Hello! Marhabaan! Aloha! Kon'nichiwa! Hola! Bonjour! Or whatever other language you speak! Hope ya'll had an very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! I know that I did. It did have its speed bumps but it all worked out and I am flyin'! (I don't even want to know how old that slang expression is, lmao).

Anyway, hope you all enjoy this new chapter! I know it didn't come as soon as I thought and promised but, so is life. We're getting deeper and deeper into the Games and I am SO excited to dive even further into that hole.

So, before we begin, I just want to express my thanks to Phoenix313, Constipated Genius, Bee, DominaDeSerpensDorcha, Batfan3, Deb.23, and CeceCandyXOX for leaving awesome reviews! Love, love, love you guys!

Peace out.

Chapter 17

I jumped to my feet in panic, pulling the still sleeping Rue up with me as I did. She shook her head and looked up at me in slight terror as I ripped the sleeping bag off of her. Ignoring her betrayed eyes, I picked the sleeping bag and the backpack up. "RUN!" I screamed. Then her eyes latched onto the wall of fire behind me, in a split second, she was wide awake and running after me with the speed of a deer.

In a matter of seconds, it seemed, the arena turned from a forbidding forest into a raging, flaming hell. Foliage crackled in the jaws of the fire, branches sparked and fell like rain, and the smoke became the new air that we breathed. I hadn't realized how many animals were actually in the arena with us until they began shooting past me, their animal instincts telling them to flee from the fiery death at a pace Rue and I couldn't possibly keep up with. But we followed them for their sense of direction was much greater than ours.

The heat was horrible, it was as if the sun had suddenly decided to drop from the sky to slowly roast us alive. The heat burned my exposed flesh and even the flesh beneath my clothing, it was as if the blood underneath might start boiling and raise the skin in a grotesque version of Greasy Sae's bubbly wild dog stew.

But worst of all was the smoke, it poured into my delicate lungs like poison, clinging to the tissue, burning it from the inside out. It was like a fist was squeezing from the inside and slowly suffocating me. I'd nearly been suffocated to death before, but this way was much, much worse. I quickly drew up the hem of my shirt over my mouth and nose. It was soaked with sweat and so acted as a veil between my lungs and the smoke, helping to dull the pain. I turned to see that Rue had done the same thing, smart girl.

She looked up at me, her dark eyes wide with fright, filled with the instinct of a small child to run and keep running. She was smart, but I knew that I was the one who was going to get us out of here.

We keep running, she was able to keep up with me because of my slower gait, and we didn't stop. Cuts and burns appeared on my face and arms from branches that materialize from out of the grey haze. Rue was a little better off because she was shorter, but I could still see the red welts across her creamy skin, the oozing burn on her left hand. We'd actually been having a good day yesterday…

But that was exactly why we were running from the fire now—this was no tribute's campfire gone out of control. The flames that bore down on us like demons from hell were unnaturally bright, the heat way too intense from a fire that was just picking up, the speed at which it was traveling too fast for in a wet forest. This fire was man-made, machine-made—Gamemaker-made. It had been too quiet the past twenty-four hours, no deaths, perhaps no fights at all. The freaks in the Capitol were probably getting bored, claiming that the Games were bordering on dullness—and that would never do. The more blood, the more rapes, the more gore, the more fear, the more all consuming torture that made these Games fun for them had to be picked up. And so, the fire.

Like Rue and I, the other tributes had probably spread far and wide in order to evade the Careers. This fire was an attempt to bring us all back together for the final finale—a huge bloodbath where only one would be left standing. The fire wasn't the most original I'd ever seen in all my years watching the Games, but it was really fucking effective.

The fire was gaining on us, its chaotic dance attempting to pull us in for a duet. A burning branch suddenly fell in our path, great tongues of fire licking up from the bark like a monster. Rue dove beneath it before it hit the ground like some forest rabbit, popping up on the other side unharmed. I wasn't as lucky and leapt over it, passing through the flames in a way that nearly induced a panic attack. But the flames didn't stick to any of my clothing and I landed, tucking and rolling on the other side to break my fall. I jumped to my feet and Rue and I took off again.

