Disclaimer: Don't own Hunger Games ayy.

After ten years of the act of getting up at 5:30 in the morning, Clove still hadn't seemed to grasp an effective sleep schedule. Most Careers were trained like military soldiers at a young age to wake up before the world wakes up to start training. No one would probably be able to guess that the feisty girl who threw deadly knives would be one to drag her blanket out of bed and rush to finish getting ready just to nap a little more. And if anyone asked Clove about her incompetent morning skills, she would deny it until she died or killed whoever was questioning her. The latter was much more probable.

The groggy girl forced her body out of the warm bed. She swore that the sheets hadn't been that comfortable when she had been struggling to fall asleep three hours ago. This week was going to be horrific if she didn't get her act together and get more hours of sleep.

The dark haired Career stumbled towards her lamp, planning for the illumination to help her fully wake up before she dressed.

She hated walking around the house in the shorts and shirt she wore to bed. In her mind it showed laziness, over comfort, and lack of preparation which she could not present by any means to her guardian. Besides showing vulnerability to the other human in the house, she needed to be selected for the reaping. For this, she needed to be a beyond perfect candidate. No slacking. The fact that she was a year younger than required definitely did not make things look any better in her favor.

Pulling her tight training pants over her toned thighs, bright green eyes flicked up to her reflection in the mirror. She groaned at the state of her hair but was satisfied when she pulled her long strands up into a ponytail.

The sixteen year old girl stared at the girl in the mirror, both faces impassive and cold. This was satisfying as well. Her RBF was a key part of her intimidation factor.

There were only a few days left of training before the rest of the week was off, due to the reaping. While one boy and one girl from Clove's level was to be sent off into the games, the rest would continue their training for the next reaping. It was a never ending cycle. If never qualified for the reaping, which many were not, you either waste your gained skill by doing a common job, such as a blacksmith, or you get lucky and qualify to be a peacekeeper. Although that is entirely NOT luck to Clove. Her bitterness towards peacekeepers would land her in her grave before being one.

Her guardian was a peacekeeper; a pilot of the hovercraft, as well, unless called to his duty in District 2.

When Clove was all set to go, she grabbed her worn out bag and ran up the stairs. When she rose from her room in the basement, Kai was already at the table, seemingly not having any intention of making breakfast for Clove as well.

Kai was her guardian. Clove was an orphan, which wasn't uncommon in her district, and guardians volunteer based on how well they think the child has a chance of winning the Hunger Games. Some might find it flattering, but the facts were they were just using you as a way to possibly gain fortune and into the Victor's Village. Clove happened to be picked by Kai, a middle aged man who was said to have killed his wife. The wife had disrupted the peace and Kai's job, being a peacekeeper, was to obliterate any threat to that peace. And he had.

"Morning," Kai grunted as he bit into a piece of bread.

Clove remained silent as always. It's not as if Kai gave a damn. There was a mutual respect between the two but that was all. Clove did what she had to do to become a victor and Kai provided a roof over her head and food. No other bond was existent.

The green eyed girl grabbed some food and watched the time. She left the house at exactly 6:14. It's not that she was a freak with all that stuff, it's just that her life revolved around her training; she had nothing better to do than time her departure and arrival to the minute.

"Give someone a nasty injury today," Kai told her half heartedly without even looking away. Clove was surprised he even took the effort to open his mouth.

"Yup," She quipped before leaving.

Her tired eyes stared at the beautifully crafted pavement as she walked to the training center. A large percentage of District 2's teenagers lived on the campus of the training center since there weren't a lot of houses in the District 2 except for the villages.

Someone had left the heavy door of the gym open so Clove slipped in planning to take a short cut to the center. The gym smelled of cleaning supplies as Clove strode in from the back.

"Looking a little tired there, Clove," Cato sneered with a stupid smirk on his face. He wore it all the time and Clove had wanted to punch it off from the moment she'd met him. It was the type that read, "I'm the shit and I also know that every girl has imagined me naked".

"Fuck off."

Clove normally would ignore him, but today wasn't her day.

"You know you don't have to be so difficult all the time. You can just give in."

Clove raised her eyebrow and stared him down with intense green eyes that had intelligence and a certain wild-like spark behind them.

"Have it your way. We'll have plenty of time for that in the future," Cato supplied cockily, taking her silence the way he wanted to.

"Whatever you say Cato," the brunette made her voice sickly sweet then suppressed to roll her eyes, ditching her attempt to run him into the ground with her eyes.

Cato forced his tongue against his cheek in that stupid smirk and moved on to the other Careers. Clove humored herself by talking to a few of her fellow Careers. Most were shallow and blood thirsty, but who was Clove to judge? Wasn't she the same?

"You won't need those," a girl, who's name Clove hadn't bothered to learn, said out loud.

The knife vest swayed in midair as Clove frowned and placed it back down.

After hours of ruthless training, Clove's mask was cracking. She had no energy to run all of her suicides and they had done no knife training. This week was really not her week. She wanted to drop on the training mat and sleep or cry, either one was fine. On the contrary, Clove hadn't cried in years, but the feeling of wanting to cry was still there, waiting for her to crack. The thing was that she would rather die a painful death than cry in front of anyone, much less any of these people.

Another day of training had passed with only sweat and tense muscles to prove for it. This was Clove's life.