A/N: WELL IT'S BEEN A LONG TIME MY LOVES BUT LIFE TOOK OVER AND I'M A BAD GUY UNLIKE CATO BUT I'M GONNA UPLOAD A SHITTON OF CHAPTERS TO MAKE IT UP TO YOU ALL. xx (This chapter is all Cato, then the next one goes back into the Cato/Peeta rhythm of things.)

My heart stops for a few seconds. "What do you mean?"

"I said that everyone who is responsible for causing my family pain should be punished. And you agreed with me. You do know that I honestly still hate you? It's your fault. So you're getting punished. I called in for the Head Peacekeeper. Your dad. I called while you were fooling around up in your bedroom." She puts her hand on the doorknob, looking out the window. "He should be here any minute now."

"No," I whisper. I'm not ready. I'm weak, I'm tired...he'll kill me. I run over to the opposite end of the house, to the back door in the kitchen. I try to open the door, knowing full well that I left my pack behind. I just need to get out of here. "Open, open...why won't you open?" It's...locked. From the outside. When I was little, and I used to run out of the house...my dad had locks put on the outside of the doors and windows so that I couldn't get out. Only he and my mom knew where the special key was. And I look around, and everything is locked. I led myself into my own deathtrap. "But why did you talk to me? Take me to...why?"

"To get information out of you. Thanks for letting me know that you and Lover Boy were each other's life support. Now that you're really gonna be dead, he'll for sure throw himself away. He's the one who killed her. And you know, with that show you guys had on TV, you'd think it's from years of not getting any, that you'd pick up the gay kid. I should've seen if from the start, y'know. All those spontaneous boners before you even made out with him. Getting all sexual with him on television. I mean, not that I hate him because he's gay, but I just hate you both. You're both just murderers. You're just a heartless killer." She pauses. "When a victor dies, their family has to move out of the house in Victors' Village. I thought you would've known that, but you're stupid, so I guess not." She looks out the window once more. "He's here, love. You better prepare yourself." And she leaves, definitely locking the door behind her.

No, no, no, no. I rush into the dining room and pick up my bag, and try to find somewhere to hide. I settle for the closet underneath the stairs. It's so ridiculously tiny, but it was my first instinct. Then, I hear the door open. "Cato! Where are you?"

Oh god, it's him. So I keep quiet, knowing full well that this is a quite obvious place to hide. I just need to buy some time here.

"Your friend tells me you're home! I thought I'd never see you again! Come out." I hear his footsteps stop right next to the closet.

I take a deep breath and open the door. I thought I was safe here, in this house, but I should've known. I shouldn't stayed in Victors' Village. "Hello," I say rather loudly.

He pulls me into a tight hug that nearly crushes me. This is scary. "You should've called at the Justice Building. I missed you."

Finally, he lets go and I can breathe. "Where's Mom?"

"Oh," he raises an eyebrow and grins, "she's gone."

Just as I thought. She's dead, and he did it. But why isn't he killing me? "Oh no." I back away quickly, into my living room. "You're going to take me to the Capitol, aren't you? You're going to have them turn me into a mutt, and use me to bring down the rebels. Right?" I'd rather die.

"How'd you know?" He shuts the closet door and slowly follows me into the room. "It's either that, or you give us valuable information about District Thirteen and then suffer death at my hands. It's honestly your choice."

"Not everything is my choice. Like my sexuality. You tried forcing me to be straight, when I wanted to date a boy, but now you're giving me a choice."

"I'm your father, and I decided to give you a choice. Choose wisely, or I will."

Either give myself up to the Capitol and have them change me, or die as someone who betrayed not only the rebels, but my love's own safety. "I'll choose the Capitol any day." I pause. "Though family members shouldn't give each other ultimatums."

"None?" he laughs, taking a step forward. "Okay. No ultimatums."

"Thanks, Dad. I knew you were a reasonable person," I say sarcastically.

"No ultimatums means I choose." He pauses. "You'll give us information, and then I'll take you to the Capitol."

Become a traitor to the rebellion and be altered? No thanks. "And what happens if I refuse?" I'd rather die a traitor than be a traitor and working for Snow.

"Then I'll take you by force."

I run into the dining room and attempt to open the window there. "No, no, no, please open..."

"Don't hide from me," I hear him say, footsteps following.

When I give up on the window and turn my head, he's already in the room. So I run into the hallway and up the stairs, skipping two at a time, and do the same to the next staircase all the way up to the third floor. There has to be an open window somewhere. It's a fire hazard to not have any windows that can open, and I think I know where that open window is. I open the door to the room on the top floor, jump over the slight mess, and get to the window. I pull it with force, and thankfully, I'm able to lift it. I punch the screen out and look around for the fire escape ladder. It would only make sense to keep it in here. But as I look behind the couch, underneath the bed, everywhere that I can, I'm cornered.

"I let you two go once. I let you two go a second time on purpose. Third time's a charm. You're coming with me, Cato."

