A/N: New Chapter! A bit on the longer side. As always, welcome constructive criticism(as long as it is delivered nicely) Thank you for the follows and fav's, I really appreciate it!

"Ria!-Finnick!"

The closer I get the easier I can make out she is drenched in blood; it is as if she bathed in it. My feet slip as I race across the sand; flinging wildly out behind me. Finnick is a bit behind me; for all he and Jo joke around, they are close. This past day of not knowing; even if she knows the plan it can't be assumed she would make it out alive. Even though she is tough, strong, and a victor already, there is no guarantee of life.

She is safe.

Jo is alive.

Jo is hugging me.

I am once again grateful she accepts hugs from me. Despite how short it is, and how bloodstained she is, it is the best hug we have had. A 'you're still alive' hug. There are a couple of splatters on me as a result, but well worth the messiness. Beetee is on the ground-barely conscious. He was the figure Jo was dragging around. Wiress has since gotten her feet under her again and is looping around. She seems unhurt.

Finnick is right behind me in greeting Jo- a bit differently, with a firm handclasp and patting her back. "It's good to see you alive". There is no uplift of his voice, no tone insinuating he is teasing. A heartfelt moment from him. Of course, Jo ruined that.

"What? You didn't think I could do it?". The trace of teasing that was absent from Finnick, was not for Jo. She seldom lets someone in, and here, viewed for the capital is certainly not going to be the first time she lets Finnick see her.

Finnick just shoots her his classic smirk-the one the capital goes wild over: His eyes slightly creased, soft greens, lips curved. God, he is too gorgeous for his own good.

Beetee is on the ground-barely conscious. He was the figure Jo was dragging around. Wiress has since gotten her feet under her again and is looping around. She seems unhurt. JWaving her arms and talking very fast, "We thought it was rain, you know, because of the lightning, and we were all so thirsty. But when it started coming down, it turned out to be blood. Thick, hot blood. You couldn't see, you couldn't speak without getting a mouthful. We just staggered around, trying to get out of it. That's when Blight hit the force field."

I know Blight wasn't her favorite person- tribute partners rarely are- it honestly is less about the person dying, and more like, the only thing you have left from home leaves you. Harvey was like that. A pretentious asshole for sure, but, the only one from home who was with me in the arena. Blight wasn't as near as bad as Harvey was.

Finnick says, "I'm sorry, Johanna". I have always found it weird when people do that: apologies that is. Finnick wasn't involved in Blights' death, he had no impact at all, but still, he apologizes. I know it is more of an 'It sucks that someone you know died" rather than a traditional apology- but it is still weird.

"Yeah, well, he wasn't much, but he was from home," she says. "And he left me alone with these two." She nudges Beetee, who's barely conscious, with her shoe. "He got a knife in the back at the Cornucopia. And her—"

Knife in the back. That explains why he is barely conscious and unable to stand up on his own. Wiress was circling around us, mumbling, "Tick, tock. Tick, tock."

"Yeah, we know. Tick, tock. Nuts is in shock," says Johanna.

Of course, addressing her seems to draw her attention. She ends up swaying in her direction, which sets off Jo, who harshly shoves her to the sand. "Just stay down, will you?" She is right to feel irritated she had to babysit, but pushing Wiress, who is acting like she has a head injury, is unfair.

Katniss agrees with that opinion, "Lay off her". Jo doesn't react to that pleasingly. She never really liked the girl-on-fire.

She whipped roughly to Katniss, her own flames seething in her earth eyes. Oh no. "Lay off her?" she hisses. She is stalking towards her and before I can slip between the two Jo hits Katniss. Hard.

"Who do you think got them out of that bleeding jungle for you? You—"

Thankfully I was able to get to her before punches were pitched. Katniss is still reeling from the slap. Jo must have hit her pretty hard, a pink outline of a hand already forming on her cheek.

Finnick was able to help wrangle Jo with me. She was kicking and screaming for me to let her go. Nails digging into my forearm, gripping at them, trying to tug them away from her body. Broken up shouts, cursing at me, saying to let her at Katniss.

We finally got her a good couple of yards away. She appears like she is a few moments from settling down. That is before Finnick gets to her. He ends up tossing her over his shoulder and yelling, "You need to cool off Johanna".

This, of course, sets her into a fit of rage. Violently scuffling with Finnick as he dunks her in the water. While enraged, Jo still doesn't yell insults at the two of us, her focus is still on Katniss. She says a lot of words not worth repeating.

