seeping through the bandages and luminous blue gel coating her wounded shoulder. "What," she hissed, jabbing her spear into the woods, "the fuck was that all about?"

Hyperion gazed into the trees from the shore of the stream. The cold feeling was almost entirely gone now, as was that sudden explosion of violent heat. Whatever it had been, it had spooked the darkness.

The dark flees from the light, as it always does.

"Not sure," he replied at last, climbing out of the water. It felt deeper than the last time they had been here, well past his ankles now.

"Something felt wrong."

"Something felt wrong, so you decided to drag us on a ten minute mad sprint through the incredible dense woodland?"

Hyperion scowled. "I told you Four, you can keep up or get left behind. Go back to your little Career friends, I think there's still one left."

She never would.

She knew full well he'd kill her before letting her walk away.

But he also knew now that he'd been right.

Even if Four was blind to it, even if she couldn't feel it, she was better than nothing, and he didn't want to be alone out here.

Back home it was the coyotes and the peacekeepers you had to look out for.

In the arena it was the tributes, and the mutts, and arena traps and the Gamemakers – and, apparently, whatever the hell that thing had been.

Luciente would know.

He had to find her.

He had to get to her.

She couldn't be alone out here.

It wasn't safe.

"We can't stay here," Bunny said, standing outside the cabin. The trees had closed in again during the night, and there was now a very narrow gap between them and the tree line. Bunny's fear that the trees might close in so tight around the cabin that they wouldn't be able to get in or out suddenly felt very, very real.

"We need to get out to the forcefield," said Luciente, swinging her backpack over her shoulder.

"The forcefield?" Bunny echoed.

Nathaniel shook his head. "I don't think that's such a good idea."

"What does the forcefield have to do with anything?"

"It has to do with everything."

Nathaniel shook his head again, more violently this time. "Luciente, I don't think it's a good idea. The Gamemakers don't tend to like tributes sticking around the forcefield for too long."

Luciente gave him a thin smile. "Then we won't stick around it for too long."

She had felt the arena around her while on watch last night, her stone glowing warm in the hand pressed to her heart, the world alive around her and the forcefield a barrier between them and the outside land.

And every time she tried to extend past it there was that same flicker, the glitch, a weak point in the wall that seemed to get bigger every time she tried.

Nathaniel sighed. "I guess we might as well have something to aim for. We can't stay here and we can't stay on the beach."

Bunny frowned. "Why can't we stay on the beach?"

Luciente gave her a look. "The hatred lives there."

"Of course it does." Bunny hauled her backpack over her shoulder. "Better than nothing I suppose. We need to try and find something to eat as well. Let me know if you see anything that looks edible."

"Everything's edible if you try hard enough," said Luciente.

Bunny stared at her. "Was that… an actual joke? From you?"

Luciente smiled, and Bunny began to laugh. Soon enough Nathaniel joined, and the three of them laughed, and it felt like time stood still around them.

Soon enough though, they had to move. Luciente stepped into the trees to head down to the stream. They were definitely closer together now, packed tight, some gaps barely big enough to fit a person sideways. Nathaniel cast one look back at the cabin and followed her into the woods. Bunny took up the rear, scrambling easily over and through the bushes and trees around them.

"If they make these trees much thicker the tributes won't be able to move through them," Nathaniel grumbled, stumbling as his foot caught on a root. Luciente caught his elbow to steady him.

"Maybe that's the ultimate plan. To drive us all down on to the beach."

"What would be the point in that though?"

Nathaniel shrugged.

"I mean, at the moment all they're doing is making it harder for tributes to find each other."

Hyperion.

Luciente had woken early this morning, with the sunrise, barely a few hours after Nathaniel took over third watch, to an echoing feeling of wrongness.

Hyperion.

She knew it had come from him, even if she was unable to see him, unable to help him. She had tried reaching out across the arena, her fingers wrapped tight around the Glow Stone, but there had been so much darkness and evil near her brother it was blinding and deafening, drowning out anything else.

There had been no cannons though, which meant he was alive, alive and safe, even if they were apart.

They stopped at the stream to fill their canteens. Luciente plunged her hand into the water and listened as the world sang around her.

There were others, upstream from them.

The girl from Six, the one-who-would-be-Victor, not so far away, just far enough that she was round the bend and through the trees, she evaluated.

And Hyperion.

She could feel him again now, upstream, splashing through the water, barefoot, determined. He would come to her.

Luciente.

Come to me.

Where where where- the darkness- where- how-

Forcefield. Come to me.

Nathaniel touched her shoulder. "You're doing it again."

Luciente lifted her canteen from the stream and capped it. Nathaniel frowned. "Can you hear footsteps?"

Bunny drew her knife, shifting the weight of her backpack against her back. "Yes."

Nathaniel drew his knife and glanced to the trees, as though considering whether he could run and hide. Luciente took a long drink from her canteen.

"Come on!" Bunny snapped.

Luciente capped her canteen and clipped it to her belt. "This tribute won't hurt us."

"You want to make that bet? Come on!" Bunny motioned for them and began a quick walk downstream. Luciente cast one last long look towards the girl from Six, still hidden around the stream bend by the trees, and followed.

Follow us.

Be free.

It was a useless plea.

She was already captive.

She just didn't know it yet.