A/N: Hey guys. Just wanted to let y'all know that I posted the first chapter of my second fanfic. It's called Convenience. Check it out!

So I just realized that this kinda doesn't make sense considering Delly and Thom are not at reaping age but I'm not going to make a big deal out of it. Hopefully it doesn't bother you all. Maybe some of you didn't even notice but if you did I apologize.

Some of the actions that the characters go through in this chapter are pretty much the same as what happened in the book and movies but under different circumstances. So the ideas go to Suzanne Collins.

Disclaimer: I do NOT own The Hunger Games!

Chapter 17

So it turns out that Delly and Thom were together. And I don't mean just allies going into the Hunger Games together. I mean Delly pregnant with Thom's child together. That made matters even worse. It would be even more difficult to rescue, what we now realized, all three of them.

Of course Gale wasn't the least bit happy about the new arrangement. Sometimes I got the feeling that he still loved Delly but then other times I would just brush it off. It shouldn't bother me anyway. What did bother me was catching Paige and Gale in his bed two days after the announcement of Delly's pregnancy at the interviews. It was just me that saw them. I don't even know if they know that I saw them.

But I did.

And the excruciating internal pain that followed was almost unbearable. All I saw was his bare back but I knew who was underneath him. Who else could it be? A million little pins of terrible pain stabbed my heart as I closed the door to my compartment. Our compartment. The compartment that we shared with both of our families. He had to have known that one of us was bound to walk in on him. Why did it have to be me? But I would have died if it were anyone else.

It was early the next day when the alarms went off. At first my brain couldn't comprehend the sound but soon figured out that it was the evacuation alarm. The alarm that is supposed to tell us to proceed even further underground immediately. I jumped as I heard my name, "Katniss!" That's Prim.

"Katniss, get up honey, we have to go," my mother yells.

"Katniss, sweetheart, please get up!" Hazelle.

My eyes jerk open and I quickly rise from my bed. I glance around and see that everyone is ready to walk out the door. I grab Prim's hand and follow Gale out the door who is leading the way.

We quickly run through the center of the compartments and through the doors that lead to the metal stairs that will take us to the even darker hollows of District Thirteen. We begin descending the stairs but soon find it difficult to stay together for there are hundreds of people on them. Prim and I soon find ourselves separated from our family and it isn't long before Prim and I too are separated.

And that's when my real panic begins. "Prim!" I yell as soon as her hand is retched from mine. But it's too late. She's out of my sight and I can only hope that she will get through the doors before they close.

My panic has caused me to lose focus of the task at hand. I feel hands shove me roughly in the back and before I know it my head is plowing into the metal of the stairs.

And everything goes black.

"Katniss?" a blurred face appears in front of me.

"Katniss, can you hear me?" the voice is even more muffled as I try to make out the words that are being said.

"Come on, Katniss."

Prim?

"Katniss!" my mother's exclamation finally jolts me from my unconsciousness.

"Prim?" I ask.

"Oh, thank goodness, Katniss. You scared me to death," she replies as she jumps from her chair beside my bed. She wraps her arms around my neck and that's when the pain shoots up my spine. I hiss.

"Oh my, gosh. Sorry! I forgot," she says.

"What happened?" I ask hoarsely.

"We're guessing you fell on the stairs on your way down to The Underground," my mother says. "When everyone was there and you weren't, Gale started freaking out. He went back up the stairs and found you all by yourself, unconscious."

"He was so scared," Prim adds. "We all were."

"So why did the alarms go off?" I ask.

"It was just a drill," Prim answers. "President Coin found it necessary considering people are on their way now to start a war. She figured we should know what to do in case of a bomb threat."

"Yeah, I guess she's right," I say. "So what happened to me? What's wrong with me?"

"Well, you have some light bruising on your back from where you fell on the stairs. And a small concussion I'm guessing, since the size of the bruise on your head, where you hit your head on the railing when you went down," my mother informs.

A thought then occurs to me. "I was pushed," I whisper.

"What?" my mother asks.

"I distinctly remember hands on my back before I fell," I say. "Someone pushed me."

My mother and Prim exchange a glance. "That's what we were afraid of," Prim whispers.

"What do you mean?" I ask.

"The bruising on your back?" my mother asks. I nod for her to continue. "They are hand prints."

That only meant one thing. Someone in District Thirteen was out to get me.

It was hours later when something that Prim had said earlier finally registered in my head. Hazelle was sitting with me. She was telling me something crazy that Posy had done when I interrupt her, "Where's Gale?" I ask.

Her smile instantly fades. "Umm," she stutters. She has a concerned look on his face. "Your mother didn't tell you?"

"Tell me what?" I ask.

Suddenly Prim bursts into the room.

"Hey, Katniss!" she exclaims. "How are you feeling?"

"Earlier-" I begin. Then pause and take a deep breath. "Earlier when you said that some people were on their way to start a war? Who? Who is on there way to start a war?"

Prim's face pales. "Uh, um," she stumbles.

"He went, didn't he?" I ask.

"It was volunteer only," Hazelle says. "Gale felt that he had to go. He said that they were his best friends; that he owed it to them to save them."

"That doesn't make any sense. What would he owe them?" I'm yelling now.

"I don't know, honey," Hazelle replies. "John went too."

"Oh my, god," I whisper.

I should have told him.

I love you, Gale.

I was in command the next day with my father, Coin, Paige, Beetee, and, surprisingly, Finnick Odair, and Johanna Mason. I hadn't seen them since the day I first arrived in District Thirteen. Apparently Annie, Finnick's fiance, was in the hospital because of complications with their first child.

The volunteers were just about to arrive at the opening of the arena. We still had clear communication with them but Beetee thought that as soon as they were inside the arena we would lose signal with them. But he was not one hundred percent sure.

That would be the worst part, I think. If we lose signal when they enter the arena, we will not know if they are in trouble. They said that they could attempt it in less than fifteen minutes while Beetee distracted the Capitol with Propaganda nonsense that we have been recording for the past few weeks. If they weren't out of there in fifteen minutes or less, they were most likely dead.

"Alright, we see the arena," Commander Boggs says over the speaker.

"Great is everyone geared up and ready?" Plutarch asks.

"Yes," Boggs replies.

Plutarch stays silent as Boggs goes over his commands.

"Alright, everyone! Beetee has helped us greatly by breaking into the Capitol's system once again," Boggs begins.

Beetee starts tapping on some buttons on the desk that is in front of him.

"Beetee?" Boggs asks.

"Just a minute-" he continues tapping.

"Ah! Okay, you're ready to go, Commander Boggs," he answers.

"If you all will look on your communicuffs you will see a map. This map has dots on it that locate each tribute's whereabouts in the arena. Since the beginning of the games, already twelve people have died. That leaves twelve others to rescue. Now there are six of us going into that arena so I think you all can do the basic mathematics. Two tributes for each of us. Lock in on your communicuff which tributes you will be rescuing as I point them out to you."

I guess Boggs shows each person their tributes because he is silent for about a minute before we hear him speak again.

"You have fifteen minutes to get to your tributes, convince them to come with you or drag them with you or, as your last resort, knock them out, and get back to the hovercraft. If you are not back by then you will be left. The hovercraft will be hovering over the cornucopia."

"I see the entrance to the arena!" the pilot exclaims.

"Soldiers! Take you positions!" Boggs yells.

"Three, two, one," Beetee counts. "Okay, we're clear! Lower them into the arena. You have fifteen minutes. If you can make it less that'd be great."

"We're going down," Boggs says.

And, as we thought, the line goes dead.