Yes I am alive! I've had this chapter in the works for maybe a month now and I've just been too lazy to fix it up. But all of your kind words have motivated me. You guys have given me 130 reviews. ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY REALLY NICE REVIEWS! I don't even care if that's good by FF standards. To me that is amazing. THANK YOU ALL SO MUCH. All the support you have been giving me if absolutely…incredible it the only way to say it. From the encouraging PMs to you guests whose comments are both appreciated and loved even though I can't send a personal thank you. I seriously love you guys. And mark my words: I WILL NOT give up on this story. I promise I won't leave you hanging. Honestly the chapters have been coming out slow this summer because I've been out enjoying it with friends/family/ect. Once school comes around again I'm sure the endused stress will cause me to crank out the rest of this story.

Alsooo I don't know how many of you noticed but I do have a Marvel fanfic up now. He's going to be dying soon and I love him too much to stop writing about him. Getting chapters out for that though is a whole 'nother story -_- Its written in a different fashion than this. And unfortunately trying to perfect that is going to take up a lot of my time. But if anyone cares to I would love for ya'll to check that out!

On a side note: has anyone else been checking out the catching fire castings? WE'VE GOT A JOHANNNA! And a Brutus (I think Bruno Gunn is perfect.) And did anyone else notice that Meta Golding (who plays Enobaria) is totally SMOKING? Oh my god! The cast is so awesome already. I feel like I'm going to lose it when they cast Finnick. I can not wait. Gahh!

Okay well fangirl moment over. I really hope you guys like this. I introduced a certain foxy character I have been neglecting. Along with one that we hear about in the books but only as a cannon sound… ;) Let it be known that the Foxface in my head is the one who I originally saw in the books: sneaky, tricky, clever but not the innocent doe-eyed Emmerson we saw in the movies.

14.

The sun made ugly purple gashes across the sky as it scraped through to reach the horizon. Clove only dully noted the nature of these objects, though her mind was too weak to actually classify them as she would normally. Her eyes were too dry to stay open despite the efforts she made. Slowly she sunk back into what she had experienced perhaps a million times now and what she was sure to experience a million times more before it was through. If it would ever be through.

She saw an old friend again.

It was alone in the room with her. Whenever she saw it, they were always alone. Years ago it had caused many wild fits, many uncontrollable spurts of aggression; many uneasy travels across a sea of sedation. It was because of this thing that Clove never forgot to how fear.

She stared into its eyes and it too stared into hers. A thousand years passed in only mere seconds. The walls of the building began to crumble away. The trees around them wilted and died. They stayed like this forever until all that was left was just the two of them. And she was truly alone. Just her and this creature for the rest of time.

Outside of her hallucinations, her face cringed in response.

Cato smashed hard into consciousness when he involuntarily arched his back. It had been both the pain that shot through his spine as he did and the thundering sound of his own screams that brought him back. His vision was coated in that greasy film he had come to know all too well since the morning that bitch dropped the little fucking monsters on him. Only hell knew how long ago that was.

All he could hear was the ringing in his ears. His stiff neck made an unsettlingly silent crack as he tilted it to see Clove's dark matted hair at his side. Neither one of them was in any sort of comfortable position that would suggest they had curled up like this on purpose. He tried to move his arm just so he could roll over her body and see her face. He couldn't explain why he wanted to see it. Maybe to prove he wasn't about to fall into another hallucination.

As if on command Clove was stirred, almost a bit too quickly. She rolled over and tilted her chin up to look at him. Her lips were soft without even a crack to show that she had been knocked out for hours (-days, maybe even weeks). If this alone wasn't a hint that he had yet to escape the Tracker Jacker venom, there was no denying it when she climbed on top of him.

Her hair stuck out in all different ends as she mounted him, blocking out the discolored sun. He decided it didn't matter if this was a hallucination or not. Cato only knew that at that very moment he wanted her. So he didn't stop her when she slowly brought her lips to his. But she was being tender about it which was all wrong in itself. He pushed his hips against hers, to which she only lifted her torso with the same force. She could have been weightless.

