Author: Random note to Tobias Odiar. If the last part of your pseudonym was spelled differently, as in "Odair", it would be like my favorite THG canon character. To all readers, yes, I am a Finnick fangirl. I am very much aware that we are a minority among THG fans. But I don't think people should omit Finnick from possible lionizing just because he didn't go after Katniss. Sadly, he died, which sucks. I hope that that is one of the things the movies change. So, back to Tobias Odiar; I like seeing your name on my reviews because it reminds me of Finnick. So : )

The next morning, Seamus and Millie awake surprised to find Coal in our former party of three. "Hey guys," Coal nods at them without smiling. "I was wondering how long you were going to sleep."

I give Coal a sideways glance. He's starting to make me nervous. Last night, he stayed up with me. I told him to go to sleep, but he didn't. He was awake all night, just like me. This morning, I can't help but wonder why he didn't want to sleep. Humans need it, after all. And just like that, I find myself doubting Coal. That's when it hits me: I can't truly trust any of them. After all, this is the Hunger Games. We're all trying to kill each other. So who can we really trust? Not a soul.

This is when I notice that Coal and Seamus are arguing. "What do you mean, we should sleep again? We just woke up. It's morning. It's time to get moving. We can't stay in the same place. Might as well weave ourselves in a loom or something if that's your plan!" Seamus yells much too loudly for my liking.

Coal crosses his arms and raises an eyebrow before speaking calmly. "No. I say we stay here until nightfall, then leave at night and make our way through the forest. Everyone else will be asleep, so it will be less dangerous to move around."

"…Unless we accidentally stumble into the Careers' camp! No way, Coal! If we want to make a stitch, we've got to move the needle," Seamus impugns with some kind of District Eight proverb that no else understands. Meanwhile, Millie folds up the sleeping bag and returns it to the green backpack.

"Trust me," Coal says slowly, as though he were talking to someone unintelligent, "it will be much worse to encounter the Careers during the day, while they're awake."

"Not true," I counter. Coal and Seamus both look at me, and so I explain my insert. "If we encounter the Careers at night, they will most likely have left Neptune or Loyla on guard because wolf-mutts don't require as much sleep. - Wolf-mutts, thanks to our more delicate senses, are also less likely to become lost than humans. - So, with either Loyla or Neptune on guard at night, they would easily chase us down if we so happened to encroach upon their camp. Then that solitary guard would return to their post with four more tributes out of the running – five if we end up finding Barley.

"But during the day, they have to wait for their allies to catch up with them. D.C. and Dream aren't fast enough to keep up. And I'm betting that it's safe to assume that not even Sapphire could keep up in this forest, with the trees and uneven ground. True, there will be more opponents to fight if it comes to that. But they'd have to catch us first."

Seamus grins and nods. Coal just gives me a blank stare. I speak again. "Coal, your night movement plan would be a good strategy if this arena held only humans. But there are wolf-mutts here." I smirk. "We tend to change the equation. After all, that's the reason we were made."

After a moment, Coal nods once, solemnly. "Alright, then lead the way."

I pause for a moment as I remember something that Neptune had said during training. "There's only room for one alpha male in my pack." At the time, I'd thought it was ludicrous. Me? An alpha? A leader? Not a chance. But now I realize that I really can be, and why Neptune thinks I'm a threat.

I look at Coal and smile. "Okay." I pick up my spear and stab at the ashy remains of our fire, trying to scatter the rocks and other evidence of our presence. As I do this, I delegate tasks. "Coal is carrying the pick axe, as he actually knows how to use it. Seamus, you carry the green backpack. And Millie, keep that knife I gave you last night. It's your weapon now. I'll take the purple backpack." I finish scattering the fire pit and walk over to slide the smaller bag onto my shoulder. "Coal, you also get the rope. Millie carries the tarp. And each of you gets one canteen."

Seamus sulks. "Why don't I get a weapon?"

