Chapter

I had promised Tertian that we would be strangers in that arena and thus I did not even look at him. I ran toward the bow, hoping against hope that no one attacked me before I had my hands on it. Haymitch was probably cursing, I had broken all the rules he ever told but to hell with him, this bow can totally make me come out unscratched.

I reached the bow and notched an arrow just in time to see a knife flying at me. I ducked and fired but two was quick and instead of her heart, the arrow got lodged in her arm.

I ran like I had never before and grabbed a backpack along with a sleeping bag on my way towards the woods.

I turned to see a bloodbath, and let me tell you, seeing them on television is one thing but this was horror. Dad and Percy had been there the whole time and when I stopped I realized why I had been so fast, Percy had lifted me just a centimeter above the ground.

"Kat you should not have done it." Dad said and I began to run again, until Percy and Dad both pushed me, so that I fell in dense undergrowth. I was shooting glares when I noticed the girl from five whom I called Foxface standing, right where I had been seconds ago.

"Thanks dad" I said looking at the sky, to fool one and all.

"Wise girl, I can feel water, the way you are taking is long, I sense a shorter way to a stream." And we turned to go to the right. I passed huge trees and lots of insects including some cliffs and the force field as dad called it, which would have blocked all sounds of the stream and within minutes, we came to a rocky terrain and then to a stream.

I sat down to check my bag and reveled a bottle of iodine, some rope, some crackers, beef strips, matches an empty water bottle and of all the things a shiny substance to put on my lips. In the sleeping bag there were night vision glasses as Peeta Percy called them. I climbed a tree and called it a night only to be woken up by the smell of smoke.

"Annabeth run" Percy yells as Dad helps me pull off the ropes and stuff my stuff in the backpack.

Percy looks concentrating and suddenly I can feel mist forming an invisible layer around me as he becomes a hurricane and pulls me into himself and propels me to run, keeping up with me using his ghostly strength as Dad yells directions to us. At other times I would have gloated over the fact that I am faster than Percy but now we are running for our lives or rather my life because he is dead.

"No Hades, not her." I can hear him muttering.

I follow all the forest animals whose tiny feet were the other thing that woke me up till I feel bile rise up and duck behind an enormous boulder to throw my guts up. Peeta Percy however maintains the hurricane near me.

"I can sense water in that direction." He says.

"Katniss I know what you are thinking do not try to encircle the fire, we all know its game maker made and also don't blame Cinna, I know you love him like a brother and he loves you like a sister, he would have never made the plan of lightning you up to hurt you." Dad yells along with directions.

I run until I see fireballs and everything disappears until they are gone, Peeta's shouting, Dad's warning everything. I then realize, they are not gone, dad and Percy that seaweed brain has managed to pull me away towards a pond. I feel frustrated because I was battling a battle in which my bow was no use at all.

I sit under water until I hear shouting and then I come up to see the Careers jeering at me, I hesitate and then take off running. I scale a tree, as high as I can go before I start teasing them. They hate it but I know the audience loves it, and they should too after all this game for death is nothing but a television show to them.

Two, infuriated throws a knife and I think that I am done for but Jackson and Dad turn me slightly so that my bag takes the knife. They keep trying to hurt me, until it is nightfall and the decide to make camp under the tree, only because Glimmer is too tired to move all the way back and Cato wants to keep an eye on me.

It is while they are asleep that Dad and Rue (she thought she was the only one) point out that tracker jacker nest to me, which causes the end of Glimmer and the girl from four. Percy and Dad using their supernatural powers created smoke which hid me from the sleepy mutts.

I escape to the stream and find Rue who I automatically ally with.

****
Rue hugs me and then I make my way to the Career camp. Percy had watched them the whole morning and reports that have mined the ground. I go and hide where Rue told me to, while she lights the first fire, Percy is there taking care of her. Dad throws a stone a little away from here three is sitting and then helps me take the right stance and place to shoot that bag of apples. Two arrows and an apple falls out, tearing the bag, making others too fall out and the Careers supplies are done for as seems my right ear.

I lie that night with Rue thinking what happens after this, the boy from three was killed by Cato and now I see his ghost in the arena, pulling me out of my thoughts.

"I am sorry, I got you killed." He nearly jumps out of his skin and it takes some convincing from me, Peet and Dad to get the fact he is dead into him.

