+ Thank you again to Dancing-Souls and Radio Free Death for the wonderful reviews, and to the big surge of readers over these last two chapters! Means a lot to know people are following the story. Let me know what you think and/or where I can improve!

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The night brought new horrors.

I was convinced that I wasn't seeing things. The corruption under Tethys's skin swelled and spread with each passing hour, the disease infecting more and more of her arm. My ally whimpered and cried as she drifted in and out of consciousness, resisting every attempt from Delfin and me to get her to choke down water. All we could do now was wait – wait for her to get better, or wait for whatever disease ravaged her to take an even worse tol.

Not like we had much food as it was. Tethys had lost her pack underground and with it all of the food and most of the other supplies. Delfin carried water, spare socks, a rope, and a few other tools, but the depressing notion of choking down a huge brown centipede I'd skewered on my dagger reinforced our predicament.

"How do I even know I can eat this?" I moaned as the bug writhed on my weapon. "I'm gonna get unlucky eventually eating all these bugs."

Delfin sighed. "I cut the head off. You're not gonna get anything else."

"How do I know it's not poisonous?"

"Because Tethys dared me to eat one that looked exactly the same earlier. You wanna starve, go 'head. Not my problem."

I screwed my eyes shut and crammed the armored creature in my mouth. With a crunch and the subsequent explosion of goop, I immediately regretted that choice. The taste was…exotic. I guessed it was halfway between the delight of eating two week-old moldy bread crust and guzzling raw sewage, an estimation I wasn't inclined to judge any further.

Delfin hissed at me as I gulped down the meal. "Shut up!"

"Whu, I – "

"Quiet! Now!"

He picked up his spear, frowned, and slunk out of the building. Thunder rumbled off in the distance, and with only Tethys's labored breathing for company, I felt very alone in the cavernous ruin. While we were off the street and out of the open, we were sitting ducks if someone knew we were here. Between Tethys's condition and my poor excuse for fighting, Delfin was our only protection – and I saw in his eyes more and more that he was second-guessing his commitment to our alliance.

The thunder stopped, and the moment of silence drove me mad.

I gripped my arms, stood up, and took a cautious step towards the nearest gap in the rubble. "Delfin?" I whispered.

I jumped as he stormed back into the building with a scowl. "Something's prowling around out there," he said, tossing his spear to the ground.

"Something?" I asked, swallowing and backing into a dark corner.

"Something was beeping, like a parachute or whatever. I looked around the street and something else scuffed behind a door. Dunno what it was, but something's watching."

"You think it's one of the others?"

"Or a mutt. Or that…thing. For all I know, we're the last three left and everyone's just waiting for something to happen to Tethys. They don't give us a fucking clue in here." He hurled a rock at the wall and spat. "Not a damn clue."

Tethys cried again and shuddered. Whatever the mutt was that had bitten her, it'd been carrying something with it – something that was happily digging through Tethys's arm and dragging out the inevitable. I couldn't imagine what she was feeling. It was a blessing that she was only half-conscious: I knew I wouldn't want to watch some parasite or worm spawning inside me.

It was even worse to know we were helpless against it. Digging it out would probably kill Tethys through blood loss or infection, and if something was watching us outside, her screams would certainly give away a perfect time to attack us.

"I don't think we're gonna know anything unless we get out of here," I said. "And two of us aren't. At least."

Delfin leaned forward and lay his face in his hands. His chest heaved. "Really didn't want it to end like this," he said, his voice garbling. "Just sitting here with nothing to do, letting this place kill us…it's not what you think, y'know?"

I shook my head, and he laughed with a bitter croak. "I guess you guys are used to it where you're from. Tethys and I grew up seeing, what, four, five victors from home since we were born? Something like that. The stupid thing is that those guys who win aren't even treated that well. I bet you think we revere them or something give that we're the favorites every year with 1 and 2, but no. I've seen Finnick and Annie Odair down by the docks, and a lot of times they get…uh, looks from people. Like they're sell-outs. There's only a few victors who are well-liked, and they're the ones who don't go to the Capitol much."

"So why do guys have such good tributes every year?" I asked.

"Why d'you think? Why you guys in the other districts haven't gotten it yet is beyond me. Look. All the fishermen and the boat mechanics and cannery workers have their own comraderies and circles, but that's all still hard work. You might drown. Something in the ocean might eat you. You might be stuck in poverty forever in a cannery, for you and your kids and your grandkids. That sucks. So…"

"So you try to get rich? Through the Games? That's a terrible chance. Almost everyone dies every single year."

