I wake up to the sound of birds chirping merrily. For a moment, I'm confused. Why am I in a tent? Why is there a blonde girl lying a few feet away from me, snoring softly?Then I remember where I am. The shock is so plain it feels like a bucket of icy water splashed in my face. For a moment, the faces of the children I have killed flood before my eyes, and I want to go back home. But then I take a deep breath, and quietly exit the tent. I can't show any weaknesses. Not here. Not now.

Everyone appears to still be asleep, even Cato, who took the last watch. He's leaning on his side on the ground. I sit down beside him, my knees tucked up to my chin. He looks peaceful in sleep, different. Younger, softer. He doesn't look like a boy who can kill a person without batting an eye. But he is. He always has been.

Another pang of regret hits me. I wish we could go back to the days where he always had my back and I always had his. But there's no going back, I tell myself sternly. Toughen up.

It's barely dawn, so the blue sky is just beginning to rise up around me. It's so beautiful, that for a moment, I forget that it's fake. It's only a projection of the real thing. That's all the Capitol is. Fake.

I absentmindedly take out one of my knives and twirl it around my fingers, staring out into the direction of the lake, which looks calm and peaceful. I'm so far away, so lost in my thoughts I don't notice when Cato 's even breathing stops.

I feel a hand on my shoulder, and I whirl around, a knife ready. Cato grins at me. He yawns, and stretches his arms above his head. He looks so laid back. How can he be?

"Morning," he says, cracking his knuckles. "Sorry I fell asleep."

I glare at him. "You should be more careful," I warn him. "What if someone came to camp? They could have slit all our throats, no problem."

Cato grins easily at me. "Nah," he says, brushing me off. "We're the big bad Careers. Nobody would dare do that."

I raise my eyebrows as he walks away. He's wrong. Ther'e more then a handful of people who would do that, the Everdeen girl included. The thought of her makes me uneasy. A tribute from Twelve shouldn't be such a threat, but I'm worried she is. I want her dead.

Cato returns with his hands filled with something. He sits back down beside me. I eye him warily. What is he trying to do? Yesterday, he was ignoring me. Now, this?

"Here," he says, handing me a fork and a can of something. It's stew. "I brought breakfast."

"Thanks," I mumble, taking one of my knives and puncturing the lid. I cut out the lid in a jagged circle, and begin to eat. It's good, just as good as the rest of the Capitol food. The first time I ate Capitol food on the train, it was strange. Back at District Two, we had to be on strict diets. Cato hated it, calling it rabbit food. But even he knew that he had to adhere by it.

"How you feeling?" Cato asks with a mouth full of ravioli.

I eye him cautiously again. "Fine," I say warily. "Why?"

He's about to answer, but then he stops and closes his mouth. Somewhere behind us, a branch snaps. It's in the direction of the forest. At the same time, Cato and I both get up. Quietly, Cato unsheathes his sword, and we began making our way soundlessly towards the forest. Closer now, we hear another snap. Suddenly it's just like old times, Cato and I. For now, we have each others backs.

I hear breathing. It's faint, but I can hear it. I walk in the direction of it, and stop in front of a large bush. Large enough to conceal a person, even if they're a decent size. I walk around it slowly, and then I see him. Large, intelligent blue eyes, filled with fear. Just a boy. Maybe fourteen.

I lunge for him, but Cato gets there first, grabbing him by the shoulders. He wears a crazy grin on his face that makes him look truly deranged.

"Thought you could hide, huh?" he says, slowly unsheathing his sword. I stand, watching, as if frozen into place.

"Wait!" the boy squeaks, but Cato conitinues to draw out his sword slowly. I realize that the boy's eyes are exactly the colour of my younger sister's. The boy looks so vulnerable that I garb Cato's wrist. He turns around to look at me, shocked.

"At least listen to him," I reason. Cato gives me a look I can't comprehend. It's almost amusement. I have a feeling I'm going to get a lot of crap for this later.

"Alright then," he says slowly. He turns toward the boy. "We're listening. Give us a reason why we shouldn't kill you."

The boy takes a shaky breath. "I can protect your food for you. Not just guarding it. I can dig up the mines they use for the first 60 seconds. That way if anyone tries to get your food, they won't."

I raise my eyebrows, then turn towards Cato. He looks pretty sceptical.

"What's the harm?" I say, shrugging. "If he's lying, we can kill him easily enough."

Cato gives me a snide look. "Now who's defending the helpless?" he snarls. I scowl at him, and then gesture for the boy to go in front of us. We walk back towards camp. The silence that follows is long and awkward.

