Chapter 7

I gulp.

"You know I'm engaged, don't you?" I gasp.

"Yes..." she coos. "But that's not what I meant by the gesture. I just wanted to show you my body art."

Is it awful that I didn't even notice her sparkly blue tattoos?

Yes, probably.

I step back into the main room and grab some clothes off the floor.

"Put them on!" I demand, throwing them at her. "Now."

"Don't you like my tattoos?"

"No. Goodbye, Miss Tyler."

I ignore her cries as I sprint out of the house. I am a married man next week. I have a beautiful fiancé who means the world to me and cares for me I shouldn't even be here! Especially not with my boss's - Naked! - daughter. I am happy with my wife-to-be.

Or am I?

If I'm so in love with Pia, why was I a bit disappointed when Jezzebelle said she just wanted to show me her tattoos?

As I cross the bridge from the twelfth to the eleventh isle, I think about my alliance. It's falling apart, really. We aren't doing much at all and what I thought would be a position of advantage - up with the most viscous of tributes, able to kill the most powerful with a deft addition to the soup - has turned out to be useless, not least of all because I can't find it in me to kill my allies. My whole plan is going to rot and ruin.

I need to break away from the group, maybe kill them from afar. I could ally with whoever killed Simon and Riana and help them pick off more tributes. Or I could just grab the food and leave one day. We only just have enough food for the four of us. If I left with everything except the poison...

It would work. I could take them all down easily, defeating the greatest opposition in the Games.

But then I think of the people themselves: Rachel, with her friendly attitude and firm decision not to flirt; Alexx, with her angry and excited attitude and constant - familiar to me now - arguments; and Drew, with his arrogant personality and total inability to listen to anybody but himself... Ok, so Drew is actually quite annoying to the point I could probably kill him, and Alexx gets on my nerves quite a lot - I wouldn't miss her that much... But Rachel? Rachel, I couldn't kill. No way.

In the short time I have been on the twelfth isle, the eleventh isle has become harder to stand up on. My boots can no longer quite grip onto the rock any more, and my feet are starting to suddenly disappear from underneath me, leaving me grasping at the rocks.

I'm going to fall!

A drop from this height would surely kill me.

I'm going to die!

I scream an scream for someone - anyone - to come and help me. Rachel is only a few metres away in that forest place, so surely she can come?

The bushes rustle slightly as someone comes out to help me. They grab me under my arms and pull me out and onto the bridge where it is much easier to stand.

"Shh," he says, pulling me across to the bushes on the forest isle. "Don't make a sound; there's a camp of killers just through there."

I blink at him.

"Robert?!" I whisper, staring at my district partner. "Robert, I know who's though there. I was calling for them."

He stares at me like I'm crazy.

"Robert, what are you doing here?"

"I'm a tribute, remember? I was reaped with you. Or don't you remember that, either?"

"Yes, I know you're a tribute. That wasn't what I meant." A sudden thought occurs to me. "Are you the one stealing our food?"

"Our?"

"I'm with them, Robert." I gesture to the bushes in the direction of our camp. "And our food keeps disappearing. Was it you?"

"No." He is a terrible liar and knows it. " Well, maybe a bit. But only a can or two."

He ducks as my hand whistles over his head. "What was that for?!" he cries.

"Stealing my food."

I lean forward to attack again, but stop when I feel his hand on my wrists. We glare at one another for a short while before there is a crashing sound from the direction of the forest. Robert scampers off silently, leaving me alone with my razor-fan.

Alexx appears.

"I told you she would be here, Rachel!" she calls over her shoulder. Then, to me: "Come on, Frances. Drew and I caught a few things." She looks down at my hands, empty but for my weapon. "Which is better than you did, I see."

I follow her back to the camp, where Drew and Rachel are.

The rest of the evening goes in a blur, and, before I know it, I'm asleep.

Eyes feature heavily in my dreams. First, I am back home, stargazing with dad. Just as he is about to teach me a story about Orion, I notice that it isn't him there, it's Peter and he has no eyes, just huge gaping black holes where his eyes should be.

After that, I wake up for a few seconds, wipe the tears from my eyes and go back to sleep.

