Game Change
How Clove went from imagining Cato's lifeless body in front of her at the Reaping to screaming his name in the Arena.
Training started at eight in District 2. Old enough to know the difference between life and death, and young enough to not care. Or at least, to be trained to not care.
On the outside, it looked just like any other normal school. It was simply called the Academy. It was also called, but only by those who never set foot there, the House Without a Future. Because for those Careers in the Academy, the only future was the Arena and the Games. Once in the Games, you fought to get out, but there was no guarantee that you would. Of course, you had more confidence than most, but even that was no guarantee. So the Careers were never taught to think of their lives beyond eighteen, when they would volunteer. Theirs was a single-minded existence of training, tactics, blood (others' blood, not their own) and death.
Every year, a batch of a few dozen eight-year-olds would come in for physical training (weapons would not come until later, when you were trained enough to not stab yourself or slice your own head off with machetes). That was the number at the beginning. As time went on, some might grow up without the suitable physique for the job, some wouldn't be able to take the harsh training conditions, a few might actually develop conscience. One or two might die. After all, they were training to kill, and accidents happen. In any case, there were ways to weed out the class. By the time you're eighteen, it usually came down to four or five, definitely less than ten, of you to volunteer in the Reaping.
One of the only rules of volunteering was that if there were more than one of you to make it to the volunteering phase, you fight it out the week before the Reaping to see who would get the honour. The only rule of that fight was that you stop at first blood, and you do not kill, or physically harm your opponent badly enough that they are rendered useless in the Games.
The other rule of volunteering was, you did not volunteer if the originally reaped Tribute was a younger Career at the Academy, because they were training for the Arena as well, and would end up there sooner or later. It might as well be sooner.
So when, at fifteen, Clove's name was reaped, she could feel the cold glares of the older girls who had trained most their lives for this moment and now would never get the chance to see the Arena. In a way, their lives were without purpose now. They would have to start all over, look for something to actually care about, to live for, while Clove was heading towards a place where she would kill to get out, only to live a more broken version of their lives.
Of course, at the Reaping, Clove didn't think of it in exactly these terms.
She only smirked and stepped confidently onto the stage to face the people of District 2 as their female Tribute.
No one from the Academy was surprised when Cato turned out to be the District 2 male Tribute, even though his name wasn't reaped. After all, they had all be present at the fight-off the week before and knew Cato had won the right to take the risk.
No one from the district was surprised when there was someone to volunteer in place of the weedy thirteen-year-old who was reaped. Even the boy himself hardly blinked when his name was first called out, and only took slow steps towards the stage. It was all an act, all routine. All a matter of formality. After all, District 2 wasn't about to allow a boy who couldn't walk straight, let alone wield a weapon, to represent them at the national Games. Tributes might go down, but they could never be allowed to go down without a fight; the Careers would ensure that the fight was played out magnificently.
As he tilted his head up to volunteer, her cold black eyes met his icy blue gaze for one brief second. They knew each other, of course. They trained together. They knew each other's skills. There were no such thing as hidden skills between Careers from the same district, but that put them on level playing fields. They were not friends. You did not make friends at the Academy. Only allies, which would be more effective during the Games. And when the alliance had run its course, you become opponents.
So Clove watched as Cato made his way towards the stage. Others would see the way he swaggered, positively reeking of smugness. She saw only his body, lying in a pool of blood. His blood, certainly. It didn't matter who would get to kill him. Clove would do it, when it came down to it, but for the sake of her district, she wasn't exactly rejoicing at the idea. You always hoped that your district partner would be finished off by some other Tribute before you got to them, because if there was one thing other than killing that a Career understood, it was district loyalty. It meant you did not kill your partner unless it came down to just the two of you. By that stage, well, may the odds be ever in your favour.
Clove's first kill in the Arena was the boy from Nine. She was testing out her newly acquired knives. Yes, they were just the way she liked it.
Might as well take out Fire Girl while she was at it, though Clove thought she was more hype than substance, even with her score of 11. But Fire Girl had hitched the backpack up, and escaped the blade. Clove growled, and for a split second poised to throw another, then decided against it, as Fire Girl was out of range now. She growled again and redirected her aim at the last second to a boy to her left – no idea which district he came from, didn't care – and this time the knife sank very satisfyingly into his skull and he collapsed.
