Chapter Seven: Effort

When I wake up again, it's a little after seven. Sighing, I climb out of bed and get dressed. I don't really even notice what I'm putting on – it's just whatever Maio had set out for me. I no longer care.

I'm the first one up, apparently. When I get to the dining room, the only other person present is an Avox. I ignore her and fill up a plate with some food.

I'm guessing I'll have at least a good hour before anyone joins me for breakfast. I'm too tired to go back to sleep – wow, that's a new one – so I'll just wait here. Besides, I have a lot of confused thoughts that desperately need sorting through.

The Games start in four days. There's no getting around it. I can't keep on pretending – because I know now that that's what I've been doing – that I'll just live in this building for the rest of my life with Maio and Enobaria and… Cato.

Cato. I don't understand anything about him. What I do know is that being friends is not an option, no matter what. There's only one rule in the Hunger Games, and it's kill or be killed. There can only be one survivor. And if I'm going to win, Cato is going to have to die… there's simply no way to get around it.

I bury my face in my arms. I don't understand why this has become so complicated. I volunteered for this – I knew what I was getting into!

I shake my head. It's the morning-thinking that's getting to me – it makes everything that much more confusing.

I need caffeine.

Walking over to the drinks, I spot what I'm looking for: coffee. I've never actually tried it before, but I know Mother loves it. I pour some into a mug and take a sip. Then I spit it out in disgust.

Ugh, but it's terrible! I'm about to dump all of it, but the Avox walks over to me. She gently takes the mug from my hands and starts adding things to it. Milk, sugar, and is that chocolate? Then she squirts some puffy white stuff that I don't recognize on top. The Avox silently gives back the mug.

Warily, I take a sip, and my eyes widen. It's wonderful! I'll have to remember this for tomorrow morning. After a few gulps of this improved coffee, my head is much clearer. Maybe I'll ask Enobaria to use some of my sponsor money to send me coffee. It'll help keep me awake in the arena.

After a few minutes, Enobaria herself walks into the room. "Coffee?" she asks, sounding surprised. I nod. "You know, coffee gives you a boost for a little while, but then you totally crash."

Huh. Maybe coffee in the arena wouldn't be such a great idea after all.

I keep my eyes on my mentor as she sits down across from me. The truth is, I'm slightly worried – after her outburst last night, being in close proximity to her might not be the best idea. But I guess she's had time to cool down since then.

On the other hand, I've seen recaps of her Games – I know what she's capable of. It used to give me nightmares, actually.

We eat in awkward silence for the next few minutes, and I'm grateful when Maio enters the room.

"Clove!" he cries. "We missed you last night! Where were you?"

I give my stylist a weak smile. "I wasn't hungry, so I went to bed early. I thought I'd catch up on some sleep, you know…"

Maio nods. "Yes, yes, that was probably wise. We can't have you falling asleep in the arena, now, can we?"

"Definitely not," I agree.

Yoh walks in. "Have you all seen Cato?" he asks, sounding worried. "He's not in his room, and I haven't seen him all morning."

"Try the roof," says Enobaria, sounding unconcerned.

"Good idea," Yoh sighs gratefully. He runs back out of the room.

I look at Enobaria. "I didn't know tributes were allowed on the roof," I say. "What if someone tried to jump off?"

"Oh, there's a force field or something so you can't do that," she says dismissively.

That's odd. I'll have to go up there sometime, before the Games start.

After about fifteen minutes – the entirety of which Maio spends chattering at me – Cato walks in, looking subdued. I determinedly avoid eye contact with him. Yoh enters after him.

"I found him!" he says unnecessarily. "He was on the roof, Enobaria, like you suggested."

How did Cato know about the roof? Did Yoh tell him? It doesn't seem likely, since he didn't think to look for him there. I think Cato has a cousin or something who's a victor, though. Maybe that's how he knew.

I wonder why he didn't tell me.

I sigh to myself. I really need to stop thinking things like that. We're allies – that's it. Not friends.

I look around the table. No one is talking. This is the exact opposite of yesterday morning, when the stylists were yelling at Cato and me. Speaking of, I don't see Cato's stylist anywhere. I wonder why she's not here…

Finally, Enobaria stands up and says, "Clove, Cato, you need to get downstairs. It's a quarter till ten."

The rest of us stand up quickly, and Enobaria and Yoh walk us to the elevator – honestly, I can't figure out why they think it's necessary.

When the doors close, Cato turns to me. "So what's the plan for today?" he asks politely.

I hesitate. "I think we should break into groups of two. It'll make it easier to learn about the others. Then we can switch it all around after lunch. What do you think?"

"Sure," he says. "The only thing is, I think we should try to keep the district partners separate. Just in case, you know."

I nod – that does seem like the smartest thing to do. "Okay. I'll start out with Glimmer, so you should choose between Shell and Zen."

"Shell, for sure," he says quickly. "I still don't like Zen."

This irritates me, but for no good reason, so I let it go. "Okay, so I take it after lunch you want Marvel, and I'll stick with Zen?" Ugh. I don't like him much either.