I glance up at him briefly before explaining, "Seamus, in your hands, that heavy backpack is a weapon."

Seamus raises his eyebrows and lifts the entire large backpack with one arm, looking at it with an expression of newfound respect. I hear Coal chuckle under his breath and Millie exhale in frustration. "Okay pack," I say before I can catch my error of using wolf words, "move out. We'll make a stop by the spring to refill our canteens."

With those words, I start off down the steepest slope. Seamus is the first to follow me. Coal follows after him, and Millie brings up the rear. I lead them in the direction of the spring, morphing to listen carefully. It's then that I freeze. I hear the spring, but I hear something else: voices.

"D.C., are you sure that you saw him come this way?" The voice belongs to Neptune.

"Yes, I'm sure. I followed him with my eyes until he made it into the trees. He was too far off for me to try throwing for him by then. But he came this way."

"What if you're lying?" This voice is Sapphire's.

D.C. sounds insulted when he speaks again. "Why would I lie? That guy is the biggest threat we have in this arena. I want him dead as much as any of you. And more than that, I want my knife back."

I shake my head in dismay. "Bad news, guys. We're not going to the spring after all."

Seamus scoffs. "What? But Wolfgang, we're almost out of water!"

I whirl on him. "Shhh!" I hiss. But it's too late.

"I hear something!" Loyla whispers. "That way."

I know that they're probably a mile off, but a mile can be covered quickly. "Ah, carburetor!" I mumble under my breath. I turn away from the direction of the Careers and begin to run. "Let's move guys!" I shout. "They've found us."

"Pritchard!" Coal exclaims as he starts to run. "I told you guys we shouldn't have broken camp." Seamus and Millie start running too.

"Did Coal just use the name of his nemesis as a swear word? I'm going to have to try that some time…" I run slowly so the others can keep up.

The voices of the Careers are growing fainter. "Clam! They know we're after them." Loyla curses.

"That basshole!" Neptune yells.

"He's not getting away! I'm getting my knife back," D.C. growls.

Sapphire remarks, "There are more important things than your stupid knife, D.C. You have eleven of them. What's one more?"

"I want my entire set of twelve!" D. C. barks back.

I hear the Careers' rapid footfalls. Then, they suddenly stop. "Oh, come on! Are you serious?" D.C. asks irritably.

Dream mumbles, "It was Neptune's idea to bring him along."

Neptune scoffs. "Would you rather carry your own supplies? He's good for that. And it's not like he's a threat. He doesn't even know what's going on."

Dream moans painfully. Is she hurt or something? "Come on, Reggie. And hurry it up, will you? You're already on my bad side for tripping over my head this morning."

Sapphire laughs, "Truly a rude awakening, yes?" Dream just moans again.

"They recruited that half-wit from District Ten to carry their stuff? So that's why he survived the bloodbath." We're still running. The Careers are losing ground. I smile. But I smile too soon.

"They're getting away!" D.C. whines.

"I'll go after them," Loyla snarls. And then I hear footfalls much faster than a human; even faster than a wolf-mutt in their human form. And then I know: Loyla has morphed.

"Crap!" I holler. "Pick up the pace, everyone. Loyla's after us in morph!"

"In what?" Seamus asks, panting.

"You remember how she walked onto the stage the night of the interview?" I toss over my shoulder.

"Oh thimble!" Seamus shouts. His footfalls come faster than before.

We keep running. The trees become fewer and fewer until there are none. And then suddenly, I realize that there is no ground ahead of us. "Stop!" I scream, while skidding to a halt myself. A sheer cliff drops off right in front of us. Seamus slips and falls on his butt at my words. Millie immediately drops to her stomach to squelch her momentum. And Coal tries to stop his forward movement by shifting his feet sideways. But it doesn't work. He's skidding and slipping. And then, he falls over the cliff. "Coal!" I shout.

