Okay I know I basically implied it wouldn't be another two weeks until I updated again but I have been having some serious procrastination issues so here we are!

Just a couple of shout outs: first thank you to ALL of you who have been reviewing. Please continue to do so! Review as much as you like. I absolutely love reading all your comments. You are all so sweet I can't say thank you enough. Next I want to give a special shout out to those of you who have stuck with the story thus far and continue to review and critique each chapter. I really appreciate the time and effort you all put in. And finally once last thank you to Lya-Nym who pointed out some (okay many) grammatical errors in the last chapter.

I know I've said this before but I just want to throw out a quick reminder that in this story I am going to stay as true as I can to the books rather than the movie. Other than that I have nothing more to say! Hope you guys like this. My next update should be sometime next week.

One last thing: yes I know I keep changing the description of this story. They all just suck so much I feel like I have to.

All characters belong to Suzanne Collins. I'm not sure if I have to state this every chapter… but ether way…

They say they don't know when, but a day is gonna come
When there won't be a moon and there won't be a sun.
It will just go black, it will just go back
to the way it was before.

Is it true what they say about the Son of God?
Did he die for us? Did he die at all?
And if I sold my soul for a bag of gold,
which one of us would be the foolish one?
Which one of us would be the fool?

-Don't know when but a Days Gonna Come, Bright Eyes

9.

In the last second before the gong, Clove took one deep inhale of breath.

Go.

With feet hardly touching the ground, she nearly flew to the Cornucopia. Perhaps this could have been considered another one of her hidden talents – her speed. She was fast. Really fast. And apparently, faster than the other tributes. Because she was the first to make it to the pile of weapons.

Her senses were absolutely overwhelmed, every nerve, every inch of her skin was tingling in near unbearable amounts of adrenaline. But her thoughts were silent, what drove her now was nothing more than instinct.

An array of knives – her knives, were aligned in a matt beside the other weaponry. There had to be twenty, thirty or maybe even more. But she had no time to count. Just as she turned around the girl from Ten was charging at her. She was big in size, and apparently pretty gallant as well. Because she showed no fear while she ran at Clove like one of the bulls she must have grown up with.

Yes, that's it. Come for me. Come for me.

She raised her first knife, ready to launch.

So this is who it would be?

She whipped the weapon at the girl and for just a moment, the air seemed to want to hold it suspended, spinning it on its side like a saucer. Perfect precision, perfect aim. In that final minuscule length of time Clove was able to watch the last breath the girl would ever take. Her eyes snapped shut as the knife lodged into her neck, and her lips parted. The final moment of her life was spent clawing at the weapon and slipping to the ground.

Clove didn't blink. She didn't want to miss a second of it. And yet even as she plucked the tool from the girl's dead hand; even as the girl's blood, real human blood, dripped from the open wound in her neck – Clove couldn't deny it.

She felt nothing.

Hollow. Empty. Nothing.

There was no satisfaction in the kill.

However, the nothingness didn't last for long. Because while the exchange had only been less than a few seconds, the others were approaching the Cornucopia now. But the way they ran, the looks upon their faces; they were a flock of frantic birds, a herd of frightened cattle, a group of pigs- nothing more than animals. Pathetic, desperate, agitated, wild animals. It was no wonder her kill had felt like nothing. She had done it a dozen times before on other creatures, maintaining some silent hope that the effect would be different on humans. But it wasn't.

She could have been slaughtering dogs.

Suddenly she was running at them, screaming so loudly blood was rushing to her face. Her eyes locked in on the boy from Five who was coming rather close. A bit too close. She slashed a gaping wound into his stomach. It hadn't killed him but she didn't care. His screams were enough to bring her fulfillment, if only for a small while. She had a hunger that needed to be satisfied. And she was sure the only way to do it was to destroy as many tributes as possible.

Her knife launched into the back of the bent over figure who, as he flopped into the earth was revealed to be the boy from Nine. And then she saw Katniss.

