A/N: THANK YOU DandelionOnFire (Thank you:D A lot:) And yeah, you're right. But I meant it more generally...:)), InLoveWithPeeta (What did we say about spoilers?;)), SparksFly23 (Nope, she won't:)) , CharmChaser (Haha, you really want your babies. Ok, let's make an agreement. You give me the plot for an one-shot and I'll write it for you, k?:)) , Emmy (Do you hate me now? You know, for not really making them be safe?:)), Kari (Part of the rebellion...I guess the summary pretty much says that, doesn't it? Other than that, no spoilers:)), Rosilyn Juliet, Belle (Oh, I know, my last update took SO long! This one was faster:D), PeetaLuver1 (Haha, I know;)), ShineTheTribute (Thanks:D Here's more:)), maryclumsy (Ok xD So here's the other half:D), T.A. Jenks (In this one is a minor little very small bit fluff:) VERY little though:() ,InLoveWithAFictionalCharacter 7, SWPeetaxKatnissAvatarTLA (Fast enough?:)), Abby-TheTeeny (Haha, don't hate me for the ending of this chapter...;)), lereveetlamour (Ummm...what's your definition of main character? Anyway, I'm going to kill someone, although not in this chapter...) , kandykanes5150 (You don't care about her mom? Well...interesting...;)), FlamingArrows (Thanks:D And I know I'm evil...:)), ZaraB (I hope I managed to update on your birthday, but with the time shift...remember I REALLY tried! So either way, HAPPY BIRTHDAY!:DD), PurpleVampire22 (That's true...;)), mspacman1, Aloha-Pinkly (You should! His movies are amazing:DD But it's not really important:) THANK YOU!), Mockingjay272 (Haha, I know, that was mean {that with the BAM moment}:D But I like doing that SO much:D), Kiss Peeta (Fast enough?:)) and mrspatrickdempsey (Yeah, that's a good thing to hope...:))

Disclaimer: Don't own the Hunger Games...

Chapter 6:

And, to my shock, not just a flying hovercraft. No, it's worse. It's a landing hovercraft. And it's landing right next to the window I'm looking trough.

For a moment I'm frozen. The world seems to stop moving. My eyes are glued to the close danger in the form of a Capitol-made hovercraft. Do they know we're here? Is there a possibility they found us with some kind of heat-detecting camera and are now in the progress of looking what exactly we are? But then I' snapped out of those thoughts by the feeling of my body making contact with the floor as I'm pulled down. I can only be thankful that any noise it would probably make is drowned by the loud purring outside.

The first thing that comes to my mind, my consciousness, are Prim and mother. I look over to where they are laying and, to my surprise, both of them are still asleep. I frantically search my mind for something we can do now. My first thought is to wake them and run, now and fast, before whoever is in this hovercraft finds us, but then I realize we won't succeed. Fleeing isn't an option, not with them practically right in front of our door. They would see us, with or without cameras, and they would kill us.

Suddenly I feel someone grabbing me and that someone is dragging me away from the window. I immediately panic and am just about to shout, to scream, to kick, to do anything, really, to escape my near death, when my brain starts functioning again and tells me there's no way those people, whoever they are, in the hovercraft could be here pulling at me.

So, knowing whatever is happening isn't against me and because of that somewhat calmer, I find the courage to look up. And I see blue eyes, full of horror and urgency, demanding I help him, demanding I finally move.

I shake my head to clear my thoughts. The first shock, the one that made me freeze and block out and uncooperative, is over now. But a worse feeling, a worse knowledge is dawning on me and quickly completely replacing the shock, taking over.

Realization.

Only one week out here and my worst fear has come true. They're going to find us. If they haven't already. They'll know we broke the law and they'll kill us without hesitating. Only because I wanted to escape death so badly. I decide, right here right now, that I'll let Prim and mother sleep. We don't have a chance to escape anymore, and if they're sleeping they won't feel any pain when a bullet pierces their skull. They won't feel the terror the last seconds of ones life bring. They won't feel this rush of adrenaline, this cooling of ones body, their muscles tensing, sweat forming on their forehead, their breath hitching and become erratic and the clenching of their hands.

That's what I'm feeling. I'm desperately aching for my bow and my arrows, so that we at least could put up a fight. But we can't. My weapons are somewhere hidded in the woods. We are lost. We are truly and utterly at the mercy of whatever person is going to come out of that hovercraft.

I find myself clinging to Peeta's hand now, trying to hold on, trying to make the terror go away.

Only do I see the exact same expression printed on his face, which I'm used to seeing calm and reassuring. And it scares me. This really must be the end if even Peeta has given up on hope.

"No!" he hisses. I'm snapped out of my thoughts. It's as if he's replying to my thoughts. As if he's denying his lack of hope.

And then he locks our eyes. "Katniss, wake them. I'm going to distract them, you're going to run. You can escape if you're fast enough."

