I come to with a throbbing throughout my leg. It starts in my knee and resounds across the bones, only faintly reaching my hip. Of course, other injuries prod at the rest of me.

I'm... alive. I haven't opened my eye, so I don't know the rest of the situation, but I'm at least relieved by that. I don't want to have to die just yet.

What about Athena?

I stir, but it doesn't get me anything but another wave of pain. I should get up... I need to see what's happening. Who else is alive? Who else is okay? Where even am I?

I only manage to look down at stone before a voice comes from my right.

"H-his back's bleeding again!" Coughing.

"It's okay, it's okay." Trucy's voice. "We still have some spare cloth."

Some rustling before Hugh speaks. "We should move farther down the mountain. Then we won't need all of our jackets."

I groan, trying to push myself up a little bit. I make a little bit of progress, but craning my neck hurts too much to keep that up.

"A-Apollo!" Someone shuffles in front of me. I can only see knees touching the ground, but I know it's Juniper. "Are you awake?"

I grunt. "What... happened?"

A span of silence passes before she coughs. "We slid into the crater—"

"With the help of a cable tied to one of my arrows."

"—and picked up you a-and... Th-Thena..." From the way her voice rises in pitch, I don't think Athena's still with us.

"We tried to patch both of you up." Trucy's voice comes close to my ear from behind. "The back of your knee's in pretty bad shape. You shouldn't try walking for a while."

"Okay." I don't think I'll feel like walking for a while, even if I'm capable. I wonder what arteries are in the back of my knee to make it bleed so much... Or what else she could have cut up to make it hurt so much. "Are... all of you all right?"

"All of us, yes," Hugh says, voice low. "As 'all right' as we could be. The girl from 3, however..."

Juniper tenses.

"You don't have to say it." I let out a breath. "I understand."

"We... can talk about it when you're doing a little better, okay?" Trucy tells me.

Am I ever going to be doing any better? "All right. I guess it does need... a little talking about."

It's clear that I'm not going to get up, so I try to relax as they take care of my wounds.

The next morning, I'm doing a little better. My knee is still shot, but I can at least stay conscious.

Trucy and Juniper are struggling to carry me between the two of them. I guess Hugh can't handle me with one arm, at least not if he has to shoot anything at a moment's notice. Trucy still has an arm free when she doesn't have to grip the mountainside, so that's okay.

I stifle another grunt as my foot bumps against the ground, sending a jolt through my leg.

Juniper shrinks. "I'm sorry..."

"It's fine—"

She bursts into tears.

"Juniper!" Hugh turns around to look her over.

"S-sorry..." She coughs, grip tight on my arm. "I'm okay..."

Trucy frowns. "We can stop for a little bit; we're in no rush."

Juniper opens her mouth to object but ends up wailing. Putting weight on my good foot, I push away from her shoulder. Trucy staggers a bit to support me, but she manages.

Burying her face in her hands, Juniper takes a seat and continues to cry. She's lost Robin and Athena both now. I don't know whether it would hurt her more or less to know about what Athena really did. I'll just have to find out once she wants me to tell her.

I wonder what this looks like to her, to all of them. Me running off and killing Athena, and her nearly killing me in return. We were all close friends, weren't we? What could have possibly motivated me?

Well, they're still looking after me, so they can't think I'm dangerous. Either they know I had a logical reason, or they can't bear to watch another friend die so soon.

It's not like I can fight much with my new wounds piled over the old ones, anyway. I don't even know for sure if I have my sword on me right now. Take my weapon, and what can I do? I could probably manage a slap. I doubt a slap would kill anything, though.

After a while of sobs, hair-pulling, and coughing, Juniper wears herself out, and we decide to stay where were are. We don't have to worry about tributes finding us, and the Capitol always knows exactly where we are. We've been following a stream down, so we can stop whenever we want. No big deal. The sky looks nice and clear, too.

After carefully setting me down and making sure I'm doing all right, Trucy joins Hugh in consoling Juniper. It's strange. The 11 seems like the most fragile thing, physically and emotionally, but she's still hanging on. Credit to her. I'm glad I can say she's my friend.

If she is after this.

It's the next day before everyone has settled down enough to hear my story. Lounging on a hard but supportive cradle of rocks, I take a deep breath and begin.

