A/N: I know there's a lot of Catoniss fics like this, but I think this one is going to be a lot different...if you stick around you'll realize what I mean XD Reviews are always much appreciated, as is CONSTRUCTIVE critisism! And sorry for the shortness of this chapter - I just want to see if people are interested before I continue n_n Much love!

Shit.

The breath leaves Katniss' lungs in one swift rush, her eyes squeezing shut as her body hits the rocky surface of the earth impossibly hard. She can feel an impossibly heavy weight pinning her to the ground, hands squeezing her wrists and nails digging into her flesh like knives, and somewhere in the back of her mind she thinks absently that this must be the moment she dies.

But where's Peeta?

It's the only coherent thought running through her mind - her concern for him overshadows all else, distracting her from the shooting pain that's running through her back, distracting her from the fact that she's seconds away from her death. Where's Peeta? Did he get away? And even though she knows that he didn't, that there's no chance in hell that he could outrun Clove, she likes to think that maybe, just maybe he did.

They had been so certain that they were safe, the cave sheltering them from the harsh weather and the hawk-like vision of Cato and Clove. Days they had spent lying there with no disturbances - they knew they would have to leave eventually, of course; they knew the threat that lay in front of them, and they were preparing. Resting up, enjoying their time alive before the harsh reality of their situation came back in again. They had been safe, they had been careful. Always watching, waiting, ready. Thresh was still out there doing his best to hide in the shadows, but Foxface was dead, and really it felt as if only the four of them remained, the predators and their ever-watchful prey.

But they had found them. Peeta had left for just a minute, just to get some water, and he had told her that he would be safe, he promised, they had nothing to worry about, and then they had found them. Katniss had heard the shouts from outside just moments before Cato had entered the cave, enough time for her to grab a knife, but hardly enough to prepare herself to take him on. Because he was huge and although she was tough, she knew she was, she had proved that enough, put next to him she looked like an insignificant child. And as she stood there facing him, knife in hand, trying to look much more prepared for this than she was, all she could think was, 'Prim, Rue, I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry I lied to you,' and then,

'Peeta. Run.'

From there, everything became a blur. Cato tackling her, the sound of the earth in the cave shifting around them, Peeta shouting her name, Clove screaming in delight, Katniss clawing at Cato's face, dragging her knife across his side and piercing his flesh the best she could, him tearing the knife away and throwing it outside the cave, the sickening feeling of the bone of her leg crushing beneath her. He was proving a point - that he didn't need weapons to kill her, that he could do it with his own two hands and not even break a sweat.

This is where I die. Prim, Rue, Peeta, Gale...I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry.

She spat in Cato's face then, a final act of defiance, as if the simple action was in itself damning him to hell. "Fuck you," she snarles, bearing her teeth as the evening light begins to fade from the cave, the darkness slowly swallowing them whole. "Fuck you and your fucking games. Go wear the crown - it was always yours anyways, wasn't it?"

The smile on his face is disarming, part sneer and part genuine glee, and it's cruel enough to instil both genuine fear and genuine loathing into her heart. Because she knows him, knows what he's capable of, and she knows how much he's enjoying this. How much he's enjoyed all of it. Every kill, every drop of blood shed has been a trophy of it's own to him, and now he's about to get the ultimate prize by killing her. He's about to take it all, and she's about to die. Her and Peeta both; without the other, neither of them will make it out alive, and she's sure that the horrifying realization of that fact is shown clear on her face.

He's about to say something back to her. Some sort of scathing remark or sarcastic comment, no doubt. Getting the last word in before he goes for the kill - it's such a classically career move that it sickens her to her core. He's about to say something, but then they hear it, and for a moment all the world is still.

A cannon, the noise piercing through the crisp evening air like shattered glass.

Peeta, she knows it is, and judging by the grin on Cato's face, he knows it too. And he lifts his hand up to go for the crushing blow, smirking at her with anxious anticipation in his eyes. "Looks like your little love story has come to a tragic end, Fire Girl," he taunts, his voice mocking, and Katniss resists the urge to spit in his face once more. She won't give him that satisfaction. Not again.

And then they hear it. Another cannon, another cause for lost breath and disbelief. Because two of four have died, and now only two of the four are left.

Katniss squeezes her eyes shut, fully preparing herself for the fatal blow any minute now. But instead, all she feels is a weight off of her chest, all she sees is a blood-soaked Cato pushing himself off the wall, all she hears is his anguished cry for his partner, her name shouted over and over in a voice so unlike the one that was proclaiming her doom just moments before, a voice that is raw and filled with a kind of emotion she didn't think he was capable of.

All she sees is darkness, and the longer she stares, the faster the darkness turns into light until she doesn't see anything anymore.

"Sir? The Capitol isn't happy with the twelve kid's death, and they definitely aren't happy about their Fire Girl almost being killed by the boy from two."

