Hand
001.
He was always promising, because he never seemed to mind the blood.
When he was ten, Enobaria Drusus paid a special visit to the Decimus Academy. She was a legend in District 2, a hero with a story so extraordinary that sometimes the aspiring young students at the Academy reduced it to a tall tale—a myth—something so glorious that it simply had to be fiction. She was a celebrity. A deity. And the tale of her deplorable victory, her venerable depravity—her glinting, lethal daggers of teeth—circulated about the multitude like famine and disease in the other, less affluent districts; it touched all, leaving nothing and no one untainted.
Cato, however, seemed the singular individual who wasn't afflicted with this communal reverence for Ms. Drusus, and when she paid her special visit to the Academy, Cato, at the tender yet hardened age of ten, was the singular student who remained stoical at the sight of the Victor's dazzling pointed smile. While the other children were both befuddled and in awe of her creatively barbarous method of murdering her fellow tributes, Cato alone perceived something very different in Enobaria's smile.
She killed them with her teeth, he said to himself, because she didn't want the blood on her hands.
But he never seemed to mind the blood.
If he was going to kill someone, he thought, his hands were going to be red. He didn't even harbor a particular affinity for weapons, despite his natural skill with them, as a young student at the Decimus Academy. He preferred his hands, because that's where the responsibility would lie, in the end. His hands were going to be red. He knew, even at age ten.
Of course, Cato grew arrogant and ruthless as he aged; by now, his sage insight into the psychological troubles of the Capitol's Victors—for they are the Capitol's—has waned. He is a product, an outward manifestation of totalitarian dysfunction, a pawn.
He's a killer.
And now, most of the time, he tries to distract himself from his hands.
He still doesn't seem to mind the blood.
002.
He was always fascinated by her hands.
Her hands were that of an artist's, even as a tubby, pasty-skinned runt of a girl with a face contorted in a way that suggested Clove was merely a vindictive, almost farcical version of a neglected daughter with something to prove. She was sour, and she was crude, and she was complex, but he understood her when he focused on her hands.
The way each individual finger curled deliberately around the blade of the knife. The almost choreographed motions her arms would move through with each throw, dancing about each other; it was something that words couldn't capture, something that made a crowd fall silent. The knives, the knives—everyone always spoke of the girl with the knives, but Cato was the only one who knew her. And he knew her as the girl with the hands; the knives were merely extensions of what her hands were trying to communicate.
Cato was bound to her by a peculiar sort of vow; when the two shook hands at the Decimus Academy, when they were ten years old, she sent a sharp something through his arm, as if, through her hands, one of her knives had managed to pierce and disappear into him, and the current traveled to the crux of the matter.
She knew what she was doing, too.
And although they would both be pawns, and although they would both strangle the other with their bare, guilty, manipulated hands if necessary, they shared a common purpose, even then, in this world that they hated, this world that had always hated them.
And they both carried their weight in their hands.
003.
He'd never thought much of District 12.
He paid a bit of attention to the first couple of districts' reapings, with the stony fixation required of a future Victor, analyzing the competition. All too soon, though, the other tributes proved pitiful enough for his mind to digress, and he became distracted by the feeling of Enobaria's respiration behind him, each inhale and exhale a reminder of her teeth—her dazzling pointed smile—the blood, his hands.
It was District 11 that drew him back, and Brutus' gruff remark that the massive male tribute with the chocolate brown skin and the simmering eyes could possibly take Cato down. Brutus guffawed as Cato glowered, and he soon turned his attention back to the screen, catching Clove's beady eyes in the process. The momentary connection sent a knife through his body; he heard her voice in his head: Remember me.
District 11 was pitiful again.
And he'd never thought much of District 12.
This year, however, he was unable to tear his eyes away.
It wasn't the sewage lining the streets, or the masses of emaciated condemned, or the cries of the little girl with the sunken-in cheeks and the wide, wet blue eyes, for he'd seen that all before.
It wasn't even the volunteer of the girl with the braid; he didn't even remember her name.
It was the hands.
The simultaneous movement, so precise, so purposive, yet so raw and real and relevant. The three fingers to the lips, to the sky. Right to the crux of the matter.
He'd never thought much of District 12.
He averted his eyes to Clove, only slightly; it was instinct, barely detectable.
Her hands were shaking.
004.
The night before the bloodbath still hasn't left the back of his mind.
