Even though it was his turn to sleep I was pretty sure that he was still awake. He probably slipped in and out of sleep, still without trust. Not that I blame him, I would be the same.

It was early morning by the time he was finally asleep, I think. The night had slowly been getting colder and by this time, I was freezing. My teeth were chattering, my skin was crawling with goose bumps and my gut was aching with hunger and cold. It felt like my lungs were getting smaller with each icy breath I took.

I let out a small cry and struggled to breathe.

“Are you okay?” Caius rolled over to face me and I was now shivering uncontrollably.

“I’m… F…F…F…Free…e…Freezing.” I choked.

“I told you.” I shot him a death glare and he sat up. “I’ll go on watch now.” He slipped out of his sleeping bag and tossed it over to me.

“What…What…What…are you-”

“Shh, just take it, the sun will be up soon and if you don’t take it now you’ll be dead in the morning. I’ll be fine.”

I looked at it suspiciously but I wasn’t in any position to pass it up.

I took the sleeping bag and climbed inside, it hurt every part of my battered body to do so. It was still warm from Caius’ body and it smelt like warm spice and pine. This wasn’t a pine forest so this must be what Caius smells like up close. It was earthy and sweet. It was almost as though he could have been living under the stars in the pine forests of district 7 up until he volunteered. He volunteered. I had forgotten about that.

One of the victors that were reaped from 7 was an old man; he must have been about seventy. Caius volunteered to save him even though it seemed slightly pointless.

I snuggled down into the bag and felt the heat soak into my body. It felt so wonderful that I let out a small groan.

“You better now?” He asked.

“Much, thank you. You should take the glasses.” I handed them over to him and he put them on, I think.

I couldn’t believe the difference without them. I tried to think about everything but I was so exhausted that even my lack of trust in Caius couldn’t hold me back from my dreams.

I woke up mid-morning to the sound of a canon. In my groggy daze I thought it might have been me. Then I remembered that it wasn’t just me anymore.

I wanted to call out to him but if the others were near it would be my death sentence.

He wasn’t at our make-shift camp anymore and part of me was furious with him that he would leave me alone. The rest of me wanted to find him.

I climbed out of the sleeping bag and picked up the dagger that was lying beside me.

I searched the trees with my eyes but we had picked such a dense patch of forest.

And then I saw it, a hovercraft.

I ran in the same direction and reached a clearing just in time to see the male figure being lifted into the craft.

“Caius!” it was too late, he was gone and I just gave away my position.

I tried running back, but I didn’t exactly know where ‘back’ was. I heard noises coming from nearby and I crouched down like I had the day before, this was getting all too familiar.

“You need to learn the art of stealth.” I spun around in shock.

“Caius?! You’re alive?”

“Clearly.” He pulled his hand away from his left arm to reveal a large gash that sliced part of his arm and about six inches of his chest.

Just by looking at it I could see that it wasn’t deep, it was just bleeding a lot.

“What happened?”

“I got up to look for something to hunt, and ran into that damn Richter from 4. He got me pretty good before I even knew what was going on.” He winced as he pulled a bit of slashed fabric away from his wound.

“We’ll go back to the packs and you can let me look at that.” We started back in the right direction, Caius knew where to go. “So what happened then?” I didn’t look up.

“You mean how did I kill him? Probably best you don’t know.” He grumbled.

After a little bit of searching we managed to make it back.

“Take off your shirt and show me your cut.” I said as I rummaged through my pack.

“Cut? He practically sliced me in two! And I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.” He tried to wink but his face contorted in pain as he peeled off his shirt.

I let out a gasp, and not because he was such a magnificent specimen like he seems to think, but because of the bruising and the amount of blood.

“I am not showing you mine.” I said, trying not to think about how battered I must be under my clothes.

“Come on, I meant battle wounds; what were you thinking?” My eyes trailed to a shapely bruise in the middle of his torso.

I realised that it was my boot print from the kick I gave him yesterday. “Oh! I’m sorry!”

He followed my gaze and figured out what I was looking at. “Don’t worry about it.”

I pulled out the first aid kit and found some gauze. I hesitated a moment but I sacrificed some water to moisten the gauze.

“Put this on the wound and clean it up.”

“You’re not going to play nurse for me?”

“Not now, not ever. I need to go looking for something.” I handed him the gauze and he just stared at me.

“You’re leaving?”

“I’m looking for a plant.” I ignored anything else he had to say and walked away.

It wasn’t long before I found just the type of plant that I needed. Felix Corrales. The name had something to do with luck. I pulled off plenty of leaves and headed back.

“Finally!” he sighed.

“Oh relax, I was gone five minutes and there were no canons. And you can't talk after you left me this morning! You scared me when I woke up and you weren’t there.” I knelt beside him and started to pull away the bloody gauze.

“You missed me hey?” I ignored him.

“The good news is that it seems to be a shallow gash, lucky you’re so muscular.” I could feel my cheeks flush the moment the words escaped me.

“Well thank you.” He chuckled arrogantly.

“That wasn’t a compliment.”

“Maybe not intentionally.”

I went to place the leaves over his wounds but he grabbed my wrist.

“What are those?”

“They’ll stop the bleeding and start to heal the wound.” He didn’t let go.

“How do I know they aren’t poisonous?”

“I’m holding them aren’t I?”

“Internally poisonous or something.” I rolled my eyes and took out my dagger.

I made a small incision on my arm and tore a part of the leaf to cover the slash which was now dribbling blood. “Happy now?”

“You didn’t have to do that.”

“Apparently I did.”

“It’s barely been a day; excuse me for not trusting you.”

“Oh you’re excused. Just like last night where you hardly slept.” He looked slightly bashful.

I grabbed my leaves and covered his wounds, this time he let me.

“You were pretty restless yourself.” He finally piped up.

“I guess you can only trust the other person from your district.” I inspected my work and sat opposite him like last night.

“Even then.” His eyes bore into mine and I couldn’t help wondering what was going on behind them.

I looked away and found some bandages to dress him with once it was time to take off the leaves.

“You need to keep those on for a while longer yet.” I looked up at him.

I thought back to what I said about him being so muscular. He was almost completely muscle. His body was wide and solid, I could feel how toned he was from when I put his leaves on.

That’s not what I should be thinking about now. How attractive he is doesn’t matter. I allowed myself to take one more glance at him before I stood up and stretched.

“I should go looking for water.” I thought back to Peeta, almost a little guiltily, and what he said about water.

“On your own?” He looked almost amused at the thought, as if I needed him.

That made me angry.

“Don’t worry, I’ll be back to protect you as soon as I can.” I said it as patronisingly as I could.

“There’s no way I’m worried about me.”

“That’s so sweet that you worry about me Caius. I’ll be fine.”

“Yeah sure.”

“Fine. How about we wait until I can bandage you up and then we’ll go together.” I would almost rather go alone with him being injured, but the more I thought about it I realised that I was probably still safer with him then without him.

“I like that plan better.”