In the second dream, I am alone in a forest - no, a field of tall grass, which is parting flattening around me, but still stands very tall about half a metre from me in every direction. That distance becomes smaller and pairs of blinking eyes appear from the darkness that has fallen. I recognise some eyes - my parents and siblings', Alexx's, Drew's, Rachel's - but not others. The eyes move closer and closer, faster and faster, in time with my breathing.

And then I wake. This time, I am awake for longer, trying to rid those images from my mind and sleep in peace. When I do finally slip out of conciousness again, the sleep is shallow it is a while before I finally settle into a deep, dreamless sleep.

I don't know how long I get before the dreams start again.

And this one is probably the worst yet.

It starts with my sister Olivia, telling me about Caesar Flickerman, but then she turns into Aimee, giving me a lecture on not wasting my time. I lean in close to her face and her pupils grow into huge pits, pulling me in. I fall, and fall, and fall, Aimee's lecture still echoing in my ears.

When I finally land, I'm back in the field from the second dream, but this time ominous black clouds swarm overhead, threatening loud noises and cold wetness and flashes of light that hurt my eyes. The grass circle is closing in again, the eyes merging into one growing pair of eyes until there is nothing in the world except me and the eyes.

All of a sudden, I recognise them as eyes I have never really met and haven't seen since training. Their owner's name comes back to me in a flash, along with her appearance and the one thing she ever said to me.

Her name is Emily Ray of District Nine. She has long brown hair and blue eyes. And her voice will echo in my ears forever: "Frances, is it? Remember me in the arena."

I remember her, and she isn't dead yet.

When I wake, the sun is high in the sky and I'm very hungry. My eyes take a lot of willpower to open and my body feels almost rusty, like it needs a bit of oil. I let out a groan.

"Oh," Drew says, "So the sleeping beauty is awake. How nice of you to grace us with you consciousness, Frances."

I ignore him. "What day is it?"

"Day eight. You slept through day seven, but nothing much happened, anyway, possibly because Alexx did the same. Rachel appears to be pulling a similar stunt now."

The muscles in my back whine at me like little children as I get up and make ay over to my bag, where I should have some food. Sure enough, there's one bread roll left, along with a few slices of cooked meat. It wolf it down. All of it.

"Where's Alexx?" I ask through a mouthful of bread.

"Hunting." Drew glances at me sceptically. "Good job too, since you seem to have eaten all the food we had left."

"Oh, sorry," I say, but I'm not.

A few minutes of silence pass as I remember I remember what happened two days ago and gradually get my various joints working. Drew appears to be practicing methods of murdering with his net. Obviously, he says he does it perfectly every time. I'm really not sure why he's practicing, then.

A cannon shatters the silence, ringing out across the arena. Drew instantly drops his net and runs off in a random direction. I do the same, but more calmly and strategically.

After a few seconds, Drew runs straight into me.

"Get out of my way, idiot!" he snarls, running on with me following.

Strangely, we arrive at the scene of the death straight away, this time. Red dreadlocks and blood stains scatter the grass and leaves around Alexx's body, dying the ground a deep crimson. Someone s drawn red patterns all over her body in a thick substance which is only just drying. Drew stands stock still and stares.

Then, suddenly, he spots Alexx's attacker - Robert from Ten. Drew's features twist into a cruel grimace and he grabs Robert's head between his hands and twists before Robert can so much as blink. Drew turns to me as the cannon goes off and leans forward, no doubt to do the same to me. I scream and duck backwards, running through the forest with him hot on my heels.

I reach the bridge leading to the eleventh isle and sprint across it. Drew follows, both of us slipping on the rocks in our desperation. I sprint on towards the twelfth isle, hoping he doesn't follow.

I hide among the buildings of the Capitol until it grows dark. The anthem plays and Alexx's glaring face appears. I had no idea she had the surname Odom. Her unforgettable dreadlocks are followed Robert's comparably boring blonde locks. His stormy grey eyes seem to bore into my soul, asking me why I didn't avenge his death, or even try to stop it.

And I look away because I don't know the answer to that question.