"The most important thing for you to know... is that Athena was not who we thought she was." I clench my hands. "I know she acted like a friend to us. Just another innocent, trying to look after people i-instead of pursuing her own freedom. Someone worried about her friends just like we were her..."

I grit my teeth. "But that was an act. It's not unheard of in the Games, and I guess she used her knowledge of psychology to manipulate us better. The... The truth is, she was a killer from the start! I didn't think anything of the hints in the Training Center or after that until she had a subconscious reaction to the knife that killed Clay..."

I have to stop a moment to get control over my breathing—I feel like I'm on the edge of breaking down crying—and the others see the opportunity to jump into the conversation.

"But this is Thena we're talking about! You... You can't be serious..."

Juniper coughs a few times before I look her in the eye. "Do you think I ever would have wanted to kill Athena if she was who we thought she was?"

She pales, looking down. "I... suppose not..."

"So, what was the evidence?" Hugh watches me. "If it's compelling enough, I'm sure we'll still have every reason to trust you. Otherwise, you might be as dangerous as she supposedly was."

Juniper breaks into another coughing fit but manages to push it aside with a few deep breaths from the sunflower in her hair.

"I'll... tell you the details one murder at a time. Clay... He was killed by someone he trusted, who didn't hesitate to kill him—I know this because he was only stabbed once, in... in the heart, and he must have been nearly face to face with the killer, yet he didn't dodge. He would obviously trust his own district partner, just like we trusted her. She wouldn't have to be an ace knife thrower to stab him with an ordinary knife at point blank range. And I know she saw the knife because she had a subconscious reaction to it."

Hugh frowns. "Subconscious reaction?"

"Uh-huh." Trucy leans in towards him. "If some sort of trigger makes you think of another situation, a lot of the time you'll display a nervous habit whenever that trigger is brought up. Like, when Polly said 'district partner,' you rubbed your injured hand."

He blinks, putting his hand back in his pocket. "I... see."

"Now, you all know I showed that knife to everyone I met." I fold my arms, a pang crossing my chest in the process. "Athena was the only one who reacted to it. Even though she claimed to have no memory of the bloodbath, she remembered seeing that knife. Clay was murdered early on, and I had the knife with me the entire time afterwards."

Juniper's hand hovers over her mouth. "So the only time she could have seen it..."

"Right." I let out a long breath. "Not only that, but her nervous twitch was a certain curling of her fingers—like she had held the knife herself. Does that seem like sufficient evidence for you?" I eye Hugh.

He mulls it over while Juniper grips her wrist.

"It certainly could have been Thena... But—" cough—"why would she do such a thing? You keep saying she's not who we thought she was, but... she was our friend. Shouldn't we believe in her no matter what it looks like?"

For some reason, I break into a grin. "Oh, believe me, I tried that. I tried as hard as I could. But Clay wasn't her first murder. Do you remember why Simon was sentenced to death? For the murder of Metis Cykes, Athena's mother. Yet he was innocent."

Trucy gasps. "You... You can't mean—!"

I nod. "Athena killed her own mother."

"What?!" Hugh rubs at his neck, his glasses crooked on his face. "Did she admit to that?!"

"Of course not." I've made it back to a somewhat neutral expression. "What she wanted most of all was for us to trust her, and that wouldn't have helped her case. As far as her mother's death... There were signs from the start. Although he didn't tell me, Simon had clearly taken the fall for her—his mission to have her win the Games was, he said, finishing what he had started. Yet, when he asked me to help him, he had a subconscious reaction when he called her innocent.

"I didn't even think to connect it to the murder at the time. But, a while later, I realized that Athena would touch her ear briefly when she was thinking about her mother."

I shut my eyes. "When Aura came over to her at lunch, talking about serving her justice... I asked Athena what that was all about, and, although she denied knowing, her fingers brushed her ear. I wouldn't believe it, though, so I pushed it aside until I came to realize she may have killed Clay in the bloodbath. But was that the kind of person she was? I didn't know, and I wanted to trust her, but..." I look over the others. "But we're in such a dangerous situation we can't rely on each other without some proof. So, to settle my doubts, I left this alliance to question Aura."

"Th-that's where you went?!" Juniper looks close to fainting. "Apollo! That was even more dangerous than I thought! I..." She coughs twice.