"No!" I run to the window and get my entire right leg out of the window when I'm grabbed by the hood of my jacket. I'd rather jump out of the window and die than fall victim to what he has planned for me, but he drags me into the hallway. "What do you mean, on purpose?"

"Why else do you think it was so easy to escape the Capitol? The lack of security, the train?" He laughs. "You'd think at least one member of my family would be bright." He begins walking me down the stairs.

"I don't get it." Way to make me feel stupid, let alone call everybody else stupid.

"A whole rebellion in the making for years, and you thought no one knew about it?" He knocks me into the wall on our way down to the first floor. "Your Lover Boy was necessary to the rebellion. You die mid-war, he offs himself, and two of the leaders for the rebellion are dead, and everything else falls to shit as District Thirteen is crushed once again. And then the Capitol strikes back twice as hard as last time, and the Hunger Games become even better."

"No," I say desperately and in disbelief.

"You will give me valuable information-"

"No..."

"And the Capitol will use you."

"No!"

"And you'll receive your very public death on television."

"NO!" I lock my foot in with his and kick my foot forward, making him stumble and causing him to let me go. "You really wanna kill me, huh?!" I run over to the table and take my sword out of my bag. "Not if I kill you first!" It's pointing towards him now, in my shaking hand.

"You're too afraid. I can tell," he smirks, pulling out his gun. "Besides, you'll be dead before you can even lay that on me."

My breathing becomes heavy as I try to look for a way out. I lower my arm, seemingly in defeat. "Take me to the Capitol, then." I look down at the floor, catching the tablecloth for the serving table out of the corner of my eye. "Don't kill me yet. Take me, and I'll tell you everything."

He looks skeptical, but ultimately lowers his gun. "That's my boy. Come."

In one swift motion, I tug on the tablecloth and pull it towards me so that everything crashes to the floor in between us, and then I run like hell. He yells something about disowning me, and the gun fires after me, but it only grazes my arm so little that it only punctures my sweatshirt. I crouch down in the doorway between the living room and the hallway, the television concealing me. When I even see the slightest movement of his shadow, I push the TV onto him. He drops the gun in a struggle to get out of the way of the falling object. As I reach over for the weapon, he grabs my wrist and holds it to the ground, twists it, and lets the large television crush it. I scream in pain, much to his amusement, but take the gun with my left hand and shoot it at him as well as I possibly can. I manage to catch his neck, causing him to stumble back into the dining room and collapse to the ground, blood flowing out quickly.

As I pull my throbbing hand from underneath the TV, I slowly walk over to his body, which is still twitching. "I didn't want to. But whichever way it turned out, there'd only be one of us. No matter what, you win, okay? Now I'm all alone. There's no one left for me. Within the next minute, you'll be gone. My whole family will be gone. All of my friends are gone. Peeta could very well be gone. I'm alone."

"And it's all your fault," he laughs, coughing up blood. So I shoot him in the head. His breathing stops within seconds.

"And it's all my fault." I throw the gun to the side and drop to my knees, sobbing uncontrollably. My dad is dead because of me. I could've stopped it all some other way. There had to have been another way. We could've mended our relationship, and then when the rebels won, he'd go to jail. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry..." I killed the last remaining member of my family. We're all dead now, officially. Even if I'm physically alive, the world still thinks I'm dead. Possibly six feet under by now. Peeta crying by my grave, unless he too is underground next to it. But I can't think like that. I hate thinking this way. My dad deserved it. He's done horrible things. He's the reason for the torture, for my almost-death, for Peeta's possible death...

"Good riddance, asshole," I choke out, still conflicted in my emotions. No matter what shit he's done to us even over the years, he's still my father. "No, contributing to the birth of a child does not make you a parent." Being there for your children makes you a parent. This man is no father of mine. I'm disowning him like he just disowned me. Still, I strip off his uniform, leaving him in his own clothes that he puts on underneath to shield him from the cold, and squeeze it into my bag. A token of my achievement. My prize. And now, he's just in his plain day clothes as if he didn't even work for the Capitol. I want to leave him the way he should've been. My dad. Not some Peacekeeper hell-bent on killing me and my fiance. He should've been this man, but he wasn't. "Maybe I'll see you in Hell."

Just then, I hear a large explosion that's surely somewhere remotely close to the house, followed by other smaller ones, and the ground beneath me shakes. My house doesn't cave in, so I'm assuming this attack isn't supposed to be on the people, but the Capitol. Despite it not being a direct attack on my house, the foundation here has always been shaky and uneven, so one of the blasts causes the china cabinet next to me to tip over on top of me, and everything goes black.

I open my eyes to see the familiar ceiling of my old house, but I can barely even breathe because there's a giant cabinet on me. "Great," I whisper, slightly pleased that I'm even alive right now, and try to push the cabinet off of me, but I stop immediately and scream. My right hand hurts like a bitch still. I crawl out from underneath using my good hand and stand up. My feet wobble a bit as I stand for the first time in...how long was I even out?