"Yeah, but you give your tributes an advantage and those chances go up," Delfin said with a shrug. "We have winners. Lots of 'em, and they do get rich, even if most are looked at all weird. Most parents can't even imagine their kids having easy lives where they don't have to worry about money. It's a crapshoot with ridiculously bad odds, but some of us are dumb enough to play the lottery. Still, you don't imagine watching your arm turn into something monstrous like that."

Delfin sighed and slumped against the wall. "Makes me wonder if it'll be worth if it I win. Lotta money, easy life, but I have to remember all this."

I looked away. Daud's scowl and Finch's tired eyes brushed past my thoughts. Why even bother caring, Terra? I heard Glenn saying all the way back in the Training Center cafeteria. Out of all twenty-four of us who entered this howling darkness, I had a feeling Glenn was the only one who had seen this coming.

Funny. I'd ignored my district partner so much during that lead-up to the Games. Maybe I should've listened to what he had to say.

"I don't think it's worth volunteering," I said after a long pause.

Delfin snorted. "Too late now, I guess. I'm gonna get some sleep. Just keep an eye on Tethys for now."

My thoughts tossed and turned in my head like Tethys did on the ground over the next few hours. Glenn. Ember. The boy from 7. Now Tethys. Why did I still have a chance when they didn't? It wasn't skill. I'd half-assed my way through the arena since the opening cannon shot. It sure didn't feel like luck. So what? Were the Gamesmakers toying with me, stringing me out, fattening up my emotional reservoir before breaching the dam for the whole country to see? Or had Elan and the others actually convinced people to pull for me?

Fat chance, I told myself. You'd have gotten way more sponsorships. My mind wavered on that, however: The dagger must have cost a fortune, especially this late in the Games, and I never was going to draw the kind of money that someone like Delfin or the kids from 1 would earn.

It all made my head hurt. I just wanted a chance to rest and feel safe for once, but until I clawed my way out of this hell, I'd be stuck looking over my shoulder for a hint of danger. Or, in Tethys's case, for a front-row view of the grotesque.

Tethys. Oh, bad. Bad bad bad.

She turned over, grimaced, and ripped at her chest. Before I had time to get to her, she tore a hole in her clothing, revealing pale, diseased lines shooting out like a road network all the way to the base of her neck. The skin around every fiber darkened and swelled.

Hrkk.

"Delfin!" I screamed, scuttling back on all fours away from Tethys. "Get up!"

He started, reached for his spear, and saw Tethys. "Holy shit!" he yelled, recoiling back and hitting his head against the rubble.

Tethys shrieked in pain. She clawed at invisible monsters in front of her with her good arm, barely even recognizing that we were there. The scene paralyzed me with fright, and it didn't take more than a few seconds from things to go from bad to worse.

"Hey!" a girl's voice shouted outside. "Get over here! Someone's in this thing!"

"Oh come on," Delfin said, snapping back into the moment. He bolted to his feet with his spear out in front of him just as a dirt-caked face poked in through the street-side gap in the wall. Even amid the muck covering her skin, I recognized the long, blond hair and low cheekbones of the girl peeking in at us. I'd watched her shoot arrows and fight with a short sword like the weapon was an extension of her arm in training, and I knew that she, unlike the boy from 7, would have no problem putting up a hell of a fight. It was the girl from 1.

She burst into a smile when she saw Tethys writhing on the floor. "Get over here! 4's alone and – oh. Uh-oh."

Her grin faded as Delfin rushed her. He hurled a handful of pebbles at the girl as she dipped back outside, rounded and me, and shouted, "Stay here! Keep her safe!" Without another moment's pause, Delfin bolted outside into the street. "Get back here, you whore!"

I squeaked out an affirmative and reached for my dagger. It was a useless safety valve, really: I was panting like a dog and wedged into the corner, as if shrinking into a ball would keep me safe as the world exploded around me. Tethys whined and writhed on the ground as she birthed agony beneath her skin, Delfin was fighting the two from 1 single-handedly, and if anyone else stumbled up on me now…well, that would be it.

Oh Gods. Hang on, Terra.

Thunder – no, a cannon, roared. My heart raced and leapt into my throat. Oh no. Delfin.

"Mm."

A cough from my right spun me around. A huge shadow stood in the crack of the wall that led to the alley behind our building. I shrieked and pressed myself into the wall, fearing that it was the beast that had chased us earlier – but it wasn't. He wasn't a mutt, but he wasn't a friend, either. It was Acheron, from District 2.

A flash of lightning lit up the blood caking his face and hair. A long gash ran from the boy's forehead to his jawline, and something had taken off two of his left fingers. Still the boy was standing, and from the broadsword he buried into the ground at his feet – a weapon with a blade at least half as long as I was tall, if not more – I guessed he was doing just fine despite the injuries.