In his frustration he pulled back so he could look into her eyes. But when he did, he saw that they weren't black.

They were gray.

Instantly he jolted. He tried to throw her off of him so he could pin her to the ground and kill her. But she suddenly weighed more than he did. Instead it was she who kept him trapped beneath her, tightening her thighs around his torso until he couldn't move at all. His hands shot up to grab her face so he could tear that olive skin straight from her bones. In response she through his hands down and brought her face close to his.

When Katniss opened her mouth to speak, Cato heard the voice of Caesar Flickerman.

"Sorry we're out of time. Best of luck, Katniss Everdeen, tribute from District Twelve!"

The roar of the thousands of admirers that she had back in the Capitol lite the surrounding trees on fire. And before he could think to himself that they were all supposed to be his, she whipped her head hard into his skull. The whole world went dark again.

Remember how you told me you would give me anything I wanted?

The strands of her hair were like streaks of blood against the white silk she laid on. Her eyes weren't focused on him. They never were. But her smile was as beautiful as ever as she giggled at her own little joke. The sweet voice rang out once more.

Remember Marvel? Don't you remember?

And then she was disappearing into the covers. Marvel immediately crawled after her, responding to the jolt of anxiety he felt at losing her completely. But she was quicker than he and she scurried through them until she was so far away he could only hear her distant laughter. Citrine, he bellowed. But he didn't make a sound. Already he was gone.

The sheets were ripped away from his body and he was standing before the towering buildings and a sea of people in District One. For such a painfully small amount of time he held the glory he had spent a lifetime expecting. And then a pair of hands grasped hard onto his shoulders and through him to the ground. He couldn't see his killer. But those hands tore him apart and through every last part of him far into the ground.

But not far enough. He still saw the distorted smiles of his peers as his preeminence crumbled to pieces. He heard the startled cries of Citrine as the harsh, unforgiving world worked to consume her because she couldn't survive it without him there to take care of her.

Finally his father flicked away all that was left of him as carelessly as if he had been brushing dust off the family portrait.

Just a dark splotch across a picture of perfection. Forever wasted.

Circuit applied another round of burn cream to his stings. It didn't do much to help the swelling but it did help the pain, just a little bit. He had only been stung once. Compared to the others he was in pristine health.

Wasn't he just so lucky?

Lucky enough that he got to watch the others as they suffered- too terrified to actually kill them himself and too hopeful because for all the wishing he had done and all the things he had told himself over the past two days, he still knew they were going to live. Any day now one of them was going to wake up. Their muffled cries were slowly becoming shouts.

You can still kill them, a small voice told him.

It was true. He could still do it. Every last one of them was at his mercy- including the boy from Two.

But even in their weakest states, they still terrified them.

He knew not making this move would be the death of him. Cowardliness was the word he used to describe it. Maybe because of all that he did for them, they would kill him painlessly.

Oh where was Peeta at this moment? All of this would be so much better if he could just have Peeta around. He knew something bad happened to him. Circuit heard his screams from deep within the trees after Cato chased him. But he kept his eye on the skies for the past two nights now and saw that he was still alive during the death tolls. What if he just left to go find him? What if-?

The boy from One suddenly jolted awake. His usually tame blonde hair was sticking up at all ends as he lifted himself from the ground. His eyes seemed unfocused. Just as he had himself upright he leaned over and vomited on the ground.

Fear washed over Circuit. He was too late. He should have killed them! He just should have killed them! How could he have been so stupid? Though… there was still time. One was weak. He was very weak.

Carefully, Circuit stood up and crept around the heap of food and across the landmines he had created. But he moved too slow and before he even came close to One he was sure none of this would work. One caught his eyes when he was at least ten feet away.

