Disclaimer: I don't own THG or any of the characters.

Warnings: violence, rape/non-con, self-harm, depression, alcohol/drug abuse, suicidal ideation, sexual content, language

The little speech Cato gives about using his hands instead of his sword is inspired by the Joker's speech in the interrogation room in Dark Knight.

As Effie Trinket would say, this is a big, big, big chapter, so put your seatbelts on kids! Let me know what you think.

Thanks for reading!

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I don't want your money

I don't want your crown

See I've come to burn your kingdom down

Holy water cannot help you now

See I've come to burn your kingdom down

And no rivers and no lakes can put the fire out

I'm gonna raise the stakes

I'm gonna smoke you out

-Seven Devils, Florence + the Machine

Katniss reached the Cornucopia just in time to see Finnick snatch up the trident and pivot to impale Ephraim from 5 through the right lung.

She slung the bow and quiver of arrows over her shoulder and jumped right back into the water, ducking a knife that Rhiannon from 10 threw at her.

She tread water as she tried to locate Haymitch.

There he was. Grappling with Dighton from 9. She continued to swim toward the shoreline, but turned her head back several times to furrow her brow in concern as the two men fought. She had to look worried. Haymitch was her district partner after all. But the battle didn't last long, and less than a minute later, Dighton's limp body floated facedown in the water.

When she reached the shore, she turned back to wait for the others. Finnick was the first to join her, and she monitored Mags's progress as she swam towards them. Gloss, who was hovered on one of the rock partitions separating the wedges of salt water, was about to jump in to attack Mags, but Katniss warned him off by aiming an arrow at his chest.

Finnick took his old mentor by the arm to help her out of the water, and less than a minute later, Haymitch joined them, breathing hard from his exertions.

Just before they turned to head into the rainforest, Katniss caught sight of Seeder's body. She was floating, facedown, just like Dighton, but the water around her was red and cloudy.

Haymitch had known Seeder for years, and he had introduced Katniss to her right after she'd won her games. Seeder had been warm and motherly, tucking Katniss's hair behind her ear and asking her how she was holding up at every function in the Capitol. She'd fill up her plate and cluck her tongue, chiding Katniss that she was getting too thin and needed to eat more.

But Katniss felt no grief as she looked at Seeder's body. She'd see her soon anyway.

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Cato did not go right for the Cornucopia. He was a fast swimmer. He'd get there in half the time it took most of the others.

The first thing he did was swim over to the tribute to his right, Woof from 8, and, with a quick look in the old man's eyes that said Rest In Peace, he snapped his neck and dropped him back into the water.

When he reached the Cornucopia, he called out Gloss's name. Gloss picked up the sword that lay near him and tossed it, hilt first, to Cato, who pivoted back around to see Iola from 9 hoisting herself up onto the rocks.

She didn't make it far, because Cato jabbed her in the shoulder with the tip of the sword and kicked her in the face. She fell right back into the water. He jumped down in with her and slashed her thigh, and then he held her head underwater as crimson tendrils escaped from her body and began to curl around his.

She struggled and thrashed her arms, but he scruffed her like a kitten and held her down until she went limp.

Then he turned and swam to the shore to join Enobaria and to wait for the Careers from 1.

His work was done for today.

He counted in his head as the cannon blasted eight times a few minutes later.

Ephraim from 5

Roach from 6

Cecilia from 8

Dighton from 9

Iola from 9

Rhiannon from 10

Seeder from 11

And Woof.

He bowed his head as his throat closed up.

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Day 2 was uneventful for Katniss and company. Nothing eventful was set to happen for them until after dark.

But the cannon went off several times during the day.

She was standing on the beach with Mags when the tidal wave engulfed the section almost directly across from them. There goes Loa she thought as the cannon sounded for the woman from 5.

Wiress from 3 was next.

Then, a couple of hours later, it boomed for Jesse from 10.

And then for Blight from 7.

When it went off twice in the space of a few minutes, she knew that it signaled the deaths of Gloss and Cashmere, and she wondered if 1 had gone up yet.

Right around sunset, the cannon sounded for Taryn from 6, and Katniss glanced discreetly at Mags.

It would be showtime for her in just a couple of hours.

They settled down to eat some fish and drink from the water they had collected in some coconut shells using the spile, and when it was time to sleep, Katniss volunteered to take the first watch.

