Hey there my lovely readers!

Just wanted to let you know, I will be updating sporadically within the next week or so. My birthday's coming up, and my aunt, uncle, and cousin might be coming over soon. And to boot, I'm getting my room re-painted, which is a larger job than one might think seeing as I have to take all of my stuff OUT of my room before I paint it, and trust me when I say that there's a lot of stuff. I'll try to update regularly, but sorry if I miss a couple days.

Here's today's! R&R please!

Chapter 15

Darkness started to fall, and the blue sky started turning a beautiful shade of amber. Petronius kept walking. His feet were sore and blistering by this point, but the pain took his thoughts off Augusta.

Then he was jolted back into reality by a strange sound –– laughter. He turned around. Right behind him, probably a mere hundred meters away, he could see the silhouettes of six people. Julius's Elites, just what he needed. But there were only supposed to be five –– Julius, Cynthia, Marius, Lucius, and Claudia –– who was the sixth?

That didn't matter much to Petronius in his current state. He ducked behind the thick trunk of a tree and drew his sword slowly, breathing in and out as silently as he could manage and preparing for a fight. They hadn't seen him, but if they came any closer he was sure to be discovered. Running was not an option; they would probably see him and Cynthia, who was legendary with a bow, would stick him like a pincushion with arrows. There was only one option left –– to fight.

Their voices got closer, and soon he could make out individual words. A voice that sounded a lot like Julius grumbled, "Hurry up! We don't have all day!"

Then a clear female voice that Petronius recognized as Cynthia's said, "Um, news flash, genius, the day's over. The sun went down five minutes ago."

Claudia, immature as she was for her fifteen years, snickered and Lucius, also immature for his sixteen, said, "Burned, man. She got you there."

"What are you morons doing?" snapped a strangely familiar voice.

"What, us?" asked Lucius.

"No, I'm talking to the other morons who are yelling in my bloody ear! What do you think? Yes, you!"

"Do you want us to be quiet?" asked Cynthia.

"Yes. Shut up. I'm concentrating."

"I think I'm going to play a trumpet," Claudia said, obviously trying to stifle a giggle.

There was a short, stony silence, then the female voice snapped harshly, "Look, princess. This isn't as easy as it seems. You try tracking someone in near-dark with five idiots laughing in your ears!"

"Artemis is right," Cynthia said. "If all of us don't stop teasing her, we're probably going to wake up with knives sprouting out of our chests, or not wake up at all."

Petronius's head started to spin. Artemis! Why would she join the Elites? It was already clear that she was a loner, and yet now she was siding with them? Why? And how did she convince them that she was on their side?

"Thank you, Cynthia, for that very encouraging threat highlighting my violent tendencies and anger management issues," said Artemis sarcastically. "You know what, I'm calling it a night. I can't track in the dark, and I think we're all tired."

Everyone muttered assent and Petronius could hear them sitting down on the ground and making a fire. He didn't dare move out from behind the tree. By the sounds of it, they were no more than three meters away. His stomach started to growl and his bladder tightened, but he ignored both of the uncomfortable sensations. The anthem started to blare throughout the arena, and Petronius looked up to see the faces in the sky. The Districts 4 and 7 girls. Those were the other two cannons that had fired that day. And then Amadeus, and Augusta. Petronius almost sobbed when he saw her face.

But he bit his lip and stayed quiet until it was evident that the Elites were asleep. Summoning up the courage, he peeked out from behind the tree. Everyone was asleep except for Julius, who was on guard duty and looking the other direction, and Artemis. She lay on the ground facing Petronius, with her back to the fire and the rest of the Elites. Her eyes were closed, but suddenly they flicked open and settled on Petronius's. He gripped his sword and waited for her to awaken the others, but instead, the barest wisp of a smile danced across her face as she silently brought her index finger to her lips. Then she closed her eyes again and dropped her hand, in a perfect imitation of a sleeping girl.

Petronius took this as a sign that he should run. So he did. As quietly as possible, he fled away from the camp. Once far enough away, he found a place to hide for the night. More accurately, it found him. He fell in it. It was a shallow ditch, concealed by springy shrubs. After knocking his head for the third time in the Games, he fell asleep instantly.

Cynthia was the first of the Elites to wake up. She shifted and tried to rub her eyes, but then found something extremely odd –– her hands were tied in front of her, bound with thick rope. Her ankles were similarly fastened. She struggled against the bonds and flailed her head wildly, glancing at her allies. They were all asleep, but they were also bound like she was. Her backpack, bow, and sheath of arrows, which had been beside her while she slept, were gone, as was the dagger that she had kept in her belt. And Artemis was nowhere to be seen.