Katniss finally gets over her astonishment, hand detaching from its place on her cheek. Over Jo's screams, I talk to the two, "It might be a while. Don't judge her too much. It's a lot to ask, but just keep in mind she lost Blight, and had the fight of her life the past day or so keeping those two alive. It doesn't excuse it… but maybe try to understand before you try to kill her tonight?"

Katniss doesn't give much of a response. A roll of her tongue over her teeth and a huff of air. Peeta gives me a bit more, just a downturn nod, but I am hopeful he is rational enough to see the benefit of Jo as an ally. And her 'gift' of the District 3 victors.

I head back to Finnick and plop myself near Jo's thrashing. It takes a long while for her to give up her want to fight Katniss. In that time, Peeta lifted Beetee up into his arms and took him to camp with Katniss trailing behind them, holding onto Wiress. She was able to take care of the blood on the two of them and look at his injury. I don't really know what she did, but she ended up patching him up with the moss Finnick used for my head injury.

Jo was clean, due to her thrashing in the saltwater, and once she was calm enough to interact with the District 3 and District 12 tributes we headed back to our makeshift camp. When we get there Katniss is trying to get Wireless to eat something. Finnick tells about the fog and the monkeys while Johanna drinks down water and stuffs herself with shellfish.

When it comes time to rest I am the only one to not offer to guard the camp. It has been a long time since I've slept and I kept watch last. Jo and Katniss end up staying up-an an unlikely pairing. Jo should sleep, I doubt she has had a wink of it since the games started. But no one can make Jo do anything she doesn't want to do. I end up curling next to Finnick in the shallows. The steady cadence of the waves is almost enough to put me at peace. The tense air continued in my dreams.

Smoke.

Far too close for comfort. Who is the idiot behind that?

They are going to get us killed sending a beacon like that to the Careers. Grey swirls, curling in on themselves, ash flickering across the sky. It is cold. I was lucky there was a thermal blanket in my pack. It was blistering in the day, but once that sun disappeared? Icy.

Still, Linex from 3 was killed last night. The careers hunting him down from the trail of smoke he left. He was the only death yesterday. I can't risk them coming my way and this idiot is going to get the two of us killed. They are already after me. I didn't join their alliance and then I had the audacity to kill Terra in the bloodbath two days ago.

I am quite packing up. I only had a few things. A spear I managed to grab from Terra, and a pack. It was filled with a blanket, a bottle of water, and a serrated knife. Should I just leave them here to be killed? I'll see who it is first. Maybe they have something I could use.

They are two buildings down. We are a good few miles away from the center where the cornucopia lies, and the old, damaged buildings are further apart, more run down, and smaller than the towering buildings we were placed by.

I had assumed they were on the roof, with the swirl of smoke that billowed up into the sky. They weren't though, there was just a hole in the roof of that building. The wood rotted, like every other building in the area. It wasn't one idiot. It was two.

A boy and a girl from their outlines. One of them was huddled by the fire, asleep, the other on 'watch'. Not very well if I could sneak up on her. Plus, she only held a knife. The boy had a machete, but I don't know how well he could use it. They didn't have any distance weapons. It would be easy. Far too easy to take the pack that the boy was using as a pillow and leave them at the career's mercy. I need that pack… Or at least, I need more supplies.

Parmenter. District 8's female tribute. We had a conversation at the plant station. She was nice, pretty even. Dark brown hair, ivory skin, dirt eyes, she is a year older than me. The boy is Oliver I think- I can't remember what district he is from. Curls atop his head and splattered in freckles. He is 18. I am younger than them, but I have the training they don't even if he can use a blade.

My spear in hand I am about to make my move when the blasted cedar wood betrayed me. The creak was not loud, but it was loud enough to alert the girl. "Who's there?", she put on a brave face, but there was a shakiness to her voice. Oliver woke to that, blade up ready to use. "We don't want any trouble". Their eyes are darting around, frantic in their haste to find me.

An exhale. An aim. I can't let go of the knife though. Monty stops me. Or the memory of him does. He had a machete. He was killed by people for no reason, just to get ahead. These two haven't done anything but be idiots. They just built a fire.

Morals are going to stop me from winning this, aren't they? "Put the fire out…" My voice gave away my location. It was a bit scratchy, I haven't used it since the games started. Still, it was dark enough they could only see my outline. "You are attracting unwanted company. Don't be an idiot like Linex."