For just a moment they made eye contact, and in that moment Clove could see her terror. Shear, utter, undeniable terror. Then she was taking off into the woods. With accuracy, Clove hurled her knife at the girls head, but she pulled up the bright orange backpack just in time- putting the dagger to waste. Though Twelve was fast, Clove could have been able to catch her. But another scream from the boy from Five was all it took to remind her that she couldn't leave now.

A manic smile made its way to her lips. Everything she saw was unnaturally bright; everything she heard was unnaturally loud.

She had to physically retain the grip she held on her knife after she whipped around and made a motion to launch it at Marvel. His foot was on the chest of the boy from Five, tugging out a spear whose tip was coated in spider web like red tissues. For a moment they stared at each other, each ready to attack. Clove wanted to kill him. Just to do it, just because she could. Maybe he felt the same.

But then the boy from Eight was foolishly swinging at him. Clove didn't come to his aid. Rather her attention was directed to the Cornucopia where she saw the boy from Eleven. Only he wasn't alone. Latched to his back was none other than Fish Head who seemed to have jumped on top of him and was attempting to beat him with a club. In a terrifying display he tossed the club from the boys hands with ease, wrapped his massive hand around the collar of his shirt, and slammed Fish Head into the Cornucopia's golden wall. All it took was one violent pound against his body and Fish Head was more than just dead – his skull had cracked from shear force.

But fear was too far away from her now so she felt nothing. Instead she targeted her next victim – the girl from Seven who was bent over, urgently trying to scoop up a pack. Then she was screaming. At first it was because of her district partner's dead body that collapsed to her side with an arrow burrowed in his neck. But then it was because she saw Clove coming at her.

Shock and recognition were still in her eyes as Clove pounced on top of her. For a moment, just a moment, she allowed her to live. It was just long enough for three tears to spill from her eyes and for her frantic cry to rip through the air, one single word.

Please.

That wasn't like an animal. Animals don't plead. Ecstasy rapidly swam through Clove's veins. She didn't want the begging to end. So she slashed her knife across the girls face, which caused her to utter a shriek louder than any human voice Clove had ever heard. She did it again, and again. Skin, she found, shredded a lot like paper did. The girl was thrashing her head back and forth. Blood ran from the gashes which now made crisscrossed patterns across her cheeks and forehead. Her eyes bulged from her skull, like a rat. Her hands which were somewhere beneath Clove were desperately trying to push her off, or maybe move to her face. Either way it was time for her to die.

Clove drove her knife into the girl's throat, which made a noise that resembled both a pop and the sound of boots on dead leaves. Her warm blood splattered onto Cloves face and almost bubbled from her neck like a geyser. But she still wasn't dead. Unlike the girl from Ten who went down instantly, this girl convulsed and choked on her own blood, coughing more of it onto Clove, before finally her eyes rolled back into her head and she was dead.

Perhaps Clove should have moved then, but she didn't. Instead she stayed, wanting the girl to come back alive so she could do it again. But this was a mistake because not even a second had passed before she was being tackled to the ground by an unseen force. It was a boy, though she couldn't recognize who he was or where he came from because instantly he was strangling her. He was very stupid though, because her hands were still wrapped around her knives. But before she even had time to do anything, his head was being sheared clear away from his neck. Blood showered her in amounts even she found unpleasant. When she rolled his now useless body away from her, the gleam of a sword caught her eye.

And there was Cato, breathing heavy, face red. His sword was pointed at her and she could see in his icy eyes that he was considering killing her. But rather than drive the weapon across her neck as well, he went off charging in the other direction. Clove could understand his deliberation, because as he turned from her, she considered killing him too. What a pair they made, the two of them. They were nothing more than sharks in frenzy at sea, tearing away at everything.

From a distance she saw the hand of the girl from Nine fly up in defense as Cato thrust his sword repeatedly through her body.

How very alike they were. Sharks in the sea, sharks in the sea.

She heard Brutus's words.

