Author's Note

I do not own the Hunger Games.


Luciente plunged down through the water, kicking furiously. The water pulled her back, the waves yanking her around like they had never done in the ponds and lakes of home or the pristine white pool of the Capitol. She thought against them, more determined than ever even though her lungs were burning and her limbs aching and her body cold, so very cold.

She had to get to the floor.

There was a shimmer of glowing blue to her left. The boy from Four, his empty eye socket accusing, his hair floating around his face like a halo.

Luciente had never known ghosts' hair floated like that.

The boy rolled his remaining eye and made a motion with his arms as though he were trying to push the water away from him. For a moment Luciente floundered - ghosts couldn't drown - and then a peaceful kind of realisation struck her. She draw her arms back and mirrored the action, which gained her much more depth than the of her own strikes combined. The ghost boy descended with her, now miming an action with his legs. Again Luciente followed the instruction, drawing her knees together and then thrusting her legs out. Again it gained her much more distance through the water.

Four's ghost looked distinctly pleased with himself.

Finally, with one last push, Lucirnte reached the seabed.

Her lungs were burning and her limbs aching; the water was threatening to push her back up again, but she dug her fingers into the hard, stony sand to anchor herself and managed a glance around as that feeling of connection vibrated through her. She could feel it, all around her, the water a living thing and all the fish and beasts in it. She could feel Nathaniel, a warm bundle of glowing white light stood in the shallow tide water of the beach, and Bunny with him, twin glimmers of yellow and green stood behind her. Further out the two remaining Career boy was eating by the tide at the other end of the beach, far beyond the cliffs, and the girl-who-would-be-Victor was distantly trying to fish in the steam.

Luciente tugged at some of the larger stones, which now felt warm in her hands, glowing white in her mind. She pulled three, the size of her palm, free from the rocky seabed, holding them close to her.

One for her, one for Hyperion, one for Nathaniel.

Then there was hatred.

It came from everywhere and nowhere at the same time, blinding, deafening. The water felt colder, the waves felt rougher. Glowing red stained the water ahead of her, so bright and vibrant it might have been solid.

Luciente propelled herself upwards, allowing the water to drag her. Whatever that was, it was evil and black with hatred, and she would have no part with it.

Through the grey water she got a glimpse of it as she swam, mere feet from the surface now.

A girl, blonde haired, her face and arena jacket stained with blood, a gaping, bloody hole in her neck.

The girl from Two, Luciente recognised, and she looked angrier than she had ever seen her.

She shot towards her, a flash of red, and the burst of anger and hatred was enough to knock her back in the water, the stones slipping in her hands. One fell through her fingers and she could do nothing but watch as it sunk back towards the seabed.

There was a flash of light, a blur of glowing blue, and the boy from Four shot out in front of her. Luciente kicked frantically, forcing herself the last few feet to the surface, and finally she broke above the water, going in air.

Waves crashed around her, slamming against her head and shoulders, pulling her this way and that, and there was a drag from beneath the surface, a heavy weight trying to stay her down. She drew her legs together and kicked towards the beach, like the boy from Four had shown her. She was so tired now, whining, fatigued, and yet she remembered running so far and so fast, howling with the coyotes, glaring mournfully at the cage wall and wishing more than anything she could be beyond it to ruin free in the trees. Even still the water was pulling her back, pulling her down. The hatred was blinding, deafening, a raw kind of fury she had never felt from anything, let alone a ghost.

The dead can't hurt me, she told herself.

Except when they could.

The weight continued to drag at her legs and she clutched the stones tight as she made another frantic kick towards the beach. She pictured herself being safe, being warm, running free, and the stones warmed against her skin, the pull lessening.

She could feel Nathaniel running out into the water and tried to warn him, but all that got her was a mouthful of salty water. She forced herself to keep going, imagining Hyperion out there in the arena somewhere, alone without his pack.

Never.

Those alone died.

Always, time and time again, those alone died.

She wasn't alone.

Her pack was bigger than ever.

The boy from Four was still around, she could feel him, trying to slow the girl from Two. Luciente held the stones that little bit tighter and willed him strength and love.

It felt like a lifetime before her feet could touch the ground again.

Even now the water was trying to pull her back, and she could still feel that hatred, black and burning. Nathaniel reached her side, the water nearly shoulder high on him, strands of his red hair plastered to his face. He reached out towards her. "Are you alright? What happened?"

The girl from Two, fury and panic burning through her, appeared on their left. Luciente shoved Nathaniel back as the glowing red form flew at him, only to be intercepted again by the boy from Four.

"What is that? What is it- what is it- what is that?"

Luciente shook her head, now dragging him behind her. He scrambled through the water as it quickly grew shallower until they were back on the wet sand, where Bunny ran to meet them. Nathaniel had stripped off his jacket and boots, Luciente saw now, but he was still wearing the rest of his arena uniform, which clung to his skin.

"What happened?" Bunny demanded.

Nathaniel shook his head. "There- There are mutt things – glowing – glowing mutt things out there. We gotta go; we gotta go!"

Bunny jerked and raised her knife slightly, jabbing it out to sea. "I can't see anything."

Luciente squeezed Nathaniel's arm. "The dead can't hurt us."

"Well, they looked pretty close to drowning you!"

"Did you at least find what you were after?"

Luciente forced her stiff fingers apart, gazing at the glowing stones lying in her palm. "Yes."

Nathaniel reached out to them, hesitated, drew his hand back and stared at them instead. Bunny looked between her and the stones. "That's what you were so desperate to get? A couple of pebbles?"

Luciente gazed out to sea. "There were more. This was all I could get; the girl from Two's angry."

Bunny raised an eyebrow. "Well she would be, you killed her."

"The boy from Four isn't."

Which was odd and not odd at the same time.

The dead couldn't hurt them, so they rarely held personal grudges.

But if the girl was, why wasn't he?

Perhaps that was just how he'd been in life.

Nathaniel frowned. "Is that what those things out there were? The Careers that died?"

Bunny huffed. "Oh, not you too!"

Nathaniel gazed out over the grey water. "I saw them."

"Well, whether they were mutts or dead tributes, you've got what you wanted. We should keep moving."

"The cabin's empty," Luciente said.

Bunny frowned. "How do you know?"

Luciente shrugged.

"Let's not question it," Nathaniel said.