Chapter Thirteen

I hate myself. I really hate myself. I shouldn't have tried to help Ceaser in the first place, and now all of Panem is going to have seen Ceaser kissing my neck, and me not resisting. They'll have cut the part where I forced him off. The Capitol wouldn't like that part, so the gamemakers would have cut it from the footage.

How could I have been so stupid?

For the hours that lay between now and sunrise, I sit on the rock with my net and my trident. Some of the time I'm knotting, but I spend most of it staring at the trees in front of me and mentally banging my head against them until it splits open.

I find myself scarier than Ceaser and Valarie and the Capitol combined. The only thing that takes my mind away from hanging myself in one of the trees or stabbing myself until I die of blood loss is Sara.

She's going to be watching this, and I can't have her see that. She's the closest thing I have ever had to a sister. I can't leave her. Sara was and is the entire reason that I'm here sitting on this damn rock in the middle of man-created jungle surrounded by people that are thinking how they'd love to kill me. If I'm going down in these damn Games –which I fervently hope does not happen- then I am going to go down fighting, not like a coward. I will not take the coward's way out of life.

Even if it does seem easier.

When I see dawn break over the horizon, I wake Mason first. Then Rory. "It's your turn" are the only words I say to Rory before walking over to wake Valarie. She's much less volatile than Ceaser is, but that doesn't mean I trust her more. I'm still the last to lower my weapon, just by seconds as to not make her overly suspicious.

I don't purposely avoid Ceaser. No, that will tell him that he's winning. That I've given up. As soon as he's on his feet and slinging the backpack over his shoulder, he's giving orders. According to Ceaser, Mason's catching fish.

"He doesn't have a net or a trident, let me do it," it really makes sense that I would do it instead of Mason.

Ceaser laughs and looks me sternly in the eyes, "You're funny, Four. No, you and Rory are making a fire."

I have to stand my ground. I will not falter. I stare into his eyes, "I'd love to see what you're going to do if I do go with Mason because I really don't think you'll do anything." It's all talk. My bones and my flesh seemed to have swapped places because my bones are shaking, but my flesh isn't moving. "C'mon, Mason," I put my hand on his back and we walk down the short way to the cornucopia. I hand him the net once we're at the water's edge. I don't take off my boots this time. "You catch 'em, I'll kill 'em. Deal?"

"Deal." He smiles and takes the net from my hands.

We need something to put the fish on so we can carry them back to the others. "Knife," I command of Mason, and he willingly gives up a knife from his pocket. I find the plastic in the backpack, and cut off a medium sized rectangle to roll the fish in.

We wade into the water until it's at my knees –or halfway up Mason's thighs.

"What happened last night while you were gone to get water?"

I can't see behind me to see if Ceaser is standing at the edge of the trees or not, so I mentally note to tell him later.

"If you keep talking, we'll never catch anything."

Silence falls between us. I need to warn him that we'll have to leave in a few days. Now is the best time, but I'm not certain that we're alone, and we need to catch fish, which tends to be easier in silence.

Once we have enough fish to feed the five of us well, we begin to wade back to the shore. I look carefully through the trees, scanning them the best that I can to make sure no one from our alliance is around. "Mason," I say in a voice just above as whisper, "we're going to have to leave soon. Last night when I was getting the water, Ceaser attacked me. I think he was just trying to scare me because he didn't try very hard to kill me." I'm silent for a moment as we reach the shore. I look through the trees once more out of paranoia. "Our best chance would be when the group splits up. They don't trust us enough to let us split on our own, so we'll with one of the other members of the alliance. We can kill the one," I take a shaky breath. I won't make Mason kill that one person. I'll do it. "Then there are only two of them left."

"So, we're on our own after that?" The look on his face tells me he doesn't want to be alone.

I shake my head, sling my arm around his shoulders, "Nah, you can't get rid of me yet. We're sticking together." Mason smiles up at me, pulls the backpack on, and carries the fish back to the others.

"Took you long enough," Ceaser says, pulling his sword out of the fire and spitting on it. My nose crinkles. Mason hands the fish to Rory, who is sitting at the fire. Valarie must be getting water, but I never gave her the spile so really I have no idea where she is.

Mason and I sit near each other. I don't want to sit too close, but I don't want to let him out of my sight. My affection towards him is growing. I have to stop caring about Mason so much because only one person makes it out of this arena. Two can't make it out. It's impossible.

So I focus on my growing net. It's getting bigger, big enough to catch a person the size of Valarie. I need to make it big enough to catch someone the size of Birch and Ceaser and Piers. I'm not big enough to take any of them out without the aid of the net. We can't leave until I have the security of this net being big enough to catch someone the size of those three.

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This will be the first night that I will be able sleep without having to keep watch. It should bring me comfort, but it scares me to know that my life is going to be in the hands of people that I don't really trust.

Three more faces are shot into the sky tonight: the frightened girl from Seven, Piers, and the girl from Ten.

Ceaser made Mason kill the girl from Seven. She was the first tribute we found today. It wasn't long after we'd eaten that morning, and we'd gone "hunting" as Ceaser liked to call it. I tried not to watch, but Ceaser was watching me. Mason slit her throat and then stabbed her in the heart. We didn't leave until the canon went off. Ceaser took joy in watching the life leave the girl's eyes.

Mid-afternoon the girl from Ten stumbled across us refilling our water supply. Rory killed her in an instant.

Things slowed down after that. The gamemakers had to have driven Piers to us on purpose because he seems too smart to just walk into our alliance by accident. And he looked scared when he found us. He was weak, and Ceaser saw that. I've never seen more delight on Ceaser's face than when he was watching the life leave Piers' body.

I'm beginning to find the sound of the cannons comforting. Maybe the next one will be Ceaser's.

A/N: Once again, I hope you all are enjoying this story. Thank you to everyone who commented, favorite, and followed since the last update.

I do apologize for not updating for the past few weekends. I was gone every Saturday and unable to get to a computer and update. I am terribly sorry about that. So, this is now week one of the Saturday update, so let's see how far we can go. I'm still writing Chapter Nineteen, so get excited because we might be kind of almost done!

If you don't like something about my story, I would love to know what it is. Please leave a review about what you do and don't like about what I'm writing so that I can get better. Thank you and have a splendid day!