"When the time is right, you can put all your effort into killing each other"

Sweet time moved so slow. She would have to wait but in the end, it would be worth it. Because he would be hers and hers alone. It would be perfection, artistic, poetic. She wouldn't unjust him by making his death anything but.

A smile crawled to her lips.

The Cornucopia was beginning to clear. For the first time she saw Glimmer and judging by the bow slung across her back, she was the one who killed the boy from Seven. Now she had her hand entangled in the hair of the girl from Three who was swinging her arms in an attempt to throw her off. But Glimmer slashed a blade through her gut and she was dead.

She saw Marina and Lover Boy for the first time too. They were standing near each other- both hovering over the dead girl from Six as Marina coiled the chain of her harpoon. Clove was surprised the Game Makers had thrown such a weapon into the arena- she must have really impressed them. Marvel was making one last run across the field, checking to see if any stragglers had been left behind.

Cato was still standing over the girl from Nine. Clove watched a solitary drip of the girls blood roll from his blade. Neither one of them moved.

But the others did. Lover Boy, who now was sporting a large welt across his cheek, was leaning against the Cornucopia breathing deeply. Glimmer was trotting over to where Cato stood. Marvel now had a smirk spread across his bloody face as he observed the dead bodies that were sprawled across the ground. And Marina was moving over to the broken corpse of her district partner, who up until this point Clove hadn't even taken the time to acknowledge wasn't getting back up.

"Such an idiot," Marina said, shaking her head. Only her voice didn't sound sarcastic, or bitter. If anything it sounded just the tiniest bit sad.

She was right, though. The boy was an idiot. He had trained his entire life to die within the first five minutes of the games. It was pathetic.

But she spared little thought on this matter, because now she was entirely focused on Glimmer who had coaxed Cato out from his trance with a playful tap to his shoulder. It was curious to watch because Clove couldn't imagine Cato flirting- courtship required a level of civility she was sure he did not possess. This was confirmed in the expression his features displayed in response to Glimmers touch. It wasn't light hearted or friendly.

Rather it distinctly reminded Clove of the one he wore last night- had that only been last night?

Not once throughout the day had her kiss with Cato intruded upon her thoughts. She brushed it off as nothing more than a collide of their episodes- both of them had been in such a state. Though, she couldn't deny that it was an exhilarating experience because it had been the first time she was able to release her buildup of manic energy on an actual human being without breaking or killing them, and even getting some back in return. It was a satisfaction she had not expected.

"We need to clear out of here so they can collect the bodies," Marvel was saying from the Cornucopia.

Clove agreed, now noticing Fish Heads skull deflating into the ground. Absently, she said to herself, "They're already starting to rot."

At the words, they all turned to her with expressions that suggested she had sporadically grown fourteen more arms. Cato was the only one who smiled.

"What?" she snapped. Was she not allowed to speak now?

After a prolonged silence Glimmer snorted, "You look disgusting."

Naturally her first reaction was to hurl a knife into Glimmer's eye. Then her second was to restrain herself. Then her third was to question why she was restraining herself. She could kill her here. There would be no repercussions, no body to hide.

Oh right, the alliance.

Somewhere down the ongoing line of her thought process, she finally questioned what Glimmer had been talking about. So she touched her cheek.

She wasn't just splattered with blood, like Marvel. Rather she was almost coated. She could feel it as it began to clot on her face, perhaps confused that it wasn't in a living breathing body system any longer. It was everywhere; her left arm, her neck, even her cloths. Most of it must have been from when Cato decapitated the boy while he was still on top of her.

"That is just vile," Marvel said crinkling his nose in disgust. He headed for the woods, spear in hand, with Marina and Lover Boy in his wake. But Clove didn't follow him. Rather, she glared at Glimmer. The corner of her red painted lips twitched up into a smile. Everything still held an unreal quality. For a moment she was sure the girl was a doll made out of porcelain and thread rather than flesh and bone.

"I'd wash that off sweetheart," she said. Before flipping golden tresses over her shoulder and galloping off into the woods with the rest of them she sneered, "Remember you need to look good for the cameras."

