Heya! Hope at least some of you are stil reading this. Merry christmas! Or Christmas Eve if your in Britain with me, another chapter will be up the day after boxing day so you won't have to wait as long, think of it as my own christmas treat :)

Not much action happens in this chapter as it's simply the aftermath and it's just a quick scene from both Clove and Cato's point of view, but they'll be more action in the next chapter I promise.

Hope you like it! Review :D

Chapter 8-The Aftermath of the Attack

Clove's POV

I wake up groggily in what appears to be the early afternoon and find Cato and Marvel; both already awake, talking a few metres away from me. As I sit up Marvel quickly nudges my district partner and nods toward me and even though he's been distant, I see the look of relief on his face.

"What… happened?"

"Tracker Jackers." Marvel replies a slight edge to his voice

"Is this all that's left of us?"

"Yes. Coral and… Glimmer." His voice catches but he goes to push on, "both died in the Tracker Jacker attack, the girl sawed through the branch when the anthem was playing."

"And 12?"

"He did it on purpose to help her… Cato sliced her leg but let him live, for now, though we'll get him, and his girlfriend."

"When?"

"When we woke up. 12 was beside us… thinking he was still in the alliance Cato sliced him up pretty good, he won't live past a few days without help, surprised he could walk after what Cato here did to him, but if we see him we'll kill him. Right Cato?"

As usual, Cato just grunts in response. What's wrong with him for god's sake!

"So… to get this straight, Girl on fire was in the tree, sawed through the branch with tracker jackers, which landed on us, then escaped, and Glimmer and Coral died?"

"Well… yeah."

"Weren't you and Blondie meant to be on watch?" How does this make sense? Both of them from 1, their only joint watch that we've allowed, and they didn't notice?!

"We umm… fell asleep."

Cato's glare at the floor seems to harden now, his forehead creasing in rage.

"You fell… asleep?" This is… unbelievable… asleep?! "Asleep!? Two of our allies died, 12 was able to betray us, and Katniss escaped because you and Blondie, fell, ASLEEP?!" I'm on my feet, completely furious. How could he have possibly fallen asleep! This is the hunger games for goodness sake, careers or not we need someone on watch, sometimes we'd have only done one person but with goddam Katniss we made sure to have two and both of them fell secure enough to fall asleep?! All my grogginess and the haziness within my mind is gone, I am sharp, and incredibly annoyed.

"Clove shut up we know!" Cato bellows at me, it's obvious he's furious but he's been silent this whole time.

"Oh so now you choose to speak up?!" Cato glares at me, a low growl coming from within him, though I just glare back, my eyes narrowed, my nostrils flared. He will not stare me down.

"Did we get their weapons?!"

"Do you see any?!" I look around now, annoyed that Cato is the one to remind me of this, yet find none. I turn, rounding on Marvel, a knife already in my hand. "You IDIOT!"

"We were being attacked by tracker jackers if you've forgotten!"

"Ugh!" I go to throw it and find something on my wrist, Cato, of all people, has grabbed me, the bastard. I try hard to wrench it from his grip as Marvel backs up raising his spear defensively, though slackens his grip as he glances at Cato, who no doubt looks threatening.

"Let me go!"

"No." He drops his voice, "we need him." I want to say we don't, I want to say we should kill him now, but with 10 of us left in the arena, we do. We were told not to end any alliances until the final eight if we could, and only then begin treachery if they were still around. Stupid Enobaria…

"Give it." Furious with myself, I drop the knife, which is quickly caught by Cato, who then lets me go, as Marvel now fully lowers his guard, idiot. I quickly sprint at him, drawing back my fist and punching him hard across the jaw.

"OW! Bitch!" I smirk at him, but my fury is slowly ebbing away, lucky for him.

"You deserved it…"

"Not my fault!"

"You fe-!"

"SHUT UP!" both of us spin around at Cato's shouts, and I've seen him looking more commanding, yet with the bossy blonde gone, I guess he really is the new leader of our now, small, and depleted, yet still strong, alliance. I stop speaking and straighten, letting the anger and furious words I want to shout, slowly leave my mind.

"We need to go, it will take the rest of the day to get back to camp, and then we can make 3 grab us more food. Tomorrow we'll recuperate… we still have stingers all over us." At that moment a small parachute floats down which I catch quickly. Opening it I find inside a tub of capitol medicine which will no doubt remove the holes left by the stingers, if only slightly, and get rid of the pain which all of us are still feeling, even if it's only a portion of the pain felt earlier.