Apparently, this shows on my face, because Cato sighs. "Don't worry about it. I'll take Zen, you take Marvel."

"Thanks," I say gratefully. "And tomorrow we can switch, I'll have Four and you can have One."

"Great."

Suddenly I notice that the elevator has stopped and the doors are open. I wonder how long it's been – it only takes a couple of seconds for us to go down two floors. Luckily, none of the other tributes have arrived, which means that none of them heard what we were just planning. That would have been a disaster.

We quickly step off the elevator, and the doors close. After a couple of minutes they open again – Glimmer and Marvel are here.

I smile and wave them over. "We have a lot to get done today," I tell them.

Glimmer raises an eyebrow. "Such as?"

Marvel scowls. "There's only so much to do here."

I choose to ignore that, because that was maybe the stupidest thing I've ever heard. Ever.

"There's a lot to get done," I repeat. "We're going to break into groups of two. Glimmer, you'll be with me. Shell will be with Cato –"

"Excuse me?" says a voice behind us. Shell and Zen have arrived.

"About time," I mutter. Then in a louder voice, I say, "We're going to break into groups of two. Glimmer is with me, Shell with Cato, and Marvel with Zen. After lunch, we'll switch to Marvel and me, Cato and Zen, and Glimmer and Shell."

"Okay," Glimmer says. "So, what else is there?"

I exchange a brief glance with Cato; this is something we discussed during training yesterday. "We're going to try to get to every station, between the six of us. Go to as many as you can; the best thing would be if we could all get everywhere, but that's unlikely. So, get in as much variety as you can. Don't just stick to weapons, or survival skills, mix it up so we can learn as much as we can today."

Cato finishes for me. "Then, tomorrow, we're going to focus on the tributes themselves. We'll watch them and decide on key targets for the bloodbath. That way it'll be easier, if we already know our strategy when the gong sounds."

I can see that our allies agree with us; it's a well thought out plan. "One other thing," I add. "We need to keep an eye out to see if there's anyone else worth allying with. I'm fairly confident that there isn't, but it's good to be safe. Notice if anyone has special skills that could be beneficial to us. Be observant."

They all nod, and we head over to the spot where we waited for the other tributes yesterday.

Two at a time, they arrive – this time, Twelve isn't last. We all have our district numbers pinned onto us, and then we're released.

I look at Glimmer. "So, where do you want to start out at?"

She shrugs. "How about we go to the camouflage station? You never know, maybe we'll need to know that kind of thing."

"Sure," I say.

Camouflage actually turns out to be a lot of fun. We paint different patterns on ourselves, and for the most part we're terrible. But it's hilarious, watching each other trying to blend in with, say, a stone wall and failing miserably. Glimmer's vibrant hair and eyes don't exactly help, and I'm not much better off.

After a while, we need to move on. "Want to try rock climbing?" I suggest.

She agrees, so we leave the camouflage and walk across the room.

Climbing is pretty easy for us, since we're very strong – and at the same time we can get up fairly high on the solid wall, since we're pretty nimble, by Career standards. The trainer is delighted with us.

We go to as many stations as we can before lunch – knives, for me, and axes, for her, and also maces, fire starting, and shelter building. About twenty minutes before lunch is supposed to start, we decide to take another trip to the edible plants station, so we're not just relying on Shell to know what to eat.

But when lunch comes around, we're just as clueless as we were yesterday.

"Oh, who cares anyway?" says Glimmer. "It probably won't even matter, we'll get all our food from the Cornucopia, and there are always sponsors."

I smack myself in the forehead. "Why didn't we think of that before we wasted all that time?"

She giggles. "Oh well. We got a lot of other stuff done, at least."

I sigh. "Yeah, I guess. So, how's Marvel? He's my partner for after lunch," I remind her unenthusiastically.

Glimmer shakes her head. "Oh, he's hopeless, of course, he always says the wrong thing, and sometimes he's just careless. Yesterday was torture."

I groan. "Well, that's just fantastic. Stupid people really need to stop volunteering. It never ends well."

Smirking, Glimmer says, "I wouldn't worry about it. He'll probably get himself killed at the bloodbath anyway, so we won't have to put up with him for long."

"Oh. Okay," I say in surprise. I've actually been getting along quite well with Glimmer, though I'll still be able to kill her if it comes to that. But still, it's a shame she has to die.

But after lunch, I don't feel quite as pleased with the other tribute from her district.

When I watched the recap of the reapings with Maio, I had thought that Glimmer looked like an idiot – or, rather, that she probably was one. Well, I was wrong. Glimmer's a good ally, and we get along well. It's Marvel who's the idiot. I'm honestly surprised that he can tell the difference between a knife and an axe. It's unbelievably frustrating, trying to work with him. It almost seems like his brain can't process information at all. I don't know why he volunteered for the Games, but he couldn't win them under any circumstances. Especially not this year.

"Marvel," I say in frustration. He looks up at me – finally. He's been admiring the damn spears for over twenty minutes, and I've about had it.

