My apologies to all loyal readers for making you wait so long. It has been a busy couple of months and I wish that I could update more often. Hopefully this entry will make up for some of that! Don't forget to share and follow. I look forward to reading any of your reviews! -Always, Elizabeth Holmes

I listen to the creaking of wood as it strained against the pressure of my careful ties keeping the traps in place. Justin crouches beside me, carefully arranging bright green foliage around the sharpened stakes we had made in the last hour of daylight. Night had settled in quickly and with it came a biting cold that settled deep inside me, numbing my bones and causing my fingers to fumble. It tempted me to build a fire, but I had read the books enough times to know that the light of a fire only invited death. I wasn't about to make that mistake. Not when my life and the life of my brother depended on it.

I look up at the rising moon between the branches, the pale light only making me feel colder. The stars could not be seen from where we hid in the thickest part of the forest. Even if I could see the sky I knew that the stars would not be present in the wake of such a bright light. No doubt that was the gamemakers' plans in order to keep our true whereabouts a secret. Still, I had hope in Prema's words to me before the games began. Look to the stars.

"We need to get higher." I say, standing with my eyes still addressing the heavens. "They'll be hunting soon."

My brother stands and wipes his hands off on a nearby tree, surveying the work we had just finished in the twilight. To an outsider it would seem that we stood in just a normal clearing, but to us it was a minefield of traps. Anyone who would walk through here with ill intent would undoubtedly find their legs stabbed and would instantly be handicapped. Not dead though. I wasn't about to start a killing spree like the false Capitol wanted. My main goal is and always will be to keep Justin alive. He probably had the same thoughts.

"I saw a clear tree about a hundred yards back towards the Cornucopia." Justin murmurs in reply. "It has plenty of branches and nothing like the tracker jackers living in it. We should be able to hear the traps going off from there."

I nod and we gather our packs to head in the direction he had pointed out, carefully picking our way through the crude traps. We remain silent, the silent night in the arena making our movements sound louder than they should be. My thoughts turn to cameras that would no doubt be watching us and I wonder if we wouldn't be walking into some carefully designed surprise. It was late, I was still coping with the fact I was in the Hunger Games, and I was in no mood for a surprise from the gamemakers.

Briefly I thought about my parents and then quickly shut them out when I began to tremble, knowing that the memory of them would only make me weak. I could see them again if I survive this, but if I lose my concentration the only time I would see them was in the afterlife. Not exactly my desired reunion.

Justin halts abruptly beside a white bark tree and I look up to the twisting branches that held countless silver leaves the size of my head. Trampled beneath our feet were the tree's fallen leaves bearing a darker green on its face and giving off the heavy scent of death. The smell of the dead leaves did well to mask our odour and I couldn't help but be impressed with Justin for finding this place.

"You're up first, Em." he tells me, squatting down and positioning his hands for a foot hold.

"How will you get up?" I question, hesitant to take his offer. "I'm not leaving you on the ground."

"Emma, I'm six foot three. I don't think I'm going to have a problem. Now start climbing before I throw you up."

I obey without another word, knowing that he was dead serious from all the other fulfilled threats he had given me through the years. Planting my foot firmly on his laced fingers, I steady myself on his shoulders and look towards the nearest branch as he raised himself from the ground. The branch approached quickly and I let go of his shoulders to stand and grasp hold of the tree, fluidly swinging myself up like we had done this countless times before.

Pulling my other leg onto the broad branch, I began climbing to give Justin room to follow. In no time I felt the tree tremble with his weight and ducked my head against the resulting shower of leaves. Catching my breath with their smell, I travel further along the many branches without stopping even when I had reached a considerable height. The moon was becoming visible along with large sections of the velvety sky and I felt drawn to it like a moth to firelight.

There was a hoarse whisper from below, but I ignore it and at last reached the top where thin branches wavered dangerously beneath my feet. Clutching to the core of the tree, I push back the last of the leaves' cover and took in the breath taking view. We were near the crescent ring of rocky falls with the Cornucopia gleaming on the mount in the middle. Since the games began, eleven of the falls had dried up and I could no longer see as many rivers as I had at the top of the hill. The only falls that continued to run in the cool blue moonlight were on the farthest side of the arena.

Atop the towering hill I could see the flicker of firelight and caught the whispers of laughter. The careers were celebrating the aftermath of the blood bath. I could almost imagine their stock pile of all the supplies left behind in everyone else's desperation to escape.

"Emma." Justin rasps below me, his considerable weight keeping him from joining me.

