Author's Note: Yay, I'm over 50 reviews now! That's very exciting and I'm super glad that you've all been enjoying my story so far. I can't quite believe that in only a few weeks I have written 10 chapters! In this chapter I'm using Marvel's POV for the first time, so tell me what you think.

I feel like I'm repeating the whole review thing, but please keep reviewing because I love reading them all and it's nice to know people are interested in this story. Enjoy chapter ten!

Chapter Ten – I care

Marvel's POV

I knew the games were crazy, but phew, this was insane! Our first day in the arena was only just coming to an end and already I'd lost my district partner, Glimmer, making a grand total of 13 dead in the first 12 hours or so. But I wouldn't have time to grieve for my friend until I got out of the arena, if I got out, because with Glimmer's body we also found Cato bleeding and delirious. You had to keep going and going in the games until you either died or won, and if you won you were haunted by the grief and the memories that you'd tried to ignore. As soon as Cato left our camp to go after Spens, we had discussed our game plan and decided to go in groups. Glimmer ran to try and catch up with Cato and by looking at the massacre I figured that she had found him.

Clove and I had teamed up and left later so we could appear if we were needed, but on the way we heard Grey calling out. Luckily we were close by; if we had been too far away we might not have been able to find her tucked in an old sycamore tree. Its branches had warped, pointing nearly fully outwards instead of upwards, but it made a good spot for someone to hide. Grey burst into tears when we found her, mostly from shock. She was tied to one of the branches with some rope; it had probably been in the backpack that she'd picked up, but we easily untied her and helped her off the tree. She explained to us that Spens had knocked her out and taken her into a part of the forest she didn't know. She said she wasn't hurt badly; Spens had cut along her hip from boredom but had only really been using her to get to Cato. I guessed it was probably a deep cut by looking at the amount of blood on the bottom of her shirt but she wasn't woozy or ready to collapse and she obviously wanted to make sure that Cato was safe before caring about herself. Spens was supposedly going to come back and kill her when he'd finished with the District 2 tribute but since he hadn't come back we were all hopeful that they hadn't run into each other yet.

After walking around for half an hour and not finding anything, we heard a cannon go off. Grey didn't make a sound, she knew that it would have given away our position and if Spens was alive nearby it could be fatal, but her eyes were wide and I knew she was scared for Cato. Neither Cato nor Grey had admitted to us that they were together or had any feelings except those from the alliance for one another but both Clove and I had seen the whole "lovers that won't admit it" on Capitol TV and it wasn't difficult to see the care in their eyes when they were together. Even if they argued more than Clove and Cato used to!

We had nearly given up hope for the day when finally we heard the sounds of pained moaning just in front of us. I hurried forward but gave Clove a look that she understood. She purposefully slowed down and grabbed a hold of Grey's arm to support her; who knew what would happen if she saw someone decapitated. What we saw instead was Glimmer slumped on the ground, a knife sticking up from her neck. I called her name and ran over with the intention of checking for a pulse but I already knew she was gone. I sat down on the ground beside her body and held her cold hand in mine.

"You always told me that you weren't going to win," I whisper to her, "but you deserved to. I just know that you went down protecting everyone else, you were always like that. I'm going to miss talking to you; you were always there for me during those late nights in the Capitol." I heard the faint sound of a hovercraft approaching and I quickly said my last goodbye and kissed Glimmer's cheek.

Cato was convulsing on the ground nearby in what could only be described as a pool of his own blood. I felt like I was missing a very vital detail, where was Spens? Something had happened here today but we wouldn't find out what it was until Cato was recovered enough to talk. He had a knife dug deep in his left hand and all the blood had come from that. I didn't know that so much blood passed through your hand, there was so much of it! Grey had already tried to wake him up but he was in some semi-conscious state and wouldn't respond.

"Don't worry, I'll pick him up and we can carry him back to camp and get first aid on his hand." I reassured her, and she nodded at me before noticing Glimmer's body for maybe the first time. She gasped and rushed to her, Clove in tow. I didn't hear how they said goodbye, but I heard Grey say, "…And one more thing, thank you for teaching me how to use a bow. I'll always think of you when I fire an arrow…" They returned to me when the claw came down to pick up the body, and we stood there together for a few seconds in silence. This wasn't how we thought the games would go.