I carefully crawl over to the cliff and peer over the edge. What I see relieves me. Coal dangles from the cliff by the handle of his pick axe, the blade of which he has dug into the rock. "Help," he grunts.

"Toss me the rope," I order.

He shrugs his left shoulder, causing the rope to fall off of it and into his hand. He tosses the rope up to me, and thankfully he isn't too far down for me to catch it. I'm glad that he's using his dominant arm to hang on. He's going to need the strength.

I catch the rope and tie it around my waist before tossing the length down. "Coal, grab on and tell me when to pull."

Seamus is panicking behind me. "Wolfgang, what about Loyla?"

"We're out of ground, Seamus," I yell back. "What do you want to do? Jump?"

Seamus shuts up and I hear Coal grunt, "Now." I turn around and begin to run toward the trees as quickly as I can until I hear Coal sputter, "Okaaay. I'm not on the cliff anymore." I turn back around to see Coal and his pick axe safely on the ground.

"Whoa," Seamus says openly. "I thought that was going to take all three of us."

"I'm not human," I grunt, untying the rope.

As if that were her cue, Loyla comes bursting through the trees, a fully morphed blonde purebred. Millie screams. I've never seen a blonde wolf-mutt before. As a matter of fact, I've never seen a purebred wolf-mutt other than Dad and Uncle Abel. I stare for a moment before remembering that she's here to kill us. And although I hate admitting this about my enemy, she is beautiful.

I'm surprised when she morphs back into her human form instead of tearing us to shreds. She stares me down. "The offer still stands, Wolfgang," she says coldly.

"Offer?" Seamus asks. "What offer?"

Before she can answer him, I growl, "No thanks." It's definitely more tempting this time, with her being ready to kill us and all. But now both my human and wolf sides are in agreement. My human conscience says that I'm doing what's right by standing with my friends, and my wolf says that I must be loyal to my allies.

But it seems that Loyla's wolf-half has no such qualms, because she tosses her head to the side and says, "Then all of you, get the heck out of here. I'll throw them off the trail. Just leave."

I frown, unable to comprehend her actions. "Why are you doing this?" I ask.

She smirks. "I know that you'll change your mind someday. After all, you're one of us. You're not stupid." With those words, she morphs and disappears back into the trees.

I growl a guttural, feral noise in my throat. Coal picks up the rope and begins to loop it around his arm. Millie sits and stares at the trees where Loyla had vanished. Seamus frowns and looks up at me. "She said that the offer still stands. What was she talking about, Wolfgang?"

I look at him. I can't believe that he's so naïve at his age. His blue-green eyes sparkle with some sort of hopeful optimism that makes me feel guilty even though I didn't do anything. I shift my gaze to Millie, who regards me with an entirely different countenance: one of fear. I glance at Coal, and he glares at me darkly while winding up the rope. "What offer, Wolfgang?" Seamus repeats.

I scuff my foot in the dirt and look back at Seamus. "Loyla, Dream and Sapphire want me to join the Careers."

"What?" Millie asks, wide-eyed.

I hold up my hand to signal her to wait so that I can finish. "They don't like Neptune. And I can guess that D. C. is probably annoying too. And so, they want me to team up with them. They'd kill off Neptune and D.C. if I joined them."

"And you didn't do this because…" Coal trails off.

I look at him and shrug. "… Because I have to kill you guys if I want to join them, and that's not fair. I teamed up with you first. I'm the one who started this alliance. I'm not going to abandon it to hang out with a bunch of snobs."

"And – other than the fact that they're snobs – why not?" Coal asks with a glint of humor in his black eyes.

I smile. "I'm a wolf-mutt. We were bred for our loyalty. And I know where mine lies. That's why."

Coal looks at me with something that resembles respect. Millie stares at me with open-mouthed admiration. And Seamus just smiles at me and says, "Yeah, I knew you were one of us. You aren't going to betray us for them."

Millie speaks up. "We should get moving."

I nod in her direction. "Alright pack. Let's move out."