My dad is still lying in that same spot. So not long, I suppose.

I search my pack for medical bandages, but of course, those got ruined on my way here so I had to throw them out. I rip the bottom off of one of my shirts, as usual, and wrap it around my broken wrist. I tie it in place so that it won't unravel. This isn't the best way to heal my hand, but it's all I have. Then, I take my bag into the kitchen with me and turn on the little TV in there. Might as well see what's going on.

The light from the TV flickers as I take out the photograph I took from my nightstand in Victors' Village. Capitol TV is on right now, so I find a pen and start writing on the backside to the picture-of course, with my left hand, since my right hand is broken. Now I know that pain that Peeta felt when I snapped his wrist.

'Forever isn't too far away.

So I'll see you soon, love.'

I draw a heart at the bottom of the page where my initials would go. Because oh, he'll know. Who else would send a present nearly identical to the one he sent me on his birthday?

Then, the screen changes to news from District Thirteen. Apparently, they bombed the Nut, which I heard them talk about one day. That's what the rebels named the place here in Two where the base for the Peacekeepers is. That must've been what all those explosions were. They closed off exits with an avalanche, trapping all the Peacekeepers inside. 'Miraculously,' as they put it, every Peacekeeper from District Two was gathered there at the time except for the Head Peacekeeper, who they're currently starting to search for.

Next, they say Two surrendered four days ago after the bombing. "Oh my god, I was out for days." Then I realize that I was the reason why all the Peacekeepers were there. When their superior is nowhere to be found, they have to gather together at the Nut for an emergency meeting. They must've needed my dad for something while the bombs hit. But he was here, because of me. He couldn't go back because I killed him. And they were forced to surrender.

Looks like I really did help out with the rebellion.

They show Peeta, so it's my best hope that he's still alive.

I've had enough with this, so I decide it's best to get the hell out of here. I put the photo in a small box. I'm intending on putting the jacket in there too, once I'm close to Peeta. The realization hits me that I still can't show my face around here or anything because the Capitol is very angry, but one way or another, this war will be over soon, so I won't have to hide out for long.

Just then, as I try prying my back door open, I hear the front door all the way at the other end of the house behind me open. "I know what you meant. About losing a family member, that you get how I feel."

I sigh, turning around to face the girl who betrayed me. "Do you?"

"What you said reaping day, about you knowing how it feels. I...I didn't realize. That was a long time ago, so I'd just...forgotten. We weren't friends then." Antonia looks at her feet. "You went into the Games for revenge...like how I told your dad to get you. For revenge."

"Gee, I thought I had to spell it out for you."

"That was stupid. Why you did that, volunteered." She carefully steps towards me. "'It's always the boy from Twelve,' you said, right? Your boy from Twelve didn't do anything though. That's a failed plan of revenge, Cato."

"So was yours," I shrug, wary of buying her crap.

"Ratting you out could've caused the entire rebellion to collapse. I know. If Mellark had done himself in, then...then the Capitol would win. I'm really sorry..." She pauses. "I guess we're all a little fucked up, then. How can I make it up to you?"

I want someone to trust, but the only person I trust is Peeta. No, I trust Finnick, too. He's great. "You never saw me to begin with. I'm dead."

"What?"

"You let me go now, since you opened the door. I can't trust someone to tag along with me. I'm on my own now. Possibly forever, if Peeta's dead. So I've been dead since the Ninth. That's what you'll tell people if they ask." I take all of my things and head over to the door, walking past her. "That's what you'll do for me. Don't try to contact me. Don't even think about me. And if you want, you can tell everyone that the Head Peacekeeper here is dead. Don't say who killed him or why. Goodbye." And I leave her behind, testing if she'll really keep her word this time. I can't trust anyone.

About a week and a half later, I make it to a stable part of the Capitol. I'd gone the other way, willing to travel all the way to District Thirteen now just in case I was wrong about how long the rebellion would last, but I heard a rumor along the way that Peeta, among others, were moved into the Capitol. So I end up there, hiding out in some places that seemed abandoned enough. It's best that I don't come out until the war's over, but I heard they're signing a treaty on the morning of my birthday. Kickass! But that's soon, so I lie in wait, always keeping a look out for any glimpse of Peeta, or anyone else who is still alive. Oh, I hope he's alive.

On the night of March 2, I shed my disgusting sweatshirt and the red jacket, and lay the jacket in the box, on top of the photograph. He gave me a present for his birthday, so I'll give him the same one for mine.

I made it. Peeta hopefully made it. And I really hope there weren't any more casualties on our side.

Finally, I get a goodnight's sleep-or the best sleep I can, with how anxious and impatient I am-and wait for morning to come. ~

A/N: That's that, I hope you all still love me and review. I won't ever go away for that long again! D: 3