But you had to keep moving, and so our little alliance of 4 kept going. I picked up Cato as gently as I could and positioned him over my shoulder. Grey picked up Cato's sword but it must have weighed a ton because she had to make an effort not to drag it along the ground. Clove removed the dagger from Glimmer's neck and joined us, picking up a backpack and bow that had been dropped nearby. What a strong set of careers we'd turned out to be.

Grey's POV

It takes us a few hours to walk back to the cornucopia, partly because Marvel has to carry Cato, but also because we are all mourning Glimmer. I wish someone would just say something about her death, but Clove and Marvel have put up their career screens to keep their 'non-career' emotions inside. Maybe it's okay for them, but I don't have a career screen. A scraping sound gives me a fright until I realise that it's only Cato's sword grinding along the dirt. I adjust its weight in my hand until I'm holding it upright; I probably look menacing like this but I feel silly.

It was twilight when we found Cato and Glimmer but now it's definitely pitch black. The darkness prevents me from seeing more than a couple of meters in front of me, and we aren't following any sort of path. Every few minutes Clove has to hack away at some branches so we can head through them. How she knows her way back to the cornucopia, I have no idea, but she seems to know where she's going and I trust that she'll get us back safely. I trust Clove more than most people in this arena.

I sidle up beside Marvel. I can barely see his expression in the dark when he turns to me but it looks like an exhausted smile. I'm not particularly tired myself, but even Clove's movements have become sluggish over the past hour. I don't suppose they have slept since we entered the arena. 13 teenagers have died since then; it makes it feel like years ago. Cato is hanging limply off Marvel's shoulders. When we found him he almost looked conscious, trembling and muttering occasionally under his breath, but he's completely out now. I gently touch the side of his face and turn his head towards me, and I see that his eyebrows are furrowed in discomfort. I can't wait until we get that knife out of his hand. I know taking it out without compressing it could cause him to bleed to death but it would probably be much less painful than how it is now.

"Hey look, we're home." Clove whispers back to us, and in a couple of seconds I catch up to her and see that we are indeed back at the cornucopia. We manage to stumble our way to the entrance of the structure and those of us who are awake rummage through the packs trying to find sleeping bags. We manage to find four sleeping bags but no more than that, if Glimmer had been here we would have had to share, and Marvel finds a torch in the bag that he was searching through.

"I don't mind being on watch if you two want to sleep…" Marvel says softly as he lays Cato on a sleeping bag. Cato murmurs as his hand thumps maybe a little hard on the ground, and I figure that he'll wake up soon. A little flash of excitement runs up my body as I think of his arms around me, but then I see Marvel yawning at me, as if he's waiting for an answer.

"Oh no, go to bed Marvel," I reply, picking up the torch and plunking myself closer to the entrance of the cornucopia, "I'm really not tired at all. I must have fallen asleep for a bit while I was in the tree. I'll get onto wrapping Cato's hand too, but I probably won't be able to do anything without medicine, maybe I can ask sponsors tomorrow." Marvel nods at me sleepily but I doubt he heard anything I just said, so I gesture for him to go to his sleeping bag.

Clove's way ahead of him, already tucked in hers and lying against the inside wall of the cornucopia. I see a flash of metal, so she's still holding her knife. She mumbles something about me waking her up in 5 hours, and I grunt back an affirmative. Marvel pulls himself into his sleeping bag and collapses between Clove and I and he's the first to fall asleep, emitting infrequent little snores. I hear Clove snigger before she changes positions and eventually falls asleep herself.

Unable to ignore it any longer, I shuffle on my knees towards Cato. I feel a little twinge on my side and remember that there's still a wound there from where Spens hurt me, and at some point I'll have to look at it. I stop and gently prod it over my shirt. I decide that it doesn't feel too raw and apart from needing to give it a good wash at some point it'll probably heal in no time. Cato's hand will most likely be an entirely different story.

"Grey …Is that you?" I instantly flick on the torch and shine it towards Cato. He's up on his elbow straining to find me in the dark and I close the gap between us and grab onto his good hand. Cato pulls me down onto the sleeping bag with him and takes the torch from my grasp, turning it off so we're in complete darkness.