Seneca's head snaps towards the red-faced, bloated man, furrowing his brows. Of course the Capitol wasn't happy - they were loving the romance that the twelve kids had started up, and loving the little Girl on Fire even more. It was almost pathetic how easily entertained they were, and he only counted himself lucky that he knew what they wanted.

Danger. Romance. Forbidden love. Sexual tension. Give them something to root for. If they couldn't root for their fairy-tale romance any more, then they could root for something else. Something more powerful, something new, something fresh, something that would keep them on their toes and begging for more. Because they weren't ready for these games to be over just yet - not when they were getting so good, not when the Capitol was finding themselves so pathetically involved with these tributes lives. They wanted more, and he would give it to them, give them so much more they wouldn't even know what to do with it.

There was a reason he had lasted this long as Game Maker, after all.

"Bring down the rocks," he ordered the man, waving his hand. "Cover the entrance of the cave. Trap them in, and make sure that our career friend won't be able to move for a long time. Same with the girl - can't have them killing each other too quickly, can we?"

The room looked at him in shocked silence, clearly not getting his angle. Amateurs. "Sir?" The man spoke up again, his annoyingly weak voice wavering pathetically from both nerves and confusion. "I don't understand...you don't want them to be able to kill each other? Why?" And although this man is questioning his actions, and although Seneca knows he should be punished, all her does is smile. Because they're all thinking the same thing, those fools, and they're all too blind to really see what was going on.

"We're going to give the people of the Capitol what they want," he tells them, teeth glinting in the cool stark lighting of the room. "We're going to give them something to root for."

When Katniss awakens, the first thing she registers is pain.

Her leg is throbbing, twisted at an angle that surely can't be natural, and she notes that it must be broken. She's going to have to try and set that later - with what, she doesn't know, but it's not the kind of break that's miraculously going to heal itself. She's seen enough broken bones while helping her mother and Prim to know what a bad one looks like, and beyond even the pain that she was feeling, simply by looking at her leg she can see that it's going to take some healing time.

The next thing she notices, rather belatedly, is that she's alive.

Gasping, Katniss whips her head around in a frenzied attempt to take in her surroundings, noting with dull amusement that she's still in the cave. The cave to which the entrance is now completely covered, blocked by rocks that must have fallen...how? She doesn't know, and she doesn't care to find out. Because she's trapped with half a canteen of water and some berries in her bag, and Cato is still out there, looking, searching, for her.

At least, she thinks he is, until she hears the groan from the cave wall opposite her. And although it's dark, although she can't see much but the outline of his body, she knows she sees the boy who had just tried to kill her...how long before was that? Surely not that long, it couldn't have been, no more than a day. The boy who assisted in the demise of Peeta, of Rue, the boy who took a sick pleasure in every kill that me made. An animal, and she was trapped in the cave with him, and the most horrifying part of all is that somehow she's not even dead. It should be a reassurance, but all Katniss can think is that he's got something awful planned for her, that he's going to torture her until she looses her mind, that it'll be days before she's dead, days filled with pain and suffering and endless guilt. Guild because she broke her promise to her sister, guilt because she couldn't help Rue, guilt because she wasn't there for Peeta.

Guilt because she had let a monster win, and because she could do nothing to stop him.

"Just kill me," she had intended to make the words sound menacing, like a challenge, but her voice quivers and instead she sounds like nothing more than a scared little girl. "Do it now. I'm here, I'm yours for the taking. Just do it. You've already won, at least give me a honourable death." Not that he knows anything of honour, but she has to try. She has to try for Prim, so her little sister isn't forced to watch her death dragged out on television. She has to do it for her district. She has to do it for herself.

But he doesn't answer. Instead all he does is moan, and although it takes a moment for it to really register, Katniss finally sees what's happened. She finally understands why he hasn't killed her after all.

His arm lay by his side, the bone jutting out of the skin of his forearm like a pearly white spear. And his foot - on it rests a fallen boulder, one that had probably crushed every single bone in it, and she realizes with a sinking feeling in her stomach that he's even worse off than she is. He's weak, vulnerable in front of her, and she has no weapon, and she can't even move.

Somewhere she knows Seneca Crane is laughing his head off. Somewhere she knows that the Capitol is sitting on the edge of their seats, anxious to see what will unfold between the Girl of Fire and the merciless killer from District Two while they cannot move, while they're trapped in a hole with hardly enough food and water to last the two of them a week. Somewhere she knows that President Snow is anxiously awating her death, that Prim is trying not to cry, that her mother is trying desperately to hold on, that Gale is sitting in a forest, waiting, that Peeta's family is grieving for their son that she couldn't save.

Somewhere she knows that the world is watching.

Let them watch, she thinks, eyes fluttering shut as conciousness slips from her grasp once more. I won't give them what they want. I won't give in.

I won't.

I can't.