He'd been bizarrely calm.
He thought that perhaps the feeling was that of resignation, or perhaps it was a strange sort of lassitude; perhaps he was tired of being the monstrous, all too confident boy from the interviews. He had sponsors, most definitely, but he wasn't thinking about that. He wasn't thinking about the impudent male tribute from District 6 who'd dared to challenge him in the training center, and how he couldn't wait to get his hands around his throat. He wasn't even thinking of District 2, and how he might never see it again.
District 2 didn't feel like home to him anymore, just his genesis, the place and the people he was bound to. The place and the people he was required to honor. And he wasn't sure he was happy about it.
He wasn't thinking about anything; he was just…being. And he wasn't sure he was happy about it.
So he sat in his lavish Capitol quarters, with all of the lights off, his hands clasped together as his elbows rested on his knees, his jaw set. Ready. Ready, but resigned. Placid. A deep, irrevocable feeling churning in his gut.
He hadn't noticed her watching him.
He averted his eyes to Clove, only slightly; it was instinct, barely detectable.
She was smirking. It was forced.
He put on his arrogant mask, crossing one leg over the other, his position identical to the monstrous, all too confident boy from the interviews. And even in the dark, when no cameras were on them, they were the perfect pair, groomed for this, cold, calculating, malicious and ready.
A deep, irrevocable feeling churning in their guts.
A rustle from outside the window, where she'd scampered in; her dark hair whipped through the air and her eyes glazed over, wild with something, crazed, her hand on her hip for the knife.
He leaned backwards only slightly, casually; he saw nothing and disregarded the disturbance. But her eyes continued to race.
Cato recalls the night before the bloodbath all too well, how he'd reached out his hand and touched hers—the one braced on the knife—how she'd turned on him immediately, her nostrils flared, raring to pounce, but their palms had met.
Their palms met, and their hands aligned, and everything stopped.
Their hands were taut and calloused; they reeked with the preface of a thick, salty liquid. Ready, but resigned.
In the very last moment, she flicked out her knife with quick, dangerous skill, and it stuck him in the palm; they both saw how she'd drawn a miniscule, yet so intricate design in red on his hand.
He didn't even flinch, only made a point to rub a bit of the stain onto his partner's wrist, a vow.
They almost smiled.
Then he pushed her away, with callous indifference, and her eyes went savage again at him, crazed, that perfect tribute from the interviews. But he noticed a bit more in her gaze, before he turned away, and her face was contorted in a way that suggested Clove was a merely a vindictive, almost farcical version of a neglected daughter with something to prove.
Except there was something crazy in her eyes now.
He didn't watch her as she, with a meticulous, conditioned hand, rubbed her knife clean on the cloth of her shirt, until it scintillated in the darkness. He didn't watch as she scampered away from whence she came, hopping expertly out the window, with that fabricated smirk and that crazed, savage look in her eyes.
Cato recalls the night before the bloodbath with absolute clarity; he recalls how he laid down in his bed and didn't bother to wipe the blood off his hand.
005.
The Games have come so easily for him, so far.
During the bloodbath, he was a machine.
Afterwards, he was unstoppable. The Careers seemed unstoppable, generally, yes, but he had always known that his group's uniform dominance was only temporary. After all, the District 4 boy—his name was long since clouded in Cato's memory—had lasted only a few hours. And following the tracker jacker incident, during which Glimmer and Marina had been painfully picked off, Marvel also laid hallucinating and moaning for days.
Cato knew, just like he'd known at age ten, when he and Clove had shaken hands. He knew who it would come down to.
The District 3 boy was present too, of course, but he was nothing—just a pawn.
A pawn.
Cato was always a little bit edgy around the District 3 boy.
It was only fitting that he kill him with his bare hands, once he'd failed them, once his usefulness was extinguished. It was so satisfying, so invigorating. It was like a drug to him, and it was his expertise—it was the only thing he knew how to do.
To kill with his bare hands.
He ignored the deep, irrevocable feeling churning in his gut.
It was only honor, wasn't it? He didn't need weapons; all he needed was his hands, for that's where the responsibility would lie, in the end.
He averted his eyes to Clove, only slightly; it was instinct, barely detectable.
Only that crazed, savage look was in her eyes like it was in his, and her hands were shaking.
006.