"Light might attract the other tributes." He whispers to me, so quiet that if we didn't have our foreheads pressed together I would not have been able to hear him. He then proceeds to explore my figure, touching the soft skin on my neck and running his fingers along my shoulders. I reach up and trace my fingers along his jaw and hairline, brushing some of his blonde hair back. We're like blind people, exploring each other in the darkness.

I hear him inhale deeply and the end of his breath catches, almost like a sob.

"I thought I'd lost you. That Spens would kill me and then kill you. I didn't think I cared, because I'm not supposed to. But I do, I care. I care." He scoops me up with one of his hands, I really hope it's not the one with the knife in it, and brings me closer to him until we're lying on our sides facing each other with our whole bodies touching. Then he's kissing me softly. Not roughly like that night in the Capitol but gently like he's protecting me and he'll never let me go, kissing me again and again. If kisses were words, they would be saying "I care."

We continue like this for a few minutes until Cato, always the leader, brings me into a bone crunching hug. His face presses into the crook of my neck and I realise that his face is clammy and cold with sweat.

"I'm okay, I promise. We're both okay, right here in the cornucopia. Together, and that's worth something, right?" I whisper into his hair and I hear him chuckle. I roll away from him and use my senses to try and find the torch again. Cato moans and reaches out to me, brushing my shoulder with his bad hand. I hear him wince.

With the torch on again, it's easier to find the first aid kit. It's poking out of Clove's backpack and I manage to retrieve it without disturbing her. I know she wants me to wake her up in 4 hours but I'd feel horrible since she's so tired, so I mentally decide to let her sleep a few hours longer. She's still got her hair in a braid and if I was at home in District 4 with my friends, they would have complained it was always up and that it would look way prettier loose. But now I know Clove as a career, whose whole life revolves around training and being here right now. It wouldn't be right to have it down now. It makes me realise just how different my old friends are to the ones I've made here; if you could call them friends… I definitely would, but they might all be secretly biding their time until they can kill me in my sleep.

I try to remember Finnick's advice from back in the Capitol. Something about imagining what my friends would say. It's a good idea in theory, but it's completely unhelpful for someone who doesn't even know who their friends are anymore. I can't imagine returning home to slip back into my group with Terra; I'd feel like an imposter. Maybe I could try to explain everything to Titus, but he knew nothing compared to what Cato did. I imagined Titus screaming at the screen just a few minutes before when I had been wrapped in Cato's arms. What Titus would say would probably just be a jumble of swear words.

Cato rustles on the sleeping bag impatiently and I realise I've been staring at the first aid kit while sitting in front of him for a couple of minutes now.

"Didn't they teach you how to open a zip at school?" He smirks, "Boy, someone's going to have trouble when it comes to my pants." I let out a laugh, it's a horrible joke, but it sounds like Cato and that's a good sign when I'm staring at his deathly pale face. I successfully open the kit and take out some bandages, holding them in one hand while I point the torch at his wound with the other. It looks really bad and I know the best I can do tonight is remove the knife and wrap up the wound. We're going to need medicine to help it heal and not get infected.

Cato sits up for me and holds out his left hand. I'm secretly flattered that he's trusting me with such an important job, so I mentally promise myself that I won't screw it up.
"Okay. Well, I'm just going to have to pull it out. It's probably going to hurt a lot, but I'm sure it'll all look better once we get the knife out." Cato doesn't look at all like he believes me, but he tries to give a trusting smile before clamping his teeth down on a spare shirt. I guess it's better than biting off your tongue or screaming and waking up the entire arena. Feeling a little bit ill, I grab the knife's handle in one hand while shining the torch at it with the other, and then I pull it out. There's this horrible sound of metal ripping against flesh, or maybe it's more of a slurping sound, I don't want to think about it. Cato cries out but it's muffled by the shirt and quickly turns into a whimper. As soon as the knife is placed on the ground I'm wrapping up the wound as tightly as I can. I keep wrapping until I feel Cato's hand on my hand. I look down and realise that the bandage has been wrapped so many times that Cato's hand practically looks like a beach ball.

"It's okay, it feels heaps better. And I'm sure with your bandage on it, nothing will ever touch it." Cato laughs, and I leap onto his lap. He grunts but pulls me against his chest. We don't say anything because we don't need to, but we both know that today one or both of us could have died. And we don't like that thought.