Thank you Cinna for your amazing suit.

After another minute of running, Rue suddenly staggered, her face turning a sickly grey color. I grabbed her and pulled her under an outcropping of rock just before another branch fell. Under the relative safety of the rocks, the kid fell to her hands and knees and wretched up our feast from last night. Her back heaved and her arms shook as the smoke eradicated the strength from her small body. I pulled out the water bottle and forced her to take a few sips.

"Rue, can you still run?" I choked, my nose, mouth, and throat stinging every time I took a breath, sending a searing pain through my chest. She looked up at me, her head lolling. Outside the rocks, the flames began to crawl along the grass toward us, like millions of severed fingers looking for hooks in our flesh to grab onto. Rue didn't respond. I shouted a curse and picked Rue up, throwing her over my shoulders and locking my arms over her legs and arms. She wouldn't be comfortable, but she wouldn't be dead.

And then I started running again. It seemed like that's all I'd done throughout my entire life—just ran.

I ran from friendship.

I ran from the truth.

I ran from trust.

I ran from love.

Now I was running from death—again. I'd run from death for so long. Maybe it would catch up with me here in the arena. I wondered if I might welcome it when it came, I'd been so focused on surviving that I'd never stopped to think what it might be like to stop and just… rest.

But there would be no resting now—not while Rue was on my watch. Now I was running to help her survive, and death sure wouldn't catch up with me while I was focusing on that.

As the world around me burned, I tried to think of what the Gamemaker's strategy was, because if I could figure out theirs, then I could bend it to fit my own. The animals had left us behind long ago and I was in a part of the woods that I hadn't traversed through yet. I knew because I hadn't come to great piles of rock like the one we had just been sheltering under before. Where were the Gamemakers driving us? To the lake? To a whole new terrain filled with new terrors? We had found a few hours of peace by the small stream when the attack began. Would there be a way I could travel parallel to the fire and circle back to it? The wall of fire must have an end, there was no way it could burn indefinitely. Not because the Gamemakers couldn't keep it fueled but because, again, that would invite accusations of boredom from their bloodthirsty audience. But, if I could get back behind the line of fire, I could avoid meeting up with the Careers.

It was a plausible idea, especially since I knew I couldn't simply try and keep ahead of the fire with Rue on my shoulders. I could hear her moaning in my ear, her head lolling from lack of oxygen. My own lungs burned and I was coughing so hard I was positive blood was coming soon. But I knew I couldn't stop, determination fueled my boiling veins. I was just about to swerve, to double back…

And that's when the first fireball hurled from the sky and collided with the pile of rocks about five feet in front of me. My vision lit up with hot, fiery red as debris scattered from the impact. I jumped to avoid the deadly shrapnel, praying that none was falling on Rue as she lay comatose on my shoulders.

So this was the Gamemaker's twist. The fire wasn't just to get us moving again, it was part of the show. The tributes were not only battling each other now, but Mother Nature as well. And she was much more ruthless than any child killer. She had no conscious, no mercy, she could take a life just as easily as she could give it.

But Mother Nature's hand was not behind these fireball attacks—but the hand of a Gamemaker. He was probably sitting in a satin chair right now, one hand holding a glass of wine and the other hovering over the controls that could end Rue and I's lives.

The Girl on Fire who died by fire.

I guess those who live by the sword die by it.

Metaphorically, I had played with fire my whole life, perhaps I was destined to literally die from it the way the poor bastard with the sword did.

But I couldn't let it kill me yet. Because, if it did, then Rue was a goner as well… and I couldn't let that happen. Not when her poor parents and all nine of her siblings were watching. I wouldn't let them go through that.

My only warning was a hiss before the next fireball crashed into a tree to my left. I flattened to the ground when I heard the next one and it passed over us so close I thought it would surely take my head off. When I found that my head was still on my shoulders, I was up and running again in the next instant. But it wasn't running anymore, it was more of a dance. A chaotic dance where I dipped, whirled, and pranced to stay out of the way of the death balls. They were only about the size of apples, some the size of melons. But each packed incredible power, making the earth explode up around it upon impact. But the worst part was that I didn't know where they were coming from. They couldn't be coming from a hovercraft because the angles weren't extreme enough. Maybe this whole part of the woods had been armed with precision launchers that were concealed in the trees or rocks?

