Derek groaned as he rolled over onto his stomach and attempted to raise himself onto his hands and knees, coughing hard, blood bubbling along his split and swollen lips.

He remembered searching the woods, a little worried that he had stumbled upon a cougar or a bear or some other aggressive beast, judging by the noise it was making, and then... He wasn't sure what had happened then, but judging by the way his entire body ached, he'd gotten into some sort of fight.

He tried to get to his feet so he could figure out where he was and how to get back to Emily and the others. But before he could, someone came rushing to his side and attempted to force him to lie down again.

He stubbornly resisted the hands on his shoulders, intent on regaining control of the situation. "Derek, lie down!" a female voice – not Emily – demanded, "You're going to bust your stitches open!"

Hearing that, he gave in and lay back down. "What do you mean stitches?" he asked, confused about how he'd gotten stitches in the middle of the arena. With a second thought, he added, "And who the hell are you?"

He was answered with a container of water being pressed to his lips. "Drink this. You've lost a lot of blood and we need to get some fluids into you."

"Answer me!" He was starting to get flustered. "What's going on?"

"Calm down," the girl urged, moping his brow with a handful of wet moss and, judging by the sting, cleaning a few wounds. "You were attacked by that District Two boy...you're lucky he didn't wait around to finish you off. You wouldn't have lasted much longer if Will and I hadn't found you."

"And who exactly are you?"

She stopped what she was doing and moved to allow him to see her clearly. "Jennifer, District Eleven. Call me JJ."

"Why did you save me?" The question that was bugging him the most about this whole situation.

She pressed a finger to her lips – they couldn't safely discuss it when there were Capitol cameras everywhere. Instead, she lifted his shirt to expose his wound, swatting his hand away with sharp reflexes when he tried to stop her, and continued cleaning him up.

"You're going to have to be careful for the next few days – we did the best we could to patch you up, considering the supplies we had. But I'm more worried about infection."

"How exactly did you stitch..."

He was interrupted by distinctly accented male voice as someone else entered the shelter – he assumed this was the Will the girl had mentioned. "They're army ants. We ran into a nest a few days ago, kept a few of them to use as a weapon, but they come in handy as a quick suture." The look on his face must have been quite disgusted because Will quickly explained, "You just hold 'em by the head, let the pincers grip the edges of the wound, then snap off the body. They're not poisonous and they've got an antibacterial secretion."

Derek was still concerned, but JJ stuffed a wad of bread into his mouth and demanded he rest.

Emily had learned to read Matthew pretty well, for the short amount of time that they'd actually spent in each other's company. But she wouldn't have had to read him in order to learn that he didn't really trust Ian. He made no secret of the fact.

But whatever it was that made Matthew so skeptical, Emily just couldn't see it. And Matthew would do anything for her, so he continued to go along with her. Not without suggesting nightly that they cut their ties to Cindi and Ian and make off on their own...but he stayed with them nonetheless.

Emily had always sworn that she was never going to fall for any man, but Matthew had held onto hope. He could see that she was falling for Ian, though, even knowing that there was no possible way this could end well for all of them. He wanted to believe that it was the stress of the Games that was wreaking havoc with Emily's sensibilities and that if things had been different, she would never have given Ian a second look if they'd met in any other situation.

She wasn't like most girls – and even less like most Capitol citizens – and that's what drew him to her. It also made her nearly impossible to predict and that was where the problem lay. Maybe she was just playing Ian for sponsors (they'd certainly been receiving a lot more gifts since he'd joined their party), but he just couldn't be sure.

He swore to himself that he'd never truly trust Ian; that he'd never sleep while Ian was awake, that he'd never leave him alone with Emily, that he'd never go unarmed in Ian's company. The expression Emily would shoot him whenever he acted suspiciously towards Ian cut him deeper than any knife ever could, but as much as she thought she was protecting him, he had sworn to himself to protect her even more. So he continued to be vigilant and forced himself to endure her glares.

He just hoped he'd have a chance to explain himself to her before his cannon went off.

Ian, on the other hand, seemed to find it almost amusing the way he would hover distrustfully in the background like Emily's little guard dog. He would smile knowingly and soothe Emily's displeasure with assurances like 'Let him be, Love, he only means to show that he cares.' (Matthew hated the way he called her 'Love', ever so slightly condescendingly and sickeningly self-assured...but he hated even more the way it made Emily's cheeks tinge the faintest pink and immediately seemed to have her eating out of his hand.)

Matthew simply couldn't understand how Ian had managed to worm his way into Emily's innermost circles of trust. She didn't trust anyone, Matthew wasn't sure that even he had earned her utmost confidences. And yet, this boy from District Two, the one that everyone in the Capitol favoured to win without even trying, the one that they'd seen snap the neck of the little District Eight boy at the Cornucopia had Emily practically worshipping him...

He was starting to think that she wasn't nearly as hardened and unfeeling as she so desperately wanted everyone to believe...maybe she really was just a fragile little girl who wanted nothing more than to have somebody care about her more than anything in the world.

The worst part was that he knew he could've given her that...if only he had been given the chance to try. And now he would never know because he would die long before Ian. He and Emily were always cursed to never be more than a question mark.