This was getting tedious.

Too easy. It was all too easy.

I needed a challenge.

Tomorrow was Reaping Day, and everyone was furiously working on their main skill, but I swore if I had to throw another knife today I might scream. Boredom was killing me.

I already had 54 ways to kill a kid with a knife, either by throwing technique or hand-to-hand, and I couldn't stand to look at the little daggers any longer.

Now I walked across the room, my footsteps echoing on the stone floor, and went to the sword station to wait for a trainer to be free.

I turned around when I felt cold steel poke me in the back.

"Looking for someone to spar with?" Zeke's eyes twinkled merrily. This was his element. People had nearly died after sparring with him. I was lucky that one time to just escape with a bleeding hand.

But it was what I needed: a challenge. I drew a sword off the rack, weighing the heavy weapon in my hand, and stepped up onto a vacant platform with him. He twirled his sword lazily, watching me, as he walked in a semicircle, waiting to begin. His dark eyes were still twinkling, watching me, so full of confidence it made me sick.

Then in a gleaming flash, he attacked me, lunging forward with a killing blow that I just barely managed to block in time. I jumped backwards but he kept coming, and our swords' clashing rang throughout the entire center as we engaged in a vicious fight, never a second to pause for breath. It became almost like a dance, the way we both could almost predict each other's next move and act accordingly, parrying each thrust, twirling and lunging and blocking.

Suddenly my weapon was knocked from my hand, from another of Zeke's killer blows. Without second thoughts, I tackled him, managing to do so only because he wasn't expecting it.

We tumbled almost over the edge of the platform, my knees on either side of him and my hands pinning down his sword, my palms pressed against the flat of the blade as we both struggled to push it toward the other.

I was panting heavily now; I had never been in a fight with him for this long before. But I was determined to win.

He suddenly flipped us over so he was on top of me, his smirk returning as he tried to press the blade of his sword to my neck, his breath hot and heavy against my skin.

Instead I shoved upward so the flat side of the blade hit his face, and used the second I had to shove him off me. I rolled away and picked up my sword, springing to my feet, and the fight started all over again, with countless thrusts and blocks and slashes.

I grew more tired by the minute. After I followed through with one blow, I didn't turn fast enough and he kicked me hard in the back. I stumbled, but kept my footing, and whirled around just in time to stop his sword from cutting my head off.

Our swords clashed with a deafening noise, but I refused to flinch as I glared stubbornly up at his face, struggling to not move, to not give way to his sheer strength. His laughing eyes, his face, his smirking lips, all were barely an inch from me.

But instead, he stepped back, and off the platform. "I think that's enough for one day," he mused with a little smile. He smirked again, that irritatingly devilish smirk of his, and he walked off.

It was only now that I noticed how hot, heavy, and rapid my breathing was; my palms were sweating terribly, my heart was pounding in my chest, and the recollection of the rush and tenseness I had felt every time we got close in that fight—ugh. I was weak. I faintly heard the sword clatter to the ground as my fingers let go of it, and I felt exhaustion sink in. I took a few steps backward, then fell to my knees, pressing my palms against the floor as I stared at the ground, trying to get my thoughts in order.

Later that night, I came back to Zeke's house and went down to the basement as usual, to find him already there.

"Hey Blaze."

"Hi," I said suspiciously, eying him, unsure what to think of him after earlier today.

"I have a couple of questions for you, Blaze, would you mind answering them? As I've said before, I'd really like to get to actually know you, and who you are."

I immediately steeled, becoming icy and defensive. I didn't want to talk about myself. Not my past. And not whatever Doctor Gaius had put into my head.

"Zeke, I don't want to talk about it." He was trying to learn more about my past, about my time in prison, about my parents, about life as a refugee.

"I want to understand you, Blaze. Tomorrow's Reaping Day, for crying out loud. I'm going to volunteer, Blaze, and what if I get asked about you in the interviews? I won't be able to say much."

I stared at him. "Why would you talk about me during the interviews?"

"Oh, you know, they ask you all about your life, and I figured the story of finding you would be more interesting than other stuff I've been through."

"Well find something else! I'm not telling you anything, and I'm supposed to be a secret!"

"Wow, I save your life and train you here for months and this is the thanks I get?"

"Shut up, Zeke, don't try the guilt card on me, you know it won't work. I've killed people, Zeke, I've destroyed lives without so much as flinching. Why do you think I was sent to the asylum, Zeke? Why do you think I'm eager to volunteer for next year's Games without second thoughts about killing kids? Why do you think I scare other people? It's because I don't have feelings, Zeke, I don't have emotions; I never feel remorse or sorrow or fear or joy about any of my actions, and I never will."

I pushed past him and sauntered across the room, but he grabbed me before I could go in my room and slam the door.

"This is why I've kept you safe, Blaze," he said quietly, smirking, standing very close so he could look down on me condescendingly. "You're a challenge. You've always been a very difficult one. Stubborn, insensitive, easily irritated, sarcastic, yes, and you've never let your guard down for an instant. That's why I'm always around you, that's why I always talk to you and train you, because I've been trying to find a way in to that thick shell of yours. I know you're human in there somewhere, Blaze. All the girls I've ever known are either afraid of me or try to flirt with me, but not you. You view me as an equal, not a superior, for some idiotic reason, and I want to know why. And as impossible as you are sometimes, I'm determined to break into that shell, Blaze."

He suddenly pinned my wrists over my head against the doorframe.

"Let me go, Zeke," I quavered, "I'm not telling you anything and I never will."

"You just full of mysteries, aren't you?" he mused, that incredibly alluring smirk of his playing on his lips. His dark eyes kept me hypnotized, frozen in place, losing the will to struggle. He put his free hand on my hip, and before I knew what was happening, his lips were crushed against mine in a heated, passionate kiss. "Zeke," I tried to say, but he only took the opportunity to get his tongue in my mouth, kissing me deeply as his hand slid behind me, holding me against him.

I found myself losing the will to struggle at an alarmingly rapid pace, so I took action immediately. Finding my hands free now, I lowered them and shoved him away from me so he hit the other side of the doorframe.

"Please don't do that," I said shakily, suddenly feeling the need to run, to hide, to do anything but stay here. "You don't know me. You don't know anything about me." I pushed him away from the doorframe, and closed the door and locked it.

Then I sat down on my bed, clasping my hands together because they were shaking. I had rarely been emotional before, and I needed to stop it. I knew I wasn't stable. I knew I wasn't stable. And what was Zeke getting at? Was he just trying to have some girl he could reference back home? That couldn't be all it was, considering I had done everything opposite of being attractive, and it was the absolute worst thing that could be done. It was the day before the Hunger Games Reaping. For the Fourth Quarter Quell. It was a terrible idea to mix love with the Games. Look what happened to my—my parents.

Cato and Clove, they were just kids, teenagers in love who fought together and then were torn from each other in the Games. I didn't want that weakness. I didn't need any more weaknesses. Avoiding nervous breakdowns and fits and even worse was going to be hard enough, next year. And as bad as I should have felt about it, after everything he had done for me, I couldn't help but hope Zeke would die in the Hunger Games, and never come back. Because if he did win, he'd be even more horribly cocky, full of himself, and he'd think he was untouchable, perfect, and irresistible. There was no telling what he might try to do with me then.