AUTHOR'S NOTE: I'm baaaaack! I don't know if any of you will still be around after... *cough* almost two years *cough* ...but I've been getting some reviews for all of my stories in general asking me to update, and I'm going to try and kick the writer's block. XP Anyways. I like to think that my writing has improved in the past two years or so. I hope you think so too~ Thank you thank you thank you to everyone who's been trying to get me to update, it worked in the end (;

CHAPTER ELEVEN

We all wake with the sun.

It's bright and too cheerful for the sight that meets my eyes as I sit up - the sand around Emmalynn is as red as the patch we left back where the District 11 girl's cannon sounded. For a moment, I'm afraid that Emmalynn's died, too, that I missed her cannon in the dead of sleep, but her chest rises and falls slowly and I breathe a sigh of relief.

Vick tears two rolls into halves and offers each of us our share; I refuse mine and order Emmalynn to eat it in what I hope sounds like a motherly sort of voice to the Panem that waits outside the arena. Instead, I slowly nibble away at two of my crackers before everyone gets to their feet. We fill our water bottles and treat them with Emmalynn's iodine, then begin to search our immediate surroundings for clues.

I feel like a detective. I crouch next to Emmalynn's bloodstains and inspect the ground around the red, trailing my fingers through the soft grains of sand and taking care to avoid the ones that have been permanently dyed crimson. Out of the corner of my eye, I keep tabs on my allies - Vick is frowning across the desert towards the forest where the Cornucopia must be shining under the bright sunlight, and Emmalynn is slowly making her way along the shore of the lake while Carlisa crawls somewhat comically in the opposite direction.

"Guys," she calls from behind a curtain of red hair, and we're at her side in mere moments. As Emmalynn reaches us last, holding a hand to her newer bandages, Carlisa points wordlessly to a single set of footprints headed in the direction of the forest.

Vick's hands curl into tight fists. "He was alone," he said quietly, menacingly. "He left on his own."

"No, don't," objects Emmalynn, frowning. Her misty-blue eyes still remind me of windows with the curtains drawn behind them, shading away the reality of the outside world. It astounds me, the way that the thirteen-year-old can somehow manage to be so out-there, yet make so much sense to me. Perhaps she just looks at the world in the simplest way possible, something that the rest of us fail to do properly. "Even parts of these footprints are washing away. There could have been others. Maybe their prints got washed away, too."

"You'd think it'd look as if there'd been more of a struggle," grumbled Carlisa, who was clearly having issues with trying to see Pine the way Emmalynn did, as an innocent boy who had been dragged away by her attackers in the midnight blackness of the night.

But, adjusting her grip on her bow and sighing heavily, she takes the lead as we follow the footprints towards the forest. As we reach the edge of the trees and are suddenly enveloped in semi-darkness, both Vick and Carlisa fit an arrow to their bows, and I slip a knife from my backpack; Emmalynn shuffles along in the midst of us and refuses to get out one of her own knives ("Who else is going to have come across the desert?" she asks practically). The forest is dim compared to the overly-sunny blue skies above; only dappled droplets of sunlight survive the drop through the thick canopy to the forest floor. Leaves crackle under our feet, and I wonder for the first time if the arenas are found in natural areas and altered to contain cameras and death traps, or if the Gamemakers send their Avox servants out into their synthetic woods to carefully place leaves that have been gathered from around Panem.

I almost laugh out loud at the image that paints itself into my mind of people crawling around the tree trunks there, the fern there, and laying leaves out in patterns that look as though they've naturally fallen from the trees spreading their branches above. I stop the too-cheerful sound from emerging before it's too late, realizing that the darkened surroundings and the general situation aren't the place for such things.

Carlisa stops abruptly and Vick nearly knocks her over. I narrow my eyes at the gap between the trees that we face now. The either perfectly-arranged or naturally-fallen leaves are scattered, some sort of violent encounter haven thrown them all to the side, revealing the dirt and dead grass underneath. Blood, too - I wince at the crimson darkness that has half-dried into the dirt, onto some of the paler leaves.

Vick takes a few steps forward, slowly, cautiously, crouches down and examines the apparent scuffle's remains. "Whoever the other one was came from that way," he says after a long moment, flinging an arm out to point somewhere to my right.

