Thank you CR3ATIV3, the anonymous guest, and Immaguest (also a guest, if you couldn't figure out). Also, Immaguest, I do have chapters in Peeta's and Katniss's POVs. They're coming. Chapter 21 is the first one, and I have a few more after that. (25 and 27, I think… and 33 is from Plutarch's POV; no spoilers there, not really ^_^)

So here ya go! And know that THIS CHAPTER IS OUT OF CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER! (see bolded line beneath chapter #)

Chapter 17

A story of the past, told by the main character herself (also known as a flashback)

The first thing Artemis Gossamer, representative of District 11, had done when she rose into the arena was decide on the best course of survival. The second thing she had done was run, and the third thing, which had followed in quick succession, was steal from several different people.

Because of the loss of her control disk, Artemis could no longer rely on a source of supplies. So she had to find her own. The answer? It was risky, but the results could be rather satisfying. She did it anyway.

The Elites had not even known that Artemis was there until they realized that their weapons were missing. On the second day in the arena, early in the morning, they had been taking a break by the river, and had opened their packs for some food. They had set their weapons down as they were resting. Just for a minute. A minute was all Artemis had needed.

Next thing the Elites knew, their weapons had been gone and Artemis was playing with one of Cynthia's arrows, up in a tree. She was standing on a thick branch twenty feet above them, leaning against the tree trunk as casually as if she was on the ground and leaning against a solid wall. They hadn't even seen her until she spoke.

"It is an interesting thing," she had said in her mocking voice, startling all of them, "that the human mind is hardwired to look around, down, and even inside other things –– but never up. It takes an intelligent mind to look up, and unfortunately very few people have the sense to do so."

Cynthia had reached for her bow, only to realize that she had no arrows to shoot with. All of their weapons were stuffed into a black backpack and hanging from a branch above Artemis. "What do you want?" Julius had snapped.

"Nothing that you have," replied Artemis, twirling Cynthia's arrow between her fingers like a baton. "I believe that the question would be, instead of what do I want, what do you want?"

They all exchanged glances. "Our weapons back, for starters," Lucius said after a moment.

"And with what motivation would I be persuaded to give them to you?"

The Elites exchanged glances again. Julius answered in a classic Julius-style reply, "Because if you don't, I'll beat the crap out of you."

Artemis examined the point of the silver arrow in her fingers, using the razor-sharp head to pick at a bit of dead skin on her finger. "You're not afraid of hitting a girl?"

"Not in these Games, no," replied Julius, with some awkwardness.

She smirked. "Okay. Whatever."

As always, no one was really sure how to respond to a direct reply like this. Artemis did that to some people. The Elites looked at her for a while, then they gathered in a huddle.

"What do we do?" asked Julius in a low voice, so Artemis couldn't hear.

"I feel like we have exhausted all possible options by politely asking for our weapons back," said Cynthia sarcastically. "What do you think we should do?"

"We can wait her out," Lucius suggested. "She can't stay up there forever."

"Or we could climb," said Claudia, but Cynthia shook her head.

"No. That's not a climbing tree. I don't even know how she got up there," she countered. "And none of us can climb. Not like that."

"So we'll wait her out?" asked Marius hopefully. "Then beat the crap out of her?"

"No," Julius said. "She has our weapons. While we're sleeping she'll take some of those knives or that bow and we'll all be dead. She has the upper hand here, and she's not letting us forget that."

"We could smoke her out," suggested Lucius. "Light a fire under the tree. Or set fire to the tree itself. That'd get her coming down."

Claudia's eyes lit up. "Fire? Really?" The fifteen-year-old girl let out the strange, guttural laugh of a madwoman. "I call dibs on lighting the stuff!"

Artemis cleared her throat. "Two things –– one, your pyromaniac tendencies are really freaky, and two, I stole your matches."

Claudia's face fell. "Crud."

"So we can't climb up and get her," Cynthia listed slowly, "or threaten her to come down, or smoke her out, and waiting for her to come down herself is definitely not an option. What do we have left?"

They all looked at Julius. His eyes darkened, and they all knew what he was thinking of. The last option was never a pleasant one. But with one reluctant nod, it was decided.

