Author's Note: Hey Guys! I wanted to thank you for all the lovely reviews. You guys are wonderful! :D I've got another chapter here for you now, I hope you enjoy! :)

Disclaimer: I don't own The Hunger Games trilogy.

Hiraeth

Chapter 10

"Katniss!" Someone was shaking me.

I felt myself slipping out of a state of distant, dark dreams that blurred and faded away and I found myself in a place where the uncomfortable was much more real.

My throat burned, like the fires of hell itself had been clawing at it. I was thirsty. So thirsty.

"Katniss, get up now!" The voice was frantic.

I grabbed at my throat and blinked steadily. As the blurriness of sleep faded away I saw Seeder standing before me, eyes glossed over with fear. Fear. I stood up quickly.

At first my surroundings seemed normal, as normal as they could be in the Hunger Games. There were lots of trees, so thick that the sunlight was barely able to seep through the seemingly endless layers of leaves and branches.

I drew my bow, listening, watching, I didn't know what the danger was and I wasn't letting anything get past me.

Seeder shook her head at me.

It was then that I noticed a large flower up in one of the trees. It was shaking violently. I watched, mesmerized, as it seemed to shake itself free of the tree and it floated softly down to the ground.

"Katniss, look out!" Seeder screamed, grabbing hold of my hand and pulling me out of the way just in time.

When the flower settled itself on the ground, it exploded silently, charring everything within five or six feet of it.

"What is that?" I asked, shaking.

"I don't know, but it's not good." I looked up and noticed that the trees were full of the flowers. I stared, jaw hanging open,

I had been sure there hadn't been any flowers around the night before. The flowers were white and looked disturbingly like oversized white roses.

"Let's go." I said, I didn't hear any complaints from Seeder as we raced through the jungle, narrowly missing the bombs.

We lept over a fallen tree and ran down a steep hill. Debris was flying everywhere as bombs went off all around.

Seeder screamed and fell over backwards as a bomb went off a little too close to her.

"Seeder! Are you alright?" I helped her up and she nodded, shaking.

"It didn't even really get me." She said, but I noticed her jumpsuit seemed rather singed.

We kept running. There never seemed to be an end, it wouldn't stop.

This is going to be it.

I thought, dodging another few bombs and running endlessly. I couldn't see how we could get out of it all alive. One of those times a bomb would fall just a little too close…

But then it abruptly stopped, mostly. Bombs were still going off, but they were going off a few feet away from us, never quite reaching us. It was as if there was some sort of invisible barrier holding them in.

Seeder sat down, gasping for breath. I looked around, surveying our surroundings.

"Come on, Seeder, it's not safe here." I said, unable to shake the feeling of danger. The woman nodded.

"Okay, let's go." We walked around a few trees thick with leaves and branches and found ourselves in a small clearing. In the middle of a clearing sat a man. At first, I didn't recognize him, but with a pang, I realized it was my former mentor.

"Hello, Sweetheart, nice to see you again." He said casually, with a flip of his twig-filled, tangled, blond hair. He didn't seem surprised to see us at all.

"Haymitch?" I said, feeling more than a little bemused. But I didn't spend much time dwelling on it because behind him something else had caught my attention.

"Water!" I said, Seeder's head shot up at the sound and we both rushed over thirstily.

It was coming out of the tree from a… branch? No. Upon closer examination it appeared to be a crudely carved spile made from a tree branch and the water was flowing through it.

"The water was in the trees, all this time!" Seeder said with a laugh. I didn't hesitate before crouching down and opening my mouth under the steady stream of water. It was fresh, cold, and stung against my raw throat. But I didn't mind. I gulped until I'd had my fill and Seeder did the same.

I looked up at Haymitch with a grateful smile. He was scraping his dagger against a thick tree branch he had lying over his legs, quickly removing the rough bark.

He didn't show it, but I knew he was happy to see me as well.

Since I was no longer thirsty, my mind was drawn to my steadily growling stomach.

I grabbed my bow and quiver of arrows and stood back up.

"I'm going to go get some food, I won't be far." I announced.

"I'll come with you!" Seeder said, standing up quickly. Haymitch shook his head.

"No, I will." His tone was final. Seeder nodded and stepped back. I looked between them, feeling even more confused. What was going on?

Haymitch set down the branch he was working on and then he walked over to me (his limp barely noticeable anymore) and he put his hand on my back.

"Well, lead the way, Sweetheart." We set off in search of dinner, maybe a nice squirrel or, if we were lucky, a rabbit.

The silence was thick between us.

I wanted to ask him why he went off without me. Why he gave that nut to Seeder, what it meant. What his plan was. Why he'd been acting so odd and unpredictable ever since the reaping. But he stubbornly avoided all of those topics, which were so obviously brimming on the tip of my tongue.

"You find anything interesting?" Haymitch suddenly asked, his tone made it clear that he was talking about the message on the nut, even if he didn't say anything about it.

"No, not particularly. You?" My words were clipped, short. I found myself annoyed at all the vagueness even though I had known that we couldn't speak openly.

"I thought you'd have found something by now, with you being so good at hunting." It was clear he wasn't talking about hunting, not in the way the viewers would think he was.

"Well, maybe you should try it." I snapped.

