"AHHH!" Glimmer shouted, waking up almost instantly at the buzz of the wasps, swarming all over the six of you angrily.

"BEES!" you heard Pearl scream, bringing Clove up as well as she batted them away with her knife.

Your vision was clouded with the golden glints of the wasps, flying with a maddening buzz as they tried to aim at you, at any part of your flesh that was exposed, and you tried to bat them away with your backpack. You felt Cato pick you up as the tracker jackers began to sting you on the hands, on the neck, and on your forehead. "TO THE LAKE!" he cried to the others.

Everyone tried their best to head there, and you suddenly passed out as the hallucinations began to play through your mind. Reliving your father's last moments in the mines. Peeta's confession to the Capitol of his love for Katniss Everdeen. The tree leaves turning to blood and splashing all over your body.

"(Y/N)! No!" Cato cried, picking you up in bridal style as he ran after Marvel and Clove, not daring to look back to see if Glimmer or Pearl were following. "No. Don't die on me. Don't give up. We have to get you to Peeta. We have to keep you alive. I can't lose you," he kept whispering to you, making you smile faintly.

Soon, you all reached the lake, and a sigh of relief escaped your lips as you lowered your body into the cool water, ripping out all the stings from the flesh as you examined them. True, you got a lot, and even seeing them made you feel dizzy and nauseous. Instead of seeing three stings on your arm, you saw nine, and the stench of the pus only worsened the effect.

"Where are Glimmer and Pearl?" Clove asked, looking wildly around the lake. "I thought they were following us."

"No idea," Marvel said hollowly. "They may not have."

"DUCK!" Cato hissed, pulling you all under the water as the buzzing began to register in your ears again. Apparently the tracker jackers could still "track down" their targets, but not for a very long time. Even underwater, you were able to make out the buzz dying off in the distance, followed by a cannon.

Instantly, you surfaced and gasped, breathing in a huge lungful of air. The cannon...who was it for?

"Glimmer," Cato whispered. "Damn. I can't even believe it."

"Glimmer was such a good tribute to be with," you murmured, sinking back into the water. "I'll miss her and Pearl. Especially their jokes about us," you added cheekily, looking up at Cato.

Clove and Marvel smiled as well...until Clove saw the hovercraft coming. "(Y/N), did Glimmer give you her arrows?" she asked.

"Crap," you cursed. "No. I'll have to get them before they're gone for good!"

"Go go go!" Cato cheered as you managed to wade out of the lake, just as you saw Pearl approach you with a hazy look in her eyes.

"Pearl?" you asked. "Is everything okay?"

Pearl did not respond to you. Her eyes were glassy and empty, and in her hand she held a knife. "Oh yes," she replied in such a hollow voice it might just represent a ghost. "Yes. I'm just fine. In fact, I have never felt better killing a tribute," she said eerily, holding out the blade in front of you to gut her.

Screaming in fright, you ran away from her and all the way back to the tree, where you saw Glimmer's body lay so still. This girl, so breathtakingly beautiful and sexy in her golden dress, has completely lost her beauty to the popping stings that the tracker jackers gave her. Gritting your teeth, you took a deep breath and began to detach the bow from her hand, but her grip on it was so tight it was almost impossible for you to get it out of her hands, but finally with a deliberate yank, you managed it. The arrows easily slipped off from her shoulder, and you quickly put them on in addition to your backpack, still feeling slightly dizzy on your feet.

"I...will...kill," you heard Pearl's haunting voice echo through the trees, and you almost jumped in fright as Peeta suddenly materialized in front of you, his knife held in the ready.

"Peeta? What are you doing here?" you asked suddenly, fear laced in your voice as his figure started to bend and distort in your vision. No. You can't pass out on him. No.

"(Y/N)?" he asked in a low whisper.

You shook your head. "You have to get out of here. Run! Run, Peeta! Are you listening?" Your voice, starting in a whisper, soon rose to a shout. "Peeta, get out of here! Go! Run! Get out of here! GO!"

Suddenly, Cato came over to you, just as Peeta ran off. "Where's Peeta?" he asked.

"He--I told him to run," you said. "Pearl..."

"I'll hold her off," he promised you. "It must be the venom. She's completely duped." He drew his sword out at the same time you took an arrow out and strung it onto your bow. "(Y/N), you have to go," he finally whispered.

"What do you mean? I can fight just fine," you said. But in reality, the world was still spinning around you, and even Cato started to look like he had three heads instead of one.

"No, you can't. Go after Peeta! I can fight her," Cato promised, just as the haunting voice of Pearl's got louder. "Go! Remember my promise! Just go!"

"I can't lose you!" you screamed, just as Pearl broke through the clearing and shrieked, "I...Will...KILL!"

"GO!" Cato cried to you. "Just go!"

You nodded as you wrapped your arms fiercely around him one last time. "Thank you, Cato," you murmured quickly. The embrace didn't last long, and you let go of him now, running through the trees in the general direction you think Peeta went, but since you got more of the venom in you than he did, the effects on you were more potent than he. More leaves were turned to blood and splashed over your head. A couple branches in front of you exploded into glaring stars that flew into your face. Peeta's confession to Katniss replayed in your brain, and all you could hear were his words.