About to climb back down and settle in for the night, I stop at a sudden shriek piercing the silence and driving panicked needles along my spine. I stand frozen to the tree, staring with a rapid heart rate at the hill as the shriek grew louder and then cut off without warning. A canon blast was close to follow, deafening and muffled at the same time as the scream continued to echo inside my head. The silence did not return, but in the canon's absence was a string of cackles that raised the hair on my neck. It came from the Cornucopia and I knew without a doubt that someone had fallen victim to the careers' torture.

"What the hell was that?" Even Justin sounded unnerved.

"The careers." I whisper down to him. "They got another one of us. There are only half of us left."

Regaining my ability to move, I quickly retreat to where Justin had laid out a makeshift bed of blankets and leaves on a particularly large branch. It might have been the moonlight, but he looks far paler than when I left him and I knew that I appeared the same to him. We both knew without saying it, that the careers were crueller than the ones encountered in the books. It shook my confidence in surviving and the trembles became harder to control. Unbidden, a strange fear that Ronen might be in danger gripped me and I found it difficult to breath.

Pressing my back to the tree, I slid to the blankets where Justin was already situated and felt him secure us to the branch. The booming strains of the Capitol's anthem broke above us, but I didn't look up to see the faces of the dead. It terrified me to think that the deaths were real, that there was no going back in this game. We were in this without a hope for rescue or any indication someone out there knew our predicament.

"Twelve tributes." Justin murmurs, looking back down at the end of the anthem. "And the games have only just begun."

I didn't reply, readjusting to slowly and carefully wrap my arms around my brother. He embraced me without hesitation and I bury my head into his chest, blocking out the world around us. I fell asleep with Justin's security and did not dream only to snap awake in what felt like seconds later.

There was a crashing below us accompanied with the sound of several voices. I stiffen against the Justin's chest and carefully peer over the edge of our hide out down below. The forest ground was beginning to grey with the approach of dawn and I was able to pick out five shadowy figures making their way towards our tree. Two of the figures supported a third between them who was limping with a twisted foot.

I see Justin jolt awake and cover his mouth before he can speak, pressing my finger to my lips and motioning to the group below. They had stopped just a few paces from our tree to address their limping companion, none of them seemingly aware of our presence.

"Are you sure that Price girl is around here?" snarls one I instantly recognize as Engle.

One of the figures points to the maimed member who I could identify as female with the little light beginning to break through.

"You see what happened to Henna?" replies Clayton, his sharp voice causing a pit of sickness to curl in my gut. One of us. One of the Captured had joined the Careers and now they were after me. "That has her name written all over it. Trust me. I watched her in training and I would know her traps anywhere."

"When we find her, leave that little witch to me." snaps the injured girl. "I'll skin her from the ankles up and string up at the top of the falls…Then I'll kill her."

I swallow hard at her detailed description, tasting the sour bile that had risen as a result. She wrenches herself away from the others' support and hops to a fallen tree to sit down on, taking hold of a stake lodged in her foot. Without even blinking, she removed the sharpened wood and tosses it to the side, binding the resulting gash with cloth ripped from Clayton's jacket.

"Do what you want with her." says Engle, absently running his fingers over his blade. "But I'm the only one who is going to kill her."

A short redhead steps forward, his arm slack from another one of our traps. His face is twisted in defiance and it was obvious he was about to object to Engle's decision. It was obvious to everyone else as well as they had immediately gone silent, but there wasn't even a chance for an argument. As fast as a viper, Engle unsheathed his knife and dug it into the redhead's chest, twisting it firmly into place. The canon's boom announced his death and Engle pushed the boy from his blade without even flinching.

About to wipe the blood from his blade, he stopped and licked a dab of it off. No one moved and no one dared to make a sound as he wiped it off on Clayton's shoulder.

"I want her blood." he tells them. "And no one else is going to take it. Understand?"

There was fervent nodding all around and they began moving again, coming ever closer to where Justin and I hid. I held my breath when they passed below, feeling my stomach twitch uncomfortably when Engle paused to sheath his blade. He takes a moment to drink from his canteen and looks around with a mild expression on his face before joining the others.

Neither of us move even an inch until the sound of their movement is long gone and I collapse against Justin's chest. It feels like my heart beat suddenly starts back up again and I know that I was resting on the edge of panic, taking in the first gasps of hyperventilation.

I can see the body of the redhead buried in the silver leaves and then it's only a matter of time before we hear a loud whirring. The tree sways with the uproar of wind and then a black vessel appears flying above. A metal claw is ejected from the underside and latches onto the boy's body, quickly pulling his limp form up into its interior. The craft vanishes as quickly as it had appeared, triggering our movement.

We didn't need to speak to know that we had to move. The careers could return soon and I wasn't about to let the monster that was Engle have a chance at my blood. We were gone before the sun breached the domed sky and heading in the opposite direction of the pack towards the eleven remaining falls.