He's seven and smiling on page one. White teeth, shaggy blond hair. Underneath: attachment issues.
Lyme flips past ages eight to twelve: the same, only taller.
At thirteen, his teeth disappear behind the hard line of his mouth, his eyes like ice chips.
At fourteen, he grins, secretive, nearly smirking. Underneath: attachment to female candidate Clove mutually beneficial; continue monitoring.
After that, Cato's file is half scores (top marks for his exposure test), half warnings (he sneaks into Clove's room that night).
He sees her death in his hallucination test. Underneath: dangerously codependent.
Lyme sets down the folder, stomach churning.
"I don't like it." Brutus, eyes narrowed like a predator, tracks Cato as he slips into Clove's room. "They shouldn't."
"I know." Lyme looks over the footage from their training. On camera they're perfect; sharp, nasty, competitive, a pair but distant. Alone they snap together like one of Clove's knives into a target. "But we can't force them to be strangers like normal tributes."
"We can try." Brutus pushes to his feet, growling. "I'm gonna put a stop to this."
Lyme doesn't bother arguing; they'll ignore him anyway. Either way, they won't survive. They deserve a few days to pretend.
"I'm gonna kill him." Cato hurls a chair, his easy, smirking confidence vanished.
"Fine by me." Clove rips the pins from her hair and flicks them, dead centre, into a lamp. "Crush his skull. Fire Girl is mine."
Brutus snatches up the hairpins and replaces the chair. "Knock it off. Twelve stole the interview; doesn't mean they won. Focus."
Cato sneers. Lyme steps forward. "You two, go cool down. Recap in ten minutes."
They disappear into Clove's room.
"This is Twelve's show." Lyme doesn't look at Brutus.
Brutus drops the pins onto the table. "I know."
Lyme closes her eyes.
"If I win..." Cato stares out at the hovercraft. "Could I have a soft house, maybe? I dunno. It's stupid. Never mind."
"No, I get it." The Centre was all angles and sharp edges and hard lines, smooth surfaces so the blood rinsed off easily. "Soft house it is."
Cato nods. His fingers curl; an architect could measure right angles with the line of his shoulders. "I hope that's what happens to us when we die. All of us in a big house somewhere."
"You'd better not. Come back to me."
He strides away. Odds are, he won't be back.
Cato crouches on the platform, a crackling thunderstorm trapped and forced into the shape of a snarling boy.
He spent every minute away from the cameras with his arms around Clove, nuzzling her shoulder while she dug the point of her knife below his collarbone. He'll never do that again unless he climbs into her grave with her.
Lyme made sure never to touch him, back in the Games Complex; he ached for it, beneath his fists and the blood on his knuckles, but if she did he'd break.
If he wins, he'll drown, but Lyme will drag him out.
"You've gotta be fucking kidding me." Brutus tugs his headphones down and gives Lyme a look. "He's your kid, not mine."
Onscreen, Cato lifts his sword out of the campfire and peels off the marshmallow he stabbed onto the end. It comes away in a smear of melted sugar and congealing blood; he grins, teeth shining, and pops it into his mouth.
"I did not teach him that," Lyme shoots back.
"Kids," Brutus mutters. "No respect for weapons."
Come back, Lyme told Cato by the hovercraft. We'll forgive everything. Marshmallows coated in a dead girl's blood. Killing Clove.
Lyme exhales.
Templesmith's words hang in the air. Lyme forgets to breathe.
Cato and Clove stare at each other for ten long seconds. Cato breaks first, scoops her up into his arms; they cling and gasp, laughter tinged with hysteria. "We can go home." Cato noses her hair.
"Fucker!" Clove jabs him with her knife. "Don't jinx it".
"Shit." Brutus sets down his coffee, nearly missing the table.
Lyme knows why. Cato and Clove opened that door, allowed their fractured souls to flow into each other again. They can't revert to strangers now.
Victory or death, it will be both, or nothing.
Cato cradles Clove's head in his lap. She smiles up at him, dreamy; the Centre, with ten years of surveillance, never captured that expression.
Not long now.
Lyme doesn't touch Brutus, doesn't ask if he's okay, just hisses out a long breath.
"I fucking told her." Brutus' voice cracks. "She's too damned cocky."
Cato stands, straightens, and only one cannon fires but two tributes are dead. Lyme wracks her brain for anything she could give him that would snap him back, but there's nothing. She can't send Clove on a silver parachute.
"I'm sorry," she whispers, fingers against the screen.
"Funds are at zero."
"Bullshit they are! He's begging! Give me something to end it. Use my personal fund, I don't care."
"You're not authorized to interfere. The President wants to see how Twelve handles it."
"She's going to let mutts chew him to pieces!"
"The President—"
"The President—"
Hands on her shoulders. "Stop." Brutus digs his fingers in. "Stop. It's done. You can't."
Can't save Cato. Can't kill him. Can't bury a knife in the President's eye. Lyme chokes back a gasp that's half sob. Brutus' hands tighten.
She prays. Her answer comes in an arrow fired too late.
Brutus grips his beer with white-knuckled fingers, staring at the medal on the table. Lyme flushed hers an hour after she got it.
For excellent television, the Capitol representative chirped. An outstanding showing by our honourable mention tributes.
It's funny. One hovercraft picked up both tributes from Twelve. It took six to get all of Cato.
"One good thing." Brutus doesn't look up. Lyme continues anyway. "Next year's the Quell. Everyone will forget by then."
"Yeah." Brutus digs a thumbnail into the tabletop. His mouth thins. "It was never for us."
Brutus couldn't let himself hope. Lyme couldn't stop.