The rule change was a cause for celebration. They'd celebrated dutifully, like good little pawns. They'd expelled violent battle cries and thrust their fists in the air and flexed their impressive muscles, and laughed like hyenas and plotted the downfalls of the rest of the little pawns still standing.
And he did it as that monstrous, all too confident boy in the interviews, and she did it with her signature smirk and her crazed, savage eyes, and their hands reeked.
They were good little pawns.
But with all of the already triumphant exclamations, the jolly yet maniacal cacophony that was their celebration, they grew gradually apart. For they never needed talk, in District 2, on the night before the bloodbath; they never needed noise. All they needed were their hands.
Their hands reeked.
007.
They'd separated for the first time in the Games, and her cries had been echoing in his ears for so long, that it'd taken a moment for him to recognize it when the sound pierced the air in actuality.
He replays the scene over and over again in his mind, even now, even at the pinnacle, the final determining moment. He remembers her saying his name, for she rarely needed to say his name; it was poignant and it was a knife cutting through the deep, irrevocable feeling churning in his gut.
He, the gargantuan Career, the impenetrable monster from District 2, of all places, almost keeled over.
It was one of those rare instances, the rare of the rare, when he decided to be somewhat noble, and let his chest lurch in preparation for his long sprint towards Clove, as opposed to waiting for his legs to instinctively run. He chose to go to her. She wasn't even instinct for him anymore; now he knew that she needed to be a choice.
The aforementioned feeling in his gut almost dissipated, for an indistinguishable few moments, as he ran to her.
He should have found her upright, standing her ground, a knife in her hand, her beautiful artist's hand, and a triumphant smirk on her face. The Girl on Fire—the one from District 12, the district with the hands—she should have been dead. He should have heard a cannon for the Girl on Fire, and the incessant cries from Clove should have stopped ringing in his ears.
He should have known when they stopped, for they did stop; the screams ceased, even before he reached her, but just like he hadn't known when they'd actually started, he didn't register their end.
He caught the bow and the ebony braid, he caught the chocolate, lumbering form of District 11's masterpiece, and he caught the significantly sized rock at his feet.
His ears stopped ringing.
She was moaning, crumpled on the ground, her body contorted, her features drooping, her forehead concaved and he knew he was dead before he knew she was.
He searched for her hands.
He bent down in his search, frantic, weak; her hands were hidden in the folds of her clothes, crushed under the weight of her twisted body, limp. He grabbed her hands; he rubbed them, pleaded with them, he pleaded with her to stay, stay, stay.
She was dead to the world, this world they had always hated, this world that had always hated them; a glassy haze misted over her eyes; she couldn't see; she couldn't hear him.
It wasn't hurting her anymore.
Through his teeth, "Come on. Come on, little pawn, stay with me. Come on."
"Clove!"
"Clove!"
"Clove! Stay with me, Clove, stay with me!"
He remembers how he'd rubbed their hands together, waiting for that current, that knife of assurance that would work its way through him slowly, painfully, reassuringly; they could still do this. He remembers how he'd rubbed their pungent hands together, their reeking hands, and he remembers their vow.
He remembers how he shrieked, a low growl with his mouths closed, cursed Thresh, cursed the Capitol, cursed the world, cursed his hands and her hands and their limp connection. He died.
The cannon fired.
008.
He's dead.
He's dead on the Cornucopia, standing, functioning, opposite the howling mutts and the star-crossed lovers from District 12, the district with the hands.
He ponders the miniscule, yet so intricate design she'd drawn in red on his hands. He still feels it there, burning.
He never seemed to mind the blood.
But his mind is separate from his body, because he's dead; this is what a real killer looks like. His body is moving, darting, stabbing, racing, fighting, while his mind is resigned.
He's bizarrely calm, in his mind, though his crazed, savage face doesn't show it.
He ponders the blood, and how he never seemed to mind it.
He ponders his hands.
The deep, irrevocable feeling is unbearable, excruciating, as he ponders his hands, and he ponders his Clove, and her design she'd drawn in red.
He's holding the District 12 boy, and he's slowly sucking the life out of him, gripping him tightly with his hands. But he's not constricting him too much. He's just letting his smell suffocate Lover Boy, letting the acrid stench consume him, for Cato's already dead.
He remembers Clove's knife, the vow, the intricate design on his hand, the blood.
District 12 shoots him in the hand.
As the mutts begin to annihilate his body, his hand is what hurts the most, and he thinks that's rather fitting.