The boy looked so different now. He seemed so… well the only word Circuit could think of was vulnerable. His face was hollow, his skin was a sickly yellow, the stings on his arms were repugnant. But still the boy's eyes attacked him in such a way that Circuit couldn't move forward. As a matter of fact he stopped moving altogether.

There was something so different in One's eyes. It wasn't the red veins that stained the whites of them or the dark, haggard shadows that hung below them. Rather it was the expression his eyes held within. When Circuit had last seen the boy conscious they were aloof, constantly looking down on people, always with lowered lids as if he could care less who stood before him. Now they were wide, angry and almost frightened- the eyes of a beaten animal.

When Circuit backed away, it wasn't out of pity. It was out of fear. But even still he couldn't help but appreciate with grim fascination how the games always managed to break apart everyone of its tributes, no matter how well prepared they may have been when they entered them.

Clove opened her eyes to an unsettlingly friendly world and a splitting headache. Waves of pain washed over her entire body and she couldn't suppress the moan that passed her lips. Everything hurt from her head right down to her feet. Perhaps the sky truly did fall on her during the hallucinations.

The hallucinations. She was reminded of them again and with reluctance she realized they were finally over. Her pain was too real for them to come back.

Things began to shift into focus then- particularly the figures that shuffled around in the distance. The largest she understood to be Cato. A slighter, leaner shadow sat in a near fetal position over a spear, sharpening it- Marvel. And finally the smallest of all was the boy from Three, kicking dirt into a hole in the ground.

Clove rolled as nausea came over her. Her clothes were filthy and completely drenched in sweat and dirt. What had happened? How long had she been here? Information came back to her in bits and pieces, shuffling through the intangible nightmarish world she had just rose from. None of it quite made sense. Her body was weak and her mind was even weaker. She needed water. That was first.

Ignoring the others she did what she could to flip onto her belly without vomiting. The water on the lake ahead of her was blue and shimmering- nothing like the gaping black funnel it had been last time she saw it. With painful amounts of effort she struggled to its edge. Cato was watching her as she did. But he made no kind gestures because he knew damn well she wouldn't want his help- especially not when she was in such a weak state. She would do the same for him had the roles been switched. No one but someone who hailed from District Two could understand the honor of struggle. It was what separated them from the others on this field.

When she reached the bank she didn't hold back from dunking her entire head into the lake and taking in gulps of water. But this was a mistake. The moment she raised her chin to take a breath all the water she had drank came back up along with a good amount of painfully dry stomach acid. As she heaved it out onto the earth, frustration simmered inside her. She may have trained her entire life but nothing prepared her for this; sick, tired, trapped in a body on the edge of death. Before the arena she had been so very engulfed in civilization where medicines were given to treat illnesses and in some particularly wealthy families, avoxes were there to bring you water or food if you needed it.

It was then that she remembered all that had happened. The flea from Twelve dropped the nest of Tracker Jackers on them. In Two, the Academy had taught her all about the little beasts. How the Capitol designed them to target the points where fear lives in one's mind. How they planted them in various locations among the poorer, simpler districts to keep their pathetic citizens in line. That must have been how the bitch knew about them. Could she have possibly picked that tree on purpose? Did she know exactly what they would do? That they would camp at its base and wait for her?

These thoughts enraged Clove, despite her state. Again the pig came to her mind- squealing in her ears just as loudly as the day she had skinned it. But she now understood this wasn't enough. She just had to think of how… how-

No, not now. She reminded herself that water was more important than plotting ways to butcher Twelve. Besides, it was hard to think of killing someone when she herself was on the verge of death. Or at least she certainly felt like she was.

Death. The word mulled around in her mind before it actually gained meaning. She noticed Glimmer wasn't one of the shadows she had seen when she woke up. Neither was the sea slug. Nor Lover Boy. After sipping down water and letting her body relax for some time, she slowly sat up to face the others. To her surprise she turned to see Marvel staring at her. Well- staring wasn't the exact word for it. Glaring wouldn't have even been a proper way to describe it. He may as well have been hissing. And while Clove didn't understand it, she didn't look away from him ether.

