This one's for you, ImmaGuest! I'm feeling generous today! (I even did double updates on Dear Fanfiction Writers, too…)

Chapter 20

Petronius realized he was walking in circles only when he stumbled on the clearing with the Cornucopia. At first he was confused. Could the Gamemakers have put more than one Cornucopia in this arena? Then he cursed himself. He was such an idiot sometimes. Of course there wasn't another Cornucopia; he was just going in circles! But night was falling, and he would need to set up camp somewhere. He probably wouldn't be able to light a fire, because he was too close to the Elites' camp, so he'd have to survive on cold rations again. Oh well. Better cold rations than no rations at all.

He located a nice tree deeper in the forest and climbed as far as he dared, sitting on a thick branch and letting his legs dangle down over the side. As he gnawed on his last piece of jerky and his last cracker, he gazed up at the sky and watched the nightly death toll. Only one today, the female representative for District 2. Lystria, he thought her name was.

He scowled as he realized that instead of his jerky, he was now chewing on his bare, dirty finger. Huh. No wonder it had been so hard. The last piece of jerky was gone, somewhere into the still-growling pit of a stomach. He'd have to find another source of food soon, otherwise he probably wouldn't make it through the rest of the Games. He pulled his finger out of his mouth, and let out a dry, half-hearted laugh when he heard the wet popping noise it made as he did it. He scowled again as he realized what he was doing. He was acting like a child during a game where he could likely die.

"Lovely night, huh?"

At the unexpected voice, Petronius literally fell out of the tree. Fortunately, he wasn't up very high, only about ten feet or so. Unfortunately, he landed on his back. Fortunately, his backpack cushioned his fall. Unfortunately, it wasn't that cushiony, and the wind was knocked right out of him.

There weren't really any other fortunates.

For countless seconds, minutes, or possibly even hours –– he could not tell –– Petronius lay there, completely helpless as he tried to regain the ability to breathe. A dark, slender figure appeared over him, probably the same one that had frightened him from the tree. He tried to move, but moving was impossible in his condition. Only part of his sudden exhaustion could be blamed on the fall, the other part could be blamed on the hunger that was eating away at his system.

When he finally regained partial control over his bodily functions, he tried to get up. It proved too hard of a task on his arms, and he collapsed. The person above him just stood there, watching him try to do something. After several tries, Petronius gave up and just lay there. The figure above him knelt by his side and asked in a sarcastic, lilting voice, "Give up?"

He managed an almost imperceptible nod. "Tired. Don't…kill."

"Don't worry," she said as she lifted a small vial to his lips. "Drink this."

It smelled sickly sweet, and Petronius shut his mouth. With alarming speed, the girl's hand lashed out and pinched his nose shut. Petronius's tightly-clenched lips curled in a smile. Not many people knew about his ability to hold his breath. No one really asked. The girl waited with her fingers tightly pinching his nose, the vial of liquid still touching his lips, and Petronius realized she was counting.

And after he could do it no longer, he opened his mouth with a gasp for breath. In that moment, the vial was dumped down his throat, his nose was released, and his mouth was clamped shut by the girl's surprisingly strong hand. Petronius had no choice but to swallow.

"Three minutes and seven seconds," she said sarcastically as he started to slip into unconsciousness. "That's a new record."

The last thing he thought before he went under was How did she know?

When he woke up and tried to rub his eyes, he found that his hands were tied behind his back with a rope. His eyes flew open, and he found that his feet were also bound. He was sitting down, and had been propped up against the trunk of an oak tree on the fringes of a small clearing. About ten feet away, Artemis –– she must have been the one to attack him the night before –– was leaning against another tree and sharpening a large knife with a whetstone. There were two other tributes with her. One was a petite blond-haired girl, who seemed about eleven or twelve, and a boy, who was so small he looked about ten, even though he was in reality twelve. He recognized the girl as Iris Snow, but couldn't recall the name of the boy. The boy in question looked up from the dagger he was honing, and met Petronius's gaze with red-rimmed blue eyes.

"Artemis," he said shortly, and she looked up from her knife. The smaller girl, who seemed to be repairing the fletching of a silver arrow, also looked up.

"I see our guest is awake," said Artemis dryly.

"What do you want?" snapped Petronius. Or, more accurately, tried to snap. His tongue was thick and dry, so it didn't come out as sharp and threatening as he had meant it to.

Artemis rolled her eyes. "Here we go again," she sighed, standing up and then kneeling in front of Petronius. "First of all, I will just say that I can imagine exactly what you are thinking. You're wondering why you're tied up to a tree when my two little wackadoodles aren't." At this point Iris let out an indignant protest at being called a little wackadoodle, but Artemis hardly paused. "It's because you came to us armed and if you woke up unrestrained you'd let out our innards first and ask questions later. Am I correct?"

Petronius hesitated, wondering where she was going with this. "Um, yeah, I guess, but…seriously? What do you want?"

"I want this game to be over," she said, her dark eyes flaring with a strange, manic light. "I want to forfeit. And I want to join the others who want to quit. I have a feeling you are one of them."

"Forfeiting means either death or suicide," Petronius pointed out slowly.

She seemed to consider this. "True. Very true. But that is a worst case scenario. Best case scenario; we band up against the Elites, we eliminate them, they eliminate some of us, and we may possibly be able to pull a nightlock on the Gamemakers. True, there is a chance that this time the rebels will not be swayed by that trick, but there may be a small chance that we will survive."

"And then be killed by them later. There won't be a victor this time, Artemis. The rebels hate us too much to want one of us to live."

"But that is what they want us to believe," said Artemis. "If we show them that we can be trusted and that we are no different than they, their reasoning might change."

"But it's not going to."

"It might."

"If you're so confident, tell me how you'll change it."

"Only I?" Artemis raised an eyebrow. "Not only me, but you. You and I and all of the tributes who have the common sense to lower their weapons and use their brains. They are fighting fire with fire, so we will do the same."

"What does that mean?"

"It means that, by countering the slaughter of children with the slaughter of more children, the rebels are no different than the Capitol. It also means that, by countering the resistance of two tributes with the resistance of four, we may have the same results as the Mockingjay."

Petronius only stared at her. Of course, he had had his suspicions of Artemis's sanity before, but this clinched it. The girl was absolutely mad. Her plan was even madder, or it was at least a lie. Artemis was exactly the kind of tribute who would slit all of their throats in the night. "What makes you so certain that this will work?" he asked.

"I'm not," replied Artemis, her expression calm yet firm. "Probability of it working is very low. But it's the best option I have if resistance is what I am aiming for."

"What's the probability?"

She considered this for a few moments, then replied, "Ten percent." Petronius's mouth opened, but the intricate gears in Artemis's brain were still turning. "No, five percent. At best, seven." Petronius's eyes widened. "And after the Gamemakers and all the rest of Panem see this, those statistics drop down to somewhere around three percent."

Petronius bowed his head, thinking hard. "It's risky," he said.

"I know," she replied.

"Three percent isn't enough."

"I know."

"It's crazy."

"I know."

He lifted his head and locked gazes with her, grinning like a madman. "I'm in."

I was feeling nice today. And yes, ImmaGuest, I did update already today. I update every other day, so next chapter will be coming on Friday.

Kindly review, kindly review... or you can be critical, I don't care! ^_^