Hello lovely readers! I hope you are all doing well and enjoyed the new stills as much as I did! Clove just looks so sassy, I can't even deal! Anyway, Have a chapter:

"Clove, you don't have to do it! Just because your parents want you to go into training doesn't mean you have to!" "Well, maybe I want to, Amber!" "How could you want to go to the games? That just seems like the most awful thing to do!" "It seems a lot better then having to take home ec classes and learn how to weld things at the nut." "Well at least I have no chance of dying in sewing class." "I won't die if I train hard and kill everyone." "Could you really do that though, Clove? Murder someone in cold blood, watch them die right in front of you?" "Of course. It will be easy." I rolled my eyes at Amber's innocence. "So, you're saying that you could just kill me right now and not even bat an eye?" "No. That's different. In the games you don't know the tributes. I wouldn't kill you, you're my friend." "Well maybe you could have been friends with the other people in the arena." "But I won't be!" "But you could have been." I remember Amber turning and walking towards her first baking class as I headed over to the training gym for my first lesson. That was the last time we ever spoke to each other. She grew up to be that giggly blonde girl with the cutest clothes in school while I became 'one of the guys,' eating lunch with the other brutish kids in training. I think Amber was the only friend I ever had who was a girl. After that day, she was replaced by Cato. I never really gave her much thought, but sometimes I would see her give me a sad little smile in the hallways or see her eyes linger on me as she passed by the training gym. I guess we could have still been friends, we were just so different though.

After standing on my circular plate for the 60 seconds, hearing the gong ring, and racing towards the cornucopia, I though of her. I bent down, picked up a set of knives and quickly grabbed a nice throwing one before turning to find my first victim. I set my eyes on an easy target. A boy who is bent over something, fighting with another tribute. His back is facing me and everything. Could he make it any easier? As I raise my arm and let the knife go, Amber's words filled my head, "But you could have been." As I watch the knife fly through the air, time seems to slow. Maybe the boy and I would have been friends back to District 2. Maybe he has a girlfriend back home, brothers, sisters, parents. And with one quick arm movement I will end his life and he will never even know what hit him. I'm momentarily frozen as I watch the knife lodge into his back, dead center. He keels over and I know Amber was right. This is wrong, this whole thing is wrong. I just killed someone! This was different from watching on tv. And then I see her: District 12, the girl to beat, the girl with the 11. She sees me and fear fills her eyes as she turns and runs. Ok, this is not the time to go soft on anyone, especially not on her. I could take out the game's biggest competition right now. I grab a knife, not even bothering to see what kind it is and hurl it towards her receding figure. I am as good of a shot as ever and the knife goes straight towards her neck. She is smarter then she seems though, because she hikes her backpack up over her head and neck. The knife hits the backpack instead. Shit! I missed and gave her a weapon!

I consider going after her but turn and can tell that my allies need some help at the bloodbath. What the hell, I only see three people dead! Is this a joke? I killed one, so that means out of the six others in the alliance, at least four hadn't done anything yet. Why were we having so much trouble dealing with untrained tributes? I watch as Glimmer readies an arrow and shoots towards a boy, missing far to the right. Pathetic. He's wounded too! I grab a knife and throw it at him. It hits him in the left side of his ribcage and I know he'll be dead within a minute. I run over to the middle of the fighting where Cato and Marvel are. I watch as Marvel spears a blonde girl in the chest and Cato slashes his sword into a boy's stomach. They are standing so that any tributes who hope to get a weapon from the Cornucopia will have to get past them. I see the girl from District 6 (the one Cato and I terrified earlier this week) bending over to grab a set of throwing knives. No, those are mine.

I could just throw a knife at her, but where's the fun in that? I sneak up behind her and lock my elbow around her neck, then force her into a standing position. "Just where do you think you're going with my knives?" I ask her in a falsely sweet voice. "I just... I'm sorry. Here, take them. Just let me go, Please!" She thrusts the knife set in my direction and I grab them from her hands. Well that won't do. I'm obviously not going to let her go, but I'm certainly not finished with her. I like to play with my food. "Alright. I'll make you a deal," I begin, "You can pick out one knife that I'll give to you but you have to promise me that you will never try to kill me." "Yes, yes! I promise! Anything." "Good. We have a deal. Now which knife would you like?" "That one." she says in a shaky voice, pointing at the longest one. "Very well. It's a pity really, that such a nice knife will be wasted on you, though." The girl can sense the change in my tone. My fake sweet voice changing to a menacing one. "I said I'd give you a knife. You never specified that you wanted to get out alive." She makes a last ditch effort to struggle her way out of my grip, but she's no match for me and I slowly run the knife across her throat, savoring her scream. She drops to the ground and I feel accomplished. It's easy to kill. I must have just been out of it when I made my first kill. I hadn't been in the right mindset, obviously, since I was still processing the fact that I was pregnant when the gong sounded. But I had stowed that thought away for now. I need to concentrate on the bloodbath.