It was all interrupted by a black velvet case which landed with a clunk against the ground and fell open, revealing Clove's own knives.

She looked up and saw Cato standing in a braced position as if he was reading himself for a fight. Oh he was angry. She knew the expression he wore almost too well by now- his jaw clenched as it always did when he got mad, the skin on his face was blood red, his lips were narrowed into a long straight line. Clove saw he had tried unsuccessfully to remove the stinger from the swell beneath his eye which was now a ghastly mixture of both purple and green.

"You better be ready to go when the sun goes down," he barked at her. Clove narrowed her eyes. Truthfully she wasn't even sure her voice would work if she tried to use it. But she did anyway. And in a hoarse crack she responded, "Nice to see you healed up so well, jackass."

Cato snapped like a broken string.

"Watch what you're saying you little bitch," he shouted. Though the reaction didn't frighten Clove. If anything, it annoyed her. She wasn't in the mood for one of Cato's pissy little shit fits. Her head was throbbing too terribly as it was. Rather than feed into him, she only glared at him and snarled, "Fuck off."

Suddenly he was charging at her like an angry bull. She was too sickened and tried to understand exactly what he was doing. She saw his body blocking out the sun before her. Then without warning something flat and cold was crashing hard into the side of her face and her body was smacking into the ground. Her vision was covered very quickly by black snow. When it began to melt away she saw Cato storming off into the woods, leaving her with what was sure to be a massive welt. She couldn't be sure if he had punched her or hit her with the flat side of his sword but ether way it wasn't something she needed in her state. For some time she only laid there; too angry to speak, too pained to move.

Eventually she asked Marvel what happened to the others.

He said with a dark smile, "Glimmer's dead."

"And what about Four and Twelve?" Clove asked, the word Twelve in itself burning her lips.

"Four is dead. Cato did something to Twelve but he's still out there."

If the Tracker Jacker incident had made Cato steaming with anger, it did something entirely different to Marvel. Everything about him was off. Rather than lounging as he usually would during their down time, his knees were at his chin as he continued to rub his fingers across the head of the same spear. There were purple shadows in the hollows of his face- particularly beneath his eyes. He left his hair in an unruly mess. It was entertaining to see the boy like this, so far down off his throne.

But for now she took a moment to soak in his words. So Glimmer and the slug were dead? She wasn't happy about this. Anger throbbed inside her. Twelve took away her opportunity to kill those two. They were highly trained- even Glimmer. The girl may have been incompetent when compared to them but certainly not to the other tributes. It was such a waste that their lives were taken by someone so unskilled. The only tributes who had the right to kill the members of her alliance were the members of her alliance. Not some putrid tribute from Twelve.

Clove clenched her fists. Twelve would never be able to fathom what was coming for her. She would have no clue.

When Cato came stomping back to camp he was only slightly calmer than before. His face was still red as a beet and the sting beneath his eye only looked worse. As did the constellation of discolored, pulsing bumps he had across his arms.

In the time he had been gone Clove had carved each of her own individual stingers out. She knew keeping them in there would only cause her body more distress. What she didn't understand was why her sponsors weren't sending her any ointment for it. District One was supporting their tribute. Earlier in the day Clove had grudgingly watched Marvel pluck a silver parachute from the air before it touched the ground. The tracker jacker venom certainly hadn't gone well with the boy- he didn't even shoot a pompous look to Clove or Three when he opened his package. To Clove's pleasure he had been highly out of character throughout the day. Paranoid even. Every move she made seemed to make him jump or at least look at her. It was satisfying to say the least.

Cato approached them. With eyes like stone he only said, "Now."

Clove understood what he meant and stood, glaring at him as she did. The side of her face still stung from where his sword had hit it. It wouldn't stop stinging until his blood was drawn by her knives. But for now she was too weak to fight him.

Three rose along with them but Cato shot him back down with only a look.