"All right, who was on guard duty?" she barked. Instantly, her allies started awake, spluttering vile curses when they found that they could not move their hands and legs.

Marius looked away sheepishly. He seemed to have been leaning against a tree when he fell asleep, because his bulky arms and entire torso were looped to the tree trunk with rope. "Sorry."

"Where's Artemis?" shouted Claudia. "She set us up!"

"For once," scowled Julius, trying to untie the tight bonds around his hands, "Claudia's right. I knew we should have never trusted that thief!"

"She did lead us to Titania," Lucius pointed out, "and personally killed her. Why did she leave now?"

"Because we were close," replied Cynthia coldly. "I could tell. We were closing in on the Petronius boy, I heard it in her voice. She stopped us before we could get to him and made a break for it with our stuff before we woke up."

Julius muttered a very bad word in Latin. Those there who spoke Latin did not disagree.

"She took my spear," murmured Claudia, sounding like a hurt child.

"That's not our problem right now," interjected Lucius. "We need to escape first, and then we can worry about weapons and food. We'll just get more from the Cornucopia."

"Easier said than done, Lucius," Cynthia rolled her gray eyes. "Artemis is the best tracker I know and someone who knows how to follow people must know how to avoid being followed."

Then Claudia let out a yell. "Hey! I got it! I got my ropes off!" Sure enough, she had managed to untie the ropes around her wrists and was now trying to saw through her ankle bonds with a jagged rock. She helped Cynthia, and Cynthia helped Julius, and soon everyone was freed.

"Great," Lucius said sarcastically. "Now what do we do?"

"Wait a second," Cynthia interjected. "What's that?" She pointed to a large, flat stone that rested on the outskirts of the clearing, on which rested a bulging pouch and a note. She grabbed the message and examined it. It was written on several large strips of birchbark, scrawled out with a substance they all recognized as charcoal, probably from the fire. "Hey guys, check this out."

They gathered around her as she read the note aloud. " 'To my less-than-wonderful and purposefully temporary allies,' " she said, reading what Artemis had written, " 'I hope you understand that yes, I did, in fact, mean to harm you. I am sorry for the deception and hope that our next confrontation will be an honest head-to-head fight to the death. Please excuse my abrupt disappearance and my awful yet necessary habit of hog-tying my friends and stealing their life-sustaining supplies. In repentance for my wrongdoing, I present to you a gift. I give you this sandwich bag full of harmless berries. I hope you enjoy them. Not-so-sincerely, your deceiver and probable target, Artemis H. Gossamer.' "

Lucius snickered. No one else shared his humor.

"She had the nerve!" Julius snarled, ripping the note out of Cynthia's hand and tearing it into pieces. "If I ever get my hands on her –– "

"She left us berries," Claudia said dreamily. "And I'm so hungry…" She reached for the pouch and dumped the contents into her mouth.

"Claudia, no!" Cynthia shouted, her words falling on unlistening ears.

A minute later, the nightlock had finished its work inside of Claudia. The girl dropped to the ground, stone dead.

Petronius awoke to the boom of a cannon. Instinctively, he drew his sword and leapt up, then, realizing that there was no danger that he could see, he sheathed his sword, lay back down, and went back to sleep.

Up in the trees above the Elites' camp, two separate pairs of dark glinting eyes watched the entire scene. The owner of the first pair of eyes, a slight feminine figure clad in the subtle grays and dark greens of the forest, thought she was alone, unaware of the other pair of dark eyes. One thought ran through her head as she watched Claudia's body being taken up by an invisible hovercraft –– Stupid girl. She hadn't meant for anyone to actually eat the nightlock; it had been sarcasm.

The owner of the second pair of eyes, a boy clad entirely in black and the dark gray tones of shadows, kept his steady gaze on her as he perched in a nearby tree, as motionless as a stone statue. The first figure turned, obviously sensing the boy's gaze, and met his eyes. They stared at each other for a few seconds before turning in their own directions and melting back into the trees and shadows.

I have something really important to tell you.

It's very important.

VERY.

So listen up.

Are you listening?

Are you sure?

REALLY SURE?

Okay.

Good.

Then I'll tell you.

Here it is

It's coming

You're getting warmer

You're getting closer

You're getting warmer still

You're almost there

I'm about to tell you

Okay...

Here it is ––

Ooh, chocolate!

I want some!

Oops, what was I talking about?

Oh yeah.

The super important thing.

Okay, I'll tell you now ––

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