Melanie doesn't make me go on watch, thankfully, so I get to sleep until the morning. When I get up, I feel great, finally. I'm glad to have slept, and ready to fight whoever needs to be fought. I wake up with energy, something I really needed. I sit up and drink apple juice, and Cutter, who was on watch last after Melanie, greets me with a very sleepy smile.

"Good morning," he says quietly, but with a big smile. His blonde hair is everywhere.

"Hey," I say, stretching and yawning, as Priscilla sits up. She giggles and says, "You guys look hilarious."

Melanie sits up and smiles at us.

"You look even more-so," Cutter says to Priscilla with a grin, but he licks his hands and pats down his hair when he thinks nobody's watching. I barely care how I look but the others definitely seem to, so I nonchalantly adjust my hair. Priscilla redoes her ponytail and Meanie shakes out her hair and combs it with her fingers. Azure wakes up last, again, and freaks out about her hair and everything. Cutter and Azure go to get the water in the canteens, while I'm left with the girls to collect our stuff.

It's already the temperature of a spring afternoon by the time we get up and moving, after a small breakfast. We follow a trail of trampled grass that's gotta be from tributes. We have to figure out, though, who it is. I sure hope it's nobody scary, even though I'll never admit that.

Azure starts whining close to lunchtime, and all of us are roasting hot. Sweat drips down the side of my face by the time we finally stop for lunch.

"God, it's hot…" Melanie breathes under her breath.

"No joke," Priscilla pants. All of us have stripped off our jackets, but our shirts are a little gross considering they're practically drenched with sweat. After we eat, we pack up our supplies, and the rest of us are close to being gone but Cutter is the last to join us. When we look back he's lacking a shirt."

"Ooooooooo!" Priscilla says teasingly, "Shirtless Cutter!"

The blonde boy laughs, "God, this feels good."

By time he's said it I already have my backpack on the ground, tugging the ugly brown shirt over my head, too.

"Shirtless Nate!" Priscilla teases, "They're human sex right there!"

Cutter scratches behind his neck and blushes, "Stop, you're just making me way too hot."

"You already are," Melanie teases. Cutter huffs and all of us laugh.

"Don't worry, Atchison, I'm insecure, too," I laugh.

"Don't be. You're both smoking hot!" Priscilla giggles, "Gee, and people wonder why I was convinced I was gonna marry Nate someday."

Azure finally seems to snap out of whatever daze she was in and nods eagerly.

"Can we just, uh, move on, now?" Cutter is obviously as uncomfortable with getting hit on as I am.

I take off again and he's soon next to me, the girls following behind.

"Girls, eh?" he asks in a whisper.

"Annoying for sure," I whisper back.

"Nate, you should've seen it… This morning when we were going to get water… Azure was hitting on me. It was gross…"

"What was she doing?"

"Sh-she was just…" he sighs, "Nate, she was the person that gave me the idea to strip. She wanted to have sex with me and it was… God, it was weird."

I blink. "Ew."

"I, uh, I cut her. Across the arm. I guess we're lucky I didn't have my bow because it was too bulky to take to a stream."

"So? Come on, she deserved it."

"I feel god-awful."

"What's your problem?"

"Huh?"

"Your name is Cutter. If anyone in this alliance doesn't have a problem with killing, it should be you."

"It… It's a long story. You'll understand when you're older." He pats my head.

"Cutter, in case you haven't noticed, there isn't a lot of time for us to get older."

There's a long silence. "Hey guys! Look there!" Cutter says, pointing forward. There's a big pile of supplies. Jackpot.

Cutter prepares his bow and I grab my sword as we walk forward.

Azure suddenly goes to the front of the pack. "Come on, free supplies!" she says quietly, taking a step closer. Suddenly, she's tackled.

Azure screams, and Cutter points an arrow at the attacker and shoots.

Holy shit.

It's the little girl from Seven.

She has two long, slender blades that she uses to easily cut into Azure's throat and shove her aside.

