"You know, I won't be surprised if the Gamemakers end up being the ones to kill off all the rest of the tributes," Peeta eventually joked as the two of you headed through the forest, still hand in hand.

You laughed uneasily, trying to shake off that latest prospect Peeta brought up. "I won't be so sure, actually. What with only 4 of us left..."

"But anything can happen!"

"Yeah, I guess," you smiled. "And what happens after that? Victor's village, Victory Tour..."

"Ahh, the Victor's Village," Peeta laughed. "And our new home with Haymitch to keep us company."

To this, you shook your head. "No way!" you laughed, as the day slowly turned into night. "Hang on...what time is it?"

"It's supposed to be mid-afternoon," Peeta confirmed with you. "So why is it..."

"Oh crap," you muttered, wrapping your jacket around you tightly and hugging yourself. "They dropped the temperature down too."

For a moment, Peeta stood at a conflict. In this kind of situation, he normally wouldn't hesitate to wrap his arms around you to keep you warm, but who knew how many times Cato did the same thing? Besides, if the Capitol firmly wanted him to return to Katniss, would keeping you warm be wise?

Stop it, Peeta. You only said you liked Katniss just to weaken her in the beginning. And you've already rectified your mistake, so what in the world is making you--

A wild shout, followed by a cannon, jolted the both of you out of your thoughts. Another tribute had just died. Three more would be left to play.

"Who was that?" you murmured, looking up at the sky. Sure enough, Thresh's face flashed in the sky for the final time, his image flickering in the darkness before it faded away.

"No," you whispered. sinking onto the ground. What could have killed him? Maybe he wasn't the nicest tribute, but he did save your life at the feast. He did spare you...for the sake of your alliance with Rue. Though he never figured out that it was you who bombed the pile of supplies at the Cornucopia. But that wasn't important, was it? What mattered was, another person got killed, and it's now down to you, Peeta...and Cato.

Cato. The boy who promised that you and Peeta would be safe, that you would both be healed with time apart in the arena. The boy who protected you and stuck with you through a lot in the arena. It hurts to even think about him dying...but it hurt even more to think of Peeta dead too. Either way, if you wanted to win, Cato would have to die.

"Keep your guard up," Peeta murmured, already raising the knife you gave him in front of him, and you nodded as you nocked an arrow and pulled back at the string, your back pressed to his, your eyes sharply on the lookout. A rustle came from your right and you whipped yourself towards the sound...only to realize that it was nothing but a rabbit. Peeta readied his knife, about to throw the blade at it to kill, but you stopped him.

"No, Peeta. There could be much worse things around here," you muttered, and Peeta nodded, hefting the blade back in his dominant hand.

Suddenly, a howl came from your left, and you again shifted your position, but the figure that ran through the woods was none other than Cato.

"(Y/N)! PEETA!" he cried, barreling his way towards you, halting the moment he came close and panting. "They're coming!"

"Who's coming?" you asked, putting your bow down and glancing at Peeta, who shrugged. "Who?"

"Them!" Cato said, pointing towards the trees. For a moment, you squinted, unable to see anything...before you saw glowing eyes, and several wolf-like bodies running towards the three of you.

Immediately, you gasped. "HOLY SH--"

"MUTTS!" Peeta cried, already on the run and dragging you with him. "RUN!"

Peeta's vice-like grip on your arm was the only thing that kept you moving, and in response you grabbed onto Cato's arm and lead him away through the woods, running as fast as you all could towards the only safe place in the arena by this point--the Cornucopia. Bursting out of the trees, the three of you separated and all headed towards the metal thing up ahead, climbing it up as quickly as you could, the cold surface freezing your fingers almost immediately on contact.

"(Y/N)!" A shout from above made you look up, and someone reached their hand out to you, which you took gratefully.

"Thanks," you said, hoisting yourself up onto the Cornucopia...blushing when you realized it was Cato's hand you took, and you bit your lip in slight embarrassment, letting go of his hand. The mutts, in the meanwhile, started barking up at you, and blinded rage took over as you shouted at them running towards the mouth of the Cornucopia.

"BACK! BACK!" you screamed, brandishing one of your knives at one of the mutts. At a closer look, you realized that there were numbers on everyone's collars...Squinting again, you saw the number 5 on this one, and the facial features looked oddly familiar...

You almost screamed when you found it to be the male tribute from 5, which you had to kill first. Immediately, you shot your arrow into its chest again, the same way you killed the human tribute, and it dropped onto the floor, no longer moving.

Peeta, in the meanwhile, was holding his own pretty well, though he had a scar on his cheek from one of the mutts swiping at him. A girl with blonde fur and green eyes was tackling him, barking furiously, a number 1 on its collar. You managed to stifle a gasp--the mutt that Peeta was fighting looked a bit like...Glimmer.