"You don't leave here until the jobs done," he said, jerking his head toward the last and final explosive sitting outside its hole. "It's bad enough you've taken this long. The other tributes could have seen you working and know by now how to get around them. You're damn lucky I'm letting you live."

Three nodded without making eye contact. Their food was now stockpiled in the middle of an arsenal of explosives. No tribute would be getting to it. They would be able to hunt and eat as they pleased. The plan was brilliant. And while Clove couldn't say she was glad they let the boy live, he did have his usefulness. Besides, it wouldn't be long until before they killed him too.

Marvel's mouth tightening as his eyes flicked between the two of them. His knuckles were white from gripping the handle of his spear.

"Let's go then," Clove said. She picked up a pair of the night goggles off the ground without bothering to grab another for Cato. Then she strode ahead of them without saying a word.

There weren't many words exchanged between them that night. Clove was too weak to waste any energy on her district partner or Marvel. Cato on the other hand seemed to have plenty of energy but it was only focused on one thing.

After maybe an hour or so of combing the woods, Cato violently slashed through an underbrush. "Where the fuck is she?" he snarled.

Clove rolled her eyes only because she knew who he was talking about. "It's a big arena," she snapped. "She's not going to appear out of thin air."

But her words seemed to drift around Cato's ears. "She's around here somewhere. I know she is. We're going this way," he said, trekking off into a deeper part of the woods.

Marvel said nothing to question this and so Clove followed without resistance. But as the night went on, Cato's search only became more and more fruitless. And Clove lost more and more of her already depleted amounts of strength. But Cato was ridiculously determined. As the time passed he began to break the silence between them, speaking only of Katniss. The girl was the only thing on his mind. The idea of finding her completely possessed him. But the pointlessness of it all increased with each step she took until finally she had to lean up against a tree to keep from falling over.

"What are you doing?" Cato barked, snapping around when he noticed what she was doing. Ahead of them, Marvel stopped moving.

"We aren't going to find her now," Clove said without looking at ether one of them.

Cato stepped toward her. When he lifted the night vision goggles, his eyes were nearly glowing in the darkness.

"I'm going to find her," he said.

Clove glowered at him. "I'm going back," she said.

His desire had morphed into obsession- she could already see it. In the end it would only put him at a disadvantage in these games. He was a fool for it.

When she turned her back to him, she heard his snarl: "You're weak."

The comment took time to smack against her skin and simmer through into her brain. It burned each of her senses and set every part of her on fire. Weak? Did he just call her weak?

She reached into her coat and removed a knife. It was one of her more burly ones; a large dagger attached to a thick handle. District Two was watching at this moment. Maybe they agreed with him, maybe they didn't. Regardless, she didn't care to know how their eyes saw her. Their opinions meant so little to Clove. But they were everything to Cato. She could humiliate him in a way he couldn't do to her. Perhaps this was one of his weaknesses.

And yet when she turned, she found the tip of his sword pointed at the bottom of her ribcage.

She wasn't sure what he expected of her. On normal occasion she would assume he only wanted some sort of reaction. This wasn't one of those occasions. His eyes burned into her. Maybe he really intended to kill her.

Perhaps it was exhaustion. Perhaps it was something more. Whatever the cause, Clove couldn't keep herself from laughing. She stopped when his blade very carefully sunk into her body.

"You do what I say," he breathed.

Without a thought Clove moved to slash her knife across his cheek. But Cato was faster. He pulled the sword away and hit it out of her hand. Before she could pull out another he had the blade back at her stomach again. Only this time he threatened to push all the way in.

"You don't control me," she hissed. Despite the tone of her voice she took steps away from him. Slow, tentative steps as he moved the sword further and further into her.

And then her back was against a tree.

"Oh I control you," he said with maybe a trace of a smile on his face. But Clove knew he meant no humor. She could hear his anger in the sharp click of his words. She could see it in those vacant eyes. There was nothing going on behind them at that moment and she knew it. His viciousness was instinct that needed no thought.