When we get back to camp, everyone else is awake. Marvel grins when he sees us with the boy. Glimmer stares at me and Cato walking side by side and gives me what she probably thinks is an intimidating glare. I smile at her and pull out one of my knives casually. She looks away.

"Who's this?" Marvel says, grinning at us. His hair's a crazy mess.

"District Three," Cato says, folding his arms and rolling his eyes at me. "Apparently he can help us by digging up the mines and placing them around our food so nobody can get to it."

Glimmer squints. "But.. how would we get to it then?"

I nod reluctantly. "That is a good question. How would we be able to get to it?"

The boy doesn't recoil from the question. He's expecting this. "I'll place them in such a way that you can get to them easily," he says.

Cato raises his eyebrows, but he doesn't say anything.

"Fine," I say in a low voice. "We'll see what happens. But try anything, and you're dead, alright?"

The boy nods, fear growing back into his features. "Alright."

I turn away, feeling Cato's eyes burning into the back of my head. I whip back around, glaring at him.

"What?" I snap, folding my arms. He's looking at me in a way I don't like at all. It's something like pity and amusement, all mixed together.

"Nothing," he says with a small smile, looking at the ground. "Nothing at all."

He's unnerving me now. What's made him become so sentimental towards me all of a sudden? Does he think we can really keep it up, the friend facade, throughout the course of the games? He must know and understand that within two weeks, one of us will be dead. The thought sends a hollow pang through me, but I ignore it.

I sit down on one of the crates of food, watching as Marvel and the boy start digging up the mines. But I'm not really watching them, I'm thinking of home. Thinking of my sister, Tayana. She acutally is the reason why I saved that boy, why I didn't kill him. I've always had a weak spot for her. She's fair and blond, the picture of innocence. Very much unlike me, dark and angular. I refuse to have her start training for the games, although my father wants her to. But what he wants doesn't really matter, because it's me who took care of her when he was down at the bar, trying to pick up girls my age, maybe even younger. I still have to take care of her, when he's in one of his moods. If I wasn't in the house with her after he came home from the bar, he'd probably beat her the way he did to my mother before she died.

They blamed it on a heart attack, but deep down I know it was suicide. She couldn't take it any more. It still stung a little bit, thinking how she'd left her two daughters to face a man much bigger and stronger. But that's when I started going to training, taking Tayana with me and having her sit on the side. Soon, I became strong, too. Not just physically, but mentally. For years, I had been constantly told that caring or having mercy would get you nowhere in the games, all it would get you was a nice knife in the back, or somewhere less desirable. I refused to let that happen to my little sister.

I jump a little bit when someone sits down beside me. It's Marvel. He's grinning easily, looking happy.

"Well, at least not we won't have to leave someone behind when we hunt," he says. "It'll be much easier to take Katpiss down."

I grin at him. "She's such a joke. The Girl On Fire, with her pretty little flames and sponsors will be no more within a week. I'll make sure of it."

Marvel whistles appreciatively. "I can't wait to see you and Cato fight over who gets to kill her. That is when sparks really will fly."

I smile. It's easy to be around Marvel. He's never serious. I find myself laughing at everything he says, when suddenly Cato calls us over.

"The mines are set up," he says. "Now, who wants to go hunting?"

Glimmer squeals in delight, like a little blonde piglet. I raise my eyebrows at Cato, and silently grab a backpack filled with essentials, and head off with Marvel, who's still cracking jokes. I hear Cato and Glimmer behind us, but remarkably I don't care. We're all in fabulous moods, all laughing and joking. We find a tribute shortly after dark, who's stupid enough to make a fire. The girls' screams echoed all around us, then finally Glimmer slashes her throat.

But there's no canon. Everyone starts arguing, even some sword are drawn, when Peeta, of all people, announces that we're wasting time. He goes back and checks, and finally, the boom of the canon rings out. He looks sickened with all of us. I roll my eyes.

We don't find anyone else that night. We decide that it's be better to just sleep in the woods instead of heading back to camp. That way, we can start early. We start a fire, and sit for a few minutes. Then, slowly, everyone goes to bed.

I'm assigned to first watch, Cato second. So I lean against the trunk of the tree, listening to the sounds. It's oddly peaceful, the silence. But I know how fake it is, how the Capitol could destroy it within seconds. The thought makes me withdraw one of my knives from the inside of my jacket.

Cato's still awake. It's the fire reflecting in his eyes that gives him away. At first I consider speaking up, but I decide not to. He probably wants time to think and clear his head. I understand. No matter what, I still know Cato like the back of my hand, like it or not.

OOOHH. angsty Clove yet again! So, did you guys enjoy this chapter? Let me know, because reviews make my day! I will be updating this story mostly on Wednesdays.