My head still spun from earlier events. But I am not giving up now! I am one step away from getting Max home.

"I love you." I smile and prepare to leave Max behind.

His big blue eyes make me sink.

"Promise me one thing..." I nod, "You'll come back...for me."

"I promise." I kiss him one last time before leaving.

"Can you guys get a room once in awhile?" Jonny seems desperate to end this thing.

"You are the one who is living in our cave." I smirk.

"I am also the one who saved your ass... So I'd shut up if I were you." He grows irritated and jumps through the water fall and into the icy lake below.

"What the heck?" His head bobs up from the water as I shout.

"Aren't you coming?" He just smiles and heads for the bank.

"Are you crazy? I am taking the rocks." I hop one rock to another till I hit the snow covered ground. Molly's body has been moved, along with the careers. Probably the hovercrafts.

"Try and walk on rocks or grass patches, or..." He has no more ideas and fades out after pointing at a rock.

An idea comes to my mind.

"Or swing through the trees!" I run towards a tree and begin to climb.

"What?" Jonny looks at me in confusion.

"I saw Rue do it, when my parents were in the games!" I reach a branch where a bramch from another tree is less than a foot away.

I look at Jonny, below, and give him a nervous smile.

With one swift movement I jump and catch my hand on the branch.

I swing back and forth for a couple of seconds, the ground below rocking side to side.

I inch myself towards the trunk of the tree. I reach the trunk and swing again from one branch to another.

"What are you waiting for? Come on!" I smile and begin swinging again.

The icy branches carry us for many miles. But we are still miles from the cornucopia when the afternoon comes.

We eat freeze dried meat for lunch and begin our trek again.

By the time the golden cornucopia comes into view it is almost time for the feast to begin and the hovercraft above is lowering down peacekeepers to set up the feast gifts.

Something shuffles in the distance.

"Jonny? Whose left?" I whisper.

"Maddie Robbins, Georgia Matheson, Max, you, and I. Why?" He says quietly.

"We've got company." I point at the underbrush where the shuffling came from.

"Maddie." He replies.

"How do you know?" I reply.

"I have everyone mapped out, where they were or are camping out, where they are headed, how they move, why they kept moving... I know everything about them." He says.

"Impressive." I giggle a little bit, but he just simply tugs at my hair and I shut up.

"When you are in the games you learn too do anything to help keep you and your friends alive."

I nod knowing what he means. I wish I could've done more to help keep Finny alive, or Molly. But now Jonny and Max are the only people I have left. I am not letting them go.

"Listen I have a plan." I nod, "You are going to climb a tree over here," He draws a map of the cornucopia on the ground, he puts me forty meters from our spot right now, "I will be here." He puts himself twenty meters from me, "You shoot an arrow towards that tree." He points at a tree twenty feet from us right now, "Jump out of the tree after I begin to run towards the cornucopia. Than I need you to run towards Max... Maddie won't put up a fight but Georgie will and knowing Georgie she is probably watching us right now, understood." His reference to Georgie sends tingles down my back.

I nod and stand up, crouching down so I stay covered.

I move towards the tree I am going to climb. I make it there in thirty minutes flat. Once in the tree I wait till I can see Jonny in a running stance.

The arrow darts quickly towards the tree forty meters away. Jonny takes off as I sturggle out of the twisted branches and onto the forest floor.

I run around the field where the cornucopia is, stumbling over fallen branches.

I begin to count in my head out of nervous habit.

One.

I hear a scream.

Two.

I hear a curse.

Three.

I hear my name.

Four.

It feels something bite my ankle.

Five.

My ankle starts throbbing and I fall to the ground, feeling it crack beneath me.

Six.

I taste blood.

Seven.

I feel myself being lifted from the ground.

Eight.

I feel my legs start to move in the direction of the cornucopia.

Nine.

I see a body.

Ten.

It's mine.

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

The splash of cold water on my face shocks me, and my eyes flash open.

"Rosie? Rosie can you hear me?" Max's voice is soothing.

Everything around me starts to move in and out of focus.

"Rosie! Rosie! Listen to me. You need to wake up. We have to go!" Jonny's voice booms in my head and suddenly everything comes back to me.

The feast, the cornucopia, Jonny, Max... Molly... My dead body?

It's all to much, my stomach starts to heave and I taste sourness in the back of my throat.

The vomit leaves a foul smell behind. But I am just glad I made it away from the boys in time to puke my brains out.

"You okay out there?" I hear Jonny's voice.

The fresh air overhead clears my mind as I sip water from the waterfall. The brightness of day is a bit overwhelming but clears my mind and sets my vision back in place.

"Just peachy." I say back, "Just a little shaken. But I'll be fine."

A sharp pain is shot from my ankle up my leg. I look down but it is wrapped in blood stained cloth.

Max's arms wrap around my torso.

"Nice to have you back." He whispers in my ear.

"No kidding. I had some weird hallucinations out there." i turn to look at his face but it turns to a skull. I blink and it is gone.

Max must've seen the look on my face.

"Rosie are you alright?" He asks feeling my forehead.

"Just my ankle. I think I got bit by something out there." I put on a fake smile.

"We wrapped it while you were out but let us take another look inside, alright?" I nod. He kisses my lips, "I wasn't lying when, I said it is good to have you back."

He helps me walk inside. I steal a glance at his leg remembering his injury. But the blood soaked bandage he wore only days ago, is now replaces by a clean scar. No blood, other than the residue on his pants, but it is now a brown color, obviously dry.

"Max your leg!" I smile excitedly.

"Yeah I know right. Medicine from the capital. Jonny came back with it from the feast." He replies with a huge grin.

My ankle throbs and I grunt under my breath.

Max helps me sit down, as Jonny unwraps the make shift bandages from my ankle revealing a bite the size of my fist filled with oozing puss.

I fight a scream that tickles at the back of my throat.

"It wasn't this bad when we wrapped it. I though you just cut it. But you were bit by something." Jonny says sounding worried, "I am gonna rinse it, alright?"

I nod and stick the sleeve of my jacket in my mouth to keep from screaming.

The pain is excruciating. I bite down hard on my sleeve as the last drop of water hits the bite. Tears fill my eyes.

"Pleas stop." I struggle to get these words out through the pain and when they do, they are muffled by my sleeve.

Max grabs my free hand.

"Rosie you need to stay calm." He says in a stern voice.

Jonny dabs the bite with a cloth torn from his shirt. He manages to get the excess puss from the wound but it still screams with pain.

My head burns hot from a fever, causing a trickle of sweat to pour down my face.

Jonny wraps it once again as I let out a muffled scream.

"It's infected." He says sitting back, "You need rest. You can't fight off this kind of infection without all you strength."

"This kind of infection?" I ask.

"You were bit by a Thanatofágos snake, a death eater snake. They were used in the dark ages to kill rebels. It is one of the most deadly snakes in this world. The venom kills every good enzyme in your body leaving only the infection. Eventually it will reach one of your vital organs and..." He stops.

"And!" Max shouts.

"And kill me, Max! And kill me." I shout back.

Max turns away with tears in his eyes, he turns back abruptly.

"Is there a cure?" Jonny doesn'y reply to Max's question, "Is there a cure!"

Jonny looks down, "Only the capital has a cure for these kind of bites. And it is often a long treatment. Not just a pill or ointment."

Max bangs his hands against the wall. Suddenly I see a flash of his father. Tears are visible running down his cheeks.

He is silent for a second.

"Than we need to get her to the capital." He smirks, "Rosie Mellark I now declare you the winner of the over first annual Hunger Games in over fifteen years."

Authors note:

Chapter 13 half of my lucky number!