The sword broke deeper into her skin. Before she could contain it, she yelped from shock. The stinging sensation was instant and she felt blood trickle down her hips. He brought his lips to her ear and his breath pierced against it as hard and unforgiving as steel.

"You're spitting on our district," he whispered. "It's an embarrassment. I should fucking kill you."

With shaking hands, Clove dug her palms into the sword to keep it away. A fire burst again inside her.

"Then don't you dare make it quick," she said honestly.

His breath cooled her forehead as it was released between the sharp edges of his white teeth. The rise and fall of his shoulders was uneven to his haggard intakes of air. The tiniest sprouts of colorless stubble were scattered about his square chin. The skin beneath his eye was flimsy and blue. The sting on his cheek was greenish and infected. He was sick. It was the first time she had seen him so breakable. So human. And yet still he had her life at the crude edge of his sword.

She could have devoured him.

"I won't," he promised.

The sword sliced against her as he pulled it away. Cold air pried into her ripped skin and felt sharper than the metal that had left it.

"Fuck," she gasped as her hands flew to her stomach. She could feel her own slimy blood as it seeped around her fingers. But the cut wasn't fatal. Cato wasn't ending her tonight. Instead he was already marching into the woods, shouting at them, "We're moving."

Marvel stood still for a moment more, watching Clove as she tried to recompose herself. When she met his deep blue eyes, a ghost of a smile appeared across his pale, cracked lips.

"Happy Hunger Games," he whispered.

They were all animals in these games. The glamour, the parades, the flashing lights of the Capitol- none of it could completely conceal the truth of it all to Darry, who had grown up slaughtering cattle his entire life back at home in District Ten.

There was something incredibly ironic about being where he was. Back in Ten, the cattle were everything. They were food, sustenance, friends for a short period of time. But you learned at a young age never to get too attached to the beasts. They were raised to die to meet the demands of the Capitols very glutinous hunger.

Children, he had come to understand, were very much like cattle.

Darry sat propped up against a tree, continuing to sharpen the weapon he had fastened. It was a make-shift spear that was only becoming better with the time and work he put into it. The knife he had obtained during the bloodbath had kept him alive up until this point. He had pulled it out of the boy from District Nine before he took off into the woods. Many times throughout the days he had been here, Nine's sullen face came to his mind. And as Darry sheared layers of wood from his spear, he thought of the boys ashen skin which must have never been put directly beneath pure sunlight for long before.

The epitome of just another broken children being thrown into these games.

This thought was enough to make Darry's lips twitch into a smile. Well, he wasn't really one to criticize others for being broken, was he? Forlornly he looked down at his left foot as it laid limb and flat against the soft earth. Years ago as a boy the bones of that foot had been crushed when his Pa tried to teach him to milk their mothering cow. The Capitol had the medication to fix it but his family could have never afforded it. It was an accident that burdened his life back home. Here, it put him at a whole other disadvantage.

But he was surviving. Though it wasn't by much, he was still alive. Because he was from Ten, Darry knew how to live on the threshold of life. He had done it before. He could do it now.

His thoughts traveled back home. Right now the wind would be rolling across the acres of green pastures that made up District Ten. The sun had not fully risen yet but work always began early. He hoped his Mama was opening the doors to their barn, closing her eyes and smiling as a gust of fresh morning air rushed across her face. He hoped his Pa was shoveling hay into the feeders while a long, thick piece of grass stuck out from the corner of his mouth, just as it always did. He tried to see his father's gruff hands as they brushed across the fine, marbled fur of one of their cattle…

Darry knew the reality of it was that his parents were doing none of these things. Along with the rest of Ten, at this moment they were being herded into a pen of sorts to watch the Games on the only projection screen in the district. Darry himself had been there to watch Hunger Games past. Only he knew his parents wouldn't be in the throng of people. They would be on their own separate, special little pedestal so the entire district could witness their pain when he died.