"I knew it was going to happen anyway, it was quick."

"Any idea why are you still here?"

"I guess, I wanted my mom's to be the last face I see before I die."

"Oh, well then you can just close your eyes picture your home and then you will be there." Percy says

"What then?"

"See her." I say before watching him disappear.

The games have come down to the final six. I killed Marvel, he had Rue trapped in a net, which Percy helped her out of, she does not understand how all the knots suddenly started becoming lose and how the wind kept making Marvel's spear's lose aim until I came and shot him, I did not want to do it but I saw red when I saw that he was going to hurt Rue, and my body acted on its own. I dread seeing his ghost. Some mediators believe we should treat ghost with respect but I prefer the punch when it comes to buffoons like Marvel.

I cannot let her go; she is like Prim, my little sister to me in here. There is a feast; we have enough, so we do not attend.

Tertian ,Thresh and Clove's faces line the sky and I have to hold Rue as she cries. I also say my silent goodbye to my district partner. The arena is down to the final four.

Peeta and dad kept an eye on Rue for me, making sure she does not go away. Now we are standing in front of the cornucopia as Foxface's face lines the sky, before she is gone forever. Thresh and Tertian's ghosts stand with us, they want to see Cato dead and Clove and the other ghosts I had to eradicate, which was tough in the arena, they were out for blood. However, I could not eradicate these two. Rue kept looking at me strange but I knew she trusted me. We waited, on Percy's advice atop the cornucopia, because he had been to the game center and had told us about the tribute mutts.

I shot Cato, in his head to avoid the body armor and tried to sleep through the mutts in the end while shielding Rue's ears and at last Percy told me his story and then Thresh told his, I laughed at times and Rue looked at me like I was a lunatic which I sure am, come on I can see the dead.

All four ghosts look at me and I look at Rue while she stares at me, fear in her eyes.

"Katniss, do it they have to have their victor." Tertian says in a small voice.

"No they don't." I say aloud and pull out the nightlock berries which we had picked up from near Foxface's dead body. Rue grabs my hand and so does Dad but Percy says "I am sure you would do the right thing" though he looks at me sadly but I get a feeling that he knows what I am about to do.

"Trust me." I say as I hand Rue half the berries.

"On three, one, two." Maybe I was wrong but still I say "Three" when suddenly Claudic's frantic voice comes over the arena "Stop Stop. Ladies and gentlemen I give you the victors of the 74th hunger games, Katniss Everdeen and Rue Grace."

The interviews were tense and Snow's snake eyes were filled with malice, just like Haymitch and Chaff said.

Thresh and Tertian disappeared when Rue and I won, their wishes fulfilled. Peeta Percy and dad however were there every step of the way, guiding me.

We stop in eleven to leave Rue and wave and smile but suddenly it is announced that Rue will be moving to twelve and after an hour her family and she come up. Eleven will receive their share of the victor's winning but Rue's family will have to live in twelve, which will receive only half of the winnings. Guess I doomed it for another year or maybe forever, since another victor is unlikely.

I smile and wave when we reach twelve but the only genuine smile is when I see my little duck sitting on top of Gale's shoulders. I see him frown at the sight of my and Percy's interlined hands. I had unconsciously gripped Peeta Peruses Jackson's hands, as if he was my anchor on this life's stormy sea. I see the ghost of Lavinia's brother and catch his smile when he sees her alive before he is heaven sent.

However, the most I can focus on is my new family engulfing me and Percy's rejection to stay at my new place. I don't know why but I need him, need he like oxygen and this scares me.

Am I in love? I ask as I wake up from yet another dream of us together. Am I?

No, I cannot be but then why? Oh, why oh why did I have to fall for the guy? No I will not, that is a vow, a vow made by Katniss Everdeen, the one who hunts and visits the Hob, me.

I wish I had not gone to the bakery or the Seam yesterday, they just showed me the tear filled eyes of the boys I had lost, now every time I close my eyes all I see is the tear sliding down Gale's cheek as he walks away from the show of his guts, which I might add, I have come to partially hate or the arena or Peeta's eyes which looked as if they had found and lost Annabeth again. I wanted to tell him, I so did but what if he is wrong and Annabeth comes along? I really cannot tackle any more heartbreaks, I just have had enough.

But I still look back, look back to tell him before he goes away forever.