“I’m sorry,” Slate said, as we kept walking toward the beach.

“For what?” I asked, tying my hair up into a bun that resembled Alta’s. I needed to make sure that my hair wouldn’t be in the way.

“That you’re going to end up being the life source that I’m going to feed on,” he replied, dousing himself knee-deep into the water.

The water was warm on the surface, but started to feel cooler as I went deeper. “That’s the only thing that’s keeping me alive right now, and you’re not the only one doing it. Don’t feel sorry.”

I waded on my back and looked up at the sky. The sun was going down. I was reminded of the day about two weeks ago when I had been watching a similar sunset with Aldo. He was probably watching me right now, mentally scolding me for keeping my guard down and leisurely floating on my back.

The wound on my arm stung, but it didn’t seem to bring infection. Slate had attended to that right after he saw the bleeding back at the Cornucopia.

“Don’t go any further,” I warned Slate as I swam a few feet away from him. The water was up to his chest. He was tall. If it were me standing were he stood, my head would be below the water. “The sand suddenly plummets down a few feet. I don’t know where it starts. I’m not sure I can carry you with my arm.”

He stayed put and looked back at the direction where we came from. He couldn’t do anything else, so he kept guard.

I took a deep breath and went under the water. It was so beautiful here. The water was so clear, and I could see everything even if the sun wasn’t beating down anymore. I saw plenty of fish to catch, but it was difficult to skewer them. They were too fast. I went back up to get a breath of air.

Slate was looking around with worry. “Can you not stay under the water for too long?”

I smiled at him and said, “But how will I catch anything?”

“Just don’t do that. I don’t like feeling helpless if anything happens to you.”

He was a few meters away, and it was a considerably distance that I hadn’t noticed I swam. I swam back toward him with my head above the water this time.

“We’ll need a net. The fish here are too fast, and the only ones worth eating are at the deep end. I can’t spear them under the water because it’s too deep.”

“Let’s do that tomorrow. It’s getting dark and we’ll just have to make do with the food from the Cornucopia.”

When we were walking back, the predictable rain shower came. The other tributes probably ended up at the other end of the island and were a day’s travel away from this stream.

When we got to the camp, we saw that Lark and Taffeta made use of their time by using the large branches and leaves of the trees and used them as a roof. The shells were laid out to collect rain, and so were their jugs.

“Well?” Taffeta asked as we arrived.

“I’ll have to make a net tomorrow. The only fish big enough to eat are in the deep end, and they're too quick to catch by just using the trident or spear. You guys will have to lead them to the net while I wait at the deeper end, to trap them.”

We ate in silence, and after another hour, the rain stopped and the anthem started to play. The faces of the dead tributes showed up in the sky. It started with Chiffon, and then the male tribute from 3. The male tribute from 5 was dead, along with both from 6. Lit’s face was in the sky, because of me. The male tribute from 8 came next. It turned out that I killed the female tribute that was from 9 and her partner was dead as well. The female from 10 was dead, and so were the last four tributes from 11 and 12.

That meant that there were ten of us left. The four of us, obviously, were alive. Then there was Boone, Xavier, Keegan and three others. I remembered the female from 3 who I underestimated. Her name escaped me, and so did the female and male from 8 and 10 respectively. The male from 10 had scored higher than most of the tributes. The only one unexpected in living today was the one from 8.

I had expected that Lit be one of the eight tributes near the end.

“How many did you get rid of today?” Slate asked to no one in particular.

“Two,” Lark and Taffeta said at the same time.

“Same,” Slate said, looking at me.

“Three, all female,” I said, as if the gender mattered. In the Hunger Games, being female wasn’t considered a disadvantage. We could be just as strong as the males in the arena. “I made sure Lit didn’t live after today. It would have been annoying to have her and Boone together. They were pretty good during trainings.”

They looked impressed. I had not gotten rid of only weaklings, but an actual contender. “Boone’s one to watch though,” Taffeta said, leaning back on a tree. “I saw him kill that guy from 6 with his bare hands, and that was while running.”

“Our mentors wanted him as an ally,” Lark said, wrapping a blanket around herself. I saw that she hid the two machetes underneath though. “We were open for one more, with Xavier backing out.”

“I’d be more worried about him than Boone though,” I said, taking a bite out of my pack of beef. “With that trident I saw him with, he’s got the same fighting chance as the four of us.”

“Unless he ends up like Chiffon,” Slate said darkly.

One of us could really just end up dead because of the arena and the Gamemakers messing around with us.

“We should get some sleep,” Lark said, after a few minutes of silence. “I’ll guard first. You need to rest up Serena. You’ve been swimming and climbing. You’ll be even doing more work tomorrow.”