I wasn't sure. But I was positive that if they didn't let up soon, Rue and I might not make it.

Each breath was like poison, my body screamed from the pain of cuts and burns, my muscles spasmed from running faster than it was built for, cramps began to form in my stomach and in my legs. Rue bumped against my shoulders, moaning lowly and barely moving, her head lolling from side to side.

I was tensing to a coiled spring every time I heard a hiss, exploding from my current spot in a frenzy of unaccustomed speed to avoid the fireball when it appeared. It seemed like it would never end, but a lifetime of watching the Hunger Games kept me going because I knew that this wouldn't last forever. Certain sections of the arena were rigged with disasters for the tributes, if I could get away from this section, maybe I'd get away from the fire. Of course, when I got out of this area, I might fall into a pit of vipers in the next one. But I couldn't worry about that right now.

It was a fight for survival like none other that I'd faced before. I'd survived hunger, cold, sickness, fights, burning buildings, Peacekeepers, men like Cray, but nothing like this. But the attack did start to decline, the hissing coming in less and less, and that's when my legs began to get wobbly, my vision blurry, and my whole body convulsed. I had to drop Rue then, but I still hunched over her just in case while I retched acrid poisons off to the side. It hurt like hell, burning and contorting my chest and throat. All the rabbit, all the water, and all the smoke trickled from my mouth and nose as tears streamed from my blood-shot eyes.

The blood roaring in my ears dulled the sudden hissing sound above, which warned that the attack wasn't over just yet. It was only when the fireball exploded right in front of my face did I notice. I screamed as I hunched over Rue, heat and fire searing my flesh as the fireball engulfed the forest floor in front of me. Another hissing above caused fear to move my body once again and I rolled, taking Rue with me. I nearly flung her away when I caught sight of the new fireball. She was safe, but I didn't fare nearly as well.

I couldn't help the second scream that ripped past my raw throat and bloody lips as the fireball grazed my calf. The skin curled away, the flesh beneath blackened, the blood that welled to the surface instantly cauterized from the heat.

"God!" I shouted, not knowing if I was praying or cursing.

But I couldn't stop. So in another moment I was on my feet again, my leg buckling, blackened hair falling around my face in much shorter strands then it had been before. "Come on Rue," I gasped. I hauled her to her feet and flung her arm around my shoulders while my arm circled around her waist. "You have to help me out here, I can't carry you anymore."

"I want to go home." The small cry was barely discernible, but I heard it as she shook her head, tears in her eyes as her body convulsed from the smoke still pouring into her lungs.

"I know, kid. But right now we have to run again."

It wasn't long after that we found the pond. We were far from any territory we had explored thus far, the trees huge and reaching toward the sky with thin branches. We splashed into it, the water cooling our burns and… making the fire stop. We had just collapsed in the shallow part of the pond when the fire suddenly shot up, as if it had hit an invisible wall. And we watched as it continued to roar and burn.

"We're still alive," Rue murmured, and then she turned and retched again. She didn't get up, but the slow rise and fall of her chest indicated she was still alive. I didn't leave the water, but my body convulsed and I was retching again too, the poisons coming up in small trickles that hurt almost as bad as the burn on my calf.

Black spots appeared in front of my vision as I swayed, coughing and retching and moaning like a pathetic drunkard. Soon, the black spots expanded, became a void and I fell into it gladly.

I awoke to the sound of a tinkling bell. It came from far away at first, the tinkling sounding muffled and strange, almost like a fairy was whispering in my ear. As I began to climb out of the black void, I realized that it was literally impossible for a fairy to be tinkling in my ear… unless the Gamemakers had created some sick little monster to screw with my already smoke-poisoned mind.

With the strength of my will alone, I peeled my eyelids open, wincing as they were exposed to the light of another day in the arena. I sat up slowly, the water swishing around me as I moved. My skin had turned to prunes while I was out, the skin water-soaked and wrinkly and still covered in who knew what underneath all the ash and grime.