"I love you, Katniss Everdeen."

Soon, your legs gave out, and all you saw was black.

*********************

A rustle in the trees woke you up, and your eyes flew open to see the tree leaves high above you, the sun still shining in the sky. Were you dead? No, you can't be. You reached your hand out tentatively to your right side, wincing as your elbow screamed in pain. Well, not screamed. But protested. It soon occurred to you that you were probably passed out for a few days. As your fingers made contact with the dirty ground and the small plants that sprouted from it, you nodded to yourself. You were still alive.

You were still in.

Soon, you heard a rustle from your left, and you turned. There must have been some movement behind a big tree. Maybe another tribute? An animal? What? Hesitantly, you got up, surprised at the amount of strength you still had, and walked over to the tree. A small tuft of hair poked out from the trunk, and you only smiled as you said the tribute's name out loud.

"Rue?"

The little tribute turned around to see you, her eyes widening in fear.

"Oh--oh my god," she said. "You're not going to kill me, aren't you?" she asked fearfully.

You shook your head. "No. I wouldn't imagine leaving a little girl like you out for good." You smiled as you crouched down to her, grasping lightly onto her shoulder, recalling the way you tried to comfort Prim before you left for the Capitol. For some reason, Rue really did remind you of Prim, and the thought of fighting for Prim was the only thing that coaxed the smile out of you.

"You sure? I mean, I saw you with the Careers," she said. "And where's the other boy from your district?"

"I was just going to ask you," you said, your smile disappearing.

"Actually, I did see him run to the river," Rue said, shrugging. "That's kind of where I think he is right now. I don't know, though."

"That's alright." You got up and gave Rue a hug. "Come on, I have a few things to show you."

Half an hour later, you both found yourselves snacking on some of your leftover food, and Rue had also proven to be very resourceful, effectively finding a cure for all your tracker jacker stings by applying a mixture of saliva and a certain kind of leaf growing around to your wounds. "Thank goodness you had the sense to rip your stings out of your flesh," she giggled.

"Oh yeah. And to think that the worse thing that could happen to me were wasp stings!" you added, laughing with her in relief. But then your smile faded again. "Do you have any idea where the Careers are now?"

"They seem to be holding themselves fine," Rue told you. "It's just...the boy from 2. He kept tearing at his own hair a lot and saying your name like you meant a lot to him."

Suddenly, it hit you. Cato actually loved you?

"Wait a second. Was the boy from 2...did he sound...I mean, how--"

"He was literally screaming your name," she told you. "The last thing I heard him say was, 'I'm going to get back at the first person who hurts her!'"

Your heart froze at Rue's answer. So Cato...Cato really did care for you. Those times he hugged you in the sleeping bag, his arm protectively draped over you, even the friendly squeezes of your hand like Peeta normally would with you before the Games...they all meant something. And yet you ditched him while he was talking about his feelings.

"Do you think he loved me?" you finally asked, risking to word the question out loud.

Rue nodded. "I know he did. But you love the boy from your district, right?"

You nodded. "Yeah. Except he loved another girl back in our district. Katniss."

"(Y/N), I am no expert on love," she eventually said after some thought. "But I can say this. You both have probably meant something to each other, growing up as friends. And I think the best thing you should do is keep your friendship. Don't let his love for someone else break you. You're a tough girl, (Y/N)." She gave you a small smile as the words sunk in.

You nodded again and returned the smile. "I...I guess," you eventually replied. "How long was I out, by the way?"

"Oh, a few days," she answered. "The girls from 1 and 4, and the boy from district 10, are all gone now."

Glimmer. Pearl. The boy from 10. Three more tributes dead, 9 more to play. You only nodded as she continued to treat your stings.

Later that evening, she told you one more thing. "(Y/N), I was watching the rest of the tributes around the arena. Apparently the rest of the non-Career tributes have their supplies stacked in a huge pyramid. Fearing that they probably would truly leave with nothing, they managed to stock up near the Cornucopia."

"Is--oh, wait, I don't think so," you said.

"Is Peeta with them? No," she shook her head. "No. But the other tribute from my district, Thresh, is there. Thresh, the boy from 3, and the girl from 5."

"The girl from 5?" This intrigued you. "I thought she would be smart enough to get her own supplies."

Rue shrugged. "I'm not sure," she eventually admitted. "But if there's one tribute you don't want to mess with, it's Thresh."

"Thresh does sound like a threat," you ruefully admitted. "I mean, with his buff body and everything, he could take anyone down."

"But you got a higher score in training," Rue reminded you. "You can use knives AND arrows."

"Yet he's strong...but arrogant," you said, recalling the way he acted at his interview. "Rue? I think I have a plan to take him down."

Rue nodded. "Alright. But let's just get some rest." With that, she laid with you in the sleeping bag on the ground, and in a few moments she was asleep. You smiled as you watched her sleep, gazing once in a while at the night sky as you put your night-vision glasses on--the ones that Glimmer and Pearl got really jealous about. It turned out they were right. These were very useful.

"Good night, Rue," you whispered, and you eventually fell asleep with her pressed beside you.