A/N I know I mention kilometres in here, but I'm Canadian, and we don't do miles. 

"Okay, so wait about five minutes and then light the next one." I say to Rue. We are going over our plan, planning on either stealing or destroying Marvel and Clove's supplies. "You got it, kid?" I ask her. She nods eagerly. 

"But just incase one of us gets caught up in something or lost, I'm going to teach you a tune." She replies. I don't immediately see how this will help us, but I trust her and am of course willing to learn from her. She hums a few notes, and surprisingly the birds begin to repeat the tune, spreading it through the forest. Brilliant, if others hear it they'll assume it's just the birds, but if we hear it we'll know the signal. 

"That's genius, kid." I laugh, it's so simple no one would think of it. 

"Thanks, we used things like that to signal the time back home." She gets a wistful look in her eyes when she speaks of her home in District 11. They're not much in the way of wealthy over there, but then again we aren't any better in District 12, and I'd much rather be back there than in here.

I roll my shoulders, crack my knuckles, and sling my backpack over my shoulder, ax in hand. "Alright, I'll see you back here for supper, okay?" 

She nods. "See you soon!" She exclaims, and bounds off in the direction of the first pile of green wood we had set up a few dozen yards away. 

I begin to walk as quickly and quietly as I can in the other direction, letting out occasional grunts of pain from my still open wound I had gotten when the fire ball skimmed me, it certainly wasn't doing me any favours. 

Having a good sense of direction was impossibly helpful in the arena, whether it was going to a stream, or your enemies camp, and I was fortunate enough to have been born with a pretty decent one. When navigating my instincts do most of the work, not usually having to rely on memory. 

Within under twenty minutes, I had arrived back at the Cornucopia. The place always made me feel sick, even when I was a toddler when my mum would watch the games and try to shoo me out of the room, I'd always manage to catch bits and pieces of the Cornucopia, and even when I had no idea what if was it'd always held a sinister air that made me feel ill. The PTSD I'd probably experience if I ever made it out of here just from seeing it in person would probably be insufferable. 

I crouched myself behind a think copse of bushes that I could just see under if I pressed my face to the dirt. And just in time to see Clove and Marvel sprint off in the direction from which I had come, clearly having spotted the smoke of Rue's fires. We'd gathered as much green wood as we could, the stuff doesn't burn, but it smokes like crazy and can grab you attention from five kilometres away. 

I didn't expect them to leave their camp unguarded, odd. I peer under the bushes again to see another figure, the District 3 boy. He wouldn't be around if they didn't need him for something, and he was too thin to made a proper guard. . .

There's flash of bright red hair across the clearing in which the Cornucopia stands. Foxface has leapt out of the trees while the District 3 boy is facing the other way. But she's doing some peculiar hoping routine, it almost appears as if she's playing hop scotch. My eyes narrow trying to figure out what on earth she's doing. 

Whatever she's trying to pull off, it seems she's done it as she'd now grabbing a sack of apples, a few throwing knives, and a random backpack, and doing the same odd little hopping dance back out of there until she could bolt away back into the trees. 

I unzip my backpack, quietly trying to pull out an apple of my own.

And it hits me. The District 3 boy is there because he knows his way around technology. They've reburied their mines. 

"Oh no." I whisper.

"Oh no is right, 12." An arrogant voice sounds gleefully.

Before I can register what's happening, Clove has pinned my arms to the ground, nocked my apple out of my hand, and pressed the blade of her knife to my throat. Eyes shimmering with the thrill of the chase, a smile woven from my terror and wrapped with glee. Her breathing is heavy, clearly she's been running, Rue might already be dead. 

"We might not have found Rue yet," She speaks, evidently knowing the thoughts bounding across my mind. "But we will soon. She's a silly little girl, and she can't hide forever."

"But I think you'll find she can climb," I choke. "A skill you've proven yourself lacking in. That and a moral compass." 

She scowls, and a fury clouds her eyes with bloodlust, her knife pressing harder into my skin. "I knew you could climb. You were protecting the bread kid all along." She spits. "I told Cato you were bad news, that he couldn't trust someone like you, we grew up together and yet trusts your little rat ass more than me."

 So a raging, hormonal, jealous, sociopathic teenager is about to end my life. Great. Just freaking fantastic. 

Clove was breathing heavily now, she and Cato must have grown up close in District 2, and she's jealous from what I can tell. "But now? Now you're going to die."

I cough, a spluttering hack of a sound. "I'm sure I will, but not today." 

I throw my hand sideways, and with a dislodged weight, Clove tumbles off me. My fist closes around the apple, and with one eye quintet shut I throw it as hard as I can at the reburied mines in front of the pyramid of supplies.

I don't register anything, it all happens too quickly. I lie on the ground, a painful ringing in my ears, and a piece of debris has slice open my left leg in a long, thin, angry red mark. My instincts move quicker than I can think, and I'm picking up my backpack and ax. Clove is not dead, but lying about twenty yards away, and knocked out cold from what I can tell. However, with a quick glance I see Foxface is lying on the ground, dead. I guess she must have gone in to steal more, the results were unfortunate.

My legs spring into action, and I'm zipping along in the direction I left Rue, hoping and praying Marvel hasn't found her yet. I will take the fact that he has not returned to make sure Clove's finished me off as a sign he hasn't.

I did not know I was capable of such a speed, but a child's life is hanging in the balance, and I'm so grateful that I've made myself something of a runner. 

"Y/N!" 

Rue. I suck in a breath and run faster, reaching a clearing inhabited by panicked little Rue in instants. Her small frame is pressed into the earth by a net, right next to the third fire we'd built. Eyes wide with fear, she calls my name again, and my ax is out before she can say it a third time. It takes a moment, but a moment well spent when I've finished hacking through the dense net to save the traumatized child underneath. 

I seize her, drawing her into a bone crushing hug that she returns without a second thought. My hands go gently through her hair, murmuring sweet things that would distract her mind. 

I pull away briskly, looking her straight in her panicked brown eyes. "You listen to me, I am going to be stick beside you until this whole thing is over, you understand? You are going to get out of here, no one else. You have so much left to do with your life, and I am not going to stand by and let you loose it if I know I could have used my own to prevent it. I know you want to argue, but I beg of you not to. Know someday when you're an old woman in your rocking chair, telling stories to your gran children that that is what I want for you. To go on and grow up, fall in love, have kids, watch them grow up and have their own kids. Have a life you can look back on in seventy years and not regret living every moment of, alright?"

Tears brim her eyes, as mine already overflow. This child, this sweet, innocent child is going to go on, she is going to live. But then, that was when she died.