I surveyed my surrounding slowly to give my addled mind time to process it all. The first thing I did was look for Rue, I found her lying just a few feet away from me, her eyes closed, her thick hair burnt in horrifying patches, a burn streaked across her forehead, but her chest rose and fell evenly. I sighed in relief at her living status, and then quickly took in the wooded area we were in. The trees were taller here, with thinner branches, the grass sparse and brown, which was weird considering the nice sized pond that they surrounded.

Then I saw the one thing that was out of place—the bright silver tin wrapped with a fiery bow and attached to a parachute.

I scrambled to my feet despite all the pain, but when I put weight on my left leg, it collapsed beneath me and I ended up crawling to the weird tin. When I was close enough, I grabbed it and a message unrolled from the top.

Heal up. You're not done yet, sweetheart.

-H.

Haymitch! He'd found sponsors to send me a gift!

I nearly ripped the bow and parachute off the tin to get inside. When I opened it, it was full to the brim with a clear ointment that smelled heavily of spices and chemicals. It must be for the burns. My immediate impulse was to start smearing the stuff all over my body right away. But I stilled when I saw the total filth covering my body and heard the moans that Rue began to make. So, instead, I capped the ointment and crawled painfully back over to Rue, shook her, and whispered, "Wake up kid. We got a present from the Capitol."

Her eyes fluttered open, showing the whites completely red and her pupils dilated to pinpricks. "What happened?" she whimpered.

"We survived the fire last night," I said. "But we got pretty banged up."

She sat up slowly, bringing a scraped hand to the burn on her forehead. I stopped her. "Hang on, lets get washed up in that pond and then we can use the medicine Haymitch sent us."

"Haymitch sent you medicine?" she murmured, her voice shaky was exhaustion and pain.

"Us," I corrected. "He sent us medicine."

The pond wasn't far away, but getting there was one of the most challenging things of my life. My whole body screamed in agony from the burns, cuts, and bruises from the race for our lives the night before. Our skin scraped and burned when I began to drag clothing off of our bodies. It occurred to me that all of Panem was watching me undress, but at the moment I didn't really care all that much. I was focusing on getting Rue and I cleaned so that we could address our wounds.

The first thing I did was clean the burn on Rue's forehead. I don't remember when she got it, but it must have been when I was carrying her or when I threw her out of the way of the fiery log that had nearly melted my calf. She didn't complain when I cleaned the grime out of it in the pond, but I could see the grimace of pain on her lips and the discomfort in her eyes. But the moment I applied the ointment to it, those symptoms melted away and she relaxed with relief. After just a few moments of applying the ointment, it began to sizzle slightly on Rue's forehead, morphing into a starch white and turning her red and black burn to a white mess. I watched in morbid fascination as she seemed to relax even further. My guess was that after just one more application of the ointment, that burn would be gone without even a scar.

What I wouldn't have given to have that kind of stuff in District 12. But the Capitol was greedy and we were forced to contend with herbs and concoctions that healers like Mrs. Everdeen gave to us. I wasn't saying Katniss' mother wasn't talented, but who knew what the crazy woman could achieve if she had science like this at her disposal. I definitely wouldn't have had to live through as many deaths as I did.

That was the biggest of Rue's injuries and, while she continued to wash, I focused my attention on the worst of my injuries: the burn on my leg. I could have tended to Rue until I knew that she was totally taken care of, but I was no martyr (despite how I had risked everything to save her last night) and knew that if we wanted to survive, I needed to keep myself healthy too. I wasn't going to let a bum leg slow me down.

I peeled my pants off, gritting my teeth to keep from screaming as the material scraped over my raw flesh. When they were off, I turned my attention to my leg, and immediately forced down the urge to puke again. It wasn't pretty, and was probably one of the worst burns I had ever seen to mark just one place on the body. The skin was blackened around the edges, the flesh inside raw and red. It looked like it had burned away the meat all the way down to the bone, a sliver of charred white shown through the oozing, infected flesh.

"Fuck," I muttered, not able to do anything but just stare at it. I was a goner, There was no way I could stand, let alone run with an injury like this. Even with Haymitch's magic ointment, I guessed it would still take several days to heal.