But she "dozed off," and she didn't lift her head again until she heard Plutarch's voice in her ear, telling her to look lively. She woke the others just in time, and Finnick tossed Mags onto his back and they ran as fast as they could from the strange fog.

Haymitch and Finnick took turns carrying Mags, but eventually they grew too "tired," and the old woman, not wanting to slow them down, took Finnick's face in her hands, kissed him heartily on the lips, and wandered into the mist before anyone could stop her.

Finnick cried out and dropped to his knees, and for a second there, it looked like he was thinking about following his mentor, but Katniss and Haymitch pulled him to his feet and dragged him off, and he recovered his senses just in time.

Later, after they had escaped the fog, Finnick sat with his head in his hands and rocked back and forth as tears streamed down his face.

Katniss watched him sympathetically. You'll see her soon she wanted to whisper, but she couldn't. So she put her arm around his shoulders instead.

She felt pity for Mags's suffering, but she felt no grief for the old woman. After all, she, like Finnick, would see her soon.

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Cato had one item on his agenda for Day 2, but it was a big one.

He waited until the afternoon, when it was hot and muggy and the four Careers sought shelter among the foliage, just beside a small freshwater pool they had "stumbled" across. Cashmere and Gloss settled down for a "nap," and Enobaria went off to "hunt."

The pact between 1 and 2 was all but sacred. Every year, their four tributes teamed up, and they did not break their alliance until it was down to just them, whether there were 2, 3 or all 4 left. At that point, whichever of them remained gave each other a day's head start, and then they began to hunt one another.

To do otherwise, Cato had learned at the Academy, was unthinkable. It was profane, it was a sin. It was a betrayal of the worst kind.

But Cato and Gloss, it was well known, did not like one another. They were both young, virile, good looking. Rivals for the attention of the ladies. It had not been apparent at first, but in the three months or so leading up to the quell, they'd made derisive comments both about and to each other, and things had, on more than one occasion, gotten heated between them, until they appeared to be engaging in one long, giant pissing contest.

One clever businesswoman had even designed t shirts for the teenage girls of the Capitol to buy so they could proclaim their preferences on their chests. Team Cato was splashed across the front of the black shirt in silver glitter, and if you were Team Gloss you wore a gray shirt with black glitter.

When the announcement regarding the twist had been made, the two victors had calmed down and civilly agreed to the usual alliance.

But when Cato heard Plutarch's voice in his ear, telling him it was showtime, he was done with civility.

He picked up the hefty rock that lay next to his feet, and he fixed his eyes on Gloss's "sleeping" form. He waited until the big toe of his right foot twitched, the signal that said Come at me bro, I'm ready, and then he crept stealthily towards his body.

He had smashed both of his kneecaps before Cashmere "woke up" and, screaming like a banshee and clawing like a cat, jumped onto his back. He tossed her off of him, just as Gloss managed to grab him around the neck, but Cato grasped his wrist with one hand, and using the rock in his other he broke Gloss's arm.

Then he stood and hurled the rock into the trees, and he turned to face Cashmere. She "struggled" and "fought" admirably, but Cato eventually got her pinned down, and he wrapped his hands around her neck and began to squeeze.

"No!" Gloss cried out. "No!" He had rolled over onto his stomach, and using his one good arm, he was crawling toward them, but he was powerless to help his sister and he knew it.

Cato threw back his head and laughed sadistically.

"Do you know why I prefer to use my hands instead of my sword?" he asked Gloss. "Because it's so much more personal, so much more gratifying. You can feel the life draining out of them. A sword feels good in my hands, sure, but this-" he jerked on Cashmere's neck lightly-"this is power. This gets me high."

Gloss was screaming frantically by now, dragging himself through the sand as he watched Cato strangle his sister, but by the time he reached them it was too late; Cashmere had gone limp and the cannon had sounded.

Cato roared triumphantly and stood before kicking Gloss in the face. Then he dragged him into the pool and drowned him.

"Good job," he heard in his ear. "1 has officially gone up."

"And Team Cato for the win," he said, a nasty sneer on his face.

"Oh jesus, Cato. Really?" Enobaria said as she emerged from the trees. "I swear, sometimes you're such a fucking douchebag."

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The cannon woke her at sunrise on the morning of Day 3. There went Johanna she thought.