"Good. We'll put that on, and then make sure we have everything and get going. Day after tomorrow we'll go find some more tributes, this is still the games… we have people to kill."

Marvel and I nod, and I unscrew the tub and put the gentle gooey liquid onto the holes, watching as they begin to close up, relief flooding over me.

Cato's POV

Avoiding Clove I probably one of the hardest things I've ever done, and I've only managed it once before, after Tyson, and that only lasted a few days. When I woke up to find 12 already awake and gathering his pack, everything had flooded my mind, rage, fury, and the realisation that the Girl on Fire had escaped. Sword in hand I instantly leapt upon him, Marvel being quickly awoken by my shouts of rage.

"You bastard! You knew she'd escape!"

"Wha-?!"

"You BASTARD!"

"There were no snares were there?! Eh? You just lied. You only joined us to help your stupid Girl on Fire lover!"

"Ah!" My sword swipes across his leg and he collapses yet quickly tries to stagger back up, only to be kicked down by my foot which I then place on his chest.

"Cato what's goin' on?"

Ignoring Marvel I press on, slicing 12s leg again and then pointing it to his neck. "You know what I'm going to do 12?" My voice drops as I lower my head towards his, yet far enough away that he can't hit me with his forehead, I've had that done before and trust me… it hurts. "I'm going to let you hobble away, and with the state you're in, die. And you know what? I'm going to hunt down your girlfriend, so one of the last things you ever see will be the Panem symbol, followed by her face in the sky." He looks to me horrified as I make one more deep gash in his leg, blood pouring all over the ground, and I then kick him aside as he goes to stagger away. "And no supplies!"

I turn annoyed and throw my sword to the ground as Marvel realises what had just taken place. When Clove finally began to stir I cursed inwardly at the relief that flooded me, knowing I need to stop caring if I stand any chance at winning this thing so make sure to face the completely opposite direction from her because no way am I letting myself be weak.

I hear her confused mumbles and Marvel as he informs her, and only grunt when I'm required to respond. Then I hear something that really, really annoys me.

"Weren't you and Blondie meant to be on watch?"

"We umm… fell asleep." Great. My forehead creased in annoyance now, I knew he'd fallen asleep as I was the first to wake up at the sign of tracker jackers, they teach you that when you're only 12 making sure you're bound to wake up at the slightest disturbance. I saw both him and Glimmer fast asleep, or at least I did for 5 seconds before all hell broke loose. Time had seemed to slow down when the disturbance first started, and then I felt the pain as hundreds of tracker jackers flew towards me, tens and hundreds of stingers entering my body and my mind slowing down. There was nothing for it, I had ran, sword in hand, and ran.

"You fell… asleep? Asleep!? Two of our allies died, 12 was able to betray us, and Katniss escaped because you and Blondie, fell, ASLEEP?!"

"Clove shut up we know!" I turn and shout this at her, enraged at her making this so obvious. We all know this for god's sake and I don't need her to remind me! It's bad enough finding out the first time let alone having it confirmed.

"Oh so now you choose to speak up?!" I glare at her, practically glaring, but she just glares back but I don't care, I'm used to her glaring at me, trying to stare me down. I know she's furious, but she must know I am too why can't she just get over it!

"Did we get their weapons?!" Oh now she asks the obvious and it takes all my strength not to hit her.

"Do you see any?!" She looks around for the first time now, and I know she's annoyed that she didn't check before asking. Now however, she does something that I know I have to stop, she turns on Marvel and pulls out a knife, screaming furiously. "You IDIOT!"

"We were being attacked by tracker jackers if you've forgotten!"

"Ugh!" She raised her arm and I know she wants to kill him, and immediately I rush behind her and grab her wrist before she can thrust it forward and release the knife that would set off Marvel's Cannon. She tries to get me to release her, but I know it's futile, I've always been stronger than her, slower, but stronger. Marvel raised his spear but I stare him down, he may be a career but compared to me, he's nothing.

"Let me go!"

"No." Enobaria told us no to break any strong alliance until the final eight, and only kill if they were either weak, or seemed to be plotting against us. I lower my voice and bend down to speak directly into her ear. "We need him." In all honesty, this isn't entirely true, but Enobaria warned us to do what we she told us, otherwise no sponsors and it isn't the final eight… yet. I can see Clove struggling with this, and quickly mutter for her to give me the knife, which after a second, she drops. Yet I can still see the rage inside her, and so I release her, knowing too well what she's going to do, and sure enough, she does, punching Marvel straight in the jaw.

"OW! Bitch!" I roll my eyes at him; idiot should've seen it coming.