If Clove had not been considering her words, Glimmer would have had a knife lodged into her back the second she turned around. But instead she was reminded of something she had forgotten- that all of this was television. Hundreds of thousands of eyes were watching them, had been watching them. And they had seen everything.

She saw the bodies of her victims laid across the landscape in a new light- one she had never really considered before despite how obvious it was. The girl from Seven with bright lacerations across her face and angry, gnarled purple tissue spilling forth from her throat like a flower, was staring at her now with a pair of wide accusing eyes.

Of course the blood thirsty sponsors of the Capitol enjoyed the show. But did the mother back in District Seven who watched her child scream in a wild fit of agony before being stabbed to death like it as much? Or the girlfriend in Nine whose body was probably racking with tears at this very instant? What about the brother who was still in disbelief before a screen somewhere in Ten, unable to realize he would never get his sister back?

They all watched their loved ones die in vicious, brutal ways. And the girl who had slaughtered their son, their daughters, their lovers, their friends, stood erect and alive for them all to see while she polished her knife and touched the blood on her face.

They wanted to see her die, she was sure of this. At this moment there must have been at least a dozen people who wanted to inflict the worst pain imaginable upon her. They wanted to see her destroyed, mangled, beaten. They wanted vengeance.

Watch my flesh torn apart by the worms and the bugs in the confines of hell.

She wished she could see them now. She wanted to see the anger in their faces; she wanted the reckless burn of their animosity. Let it wash across her body, scotch her till it was all she could feel. She closed her eyes and wished for it to consume her, to bring along an almighty gratification at their suffering.

Dream of me, she begged them. See me in your waking hours. Let me haunt your thoughts. Let me poison the sweet memories you have of the ones you loved most who died at my hand. Let their blood never leave you.

Because it would never leave her.

May they hate her till they die. May they find her one day and do everything they possibly could to make her pay for what she had done. May they destroy her. May they try.

What they didn't know was that her hatred toward them was just as ferocious, maybe even more so.

Cato's voice pulled her back. He had been watching her with his head cocked to the side.

"No, you should keep the blood," he said. "It suits you."

Clove counted the fires of the cannon. In all they had killed eleven. The chatter of the others came from somewhere behind her. They were ranking each other- who had the most kills, who would get the next. She cared for no part of it. She wanted to stay leaned against a tree, watching hover crafts lift the bodies away, undisturbed.

But then she heard Glimmer.

"Where are you going, handsome?"

Just as she turned to the words, she saw a figure dart past her. It was a boy, one of the smaller tributes. He had a large Three on the back of his jacket.

Instantly she was on his tail but now he was far away, out of her throwing range. She didn't want to waste another knife so she followed him until the others had fallen farther behind from exhaustion and his pace had slowed down considerably. Her aim by then was slightly off from a similar fatigue, so she only got him in the calf rather than in the back. He collapsed onto the ground.

She had him.

He struggled to keep going but it was too late. The wind that been knocking out of him. He couldn't move. Her knees dug into his ribs.

"What's happened, sweetheart?" she said, taking in the Three. "Didn't want to leave your little friend behind?"

The boy kept his eyes snapped shut. With the tip of the blade she gently carved around them without breaking skin, not just yet. Beneath her knees his body began to shake as violently as a leave in the wind and his lips pulled over a pair of large front teeth.

"You're scared?" she asked. She could tell by his breathing he was fighting back tears. Or maybe hyperventilating. The boy shook his head.

"Yes you are," she said. "You don't want to die?"

He shook his head again. No. He didn't want to die.

And then the collar of her shirt was tugging into her neck and she was in the air. With a painful smack her head hit the ground. In utter bewilderment she sat up three feet from where she had originally perched on top of the Three's body to see Cato, laughing. He turned away from her and stepped toward the boy, his sword raised. Three let out a strangled cry and shielded his face with his arms.

How dare he. That was her kill.

"Wait!"