"CATO!" you screamed, dropping your bow onto the surface of the Cornucopia as you reached for your knife. "It's Glimmer!"

Cato turned around briefly to face you. "What's Glimmer?"

You shook your head as another mutt, jumping higher than the rest, clawed up on the mouth of the Cornucopia, the number 11 branded on his collar. You shrieked as you threw your knife into its neck, fear shooting right through your system. Why would Thresh, and Glimmer, and the first tribute you killed--the guy from 5--do this?!

"Look out, (Y/N)!" Peeta shouted, running towards you and knocking you out of the way as another mutt with a striking resemblance of Marvel came up, a wild bark escaping its lips. With a slash of his knife, the mutt dropped dead, a bloody gash on its chest.

The three of you immediately backed up, your shoulders pressed between Peeta and Cato, as the growls and loud barks of the mutts kept ringing through the night, never leaving your ears. In all due honesty, you were scared. This was the moment the Capitol must have been waiting for--to finally be able to expose your vulnerability, at the fact that no girl like you would be able to fight off tributes whom she got along with, whom she once allied with before. To remind you again of the whole point of the Games, to ensure that your own survival comes first. But you were tired of it. You were tired of playing at their Game. Most of these tributes to you were your friends--well, maybe except Clove, in the end--but you still got along with them one way or another. To turn them evil is under Capitol hands, not their own.

In short...you realized how much Cato and Peeta's words meant to you now. That they were more than just tributes of the Games. They were human. They were never monsters to begin with, but what with the Capitol manipulating them, they changed. In that moment, everything rushed back to you. The moment you and Peeta talked under the apple tree, before the reaping. The time you and he had the fight in the Training Centre. The time you and Cato talked on the balcony. The many conversations you and Cato had in the arena, and adding on to those with Peeta, finally made you want to punch the Capitol in the face.

They were never theirs to begin with.

These tributes...

"They were never yours," you muttered, your hand grasping onto another knife in your jacket as you prepared to rise from your position on the Cornucopia. "They were never yours to begin with. And no thanks to you, they've become far from who they used to be." Grabbing onto both Peeta and Cato's hands and squeezing them once, you let go and rose onto your feet, drawing the knife, and was about to throw it when Cato stopped you with a hand, running in front of you.

"Don't," he murmured, looking at you directly in the eye. "It's not your fight. It's mine."

All you could register as he said this was shock. You shook your head, eyes wide. "Cato, no. It's mine."

"No. You have Peeta. You two stay close."

"You can't do this," you whispered, your heart beating faster than ever, scared that you would lose him again. "I can't lose you."

Suddenly, you both felt like you were jolted back to another time, to another attack. Last time, Cato was able to hold Pearl off. But this time, you wanted to fight to protect him. Tears brimmed in your eyes as they widened, in hopes that they could plead for you to fight the mutts below. Yet Cato shook his head in defiance.

"They're just going to keep coming," Cato said firmly. "And if someone doesn't stop them...who knows how long this would last?" Tears were streaming down his face, and you lifted a hand up to wipe his tears for the final time, while he pressed a hand to your bandage, pulling you close and hugging you for the last time. "Take care of Peeta. Remember the promise I kept for you. And when you make it, punch the Capitol in the face for me," he finally whispered.

With that, he let you go, running towards the edge of the Cornucopia and jumping off of it to fight the mutts on the ground. Your numbed mind tried to catch up with what Cato was trying to do, and you turned back to Peeta, who was looking at you with a bit of weariness and hurt in his eye.

"So? What did he say this time?" Peeta asked bitterly.

You shook his head. "He..." You were close to crying at the prospect of the boy who probably made the biggest impact on you and your friendship and relationship with Peeta about to die. But Peeta didn't push you away this time. Instead, he hugged you close, and you buried your face into his shoulder, your eyes closed.

"Shh," he whispered, gently rocking you back and forth as your hot thick tears started to fall onto his jacket.

"He...he's down there," you managed to whisper out.

"HE WHAT?!"

Peeta's eyes were wild with fire as he grabbed your hand and pulled you to the edge of the Cornucopia, where Cato was slashing his sword at the rest of the mutts, while they attacked him back, their teeth bared and their growls just growing louder. You bit your lip harder now, your grip on Peeta's hand growing tighter until you thought it would break, but you didn't care. For all you knew, Peeta and Cato might not have had the best relationship, but Peeta knew now of Cato's intentions, and now he too looked shocked as Cato tried to hold his own.

But in the end, the mutts were too powerful. All of them but one were dead, to your relief, but you didn't fail to catch the last one standing growling as she leaped onto Cato, pushed him down onto the ground...

And sunk her knife-like claws into his chest.