"That doesn't look good," Rue murmured softly, and I looked up to see her staring at my leg with worry. She was completely naked, her body covered in small burns, cuts and bruises, but she was already astonishingly clean. She clutched a bunch of something green in her hand that looked like it had been mashed to a lather.

"What's that?" I ground out, slowly beginning to lower myself into the pond.

"It's a Yucca plant," she said. "The soap of the wild. Here." She handed me the bunch in her hand and then moved to help my further into the pond. "It will help clean all the dirt off of your body."

"Oh yeah? Well I might just need the whole damn plant then."

She actually giggled a little and I couldn't help feeling warmed at the sound.

"Can I help you?" she asked.

I stared at her, wondering if maybe that was the first time I had ever heard those words. I'm not even sure Old Sam had offered, he would either just do it, or trust in my abilities to take care of it myself… "Um, sure…" I murmured.

And so little Rue helped me finish stripping down to just my underwear and bra in the pond. The water felt cool against my burned skin, helping to numb some of the pain. But then she mashed more Yucca plant into a lather and showed my how to use it… that wasn't particularly pleasant. But I bore it the best I could, using it to clean my body of all the blood, ash, and grime of my time in the arena. I wasn't very quiet sometimes, and that would send a dagger of fear through me because who knew where the other tributes were? But I rationalized and prayed that they were far away, tending to injuries of their own. I wondered if the fire had claimed anyone in its deathly embrace. It certainly had almost captured Rue and I.

But I knew that we had to hurry, we could never be too careful, especially when most of the Careers were probably all still alive.

When I had finished the torture of getting clean and dragged myself out onto the bank to let the sun dry me, I looked at Rue and mournfully commented on her hair. It was burned all the way to the scalp in some places, the curls matted and shorne. Then she pointed out my hair and I reached back to feel the short strands. It hung jaggedly around my face, shorn and burnt.

"Well, we're not meant to look like goddesses forever, right?" I sighed and she nodded solemnly.

When our wet skin had dried some, I applied a rather thick coating of the ointment over my calf, nearly crying at the relief it brought. Rue finished patching herself up, washed her clothes, let them dry in the nearly baking sun, and then quickly dressed. She helped drag me under a tree and then began to wash my clothes without asking. I let her do it (I did save her butt last night after all) and I dug through our pack for some food. We had filled ourselves with water at the pond, but the rabbit we had feasted on was long gone and in some bushes where we had puked it out.

I found two strips of the beef left and a small tin of crackers at the very bottom. When she returned, we ate sparingly and then I packaged everything back in the pack for when we started moving again.

And I knew we had to start moving soon, we had already dallied here far too long.

The burn on my leg had begun to almost fester beneath the ointment, turning white and then beginning to itch as the ointment forced my body to heal at an accelerated rate. When the ointment turned clear again, I washed it and applied another coating, amazed at how much it had already healed. It was still grotesque, but worlds better than what it had been just an hour before.

The gash on Rue's head was almost healed already, but I made her wash it and apply another thin layer of ointment on it as well.

It was after I had finished dressing again and was testing out how much weight my leg could take when my hunter's ears picked out the sound of footsteps. And these were not the footsteps of animals… but of humans.

We'd been found.

Rue and I had only managed to hobble just outside the view of the pond when I realized that it was too late. We were never going to get away at this pace. Rue immediately took the pack from me and scampered up one of the weird trees like a squirrel. She motioned to me frantically as the sound of the Career's voices reached my ears.

Fuck.

Then I began to follow her, using only the strength of my arms and my one good leg to climb the tree. It was painful, and it was only the fear of death that forced me to pull myself up with a strength I wouldn't have had otherwise. I had just pulled myself up to the fifth branch, when the Careers walked into sight, looked up, and grinned like sharks up at me.

"Why, hello," Cato said almost pleasantly. "Nice day for a climb, isn't it?"

I stopped and turned from my climbing to look down on them, noting their various burns and scraps, but nothing was as bad as what I had suffered. Gale looked up at me with a cool expression on his face, but his eyes were different then those of the Careers. They flickered to my leg, and his lips pursed ever so slightly.