The fight had died down a bit and I see only three tributes still alive who weren't in the alliance. Odessaly is having a hard time with one of the boys who managed to get away from the Cornucopia so I run off to aid her. He somehow has her pinned on the ground but has no weapon that I can see. I watch her dig her fingernails into his cheeks before I let the knife fly into his neck. "Thanks." She says as I push the dying boy's body off of her and help her up. "Hows the battle over at the mouth of the Cornucopia going?" she asks me. "I think it's pretty much under control, but they could probab-" I stop mid-sentence as I turn to see Nathaniel, nunchucks and knife in hand, sneaking up behind Cato. No! There is no way I can reach him in time, I'm too far away. "CATO!" I scream as loud as I can muster. He doesn't look up though, as he is currently wrestling with a larger girl who managed to get her hands on a dagger. I break out in a sprint, praying, hoping I can get there. And then I see the boy from District 12 punch Nathaniel in the face and wrestle him to the ground. I watch as the two struggle before District 12 stabs Nathaniel in the neck several times until there is no question that he is dead. Cato finished the girl with the dagger and surveys the area. The battle has ended. He turns to District 12 and says, "Well, I think you proved your worth, Lover Boy." which is the closest thing to a thank you Cato would ever say. Cato looks over at me, remembering our talk regarding the boy beforehand. District 12 had done the only thing that would have made me agree to him joining us: he had saved Cato's life. "Yeah. You can be in the alliance."

"We should probably look over the supplies." Marvel says. Oh, poor, dumb, Marvel. Why would he even attempt to be the leader? Cato had claimed that position on day one of training, even before at the chariots, really. "No." says Cato, "We have to get the weapons off of the dead tributes. We'll want them later." Glimmer, Marvel and Odessaly go to collect the weapons while Lover Boy grabs a first aid kit. I walk closer to Cato, keeping my face emotionless, "I thought Nathaniel was going to kill you I mean what if Lover Boy hadn't stepped in." "Please. As if I could be taken down on the first day." Cato laughs, character on, "You obviously don't know me at all, Clover." Oh no, I have no idea who you are. It's not like you got me pregnant or anything... "It's Clove." I say, trying to sound forceful and bitchy. The audience has to think I can hold my own against Cato if I want sponsors. "Whatever, Clove. My stylist told me that there was a problem with you in the hoovercraft. Something that may have caused you to not participate in the games. Care to tell me what that was all about?" Cato's tone is harsh, but I can tell from his expression that he is genuinely worried about what happened to me in the hoovercraft. Damn it, why did Drala tell Quincis? I can't have Cato being suspicious of anything, especially not right off the bat. I try my best to look confused, "What are you talking about? Nothing happened on the hoovercraft."

The other careers are returning, so Cato drops the subject, but I know he could tell that I was lying. I can only hope that with the games going on, he'll forget to question me later. "So how many did you all kill? I did 3." "4." I say, looking smug. "2." Marvel says. "1." Odessaly adds. "1." Says Lover Boy in a soft voice. Cato does the math quickest and turns to Glimmer, "Are you telling me that you killed no one?" "Well... My weapon wasn't there." That explains her incompetence with the bow and arrows. "What do you mean your weapon isn't here? They have everything. What's the use of even keeping you around?" Glimmer faulters, "Well I use an automatic cross bow, but they didn't have any so I grabbed the bow and quiver since they are similar." "You don't know how to use anything else?" I ask her. Sure, knives are my thing, but if they didn't have any I would be just fine with spears, a sword, or just about anything else. "Lay off her. Why does it matter whether or not she killed anyone?" Marvel says, stepping forward to Glimmer's defense. "Why does it matter?" Cato starts, voice rising, "It matters because..." I step in-between Cato and Marvel, not wanting a fight (Also I am aware that Glimmer's beauty will surely win us sponsors). "Cut it out. It's day 1. Let's set up camp." Marvel backs down, but I can already tell it's going to be a long day.

Thanks for reading! As always, reviews would be fantastic.