It takes me a few seconds to catch the meaning of his words, and of his actions, because in those few seconds the news took to sink in, he's managed to rise and start walking.

"NO!" I all but shout and grab his wrist. "No. I won't…no! You will not die for us. I…I won't allow it!"

His face shows the pain he's trying to hide. The pain of knowing he's going to die. At least that's what he wants. It also shows his inner conflict, but he clearly tends to the one decision, and I have a dropping feeling in my stomach, telling me it's the decision I don't want. I just know it.

Before he can protest, though, I'm talking again. Because he has given me a new idea. "I'll go. They're my family and I'm going to save them. I'm going to make sure they survive. That's the way it has always been. That's the way it's supposed to be. It's only right."

I don't know if I would have added more, but either way I can't. He wouldn't have heard it. Because right in this moment we hear the thud signalizing the landing of the hovercraft.

I take this opportunity to rise from my spot against the wall. But I can't move any further. Because there's suddenly a weigh, much heavier than my own, pressing me against it, an iron grip on my wrist.

"Forget it! I won't let you go." His eyes bore into mine, his gaze filled with determination. They're hard and there's something about him that tells me he won't allow a no as an answer. I've never seen him like this. Not once in the one and a half year I really knew him, and not before, when we were only in the same class. Never have I seen this mask of stale and stone.

But I won't give up. It may be pointless, it may be in vain, but I start struggling against him. "Let. Me. Go."

"Over my dead body." His voice is more like a snarl now. I feel anger rising inside me. Does he really think he's doing the right thing? Does he really think keeping me here, preventing me from saving them is what he should be doing?

"That's what it'll come down to if you don't move." I snap at him. It makes my heart sting, saying this, but it's true. He has to realize this!

"Right. That's what the outcome will be either way. Only, if you let me go you'll be able to save those two." He gestures at Prim and mother. "If you don't we're all going to die. What do you think is the better out of the two?"

For a moment I'm left staring at him. He's playing foul and he knows it. It doesn't stop him from doing so. And it fuels my anger. "You're trying to blackmail me." I hiss.

He gives me a humorless smile. "Would you agree otherwise? Please Katniss, there is no other way!"

I glare at him. He's right, of course. Isn't he always? It is acting now or never. But how can I agree knowing it would mean his death? His certain death? How can I agree knowing I could have gone as well? His death would be my fault.

"I won't let you die on me. Peeta, do you want all of us to die?" Two can play this game. He can't move without letting me go.

His eyes are slits as he's thinking about it. We're in a quagmire. And there's no way we're going to make it out of it.

Suddenly my wrists aren't in his grip anymore, but my waist is. He's pressing my body to his. "I can't lose you." So the realization has come to him. Finally. He isn't fighting that fact anymore.

In this exact moment, something dawns on me. Something has changed. It's as though this something is missing. And not the good kind of missing. It's making my stomach drop in a nervous, terrified way.

It takes a few seconds until it hits me. But then it does, and with full force nonetheless; it's silent again. Too silent. The purring has stopped.

I look up at the boy holding me in his arms. He is concentrated, very concentrated. On what, I don't know. But his eyebrows are furled and his eyes hold that intense gaze he always has when he's thinking. But I also notice something else. The calmness he always had has returned. Even if only to some level, it has. He's concentrated, yes, I still see the fear in his eyes, but somehow there's no denying he isn't panicking anymore.

And that's when something else catches my attention. Footsteps. And voices. Coming from outside. From the direction where the hovercraft has landed.

"The damage doesn't look all that bad. In fact, it's barely more than a scratch. You needed to make an emergency landing because of that?"

The voice of the man is slightly unnerved, but honestly, I don't care about that. It was an emergency landing. They haven't seen us. There's still a chance for us to survive.

"It may not look as bad, but something must have shaken the wires. I have to fix it. I don't want to risk a short circuit five hundred feet above the ground. Do you?"

It's the reply of another voice, male as well, and it's clear that he's being sarcastic. "Other than that, haven't you noticed how loud we are? We won't be able to catch him, and our odds to manage that were slim even without this overly loud engine, but without him hearing us we would at least stand a chance."

Him? Who is that person they're after? The first boy that comes to my mind is Peeta, of course, but I stop myself from overacting by telling myself it's impossible they're looking for him. How would they know about him? Why would they want to find him? He's just a baker's son, not important to the Capitol. And they were talking about one person, but if they were searching him, wouldn't they be searching all of us?

So the question is whom they're after. And I can't answer this question. But there's something else. It's dawning on me that this also means we're not the only ones out here. There's someone else. And this someone is being chased.

I should probably be worried about this person, feel sorry for him. But I can't. I feel relief. It's not us. We're not in danger. That thought, that hope, lasts only until the reminder, in the form of the voice of the first man, that we're far from save comes though.