"We need to move on," I tell him.

He blinks slowly. "Okay."

Then he looks back at the spears.

I growl. No one can possibly be this slow and think they have a chance of winning!

Then it hits me. No. They really can't.

Silently, I slip over to the knives station and grab a blade. Then I sneak over to Marvel and, as fast as I can, put him in a headlock and hold the blade under his throat.

Quicker than I expected, he ducks away from me. Before I can react, he grabs a spear and points it directly at my heart. I grip my knife tightly.

"Clove! Marvel!" Atala barks at us. "Combat between tributes is not allowed!"

I toss the knife behind me in disgust. "I knew it," I spit at Marvel. "You're not an idiot – no, I changed my mind. You are an idiot. Did you really think you could trick us that easily? What the hell? We're supposed to be your allies!"

His eyes tighten. "I had to do something. I promised I'd come home. I have a little sister and I'm going to do whatever it takes to get back to her."

Taking a step forward, I glare at him. "We all have people we want to get back to. But we're your allies, and when you have allies, there are certain rules you have to follow. And one of the unspoken rules is that you don't pretend to be someone you're not, just to gain an advantage over us."

Marvel looks confused. "I've never seen a list of rules."

Maybe he really is an idiot.

"That's not the point," I say in a deadly whisper. "The point is that if you lie to us again – and I don't care what it's about or how necessary it is – I promise that it will end very badly for you."

Finally, he has the decency to look somewhat ashamed. "Fine," he mutters sulkily.

"Good," I say. "Training should end in ten minutes, and guess what happens then? You get to go tell all the others about how you've been lying to us, and then they'll help me decide what to do with you."

"You can't kill me," Marvel says. He's not using a defensive tone, or a pleading one. It sounds as if he's simply stating a fact.

"Oh, no, we won't kill you. Yet." I won't give him the satisfaction of arguing with him. "But you'll have the most boring jobs. You'll stand guard more often than the rest of us. You'll have to set up camp while the rest of us divide up supplies. That kind of thing. Believe me, you're going to wish you hadn't tried to trick us. I guarantee it."

He just rolls his eyes. "Whatever. I'm still going to win."

I really can't see why we don't just kick him out of the alliance altogether.

When training ends, I march him over to where Cato, Glimmer, Shell, and Zen are waiting for us. "Go on. Tell them."

"Tell us what?" asks Glimmer curiously.

Marvel looks at me as if asking for help, but he's getting no sympathy from me. Let him squirm for a while.

He sighs eventually. "Okay, well… I know I've made it seem like I'm kind of… kind of an idiot. But… I'm not… not really. I was… kind of pretending. To… sort of… get an advantage… over all of you."

They all stare at him in shock. But after a moment, Shell starts to laugh.

"Don't worry," she says, still giggling. "We're not going to do anything to you yet. We won't kick you out of the alliance – we need strength in numbers. But just know that you're never going to be safe." At this point, she doubles over from laughing so hard, and I exchange a worried look with Cato.

"Do you think maybe she's not entirely… sane?" I ask timidly when we're safely back on our floor.

He frowns. "I'm not sure… she seemed more or less fine this morning, but there were a few moments when she seemed… you know."

I sigh deeply. "Great. So we have one ally who lies, one who's insane, and one who's possibly a threat to us both. Wow, how could this go wrong?"

"I guess we'll just have to keep an eye on them."

"All the time?" I ask skeptically. "That's not going to work."

Cato shrugs. "It has to." There's not much to say other than that.

"Okay," I sigh. "So, did you notice anyone else who looked worth allying with?" Someone who isn't a liar, or a psycho, or a threat? I add mentally.

"Actually… I was thinking about maybe asking Thresh to join."

"District Eleven?" I say in surprise.

"Yeah," Cato confirms. "He's actually pretty decent with most of the weapons, and I don't think there's anyone else he's going to ally with. So, do you want to ask him?"

I think about it carefully. "Maybe. Seems like a pretty good idea. We can ask the others tomorrow and see what they think."

"Awesome," he says. "See you at dinner."

I walk back to my room. Okay, that wasn't so hard. I'd gotten through a whole day with my new plan. I got along with Cato perfectly well, but we didn't talk about anything besides our allies and the other tributes. Maybe this will work.

It needs to, because I need to be able to concentrate tomorrow. We have our private sessions with the Gamemakers, and I need a good score if I want to win.

So, how was this? I was going to wait another day or so to post this, but I had some free time so I decided not to make you wait. :)

Also - if you find any grammar errors or typos or anything like that, please point it out in a review, or PM me! That's the kind of thing I like to know so I can fix the problem.

One last thing. There were a couple of people who thought the last chapter was too short. I'm just going to say that they'll usually be much longer than that, it just felt right to end it there, you know? But I'm glad everyone seems to like longer chapters, because they're going to start getting pretty long, especially once the Games start. :)

REVIEW, PLEASE! :D And sorry for the long A/N...

~What the Quell