"Katniss, this is serious!" He said, suddenly coming to a halt. Haymitch looked me deep in the eyes trying to convey the seriousness.

"If you don't find any game, then we're all going to starve." His voice was quiet and deadly. And suddenly I grasped what he was saying.

The nut and message were more important than I'd previously thought and the growing feeling of frantic hopelessness was even more intense than ever.

"Where would I start looking for game?" I asked quietly. Haymitch gave me a small smile, leant forward and pressed a kiss to my forehead.

"You'll find it." He whispered softly. Haymitch turned and began making his way through the trees again, I rolled my eyes and followed him.

I certainly didn't have the same faith in myself as he seemed to have in me.

Suddenly my eye caught a bit of movement off to the side. I turned, bow drawn, preparing for the worst.

It was a squirrel, a quite misshapen squirrel at that. The squirrel was sitting on a rock underneath a large tree at the back of a clearing.

The squirrel was acting very oddly, running around in circles, squeaking frantically, and… pointing? No, squirrels don't point. But in any case it drew my eyes up to the thick leaves of the tree it sat beneath.

An unnatural glimmer in the tree branches caught my attention. I stepped forward, carefully, silently as I had learned to do over the years.

And then I saw it. Dangling tantalizingly from one of the branches the tree there was a very circular ball. It was golden in color with small markings on it. It looked remarkably like… the nut!

I had a pretty strong feeling that was what I was supposed to find, or at least part of it. But it seemed much too easy. I looked around me, suspecting a trap.

When I found nothing, I continued walking forward. The squirrel kept running in circles and squealing. The closer I got, the more misshapen it seemed. The squirrel was terribly swollen in several different spots.

I walked past it and reached my trembling fingers up towards the golden ball to grab it.

"Not so fast, Everdeen." I froze. I turned slowly, wide-eyed, to see Brutus. He had Haymitch in a headlock and had two daggers pressed to his neck.

"Better step back or Abernathy won't last another minute." Haymitch was mouthing No at me, but the terror of realizing that Haymitch was about to get killed in front of me was too much.

I took a small step away.

"Good girl. Now drop your weapons." Alarm bells were ringing steadily in my mind, but Brutus pressed one of the daggers in slightly and I saw a small stream of crimson run down Haymitch's neck.

I tossed the bow and quiver, but kept the dagger tucked away, hidden in my belt. I didn't plan on letting Brutus get away alive.

The man laughed derisively. He let go of Haymitch for a moment before he slammed his fist into his skull, knocking my former mentor to the ground.

Haymitch clutched at his head and Brutus stepped over him.

Brutus's eyes were trained on me. I'd seen that look before. In nature, the way a predator locks it's gaze with it's victim, watches it as it prepares to pounce. The way I looked at deer before I shot them. The way President Snow looked at me.

He grabbed the bow I'd tossed in his direction and snapped it between his large, strong fingers and away my hope began to fall.

I couldn't out-muscle him and I had all I had was my dagger. Out of the corner of my eye there was a quick movement.

Brutus must've seen it too, for as Seeder jumped out from behind the tree with her spear in her hands, ready to kill, Brutus stepped out of the way, put both of his hands around her neck, and twisted.

It all happened so fast, I didn't have time to react. Seeder's lifeless body crashed down to the ground, the expression of shock and pain forever etched on her face. A cannon went off.

"No!" I screamed, but it was much too late. Brutus gave me a twisted smile as he then threw two daggers at me.

One dagger caught the sleeve of the jumpsuit on my right arm and the other caught the cloth on the ankle of my left leg. They pinned me to the tree and both daggers had caught my skin, causing small streams of scarlet to erupt on my clothes.

Brutus stepped back and grabbed a fistful of hair on top of Haymitch's head and held tightly.

Haymitch grunted, as if he were in pain and he looked out of it. A sickening twist of my gut came with the thought that maybe he was hit too hard. He didn't struggle, he didn't fight, I wanted to scream.

I struggled to get my arm and leg free to little avail. The cloth of my jumpsuit was strong and the knives were wedged deep into the tree.

"I'd kill him right now, if Enobaria wasn't so adamant on doing it herself." Brutus hissed. To my horror he actually looked as if he regretted being unable to kill him. Brutus shot me another twisted grin.

"Of course, she would much prefer to get you instead. If you want to have any shot at saving him, be at the Cornucopia at nightfall." And with that, he walked away, still holding tightly to Haymitch's hair.

Haymitch whimpered and stumbled along behind him clumsily. I could've sworn he was muttering obscenities under his breath.

"Haymitch!" I screamed. He had to fight! He could fight, I knew it. But for some reason he didn't. For some reason he followed Brutus like a little lost puppy.

The only thing the man fought for was to stay upright when he walked behind him and they faded out of sight.

I yanked my arm and my leg, struggling harder than I ever had before. I had to get out. I had to save him. But I couldn't.

I broke into loud, angry, wet tears.

I finally leant back against the tree I was pinned to, giving up. It just wouldn't come loose.

I was trapped, Haymitch had been kidnapped, and Seeder was dead, there was no hope. And in that moment, a dark figure stepped out from behind the nearby trees.

Author's Note: Dun, dun, dun! I know it got a bit angsty there, but you can't have the Games without some angst! Remember to review, let me know what you think! :)