"That it is," I responded to Cato. "And how are you all doing this fine evening?"

Cato grinned and jerked his head at Marvel. "Just dandy, now that we've found you. And yourself?" Marvel started forward to the base of my tree.

"It's been a bit warm for my taste," I replied and I could almost hear the laughter from the freak audience in the Capitol. "The air's better up here."

My heart jumped into my throat at the sight of the large boy from District 1 stalking toward my tree with his spear held high. Rue was smart, she'd picked a tree with a lot of foliage, which would make it near impossible for them to hit us with their projectile weapons. However, that didn't stop Clove from twirling a blade before flinging it toward me. I flinched despite knowing it wouldn't hit me and watched as the leaves and small branches impeded its path, causing it to clatter and clang before plummeting back down to the ground.

Clove growled out a scream of frustration as she picked up her knife. "Drag her down, Marvel!" she said. "It's time my blade tasted her blood!"

If I didn't find her so annoying, her words would chill me. I was close to diagnosing her as a total psychotic. But then my gaze latched onto Cato's again, and his satisfied, triumphant smirk convinced me that he was the true psychopath in the relationship.

When Marvel swung himself up onto the first branch, I quickly scrambled up another, trying to balance my weight despite my pain on the tricky branches. I looked up and saw Rue nearly at the top, her small body swaying with the tree in the slightest breeze. She was hunkered in the foliage, watching me with wide eyes. I gave her a reassuring smile and pulled myself up onto another branch. That's when the sound of splintering wood sounded from below along with Marvel's startled cry. I looked down just in time to see him plummet from the branch that had broken under his weight and fall onto his back on the ground below.

I grinned. Maybe we'd make it after all.

Cato's face morphed into an ugly snarl and he launched himself at the tree. He made it further than Marvel, his determination leading him to hang in there a few branches more. I pulled myself up a little further, painfully, fearfully, praying that the branches would hold my weight. When Cato missed a foothold and crashed back to earth just like Marvel, I let out a sigh of relief.

Then it was the girls' turns. It was then that I noticed the girl from District 4 wasn't among them. I guessed that she must have not survived the fire since it was too early in the Game for them to be turning on each other.

Glimmer was a tall, slender girl and was ultimately too clumsy to make it much further than the boys. I hoped she'd fall and break her neck so I could get my bow and arrows. Unfortunately that didn't happen and she ended up chickening out and climbing back down on groaning tree limbs. Clove was a different story. She was smaller, built for strength and speed. And she wanted my head on a platter even more then Cato wanted my flesh in his hands. She was ruthless and had hated me from the very beginning for some reason.

"I'm going to get you, glory bitch," I heard her mutter, and then it clicked somewhat. Clove wanted to win these Games—of course—but she didn't want it just to survive, to return to her family back home… she wanted to win for the power, glory, and fame that being a victor brought. There weren't many tributes like her, most tending to just strive for survival rather than victory. But the Careers were all bred for this, and it just seemed to be not only bred into Clove, but ingrained. Obsession was something to be feared, it drove people to do crazy things.

But so did the need for survival. I pulled myself another tier higher, wincing when a branch broke under my hand before I quickly scrambled for another one. My leg was on fire and, when I looked down at it, I realized it had started to bleed and ooze a clear liquid again. I needed to put more ointment on it, but I couldn't do that until the bitch behind me quite her pursuit. I debated throwing my knife at her, but it was my only weapon and I had no guarantee that it would actually hit her through the foliage. Better not waste it. So I just climbed higher and higher, a cold sweat breaking out over my bruised skin. Rue waited at the top for me, worried and quiet.

And then Clove started cursing and yelping and, when I looked up at Rue again; I saw her pelting my pursuer with the hard nuts at the top of the tree. Her aim was incredible, and I suddenly remembered the slingshot in the training room with a grin. Clove shrieked when she finally lost balance, her grip loosening to ward off the nuts, then she flailed, and fell to the ground like the others before her. Nobody moved when she hit the hard dirt, just watched as she struggled to regain her breath between painful, wheezing, curses.