They dispersed from the huddle and looked back up at Artemis in the tree. She had replaced Cynthia's arrow into the sheath, which stuck out of the opening in the black backpack, and was now toying with a small knife, honing the edge with a whetstone. Her eyebrows raised inquisitively, but she never lowered the knife.

"We've decided," Julius said slowly and rather reluctantly, "that since you managed to outsmart us, we're going to let you into the group."

Artemis shrugged and looked back down to the knife in her hands. "Okay."

"There's just one thing," he added. "You need to answer one question."

"Fire away."

"Can we trust you?"

Artemis lowered the knife and the whetstone and met Julius's eyes. "If you have any reason to trust me, you aren't talking about me. Think about that."

They all exchanged glances again. This was getting way out of hand. Cynthia nodded. That was all Julius needed.

"All right," Julius said. "You're in."

Artemis only pocketed the whetstone, and then she kept examining the knife. If she had any sort of reaction to this revelation, she didn't show it.

"On one condition," Cynthia interjected.

Artemis sighed, not taking her eyes off the knife. "My entire life balances on conditions. It's the only thing people ever say when they give me something."

Cynthia ignored this and continued. "You give us our weapons back, we let you in. That's the deal. But there's a catch. If we catch you trying to slit our throats in our sleep, know that we'll be after you."

The elusive girl looked up with an unsettling smile on her face. "Thanks for the suggestion, but that's not my game. I don't plan on killing any of you."

With this, she sheathed her knife, reached up, and pulled the bag of weapons down. "You might want to step back," she advised as she dropped the bag.

When the bag hit the ground, everyone rushed forward to grab their appropriate weapons. The bag was soon empty, and they found that somehow Artemis had ended up on the ground next to them, leaning against a different tree with her feet now planted on the ground. It was uncanny, Julius had mused, how she could do that.

Artemis turned out to be very useful. She was extremely intelligent, able to identify every plant or animal they saw. Cynthia was a good tracker, but Artemis was absolutely amazing. She would look at a trail and be able to tell if someone passed by, and when asked how she knew, she would point out a miniscule piece of green thread caught on a leaf of the exact same color or a crushed plant in the middle of nowhere. They traveled this way, Artemis in the front and everyone else behind her, trying to limit the noise that their footsteps made to prevent her from being angered.

They didn't find anybody on day one, and since they were close enough to the Cornucopia, they returned to their main camp for the night. The Elites, when they thought that Artemis was not listening, unanimously voted not to let Artemis not take a night watch, at least, not until they could trust her. Artemis had not done anything suspicious that night.

The next day, with Artemis leading the way, they found their first target. The girl, who was about Artemis's age and the representative for District 7, had seen and heard the rest of the Elites. She had run, but she did not see Artemis, who was much closer. Before the girl could get away, Artemis had drawn a throwing knife from a hidden sheath in her boot and flicked it, sending it into the girl's thigh. She stumbled, crying out in pain, and Artemis pinned her down with a knife against her neck.

"Well, what are you waiting for?" shouted Julius. "Kill her!"

Her usually cold, hard dark eyes filled with warmth, and her victim saw the regret in them. Then Artemis managed two words that only she and the other girl could hear.

"I'm sorry."

Then, steeling herself, she yanked the knife across the girl's neck. The cannon fired.

Artemis had already stood up and retrieved her two knives by the time the Elites reached her. "Slowpokes," she grinned. When she knelt to wipe the ruby blood off of her silver blade, the false smile dropped and she let out a choked, hidden sob that no one except herself could hear.

I miss my control disk. If I had it, this child would not be dead.

It wasn't the last time she would think it. And Titania, her first kill in the Games, would not be the only one she would think of it for.

Oops. I should have said "spoiler alert".

Caius Adrian Angelico has no affiliation whatsoever with Caius the member of the Volturi in Twilight; the name is merely a coincidence. I haven't even read/seen Twilight, nor do I have any wishes to anytime in the near or distant future. (Sorry if I've offended any Twihards; I just don't like that kind of stuff.)

On a lighter note…

IT'S GAME TIME!

See if you can find the real word in the line of random letters below:

fjhjsmcbnreviewmbweuhuiodshjkbnsmashdfhj

Tell me what it is if you find it ^_^