"Flounder!" she shouts, and her ally comes running out to her side. I take the little boy on with my sword, but he's well-prepared with a scythe in hand and our blades clank and the sound rings out. Priscilla and the 7 girl scream, locked in battle, and arrows fly past me. The boy from 4 is good with his scythe and he prevents me from stabbing. I make a long cut down his shoulder, across all the way to his waist, as his scythe makes impact with my side and I withdraw enough for him to shove Priscilla off of Juniper and for both of them to start running, abandoning their supplies.

Melanie, who's been frozen in shock, horror, and fear all this time, finally lets out a scream, "Azure! She's not-"

A cannon interrupts her and makes the thought pointless. Azure Bakwin is officially dead.

"No time!" Cutter and Priscilla are already a good way's ahead of us and on the prowl, as Cutter picks up some of his arrows that missed. Priscilla finally stops running and the two get away.

The hovercraft comes to take Azure's body away, and we all have our eyes trained on the sky as Azure's body is carried away from us forever. Cutter's eyes slowly go from the hovercraft disappearing to the ground, stained with crimson blood from the girl that we all "wanted to see die," but none of us wanted to see dead at all. Because it's someone that, though we were annoyed with a lot of time that she was alive, we're sad to see go.

Cutter suddenly collapses, and Priscilla soon kneels next to him and wraps her arms around his neck.

Melanie hangs down her head and I heave a sigh.

"We should backtrack a little, guys," I whisper. All of us are bleeding. In fact, I think Azure looked better than all of us in terms of injuries. Her pale, lifeless skin was flawless, except for the single red lines that wrapped around her neck. Priscilla's shirt is ripped, and a cut on her shoulder spews blood. Cutter has a slash going across his waist, and Melanie has one down her arm and another across her chest. Juniper was able to injure all of them at once… A little sick for a twelve-year-old, but Priscilla's almost just as bad.

"You Ok, Cutter?" asks Melanie.

"I'm fine," he says, standing up. Priscilla holds onto his arm and Melanie takes his other. I lead the way closer to the stream and try to press forward, but we all feel exhausted so we don't go any farther after that. By the time we get there, it's about dinner time.

We all silently agree to have another dinner without meat that night. I hate how upset the death of fucking Azure of all people! If it's this hard to see her go, what's going to happen when I lose the other three?

And this is why Elijah was smart in not making alliances. Because you get attached to them. Isn't it why Platinum's depressed!? Isn't that why Priscilla got so upset with us day one?! It's not in human nature to be violent. It's not natural to humans to kill, it's natural for us to make friends with each other, or maybe even enemies, but not to kill, certainly. And yet, we're being forced to kill, because the Capitol's just that fucking messed up-

"Nate?" Priscilla asks quietly, snapping me out of it.

"S-sorry," I mutter, eating a bite of bread and shivering. The shirts and jackets are back on, and yet I'm already starting to freeze again.

"Guess we have a sleeping bag open tonight," Melanie says quietly. The rest of us nod and nobody says anything.

"Guys….?" I whisper, "Can we talk about this, or is it too soon?"

"We can talk," Cutter whispers.

"How the hell did those two little kids get all the supplies?"

"Good question…" Cutter says. "We didn't even see them in the Cornucopia!"

We sit there in silence and think about it. We exchange confused glances before Cutter says, "Let's, uh, get set up for bed. It's been a long day."

"I'll go on watch," Melanie says, with a shiver.

"And I'll go after," Priscilla says, and I can see her breath in the night as we all get set up.

The Capitol anthem starts to play and Azure's lonely, pale face shines in the sky for a brief second, then disappears.

And that's the last we'll ever see of Azure. Together, anyways. If one of us ends up winning them Games, we'll be forced to watch her death again at the ceremonies after whoever it is wins. If it's me, I'll have to watch all of them die and all I can do is try not to cry.

No way.

I can't start thinking like this.

I have no regrets. I can't. After all, I'm past the point of rescue, I'm radioactive, I have to take lives.

After all, this is a fight to the death.