In the distance, Darry heard the rustling of leaves. Instantly his body jolted. Adrenaline and fear rushed through him. That sound could have been a rabbit. But Darry had learned to detect the sounds of animals over the past few days and this was no average forest dweler. To his knowledge, there was only one other creature that inhabited these woods. His hand tightened around his knife.

With difficultly he struggled to his feet as silently as he could and then only stood. He heard the sound again, only it was coming from behind him. He whipped around.

It would have been hard to miss her even in the musky dawn. That hair was just too vibrant. She crept about the trees with a smile on her narrow face that would have been unreadable even if she dared to come closer to him. For just a moment she stood still enough so that she could look at him. Or perhaps it was so he could look at her- the girl, he had learned, only revealed herself to him when she wanted to. She was as elusive as a ghost. It was almost frightening- he had seen her at least three times so far in three different places and she had yet to attack him.

However at this moment he wasn't afraid of her. He could see her. He could kill her, if she came a bit closer. She didn't of course. Instead she pulled the pack she wore from around her back and stuck her hand inside. When she removed it, her fingers were clenched around a paw. A cooked paw.

No, she couldn't have.

When Darry looked to his right, he was shocked to see only two cooked rabbits hanging from a branch that moments ago held three. Somehow the girl had managed to steal the food that hung maybe a yard or two to his side without being detected. He tried to keep his expression stoic as he met her amber eyes but he was sure the surprise wasn't hidden from his face. She was even more a threat than he had anticipated. Had she been stealing food from him this entire time? This wasn't the first time something from his modest collection had gone missing.

The girl's smile wasn't unreadable anymore. She was taunting him. With a grimace, Darry fought to remember the district from which the girl hailed. He was almost positive it was District Five.

His knuckles shook as he held his weapons. This girl was taking the food he had fought to catch and literally risked his life to cook. He was about to shout something at her to scare her off- until he heard the sound of voices.

Instantly his stomach dropped. His eyes squeezed shut with the fragile hope that he was only hearing things.

But he wasn't. It wasn't his imagination. It was really them. He knew eventually he would run into them, one way or another. Truthfully it wasn't as soon as he expected it would be. He wanted to lock eyes with the girl from Five before he ran off because suddenly he felt a kinship with her, simply because she wasn't one of them. But the spot where she had stood moments before was vacant. She already disappeared. So he collected his things and did his best to do the same.

He wouldn't though. He knew he wouldn't. As he hobbled along the underbrush, making more and more noise as his panic increased, he knew this would be it. There had never been a chance that he would come out of this alive. He knew he would die here, he just didn't know when.

The voices of his pursuers grew louder. Their footsteps became more rapid.

He didn't quite want to believe that they found him. But when he looked back over his shoulder and saw them, he had no choice but to accept the fact. They charged at him like a pack of wolves, each fighting to get at him first. Silently he cursed his bad foot which prevented him from truly escaping them.

And then his Mama's withered face drifted to his mind. He swore he could hear her blood-curdling screams from all the way back in Ten as she watched her baby running for his life.

He slowed his pace.

No, he wasn't going to go out like this.

He wasn't going to die running away from them. He wasn't going to let his mother watch them take him down, defenseless and weak. He had been fighting to survive his entire life. His death wouldn't be any different.

With a grimace, he turned to face them.

The trees were a wall of green as Clove flew between them, nearing her target. He was one of the weaklings on the field. Desperately he hobbled away from them on a wounded foot. He was pathetic.

And Clove couldn't wait to kill him.

Suddenly the boy stopped running all together-if the movement he was making to get away from them could even be called that. Then he actually turned around.

Clove sneered. The sad little tribute was going to put up a fight? He wanted to be brave. How cute.

Now all she could see was him. She wanted him. She wanted this one. His face became more and more twisted as she neared it. The gaping wound across her stomach could have been a bug bite, it mattered so little to her at that moment. Perhaps she was weaker than Cato and Marvel but even still she was faster than them.