By mid-morning, the humidity was oppressive, and storm clouds had started to gather at the top of the dome.

Katniss pictured Chaff, lying on his back somewhere on the other side of the arena, staring up at the clouds longingly, praying for them to break open and end his suffering. The thought almost brought her to tears, but then the jabberjays started up.

Maysilee screamed for Haymitch, and so did his mother and his brother.

It was Annie Cresta's voice, along with his mother's and father's, that tormented Finnick.

When Prim and Peeta began to cry out for Katniss, she almost lost her sanity. She dropped to her knees, hands over her ears, and buried her face in the grass, screaming and rocking back and forth. The only thing that kept her from going over the edge was the soothing voice in her ear, reassuring her that Prim was just fine and that Peeta was in a better place now.

When it ended an hour later, the three of them sat up, dazed and with red eyes.

Katniss threw her arms around her mentor, who was shaking. He drew back after a few seconds, and gently kissed her forehead, which was raw and bloody from being rubbed back and forth across the grass for an hour.

"I'm sorry," Plutarch said to them. "But it wasn't for nothing. 4 and 12 have gone up. They're on the hovercraft now. The Everdeens and the Hawthornes. And they grabbed the Mellarks as well. They had to tranq your friend Gale, by the way. They got Annie out of 4 too, Finnick."

And Katniss realized, for the first time, why she had been placed with Finnick for the quell. It was because they were the two with the most to lose.

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Enobaria found them a couple of hours later, when the clouds still hung, pregnant with rain, heavy in the top of the dome.

Katniss shot her in the thigh, but not before she'd managed to bite into Finnick's throat and drag him into the water to bleed out. Then she yanked the arrow out of her leg and hobbled off as the cannon sounded.

Katniss screamed and ran out into the water to drag Finnick's body onto the sand, but Haymitch caught her around the waist. "It's no use," he said, holding her to him.

She calmed down and turned to look up at her mentor. Besides his eyes said, you'll see him soon anyway.

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"What the hell happened?" Cato asked when Enobaria came limping up to him.

"Fucking Firegirl got me in the leg with an arrow," she said, her eyes blazing. "It hurts like a motherfucker. See if you can get me some fresh water to clean it."

But Cato just narrowed his eyes at her. "Now why should I do that? You're pretty much dead weight to me now." He stood slowly and reached for his sword.

"You wouldn't."

"We are down to the final six. And you're easy prey. Really I'm just doing you a favor." He raised the sword.

"Bastard," she hissed. "And I thought you preferred to use your hands."

"So I do. Thanks for the reminder."

He dropped the sword and cracked his knuckles, and two minutes later the cannon sounded for the female from 2.

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Sometime around late afternoon the cannon sounded for Chaff.

Before the hovercraft had even collected his body, the clouds opened and it began to pour.

It was fucking sick. The irony of it.

But what would have saved Chaff proved to be the end for Beetee, who was struck by lightning a few minutes later.

"Well sweetheart, it's just us and Cato. I think we should split up. I don't want it to come down to you and me. I'll see if I can maim him somehow. Make it so you stand a chance against him."

It was part of the plan, but Katniss found herself starting to panic, and she did not have to act as she cried and threw her arms around her mentor.

"Love ya sweetheart," he whispered as he kissed the top of her head.

They looked into each other's eyes one last time. I'll see you soon they said.

And then he wandered off into the trees.

A little over an hour later the cannon sounded, and Katniss put her head between her knees and sobbed.

And then, instead of abating, the storm somehow strengthened, and the wind picked up, and a sudden gust took hold of the light aluminum bow at her feet and blew it into the water, where it was caught up by angry, churning waves and thrust beneath the surface.

"No!" she cried and sprinted in after it, scrambling furiously, stirring up the sand and muck beneath her feet as she searched for it.

And then she saw him.

He stood at the treeline, at her one o'clock, and he was laughing at her.

She slowly edged in a diagonal path toward her 11 o'clock, so she could make it to shore and sprint off in the opposite direction of him.

But he was looking at her as a predator looks at its prey, and for every step she took, he took 2.

She picked up her speed, and so did he, and by the time she was at the shore, he was only fifteen feet from her.

Their eyes met, and the look in his had changed. It was no longer laughing or predatory. Instead it held a question. Neither of them moved. Katniss stared at him, her chest heaving as she tried to figure out what he was asking.