I whimpered and crowded into the corner, but he didn't attack. He nodded towards Tethys and frowned as if he were disappointed in me. "That's cruel of you," he said, his voice much softer than I'd remembered from the cafeteria. "Letting her linger. Don't move."

As if! I tensed my muscles to run, but something about the tensed-up, stilted way he walked towards Tethys froze me against the wall. I didn't know if I could outrun this boy, but I had a pretty good guess that if he caught me, he'd make short work of my puny dagger.

He gave me a clear signal of that a moment later. With a grunt, Acheron heaved his sword over his shoulder, aimed it down like a spear at Tethys's chest, and thrust it down.

"Guk!"

Tethys's eyes bulged. She gurgled up a thick bubble and flinched. With one, two, three jerks, Tethys sighed, let her head roll back, and went still.

I screamed. A cannon roared.

"No!" I shrieked. I pulled my knees up to my chest, hysterical. My heart threatened to tear through my chest, and I dropped my dagger in terror.

"Pick that up," Acheron said. He buried his murder weapon into the sand and rested his chin on its black pommel. "I won't kill you unarmed. Pick it up."

Rivers of tears rushed out of my eyes. It was all I could do to shake my head. "Pick it up," Acheron repeated. A hint of anger flashed in his eyes, like the first gust of wind before a sandstorm building on the horizon. "Pick it up!"

My lip trembled. "I can't," I whispered, my voice barely a sound at all. "I can't."

He snarled. "Pick it up!" Acheron hammered his sword into the wall and scowled at me. "Pick it up!"

"Tethys!"

Just then, Delfin burst back into through the street-side gap, sweat covering his brow, his spear's point dark and bloody. "No!"

Acheron growled. I waited with baited breath as the two boys eyed each other for a tense moment, their weapons at the ready and their faces full of animosity and battle rage. Acheron backed down first, slithering through the back wall crack as Delfin lunged at him, his spearhead cutting through empty air.

"Delfin!" I shouted, rushing forward.

He swatted me away with a backhand slap. I grimaced at the hit, and in a moment of clarity, grabbed my dagger. Tethys is dead. He's not your friend. But as I prepared to defend myself, I couldn't strike. Delfin bent over Tethys's limp body, bawling his eyes out like an orphaned child.

"Don't do this," he sobbed, cradling her despite the parasites digging their way out of her arm and the blood bubbling out of her chest. "Tethys, don't. Don't leave me here. Don't do this."

I couldn't leave him like this. Acheron was still out there, and I hadn't heard a third cannon. Whoever was running with the girl from 1 was still alive. I needed Delfin for now.

"Listen to me," I said, holding my hand over my chest to keep my heart from punching its way out. "We can't stay here. Delfin?"

In a blur, he lunged and grabbed me around the neck with both hands. I choked as he pressed me against the wall in a fit of rage. "This is your fault!" Delfin snarled. His face was an inch from mine, but the whole world was exploding in sparks. "I told you to watch her! You let her die!"

I clawed at his hands and did my best to shake my head. It felt as if my eyes would burst out of their sockets. "Delfin," I mouthed. "Please."

"This is your fault!"

I didn't have the energy to keep fighting. I gaped at him like a fish and let my hands dangle. He's gonna kill me, I thought. He's gonna kill me right here.

But Delfin didn't. He shook his head and pushed me away, turning his back on me as I coughed and gasped for breath. Anger surged in my gut. I wanted to grab my dagger and plunge it into his back, but aa pleading voice in my mind stopped me. His best friend just died, it said. He cared about her. He didn't mean it. He's just angry.

On cue, Delfin wiped his palm along his forehead and said, "This is just a mess."

I licked my lips, steadied my voice, and said, "Hey. The guy from 2's gonna be around again before long, okay? We have to go. You can't do anything else now."

"Oh I'm gonna do something," he growled. "I'm going to hunt that guy down, and I'm going to cut him down with a lot less sympathy than he gave Tethys. I'm gonna maul that little bastard. You can take your chances alone if you want. Tethys seemed to give a damn about you, so I'll let you run with me for now if you want, but you better make up your mind right now. I'm not sticking around."

I swallowed hard. This could only end with bloodshed: Either Acheron would kill Delfin, or my ally would take his revenge…and then, I had no doubt, he'd come after me. There weren't many of us left, and once Acheron was dead, I doubted Delfin would care about anyone else who stood in his way. He didn't have anyone else to fight for.

I didn't either. I was going to have to make a terrible choice. If I thought I was a monster before, I was headed straight to the Dark Hell with where this was leading.

"I'll come," I said. "Let's go."