Chapter Fourteen: New Plan

"Do you think she can hear us?"

"I don't know. Maybe she needs another dose?"

"But there's hardly any left! It might not make a difference."

"She's smaller than us. Her system probably didn't fight off the venom very well. She'll come around."

"Clove? Can you hear me?"

I groan and force my eyes to open. "Cato? Marvel? What…"

What's going on? I just got stung by tracker jackers… I shouldn't be awake! I remember passing out… but… I'm supposed to have hallucinations! Not that I'm complaining… although I do remember my surroundings turning strange colors in my last moments of consciousness. But that doesn't explain…

"We should all be knocked out!" I say feebly. Cato grins at me and holds up a silver parachute.

"The beauty of being a Career – gotta love sponsors, right?"

Oh, that makes sense. It's still pretty early in the Games, so the prices for sponsor gifts haven't skyrocketed yet. Apparently Yoh and Enobaria can still afford to send us medicine… and I guess Marvel's mentors can, too.

"How come you didn't pass out too?" I demand my two allies.

Cato shrugs. "We're bigger than you, so the venom took longer to get through our system, and the meds came pretty fast, thankfully."

"Okay… okay. Tell me everything that's happened!"

Cato's face darkens. "Lover Boy. He's been in cahoots with Fire Girl this whole time, apparently. When I left you to go back, I was following him, and when I got back to where we spent the night he was helping her get away."

I sigh. "Please tell me you killed him, Cato…"

He smirks. "Just about. He won't last very long, but I didn't want to give him a quick end. Besides, I had to get back here, and when I did the medicine came."

I try to sit up, and wince. "Why does it still hurt?"

Marvel answers me. "They probably couldn't afford to send the best medicine, so we'll have to cope. We should probably rest for a couple of days."

To my surprise, Cato doesn't contradict him. "Yeah, you're right. The other tributes will have been stung too, or most of them. And I guess we should be grateful our mentors sent anything at all," he adds grudgingly.

"I'm surprised those stings didn't kill me," I mutter. I inspect the places I've been stung – I look terrible, though not bloated, like some of the images my dad showed me when I was little. I'm not hallucinating, so that's good. And I'm not dead, not like –

"Glimmer and Shell are gone, then?" I ask Cato, trying to sound nonchalant.

He nods. "Glimmer – she must've been stung at least twenty times. She didn't have a chance. I saw her body, when I went back… it was pretty horrible. I'm guessing Shell was just as bad. We were smart to run, or we would've died."

Marvel suddenly frowns. "You know what? If some of the others really did get stung, they're probably unconscious. We should hunt!"

I shake my head. "Are you kidding me? We may have sponsors that could afford to buy us medicine, but we're still not healthy enough to hunt. We need to wait at least another day."

Cato nods, agreeing with me. "When we do hunt, I think we should take the kid," he says, gesturing to the soaking wet boy lying near the Cornucopia. "Since we just lost two allies."

"Sure," I say uncaringly. "I doubt he'll be much help, but I suppose there's always strength in numbers."

"Whatever," Marvel grumbles. I roll my eyes at him and turn to Cato.

"How long was I out, anyway?"

"About an hour," he replies. "You haven't missed anything, really. The kid hasn't moved at all. Marvel and I have been waiting for you to wake up."

"Oh," is my brilliant response to that.

I walk over to where our tents are set up. "We should probably get rid of two of these," I say. "Since they're dead."

Cato walks over to stand next to me. "I'll get them. You need a nap."

I turn to glare fiercely at him – for some reason, the implication that I could possibly need anything infuriates me. What right does he have to tell me what to do? I know I'm being irrational, but I don't care at the moment. "Cato, I technically just slept for an hour, and I can take care of myself!" Strangely, I'm reminded of Shell being irritated at Zen, that first day of training. "Besides, you haven't slept at all in almost four days!" I didn't give it much thought before, but now I can see the dark circles under his eyes. "You go take a nap. I'll guard. I'll wake you up if anything interesting happens, which I'm sure it won't because half the tributes are probably unconscious right now. Go!"

He stares at me for a second without speaking, and for a moment I fear that he's going to try to kill me – but then he wordlessly retreats to his tent. I scowl after him and stalk over to where the kid is lying.

"You," I snap, and he leaps to his feet. "Why aren't you working? How much longer until the mines are done? This is your last day to work."

"J-just another c-couple of hours," he stammers. "They'll b-be done this afternoon."

"Good," I snarl, and walk towards Marvel in a somewhat less furious manner.

"You might as well get some sleep too," I tell him bluntly.

He shrugs. "Sure." Without another word he crawls into his tent, and soon I can hear faint snores coming from his direction.

The afternoon passes slowly. Nothing happens, which is to be expected since half the arena is probably out cold right now. It's a horrible feeling, knowing this and not hunting. I'll have to tell Cato that we need to hunt tomorrow.

After about three or four hours, the kid walks over to me timidly. "Excuse me… the mines are all done."

"Show me," I order him. I'm actually very excited about this – nothing like this has ever happened in the Hunger Games. This could change everything…

The kid points to a small mound of soil next to the Cornucopia. "I just had to do some work over there, and I could control pretty much everything in this clearing. Most of the area surrounding the supply pyramid is rigged to blow up if someone steps on it. The mines are separated, though, so only a portion will explode. The rest of the supplies will be unharmed."