It was Lover Boy. With force he almost ripped Glimmer away from the half circle she, Marvel and Marina had formed behind them so he could push himself in. He moved to stand over the boy, dangerously close to Cato, and almost accusingly said, "You! In your interview with Caesar, weren't you describing the voltage patterns on the reboot connector of a Sterochip?"

"Y-yes," the boy stammered.

"That is amazing!" Lover Boy almost gasped. "I mean even coming from your District. The fact that you can do that as only a teenager is absolutely insane."

"Are you serious right now?" Cato snarled. Now the sword was pointed at Lover Boy.

Lover Boy didn't seem very alarmed. Rather, he looked at Cato with an expression still mesmerized by the boy from Three, as if Cato's warning had been as insignificant as the wail of a child. "Are you serious?" he said. "Do you know how incredible that is? He knows how to wire a microscopic device that has just come out onto the market in the Capitol. The complexity, the ingenuity of it all is absolutely remarkable. It would be a waste to kill him. He could be an asset to us."

In an instant Cato's entire face flushed red. His nostrils flared.

"To hell with the girl," was all he bellowed.

He raised the sword, ready to shove it straight through Lover Boy's chest, but District Three suddenly cried out, "I can be an asset!"

They all looked to him. Cato halted his sword. "What?" he snapped.

"I-I-I… Yes. If you- I mean, if I was to find some shovels or s-some way to dig up the bombs around the p-podiums… I maybe could... r-reactive them… and then I could p-place-" he trailed off. His dark eyelashes were still squinted together. The shaking of his body didn't permit his words to continue.

Clove wanted his blood. She was just about to push aside Cato and Lover Boy and reclaim him for herself when Marvel's eyes suddenly widened and in astonishment he finished, "Place them around the Cornucopia."

"No one has ever done that before in the Games," Marina said. "We could stock pile all our stuff here and no one could touch it."

This idea seemed to settle into Marvel, Glimmer and Marina. But Clove didn't care. They didn't need this desperate sad little bug from Three. Cato must have agreed with her because he leaned down over the boy with a menacing smile. But when he spoke it was directed to the rest of them. "So what?" he said. "Having someone stand on guard would have the same effect."

"But it wouldn't," Lover Boy pointed out. "I mean there's six of us right? So absolutely no more than two people could stay on guard at a time. Though I'm sure most of you aren't going to want to do that. And besides, Thresh got away. He's out there somewhere. And if he comes back he could over power most of us pretty easily and take all food that's there for himself."

Cato and Lover Boy locked eyes. Then Lover Boy just shrugged, "I don't know. It just seems like a good idea to me."

Clove was sure Cato was going to slay them both. She silently encouraged him to do it. But he didn't. Instead after what seemed to be a long while, the sword fell to his side. He jabbed a finger into the chest of Three.

"Listen to me," he growled. "We're taking you back to the Cornucopia. You have the rest of the day to get this done. If you fuck up, I kill you. If you start taking food, I kill you. If you get in my way, I kill you. When there's only a few of us left, I kill you. Understand?"

Even after Cato had stormed away with clenched fists, Clove still had trouble processing what had just happened. Not only had Lover Boy stood to Cato and lived, but he had swayed his decision to kill the boy. And now he stood with crossed arms, watching Cato with calm blue eyes, without even a trace of gratitude or even relief on his features.

If she hadn't been before, now she was sure every second they allowed him to live was a mistake. Perhaps she would take initiative and just end it.

"Oh for God's sake, get up," Marvel sighed, rolling his eyes. District Three had not moved an inch on the ground, and continued to quiver where he lay with eyes snapped shut. "We're not going to kill you yet."

However the words didn't rouse him. So Lover Boy hauled him up. Even as District Three stood he still held his eyes closed. "Hey!" Lover Boy snapped at him. "You are alive, alright?"

His words were harsh, but Clove heard the encouragement hidden beneath them.

"Not for long," she said. She was angry, really angry. If Cato had not pulled her off, he could have been dead. She was sure to stay ahead of them as she stomped off to the Cornucopia. She hated this alliance.

She would continue to hate it until it was broken.