Rue liked Katniss. She had volunteered for her little sister, that was decent, that was brave. So she gave her a chance. She pointed to the hacker-jacker nest.

She then pointed to her slingshot.

She saw Katniss' face move to horror, a desperate I-can't-escape-because-they're-at-the-base-of-the-tree expression. Quite a unique mix of emotions, it had to be said.

Rue didn't care much. You couldn't. That was the whole damn point of the Games. If she cared about Katniss it would probably kill her.

She held up all her fingers. Ten. Dropped a finger. Nine.

It was pretty dark, but Katniss looked panicked.

So the girl who was on fire couldn't handle the heat after all. How disappointing.

At the count of one, she mouthed sorry to Katniss. She had seemed decent, but this was Rue's chance to take out the Careers. She was never going to get an opportunity like this again, and if it meant Everdeen died too, so be it. She'd have to die if Rue wanted to go home anyway. And with the Careers gone, there'd be no-one fit to kill her, except maybe Thresh. She couldn't chance it.

She was giving Katniss a chance anyway. More than the people down below got. Wasn't her fault that Katniss couldn't jump from tree to tree like her. She had no pity for the older girl.

She pulled back the slingshot, heard her stone connect with the hive and she was gone, branch-tree-branch-limb-dart along a thick one and further and further, never touching the ground. She was not silent, but she was fast, and the tracker-jackers had such easier targets. Maybe Katniss would make it down the tree in time to die in Lover Boy's arms. Now wouldn't that be essential viewing.

Because Rue's shot had cracked the hive while it was still in the tree, the tracker-jackers had all swarmed out, vicious and attacked as a group. She had considered hitting the branch it dangled from, but then the hive would fall the whole way to the forest floor. The tjs would be damaged, injured, slow to react. It wasn't good enough.

The way she carried it out worked perfectly.

The tjs killed them all.

Even Katniss. It was a shame really. But better Katniss than her. Another canon blast, another step closer for Rue to getting home.

She hated the little weak girl act she had to put on for her district, for the first half of the Games. She was the eldest in the family, she saw people shot by peacekeepers - if peace meant meaningless violence and stationary status quo - and they expected her to be sweet and cute and vulnerable?

Just because she was small and thin, they presumed she was naive and trusting. Look at Thresh, he looked like a monster, but the boy hated violence. No-one seemed to get that.

At least now, after being the cause of six deaths, maybe they'd understand now.

Only herself, Thresh, bomb-boy and the Red-head left now. The red-head was clever and fast, but defensive, not on attack. Rue knew she'd been stealing food. Stealing was punishable by death, didn't the red-head know? Well she'd know soon enough.

And she did. Rue saw her darting through the minefield. The bomb-boy, with his protectors all dead sat by the supplies now, surrounded by the hidden mines. He was fairly safe, and had the supplies, the boy was doing well. But he could never leave his little sanctuary or he'd lose his protection, so the place stank of faeces after a few days. What a way to lose the Capitol's favour. He went to all that effort, and then he just sits by his own shit? That's not gripping entertainment, that's repugnant and exactly what no-one wants to see. He deserves no parachutes, and he doesn't get them.

He had to sleep sometimes though, and that's when the ginger stole. Until that is, Rue hailed stones down the the mines. Turns out they were quite sensitive indeed. Bye bye red-head. The boy, for all his cunning, turned out to be a fool - coughing, he retreated from the first explosion and set off his own.

Just Thresh to go.

Now that would be the tough one.