"He's just a boy. I don't know why he's so important anyway. Never got what all that palaver was about. He's got some plans, yeah. What's so bad about it?"

Plans? Now I'm even more confused than before. What would someone trying to escape the district be doing with any plans? Any vulnerable plans? I mean, that only makes the chance of the Capitol trying to catch you bigger, doesn't it?

The other man sighs. "Do you have any idea what would happen if those plans, those information fell into the wrong hands?" They really seem to be vulnerable, if he's so concerned about them.

It's strange how I seem to have let my mind completely focus on their conversation, how I seem to have disregarded my fear and how the terror I felt minutes ago faded. My muscles are still tensed, still waiting for the attack, but at the moment it doesn't look like it. Maybe I'm lulled into a false sense of security. More like, allowed myself to be lulled into it.

But thinking about this makes me cautious again. Things could always change in the matter of a second.

"It's only a bit about media. It can't be that im…" But he doesn't get to continue, because he's interrupted.

"Not important? You really have no clue, have you? If they get information about our network to someone who can evaluate it they'll have power over our entire medial system. Do you have any idea how many new abilities they'd have to bring about damage? Of seismic proportions?"

I'm stunned, to say the least. There are one million questions roaming through my head and I have to concentrate hard so I don't blurt them out.

Who are 'they'? There can't be that many people in the wild! I mean, I was even surprised about one! And even if, why would they be interested in getting information about the Capitol? What would they be able to do with it? Who would be able to 'evaluate' it and even if there was someone, what use would it be? And, most importantly, where? Where are those people, if they exist?

Peeta gives me a look asking the same questions. So my mind isn't the only one being consumed by them, by the talk we're overhearing.

"It's not as useful as physical strength." The voice of the first man, I decide to call him just number one, sounds indifferent.

To some point I understand him. Of course, being able to fight with a weapon is a big advantage. But it's clear, even to me, who understands nothing about technology, that every power is a power, and medical power is one they can use on many people.

Number two snorts. "You have too much faith in your brawns. There were stronger men than you losing against brains."

"Then why am I even on this mission? We both know you're the brains." Number one is clearly mocking him.

Actually, I can understand him. I mean, brains is good and fine, but it doesn't do you any favor when you're against someone who is two feet taller than you.

I mean, just look at the Hunger Games. A tribute from a non-career district winning is clearly the exception, and only possible with a good strategy. Now, it may be the fact that some people have neither brawns nor brains, but there are also tributes that don't stand a chance because of their built, no matter how smart they may be.

Number two sighs. "Because I can't shoot and you know it. Apparently they thought we'd be a good match."

"I seriously have to wonder about their talent when it comes to judging. But either way, you see you need me. So stop treating me like a little child and fix that thing so we can get over with this."

Shoot. So that's what they want to do. It shouldn't surprise me, and it doesn't, not really, but how calm he can be talking about killing someone…are they really that heartless?

But then I remind myself that yes, they are. Those are the people letting children die for their amusement. And to torture the family members of their tributes with fear and into hopelessness and defenseless passivity. Of course they don't care about one boy they have to shoot in order to safe the Capitol's secrets.

And right in this moment there's a sound of shifting. Peeta turns around in an instant, giving me a bit space to move. And of course, I do. What has made this sound?

I let out a breath when I realize it's Prim, propped up on her elbows now, cautiously eyeing us. But I stop breathing again and my heart drops into my guts, when she opens her mouth to start speaking. She'll reveal the fact that we're here, listening. They'll kill us.

But then, a complete miracle, she closes it again. For a moment I'm confused. Why would she do that? I mean, we are acting strange and I know if I was in her situation, nothing would prevent me from asking.

But when I look over at Peeta I see what prevented her. He has a finger placed over his lips, the relief visible on his face.

Only then Prim seems to realize what is wrong. It's not as bright in here as it should be. The hovercraft is shielding us from the sunlight. We can see, sure, but that's it.

She gives us a questioning look, and I think I even see a bit of fear in her gaze. She knows that this isn't natural. I feel my face soften and, with the most quiet steps I've ever taken, tip-toe over to her to kneel down beside her. I can't tell her, not yet anyway, since there's still the chance of them hearing us, but I can wrap my arms around her signalizing her she's safe. At least I can give her the illusion.

"…See? There's nothing! I don't know what you think you've heard, but obviously there is nothing! Can I go back to work now?" My heart speeds up. I hadn't noticed, but they must have heard her. Or one of them has.

I swallow when I realize what that means. They will let this pass once. And only because we seem to have more luck than judgment and because they're both slightly unnerved. However, I also know there's a huge possibility they won't let it go twice. The next sound we'll make will be the death of us. And mother is still sleeping. It's only a matter of time until she wakes. And if we don't notice it in time, we're doomed.

You know, I didn't realize that this is kind of a cliffhanger again until I re-read it...but it's not as bad as some others, is it?:)

Now...