It is then I spot a bowl. It is filled with water. Where did they get that? They have access to water. I thought there wasn't any. I have looked the past 2 days and haven't found a source.

"Are you going to fight us?" a rough voice grunted out.

"No…." I paused. "I was going to, but pretty faces always make me reconsider"

They didn't really know I was joking. Glances were shared between the two of them, questioning my legitimacy. Asking each other if they want to have a go at me. It was two against one, but I was from 4, a career. Trained for the games.

The pair decided not to, further proving they were idiots when their weapons lowered to their sides. I can't help scoff, "Keep your weapons up I haven't lowered mine"

"Well if you are so dangerous why are you trying to help us?" Parmenter spoke. Oliver ended up lifting his machete back up.

"Like I said, pretty faces are my weaknesses"

Before Oliver could stop her, " Do you want to join? We could use you. I know the terrain, all this is similar enough to my district. I know how to find water and Oli is good at fighting. It would be nice to have a third, more people to watch our backs, and yours in turn. Can't be easy not sleeping"

They didn't completely trust me, but it was enough for a shaky alliance to form. We end up moving camp. I don't know if the Careers ever met that campsite from the smoke, but Joule Metis, Linex's district partner was hunted. Her screams were loud, the canon even louder. Her face showed in the sky when we finally made camp. No fires, but sharing the blanket that was stored in my pack. They gave me some nuts that were in theirs. Ours now. Oliver kept watch, over the camp and me. "

Not the worst memory to be lost in. My little alliance from my games. Lacey, Oli, and I, definitely had a rough start, given I almost killed them both. It was a week later that Oli would die for us, and Lacey would die from blood loss and internal damage. It couldn't have been very long before I woke up. The sun was at its peak- directly above us. Maybe it has been an hour or so? Katniss roughly woke Finnick and me before rousing Jo. A safe idea. I hope Katniss and Jo will settle into a more mutual respect type of relationship.

"Get up—we have to move."

She was talking at a far more rapid speed than normal. A rush of words spurs out of her mouth, tripping over her words. Still, it is enough to get the concept she had made about the arena. All of Wiress' "Tick, tock," start to make more sense.

The 12 rings of bells last night. Then lightning. The 12 apparent bongs when the sun reached its peak. Then lightning. The 12 spokes of land, where two tributes were placed between. Each wedge a corresponding hour. The blood rain-where Jo and 3 were caught. The toxic fog. The monkeys immediately after it disappeared. Very clearly a clock. Plutarch, you clever bastard. The wave directly across from us, where a tribute died. We are still where the monkeys were. If Katniss is right…

We gather everything up. Even if Katniss is wrong, it is better safe than sorry. We might as well move, besides, we have been here far too long. Katniss goes to wake up Wiress, the bloody genies.

She awakes with a panicked "tick, tock!"

"Yes, tik, tock, the arena's a clock. It's a clock, Wiress, you were right," Katniss reassures her. "You were right."

Relief floods her face — I guess because somebody has finally understood what she's known probably from the first tolling of the bells. "Midnight."

"It starts at midnight,". Wiress nods at the blood rain.

"One-thirty," she says.

"Exactly. One-thirty. And at two, a terrible poisonous fog begins there," she says, pointing at the nearby jungle. "So we have to move somewhere safe now." Wiress smiles and stands up obediently.

Weapons ready, and items in place- the spile finding a home on my waist, and the medicine on Katniss'. The bread is gone, the shellfish are all eaten. We start to get Beetee up and he ends up croaking, "Wire."

"She's right here," Peeta tells him. "Wiress is fine. She's coming, too."

Still Beetee struggles. "Wire," he insists.

"I got Beetee. It's on my waist". The cylinder Katniss had taken from his belt earlier was tied around my waist with a vine, next to the spile. I had grabbed it as we were gathering everything to go.

Jo is a bit too obvious in her act of naivety, "It's some kind of wire or something. That's how he got cut. Running up to the Cornucopia to get this. I don't know what kind of weapon it's supposed to be. I guess you could pull off a piece and use it as a garrote or something. But really, can you imagine Beetee garroting somebody?"

"He won his Games with wire. Setting up that electrical trap," says Peeta. "It's the best weapon he could have."

Katniss picks up right away, never really trusting her in the first place, her suspicion of Jo still high, "Seems like you'd have figured that out-Since you nicknamed him Volts and all."