"You deserved it…" I have to agree with her at this, twat shouldn't have fallen asleep on watch.

"Not my fault!" Now they're arguing again, and my forehead creases, my eyes narrowing, didn't they get the message before?

"SHUT UP!" both of them spin around at my shout, and they know I've had enough. I look to each of them in turn, daring them to talk back at me, tell me 'no' and try to continue arguing, bbut they don't, and so it's established, I'm the new leader of the alliance, as I should have been from the start. Therefore, I quickly decide what we need to do.

"We need to go, it will take the rest of the day to get back to camp, and then we can make 3 grab us more food." Mines will still be positioned so our food will still be there, and by the looks of it, all of us except for 12 left our rucksacks at the base of the tree, so we need more supplied, luckily I remember that we have them back at camp, so that's fine. "Tomorrow we'll recuperate… we still have stingers all over us." I pause as something catches my eye, and I look up to get a good look at it. A small parachute floats down which Clove catches. About time. Enobaria said she wouldn't send us anything unless we needed it, and until now, we haven't needed anything, we have food, water is something we're always in range of, and we haven't been hurt. Clove opens it, and looking over I see what I expected, a tub of capitol medicine for the stingers. Perfect.

"Good. We'll put that on, and then make sure we have everything and get going." Everything in this case being just our weapons. At least both of them grabbed that before they left, even if they didn't get Blondie's or Corals, no doubt 12 will have that now. "Day after tomorrow we'll go find some more tributes, this is still the games… we have people to kill."

They nod at me and Clove begins to apply the medicine to her stingers. She seems to have them predominantly on her arms, luckily the tracker jackers missed anything vital, sadly not the situation for Coral who I just saw get one in her artery, no idea where Glimmer got attacked, maybe they just piled on her they obviously don't get injected with the stuff at their training.

A shudder runs through me at the memory of my first tracker jacker injecting session, though this is luckily unnoticed by the others, Clove who is now rubbing the medicine still deeper, and Marvel as he begins to apply it. It was only a few weeks back into training, they told me that everyone would be injected with tracker jacker venom, and that all those of age would be doing it in groups of 10, previously picked, one in each of the rooms on the ground floor in the western corridor of the building, the rooms there used especially for this type of… 'Training'.

At first it was only small doses, it hurt, but I was able to overcome it, and the hallucinations were nothing bad, they keep injecting you with it weekly until you can fully overcome a full dose of half a litre, and considering just 0.1 of a litre is meant to be enough to drive someone crazy, some people have to stop training because of it. It was when it got to 0.2 it started to get real bad, the pain was awful, and they didn't increase it until I didn't respond to it, even wincing was meant to be classified as failure. One hallucination which I'll never forget was being in that room and Tyson was looking at me from the corner, glaring at me, his muscles flexed, his dirty blonde hair, the same shade as mine, covering one of his eyes. He shook his head disapprovingly at me, signifying I was weak. I could never push the memory out, never get rid of it, even though I knew I had to. I tried harder after that, tried to be strong, and 2 months after that incident I could be injected with half a litre and control my actions. Once you can do that, they test you, checking you can read, not walk into anything, and swing your weapon, it only took me 2 months to pass that, not the best, but as the average is 4, I wasn't too upset.

Clove was meant to start her tracker jacker training 4 months later had she not been reaped, so I wasn't surprised to see her bruised from having walked into things, and no doubt she hadn't pulled the stingers out early on, which, even though we're not trained to do, they don't release true tracker jackers at you (one of the only 'health and safety' hazards we have, if it's only for the trainers and peacekeepers) but you're still told to and fake ones are pressed into you so you know how to, though that's only a 10 minute session.

Marvel nudges me as I wake up from my own personal reminiscing session, and he hands me the tub. Once it's on, relief floods over me as the holes slowly close and the pain starts to ebb away, the gooey moisture flooding my system and absorbing the venom. Once done, I stand, pick up my sword and sheath it in the belt I found at the cornucopia on the first day.

"Come on then." Clove shrugs on her jacket and joins me, as Marvel does the same with his spear and he picks up the tub as well, as we haven't finished it, muttering something about how we may need it later and it could go on the supply pile.

After gaining my bearings, I start off in the rough direction of our camp, full of hope that I run into someone I can kill, just to get rid of my fury, even if it is dormant.

Okay I hope you liked that and I promise Cato and Clove will start getting... closer, even if Cato tries to convince himself he doesn't want to (though really he so does. :P)

Review and Merry christmas!

-Tara

xxxxx