In some sort of slow-moving, dreamlike state, Emmalynn wanders over to wear Vick is gesturing to and looks down at the set of footprints. "They're the same size as Pine's," she says quietly. I can't see what she's thinking. Her face is shielded from view by her hair, by the angle I'm looking at her from. "How do we know who got out?" She looks up at us and her pale blue eyes are sparkling with a sadness that I'm not sure she should possess for her maybe-attacker. Circling the bloodstained miniature battlefield, Emmalynn searches for the tracks leading on.

I stand helplessly, unsure what the strong and mature older-sister type is meant to do in this sort of situation. I'm the younger sister in my family. Am I meant to think like Katniss would for however long I can survive in this arena for?

Perhaps that's the key. Katniss got out, after all.

"This way," says Emmalynn in her nearly-inaudible murmur, and starts off. I take a few running steps to fall into place next to her. We walk in silence aside from the crunching of leaves under our supplied running shoes. For the first time since I've entered the arena, I reach up and move the collar of my jacket aside, allow my fingers to brush over the pin that has been fastened to my shirt. A mockingjay. Katniss told me that they symbolize a sort of strength.

If I get out, I can give my sister her pin back.

If I don't, she will be given a box and have to take it back herself.

The thing is, I don't know if I can win. I'm not sure that I can kill. Katniss has tried to teach me to hunt before, back when we lived in the Seam. Every time she shot something, I would fall to my knees next to its quivering body - back then, she wasn't practiced enough to kill something as quick as a squirrel with one arrow - and start muttering about how we might be able to save it. And people? Killing people will be worse, a million times worse.

I can't tell when the sky above begins to darken. The dots of sunlight begin to disappear, to fade into nothingness, and for a while, I think that we are only delving deeper into the woods. Emmalynn stares at the forest floor, twisting and turning as she follows footprints in the dirt. Occasionally, she stops, hunts around for a few drawn-out minutes before leading us on again. Carlisa helps her, Vick helps her. I don't know enough about tracking to help.

I am helpless. Why do they want me as their ally? Do they think, like a wealthy part of Panem hopefully thinks, that victory is inherited? That I could win by some stroke of luck, just because Katniss got out of the arena five years ago?

The anthem begins to play. My allies stand at the foot of a tree while I hurriedly make my way up the trunk, finding footholds of knots in the wood and forks in the branches. I nearly fall once or twice, hands slipping on rough bark, because I am looking up, always up, into the dark sky, searching for the Capitol's symbol. Yes, there. A picture appears - it takes me a moment to place his face. The boy from District 6, the one who Katniss described as lethal. Then the anthem plays again and the sky regains its blackness.

"Pine's still alive," I say breathlessly as I drop to the ground. "Six, the boy from Six. He's gone. That's it." A miniscule number of deaths - singular, death, I suppose - for a day. There are still eleven tributes left. The Capitol will be getting bored. The Gamemakers will want to throw something startling in to draw us together.

Emmalynn breathes a visible sigh of relief. She's a peaceful girl, from what I can tell. I wonder if she has an older sister. Perhaps someone has tried to teach her to hunt before; perhaps she pulled what I did and wanted to heal the victims.

We curl up at the foot of that same tree and Carlisa claims the first watch. She sits with her back against the tree and her small fingers curled tightly around her bow, grey eyes alert as she scans the darkness around us. I shut my eyes -

When I wake, a soft blanket of grey has crept in around us. I sit up; Carlisa's eyes are shut tight, and she has curled up into a tight ball with her extra pair of socks worn like mittens. Emmalynn sleeps soundly next to me.

Vick is nowhere in sight.

"Vick?" I hiss. The blanket of grey is a mist, a fog. I attempt to squint through it, but I can't see well enough. "Vick?" I stand; the mist has risen, too, and there is no way to make sense of the world around me. "Guys," I whisper, crouching down again to shake them awake. "Do you know where Vick went?"

"He took over the watch so I could sleep," mumbled Carlisa tiredly, rubbing her eyes with her right sock. More alert now, she glances around warily and adds, "What...?"

Vick is gone, my promise to Hazelle broken. I wonder if my worried expression is being flashed to on every television screen across Panem. I wonder what Hazelle is thinking. What if he's dead? Wouldn't the cannon have woken us up earlier? The idea is nearly unbearable. I'm not a good enough older-sister figure. I can barely hold myself together at the mere possibilities of Vick's disappearance.

I can't look after him if I don't know where he is.