The need for survival was what kindness could afford me right now. I knew that I wouldn’t be stabbed in my sleep. The night was cold though, but I didn’t want to use my sleeping bag on ground. If anyone wanted to attack, it would just be a cause of struggle.

Slate, who seemed to act on impulse, sat next to me and wrapped his arm around me. He used his backpack as a pillow and I squeezed into his side, just like all those times at the chaise in the balcony.

Sleep was difficult to come by. I kept waking up every few hours, and I saw that even Lark was starting to tire out, with her head leaning down when she felt sleepiness overcome her. I was about to volunteer to take watch, but Taffeta, who had also been awake, said that he would take the next one.

Lark didn’t hesitate at the offer and she fell right to sleep.

I had about a few more hours left before I woke up fully. The sun was rising high above our heads. I didn’t know how long I was out for. I felt like I had slept for only a few minutes, but it seemed the rest of them were up and about. Slate had wrapped a blanket around me and put his backpack under my head.

They were sharpening their blades and collecting tufts of grass. They probably knew enough to understand that I could make a net out of anything that could act as strings. There was a line of string inside my pack. I had the foresight to know what it was for. Everyone else would probably just discard it, not knowing what to do with it. It was too thin to be used as rope, and wouldn’t kill if someone decided to use it as a weapon to strangle someone.

I made hooks out of the thorns from a few plants nearby. I carefully attached it around the strings in a way that it wouldn’t dislodge. In District 4, as long as you had some string and a hook, you were good for fishing.

“You guys don’t have to be completely useless,” I joked, and they smiled weakly as they watched me at work. My fingers were too quick to catch. They wouldn’t know what I did to achieve such results. “Just attach a few crumbs of bread at the end and wait for the current to bring the string farther. Remember to wrap your hands around the string and you might want to put on the gloves from the Cornucopia. If you get anything, you’ll be pulling it like a tug-of-war, and the string might even bury into your skin if you’re not careful.”

I handed each of them a lengthy strand of the string and I watched their doubtful faces turn into resignation. What else could they do? They could hunt down the other tributes, but we needed food too.

We weren’t in any hurry to kill everyone off, since it was just the second day. If the Gamemakers wanted some killing action, we’d know it. They’d have some mutts come out or some ‘natural’ catastrophe happen to bring us together if there was another tribute nearby.

For now, we were left to do as we pleased.

We moved our camp to edge of where the stream ended and started to become salt water. I could weave in peace, and they could wade into the water, fishing for food.

Most likely, they wouldn’t catch anything at all, but it was better than having them sit around and be bored. A Career who felt useless would be unstable. Since I was one of the tributes within reach, they could just end up trying to kill me out of sheer frustration.

The day flitted by uneventfully. The net that I made was only halfway done, as the sun slowly hid again. It was difficult. The grass strands were only a few inches long, and I had to tie them together and use more than one strand just so it would hold when large fish swam into it. It was frustrating, with the dry grass breaking right in between the ones I had already finished.

I was very good at making nets back home. I could make one in an hour and produce good results. The resources at home were healthy and made for nets though, so it wasn’t very difficult.

I couldn’t blame Taffeta, Slate and Lark for giving me such poor materials to work with. These were the best that we could do. Even I looked around to see if there was something else to work with. I couldn’t use the string, because it would end up too short. My fingers were aching from the strain of bending and holding one end of the net to stretch it out.

I also had to test it out in water to see if it wouldn’t disintegrate. So far, it seemed to hold. I tried catching one tiny fish that was heading into the stream. It was strong enough for it, even as the little thing thrashed inside the one part of the net.

After a while, I had Slate take the long leaves from the trees and have him tear it into long, thin strings. This seemed to suit him better, since he ended up with a hot head after fishing.

Lark surprisingly caught two already. She had severed the head just so it would stop slipping away, after she learned from her first catch that managed to head back into the water and escape.

With the long strings from the leaves, I managed to make the net faster and more durable. I just needed to do the tufts of grass as the base, I guess. Plus, it made sure that the holes were smaller and fish couldn’t escape easily.

When the sun went down, I gave up and decided that I would finish the rest tomorrow. They didn’t pressure me to finish too soon, since we had a pretty good meal with the fish that Lark and Taffeta had managed to scrounge.

I was forced to get some sleep again, with Slate on watch this time. I was restless, because I knew these tiny sessions of relaxation and rest could be over anytime. I didn’t know how long the Capitol citizen’s attention spans were, but I knew that they would crave some blood sooner or later.

I only fell asleep as Slate stroked the hair away from my forehead as I lay my head on his lap.