I looked up at Rue and smirked, she grinned back at me and quickly loaded up on nuts again.

When I looked back down, Glimmer had her bow raised and I was looking at the gleaming point of one of her arrows. I quickly scampered into a thicker clump of branches and leaves as she let the shaft loose. It whizzed toward me, but my tree saved me once again by deflecting its path toward me so that it lodged into a branch instead. I looked down and my eyes drifted over the Careers to Gale. He was standing a few paces behind them, his stance wide, his muscular arms folded over his chest, just watching. His eyes drifted up and caught my gaze, and the corner of his mouth twitched, just the tiniest bit.

Then Cato caught sight of him. "Hey, loverboy, you try and climb up there to get her."

Gale just raised one eyebrow. "And let her make a fool out of me as well? Just leave her up there. She's not going anywhere and she'll have to come down at some point. We can deal with her in the morning."

I could see that Cato didn't want to agree with Gale, but he was right—I wasn't going anywhere. The relief from the cold water and the burn ointment had begun to fade during my climb to avoid death. My wounds were searing again, causing me to grit my teeth against the pain, the bones in my mouth splintered at the intensity and I knew I'd have to find someway to settle down for the night soon to tend to my burns if I wanted any teeth left at the end of the night.

Cato looked up at the fake sky and how it was almost fake night. The forest had deepened its shadows to menacing lengths, the sun was disappearing beyond the horizon, and the cold was slowly starting to creep back to replace the heat. "Fine," he growled, we'll figure out what to do in the morning."

"When we do, I'm gonna use that brat with the nuts as target practice," Clove growled, flipping one of her knives over and over, her intense gaze focused on where Rue was hidden above me.

Protectiveness exploded from my chest despite my fear and pain and I roared down at the District 2 brute: "Over my dead body!"

Clove just grinned a grin that was definitely not friendly. "With pleasure, Fire Bitch."

Then I watched as they began to set up camp for the night. First they built a fire and I looked with envy at the crackling flames. Just hours before I would have swore that I never wanted to see a flicker of fire ever again, but the cold was setting in and I began to shiver. The Careers were probably the only ones in the Games who could afford to build a fire. No one would be stupid enough to try and take them on. Glimmer and Clove disappeared for a while, during which the boys lounged, throwing more sticks in the fire and taunting me up in the tree. I ignored them, used to some of it from the Hob, although their threats were a lot more real. But I wasn't going to worry about that right now, not even when their comments turned perverse.

"If you act like a pig, then you are sure to become one," Gale suddenly said after one particularly nasty comment.

"What the fuck does that mean?"

Gale fixed Cato with the steely stare that had captivated me on the roof, but the smolder in his eyes held a different tone then when he had looked at me. "You don't seem as dumb as an animal, figure it out."

The way that Cato's face turned red with rage showed just how much Gale was playing with fire. But then the girls walked out of the trees, holding up their catches with victorious smiles and walked into the middle of the boys without knowing what they had just prevented. "Hungry, anyone?" Clove asked and dumped a rabbit and a wild turkey at Cato's feet.

My attention drifted from the murderers below as they occupied themselves with stuffing their faces with fresh meat—the aroma drifted up toward me, making my mouth water and stomach growl. But I couldn't worry about how hungry I was, I needed to tend to my injuries.

I explored the tree a bit until I found a fork big enough and sturdy enough to hold my weight. I had just settled down in it when a pair of bright eyes caught my attention. It was Rue—fuck, how had she climbed down without me hearing her? She was like a little phantom.

"Are you okay?" I whispered. "How are your burns?"

She moved into a little patch of light so that I could see the highlights of her young face in addition to the glitter of her eyes. She pressed a finger to her lips in a sign of silence, and then she took the same finger and pointed to something above my head.

My eyes followed the direction of her finger to the foliage above me. I didn't see anything at first, my night-time eyesight obviously not as good as hers. But then I did see it… and my blood turned to ice.

Hope you guys enjoyed that—next chapter is my version of the tracker jacker scene! It's also where I deviate from the original plot line quite a bit more than what I have lately.

Also, I'm still waiting for requests/ideas for Terra's flashbacks. Any input would be much appreciated!