"Fantastic," I tell him. "What about the supplies spread around the pyramid?"

"More or less the same thing. If someone were to try to raid us, they'd probably try to steal from the small piles, so they're rigged too."

"This is great," I say enthusiastically. "I'll go wake up Cato and Marvel so you can show them too."

Cato is pleased to hear that the mines are set – it'll make hunting easier, since we can have everyone in the woods without leaving a guard. Marvel seems excited too, and I'm so glad we didn't kill the kid when we caught him.

"Clove?" Cato says.

I raise my eyebrows. "What?"

"I really do think you should get some sleep. It's been a long day."

I'm not mad this time, but I'm not going to listen to him either. "I slept last night, and for a little while just a few hours ago. And I haven't really done anything since this morning, so I'm not even tired."

"Fine," Cato concedes. "You'll have to sleep sometime, though. Might as well be while nothing interesting's going to happen."

I just shake my head. "No."

"Whatever," he sighs.

We end up sitting by the lake with our feet in the water – Marvel goes back to sleep, and we let the kid take a nap too, since he finally succeeded with the mines. We watch the sun crawl slowly across the sky until it eventually disappears altogether.

The anthem wakes Marvel up, though the kid sleeps through it. The three of us watch the death recap – Glimmer, Shell. Their faces light up the sky and then they disappear.

It doesn't seem like they just died today. And it's not as though much has happened since then, but… I don't know.

I notice that Cato is staring at me. "What?" I ask.

He frowns. "I'm not going to bother telling you. You'll yell at me again."

Is this about me needing sleep, again? "Drop it," I advise him, and he raises his hands defensively.

"Okay, okay."

"Thanks."

I actually feel like I could stay awake for a long time – I guess I'm caught up on sleep. I sigh and stare into the woods. It's not like anyone would be stupid enough to try to attack us, I think irritably. The ones that would think of that are dead already.

"Who's left again?" Cato says.

I sigh – hadn't we just discussed this? "The four of us. The girl from Five. The boy from Ten, with the bad foot. Both from Eleven. Fire Girl and Lover Boy – well, he'll be gone soon. That's it, I think."

He nods thoughtfully. "We need a new plan."

"Yeah, we do," I sigh. "Now that Glimmer and Shell are dead."

"We can't kill the kid yet, not unless he screws something up. Not Marvel either, I guess. Not until we kill some of the others, at least."

"That's the other thing," I tell him. "We aren't going to be able to choose who we kill, in what order. We're just going to have to go with whatever happens. If we had total control over this it'd be different… but we need to take any opportunity to get rid of the other tributes. No matter who it is."

Cato nods. "It was kind of stupid of us to think we could pick the order," he chuckles.

I grin. "Yeah. But it never hurts to have our priorities straightened out."

"I think we should kill the kid in a few days," he says. "After we get one or two of the others. Then Marvel a little later."

"I hope no one kills him for us," I mutter rebelliously. "I want to kill him. I hate him."

"No chance – he's mine. We've discussed this, little girl."

I narrow my eyes. "We'll see."

He smirks arrogantly. "Whatever, Clove."

We sit in silence until the sun rises. Then I stretch and stand up. "We should wake up Marvel and the kid. We need to go hunting."

"Good," Cato says. "I feel a lot better than yesterday, don't you?"

"A bit. I still look terrible, though," I moan.

He snickers. "It's the Hunger Games, who cares what you look like?"

I glare at him. "Shut up, Cato."

I let him wake up the other two, because he's irritating me and I need a drink of water anyway. "We're going hunting today. Eat a quick breakfast and grab a weapon so we can get going," I tell them once they're up. Surprisingly, I'm starving – I guess I haven't been eating much the past couple of days, and the tracker jacker attack took a lot out of me. I mean, I've had some dried fruit and that kind of thing while hunting, but… well, it doesn't matter. I'm eating now.

After breakfast I gather a bunch of knives and put them in the backpack I've been using. Maybe I should take another weapon today, I think mindlessly. Then I spot an axe in one of the small piles, and I carefully walk over to it – in the mine-free areas, of course – and pick it up. Why not? I think. I've always been decent with axes… and it's good to be well rounded. And it reminds me of Glimmer – I don't know why that's important to me, but it is.

"Let's go," I call out harshly.

Today, we're going to find somebody – I can feel it. If we don't, I might go insane. This is the Hunger Games, and in the Hunger Games, tributes kill each other.

As a tribute, I need to kill.

I run my index finger over the blade of my new axe – it's very sharp. I'm accustomed to knives, but maybe I'll take a life using a new weapon today.

We'll see.

Sorry for the wait! I was going to post this yesterday, but then I didn't get a chance... anyway, I know there isn't much that happens in this chapter, but it was necessary to get through this. By the way, don't yell at me for giving them medicine, please! I though about it, and I realized I hadn't sent them ANY sponsor gifts... so maybe the mentors were saving up in case something big happened. ;) I just couldn't picture the Careers unconscious for that long, because wouldn't someone like Foxface or Thresh have used the opportunity to slit their throats?

Okay. When I posted the last chapter, I was going to mention in the author's note how awesome you all are and that we're up to fifty reviews... and then I forgot. :/ So I'll mention it now, only since then we're up to sixty! :D Wow, you all are amazing! Reviews make my day!

~What the Quell :)