Clove smiled.
The Arena was not the Academy. This was no longer training. There were no training ground precautions. No more holding back in case you really kill your training partner. No more heaping fatal blows on dummies and fake targets.
How different were Tributes to dummies, really? No difference at all, as far as Clove was concerned. This was what she had trained for, and as soon as Clove turned to them, they were already dead.
Being a Career was about falling easy into the alliance to weed out the weak ones, and only then did the Games really begin. Being a Career was also about knowing never to depend on your allies and knowing when to break away. You work in an alliance, but you still head to the goal alone. They die, only you will live. Not getting attached was of the essence.
So Clove didn't get attached, not even in the darkest of nights when Cato was the only reminder of home. She let Glimmer flirt and drool over him while she released the strange tuggings in her heart that she didn't understand by practicing her knife-throwing at lizards in the night and human by sunrise. It was folly to even think about caring about Cato, especially after Glimmer and Marvel died, and it seemed like in the end, it would come down to just the two of them against each other after all.
And then the game changed.
She had focused so totally her entire life on that one truth – that only one of them would live - and now, she was told that truth could be made different. For a moment, it was like she was drowning. She didn't know how to take that change, whether to even trust it. It seemed too kind, and there was never anything kind about the Games. There was brutality, precision, hurt, tears, blood and death. Never kindness.
The change wasn't even for them, anyway. It was all for the stupid lovelorn pair from Twelve. But if it were real, then why shouldn't she and Cato benefit from it?
The alliance had whittled down to just the two of them now, and she knew before the announcement they were both contemplating when it would need to end. Now, apparently, it didn't need to end. They could do this together. Certainly they were more lethal together, not that the remaining Tributes were much threat. Well, she supposed the boy from Eleven was Career-like enough and might give either of them a run for their money. Lover Boy was dying, though he certainly was taking his own sweet time about it. Fire Girl…well, Clove was sure between the two of them, the girl didn't stand a chance. Neither would the redhead who scored a pathetic 5 during training.
Even if in the end, it turned out that only one would live after all, what difference would it had made, really? The others would be just as dead.
Clove allowed her eyes to meet Cato's and saw that he was thinking much the same thing.
Like they would have silently agreed to break the alliance and go their own ways, now they silently agreed to keep it going still. Either way, Clove was determined she would eventually end up in the Victor's Village at District 2, bringing honour and glory to her district. If Cato happened to be there beside her, then the glory was all the sweeter.
So for the first time, Clove allowed herself to hope. She would not go back to the district alone. She would not have to look at Cato's family and have to beat back the guilt at knowing that she killed their son.
Hope was fire. She was fine when she didn't have any, she didn't miss it because she never knew it. When there was no hope, she still had determination and a goal and those kept her going in cold loneliness. But hope was a spark that then grew into a flame, which burned down all of Clove's carefully constructed barriers and safeguards when it came to Cato. Before she realised what was happening, Cato was a blazing inferno inside of her.
Looking at him now, she could no longer see him dead.
Perhaps she was wrong. Perhaps, if in the end, still only one of them could live, then the game change had made all the difference in the world.
Clove had always been the one to dish out death, so when Eleven lifted her up off Fire Girl like she was a rag doll and shook her, knocking the wind out of her, for a second, she didn't realise what was happening.
Clove had so rarely allowed herself to be afraid, that it took her several seconds longer to realise the way her breaths were shallow, how her heart hammered and how her throat constricted were all parts of fear. She looked into Eleven's eyes and saw how his eyes seemed to glow blood red, and wondered, did her eyes flash like that too? And did her victims feel as desperate as she did now? Did they feel their insides clawing at the last thin wisps of life, screaming inside to some unknown deity, begging to live?
Because that was all that Clove was doing now, but it wasn't for some deity she was screaming for. Cato's name was on her lips. It was Cato she had started out this journey with, knowing she would have to kill him in the end. It was Cato that she allowed to share her hopes of living when the game changed. It was Cato who she screamed for now, begging with all her might that he would come in time to save her, even if it might still mean he would have to kill her later. If anyone was to kill her, it would have to be him. It was always supposed to be him.