Johanna's eyes narrow at her, "Yeah, that was really stupid of me, wasn't it? I guess I must have been distracted by keeping your little friends alive. While you were...what, again?" The tense air that had left when Katniss finally trusted Finnick after he saved Peeta was back. Distrust filled the air, it was thick and palpable. Katniss had shifted her hand down to grip a knife.

"Go ahead. Try it. I don't care if you are knocked up, I'll rip your throat out," says Jo (Johanna's hands are rated E for everyone).

"Maybe we all had better be careful where we step," keeping the two from killing each other is going to be the hardest thing about these games. "There's your wire, Volts. Watch where you put it."

Peeta is the one to lift Beetee, leaving Finnick free to use his trident. "Where to?" We had established the need to move away from the fog and monkeys, but never really selected a place to go.

Finnick ends up speaking up, "I'd like to go to the Cornucopia and watch. Just to make sure we're right about the clock."

A reasonable strategy, especially to confirm the standing theory. I am pretty certain Wiress is correct though. It would be nice to get a spear that is intact and has a reach. The knives that had lined my body are all but depleted. Only the dagger strapped to my thigh and 2 knives remain.

There is plenty of us to fight if we encounter the Careers, who usually camp out at the cornucopia. There are seven of us, probably one of the largest groups to ever be formed in the history of the Hunger Games. Beetee and Wiress do need a little help with direct fighting, but we have five good fighters among us, outnumbering the careers by one.

The cornucopia is abandoned. Still, we walked up with care, in case someone was lurking. Only the picked-over weapons remained.

Peeta set Beetee down in a bit of shade while the rest of us look over the weapons. He ended up calling over Wiress and handing her the wire. "Clean it, will you?" he requests. She crouches beside him and he sets the spiral of wire in her hands and hurries over to the water's edge, where she submerges the coil in the water. She starts quietly singing some song, about a mouse running up a clock. It must be for children, but it seems to make her pleased.

However, it does not make Jo pleased, "Oh, not the song again," says Johanna, rolling her eyes. "That went on for hours before she started tick-tocking."

Suddenly Wiress stands up very straight and points to the jungle, stopping her singing, "Two," she says. She is pointing to where the fog has begun to creep out to the shore.

"Yes, look, Wiress is right. It's two o'clock and the fog has started." Katniss seems to baby her, which I don't know if I like. Wiress is, after all, an adult, a victor of the games. On the other hand, she very clearly has some issues and Katniss reassuring her seems to placate her.

"Like clockwork," says Peeta. "You were very smart to figure that out, Wiress." Peeta seems more genuine in his response. Wiress smiles and goes back to singing and dunking her coil.

Beetee hops in with his own view of Wiress, "Oh, she's more than smart- she's intuitive. He is getting better now, "She can sense things before anyone else. Like a canary in one of your coal mines."

Canary? "What's that?" Finnick asks.

"It's a bird that we take down into the mines to warn us if there's bad air,"

"What's it do, die?" asks Johanna.

"It stops singing first. That's when you should get out. But if the air's too bad, it dies, yes. And so do you." Katniss is quick to end the conversation. Turning to stock her arrows.

Jo is in paradise when she finds a pair of axes. Sharp and deadly, even deadlier in her hands, as seen when she hurls one hard enough it pierces into the gold-colored metal of the cornucopia. Finnick is prowling around the tridents. He grabs a few more and straps them to his back, leaving one in hand ready to use. I am sure to ditch the two parts of my broken spear for a new one. I strap some more knives to my chest, varying in sizes, and head over to where Peeta has been crouching on the ground the last few minutes.

He had a smooth leaf from the jungle and was carving it with the tip of his knife. It is a map of the arena. In the middle is the Cornucopia on its circle of sand with the twelve strips branching out from it. There's another circle representing the waterline and a slightly larger one indicating the edge of the jungle. There is a lightning print in the corresponding wedge. A drop, of what I assume is blood in the next, with the fog and monkeys following it.

Katniss is already there watching, commenting, "And ten to eleven is the wave,".

Jo and Finnick are with us now. Katniss ends up asking, "Did you notice anything unusual in the others?"

They haven't. Still, we know plenty more than we did an hour ago.

Silence.

Where is our canary?

A/N: Ok, I am thinking about maybe just posting a separate work of all the flashbacks/memories from Maria's games. It won't necessarily be a complete timeline of her games, but it might be nice to use to just look back.