And then she realized.

He was asking if she was still ok with this. He was waiting for a signal from her. He was telling her he'd back off and abandon the plan if she so much as shook her head at him.

And part of her wanted to. But there were too many Rues and too many Prims. So she inclined her head, the slightest bit and narrowed her eyes. Come on she said. Let's get this over with.

It felt like slow motion. They'd practiced the beginning of it dozens of times, but still, she felt a surge of panic and the fear with which she fled from him was genuine. She could hear the sound of each and every one of his footsteps as he gained on her.

And then his hands were around her waist and she was hurled to the ground. The force of it bruised her shoulder and her hip and sent her head bouncing off the beach. She rolled over onto her stomach and she dug her fingers into the wet sand, just like she was supposed to, and started to push herself up.

But he had dropped to his knees behind her and he grabbed her ankles and yanked her body backwards toward his. And then he ripped her swimsuit bottoms down her thighs, and as she tried to escape, they restricted her movement and slowed her down just enough for him to pin her calves down with his knees.

And there she was, on all fours, live to the nation, naked from the waist down.

He snatched her right wrist and twisted it painfully behind her back and with his left hand, he shoved her head into the sand.

And then, with one violent thrust, he was inside of her.

He threw his head back and crowed like a caveman up into the sky.

It felt like she was being ripped in half down the middle and she cried out. The force of him slamming into her over and over again caused tears to spring up in her eyes and mingle with the rain on her cheeks.

She didn't even have to pretend, it hurt so bad. She squirmed, trying to scramble forward and away from him, but it was a pointless endeavor. He had her pinned, completely under his control, and he was far too strong for her. Even when she put everything she had into trying to get away, she managed to move only centimeters.

After a minute or so, she just gave up and, remembering what Finnick had said during training, she turned her head to the side and tried to fix her gaze on one of her handprints in the sand, so she could trace the shape of it over and over with her eyes as Cato dug his fingers into her hips hard enough to leave bruises.

She felt like a rag doll. He pushed her forward when he pulled out and he pulled her back when he slammed in.

Back, forth, back, forth went her hips.

Back, forth, back, forth went the side of her face in the sand.

It felt like forever, but it lasted only a few minutes, and then he cried out like an animal and slumped over her body, his forehead between her shoulder blades.

She twisted her face into the sand so he wouldn't see it and sobbed.

And then she heard Plutarch's voice in her ear. "Oh my god it worked! It worked. Oh my god. We've cut the cameras. Snow ordered us to. They've all gone up except for 2. The hovercraft's almost there to pick you up. That was beautiful you two. You were amazing."

He moved off of her and she fell forward and went limp, her right arm still behind her back, as she processed Plutarch's words.

It had worked.

The choreographed rape of Katniss Everdeen by Cato Hadley had spurred the remaining districts into full-fledged riots.

When her breathing returned to normal, she pulled her bottoms back up and pushed herself to a sitting position, brushing her matted hair out of her eyes and wiping the sand and the tears from her face. She tucked her chin to her collarbone and turned her head to peek over her shoulder at Cato, wondering how he was reacting to the success of their plan.

But he didn't appear to be thinking about what he'd just heard. Instead, he was looking down at the blood on himself. He lifted his eyes to Katniss's face and looked at her first in confusion, and then in shock.

"Are you a virgin?"

"I was. Until a few minutes ago."

She was not at all prepared for what happened next.

His face took on a look of pure, simple rage, and before she could register what was happening, she was on her back and he was hovering over her, his hands on her wrists, pinning them to the ground above her head.

"WHY DIDN'T YOU TELL ME?!" he screamed into her face. He took her by the straps at her shoulders and shook her so hard her teeth rattled against one another, and then he released her abruptly, and her head thudded onto the wet sand. His fist slammed down beside her face over and over and over again. "WHY?! WHY?! WHY?! WHY?!"

He looked raw and feral and somehow Katniss thought she'd never seen anyone so perfectly human and inhuman at the same time.

And then all of a sudden he went unconscious and collapsed, limp, on top her.

"Katniss are you ok?" It was Plutarch, in her ear again. "Don't worry, we released his tranqs. He should be out for at least five minutes or so."

She didn't say anything.

"Katniss? Did you hear me? Are you ok?"

"Define ok," she whispered.