Time for you to die tribute.

Then just as she readied her knife to throw at him, one came spinning through the air aimed directly at her forehead. Without a moments hesitation she dropped to the ground. She didn't even realize she had screamed until the cold air of the morning filled her mouth. The weakling had a weapon? And not just any weapon- one of her own?

Clove was up in an instant. She didn't bother to hold back her snarl. Let her look like an animal. She didn't care. She wanted this boys blood now even more than she did before.

She scrambled up from the dirt almost as quickly as she had fell down into it, not wasting any time. In less than a second she was tackling him to the ground. He may have been taller than her but he was thin and weak.

Or so she thought.

Before she could pin his arms to the ground he reached up and had her by the neck. And surprisingly enough his grip was strong. Her first instinct was to dig her nails into his eye sockets rather than pry his hands from her neck. He kicked her off him. But after a good amount of grappling she had him beneath her again- the both of them coughing and sputtering heavily.

"Where are you from?" she sneered.

The tribute said nothing.

"Oh wait I remember you," she mused. The knife hissed as she pulled it from her jacket. She waved it around before his eyes to see the fear in them. And it was there. For just a moment he couldn't conceal the fact that he was terrified, though he seemed to be trying. "You're the broken one. The cripple."

This seemed to sting him. The boys lips tightened. Clove smiled.

What happened next she wasn't expecting.

She miscalculated the points of which her knees kept his arms pinned down. He kicked her off him again. Only this time she didn't bounce back as rapidly. Before her mind could even catch up to what was happening he had his knee burrowed into her back. He was screaming at her. He was screaming so many things she couldn't understand him- except for one word.

Monster.

Then the moment was gone and when Clove rolled onto her back, the boy was swinging in the air. Cato had him now.

"We got a fighter here don't we?" he said, his colorless eyes burning bright. His teeth were clenched into a hard smile as he slammed the boy into a tree with such force Clove heard the cracking of bones.

Cato eyed him up and down as he held him by this throat.

"Bad foot, huh?" he sneered. "Maybe I'll do you a little favor huh? I'm sure the Capitol will appreciate the effort."

Something almost burst in the pit of Clove's stomach when he said those words. She knew what Cato was thinking. The idea was glorious. Maybe they didn't have the Girl on Fire. But they certainly had someone to warm up with.

The boy must have understood what he meant too because his stoic mask was broken almost instantly. He began to thrash around. His screams filled the air- so frantic and panicked they sounded like that of a child. Clove knew the word 'no' would never quite hold the same meaning to her again.

When Cato threw the boy onto the ground, Clove took a step forward. She couldn't help but notice from her peripheral vision that Marvel took a step back.

Cato could have been a giant at that moment. He hardly seemed real as he stood above the stick of a boy, drawing his sword to the foot that laid limp against the other. Clove's vision darkened as he began to slice at it. He moved the weapon back and forth as if he was cutting wood. But the boys flesh was nothing like wood. Blood ran black from the wound Cato created and the boys shrieks scared off the birds that watched from the trees.

Clove didn't even realize she was screaming along with him. With the boy, with Cato, with the citizens of the Capitol who watched. With everything. She screamed. And she loved it. Perhaps it wasn't her sword that was causing the child such incredible amounts of pain. But still it made her feel more alive than she could remember since these games began.

With all that was happening she didn't notice Marvel march up to the two of them. It wasn't until there was a hollow thud followed by the boys silence that she saw Marvel standing dangerously close to Cato and pulling one of his own spears out from the boys back.

He said nothing as he backed away from them. But really he didn't have too. The veins beneath his wild eyes and his deep breaths said it all.

Marvel was terrified.

Something that looked like both shock and anger washed across Cato's face as the cannon sounded. But when his expression settled on a smile Clove understood it even before his eyes met hers with a wicked smile to match her own.

In time Marvel would be theirs to kill. Soon enough, soon enough.