"It's okay, it's okay. I got out just fine." I let out a breath. "She wasn't going to attack any of us. Her goal was to save her brother, and, with that possibility gone, she... had given up. She had no reason to lie to me, either. And... she told me about Metis's murder. How Athena was the only other one at the scene and how her brother had clearly taken the fall for her. And she came to the conclusion Athena had killed Clay without me even hinting at it. She had spent a lot more time with Athena before we ever knew her... so Aura would have a clearer idea of who she really was. And... that view was that Athena was a killer. Not once, but twice."

I clench my fists, leaning over a bit. "So... I had to... do something. Could I just leave a murderer in the middle of our alliance when we're trying so hard to change the face of the Games? She would kill our hopes before we could even try to stop fighting. I... had to do something! So I... I killed her." I put a hand over my mouth. "God, I murdered her...!"

And suddenly the reality slams into me, setting my body shaking uncontrollably. I killed a person. I stabbed Athena Cykes to death. She's not dead because I accidentally hurt her, or because I was forced to defend someone on the spur of the moment. She is dead because I wanted her to be. I am a murderer.

"Apollo?" Trucy's right by my shoulder now, her voice quiet.

"Haa... Ha... Ha ha ha ha ha!" One hand covering my face above the mouth, I lean back laughing despite the pain because, all of a sudden, this is incredibly funny. "I killed her. I'm a murderer. So, by my own logic, I can no longer be trusted! Ironic, huh? Ha... Ha ha ha ha...!"

"A-Apollo..." Juniper scoots closer to me but keeps her hands in her own grip. "You... You were at least trying to p-protect us, right?"

"Yes. Of course. But I never took motive into account for Athena! So I'm exactly the same!" I laugh. "So, who's going to take care of me, huh? Remember, I can't be part of your little plan since I killed someone! So I'm both useless and untrustworthy! Who's going to do it, then? And then who's going to take care of that person? Ha ha ha! It's just like a cycle of vengeance, put preemptive! Justice, justice...!"

A sharp pain in my cheek drives my head to the side, and the pain lets my laughter trail off.

"S-stop it!" Juniper lowers her hand, tears in her eyes. "Please, Apollo... I can still trust you... I promise..." She sobs.

"Oh, no, you can't." I lean back, avoiding her gaze. "Because if you can, in fact, trust a murderer, then Athena could have been trusted, which means I killed her for no reason and certainly couldn't be trusted! No matter how you look at it, I'm guilty!"

"Apollo." Trucy seizes my shoulders and forces me to face her. "Stop. This is not funny. I know it hurts, and you have to find some way to deal with it. But this is not the way." She glances at Juniper—still crying—before looking back at me. "I think you understand that killing is wrong, so I won't beat you up about it. I... I'm sorry I didn't stop you in time..." She takes a deep breath. "Just accept that it happened once. It doesn't have to happen again. You don't want to kill anyone else, do you, Polly?"

Her grip is sending jolts down my arms, but now's not the time to bring that up. "R-right..."

"Okay. So we can trust you."

"No, you can't!" I finally pull back out of her grasp, panting. "Not wanting to doesn't mean I won't! I didn't want to kill Athena, but that didn't stop me!" My voice has risen in pitch, and, somehow, despite years of training, I cannot control it. "You can't make the mistake of trusting a killer! You have to stop me! But—" my hand flies to my hilt—"but if you won't, I will—!"

"Apollo!" she screams, pounding her hands over my ears in an attempt to stun me and then wresting the sword from my grasp. I fight to keep it, but that only forces her to grab the blade itself before she has control of it.

"Okay." I hold my hands up, neck and shoulders aching. "Okay. Go ahead. But if you take care of me, you're a killer, too."

"I'm not 'taking care of' you, you idiot!" she cries, bringing her blood-slicked hand up to the grip. "Give me the sheath. I'm not letting you have the chance to hurt yourself."

I stare at her, in such a tizzy I'm not even sure what emotions I'm feeling.

"Hugh, get the sheath off of him."

He nods, giving Juniper a pat on the back before unfastening the sheath from my waist and handing it to Trucy.

"Thanks." Wiping her blood off on her pants, she slips the sword inside. "I'll... keep this."

"H-here, let me look at your hand. Ah—you cut your shoulder, too..." Juniper sniffles and scoots over.

I just sit here stupefied and watch.