"You're sure he said the Cornucopia?" I ask for the third time. Cato's determined scowl deepens and his eyes roll over at me.
"Yes," he nods once condescendingly, also for the third time. "The Cornucopia. How many Cornucopias are there in this arena?"
"You aren't funny," I inform him truthfully with a returning glare, my fingers itching nearer to my knives. Oh, I want one of these in someone. I want to see some blood. I want to hear some howl of pain. It isn't fair. It seems like it's been ages since that announcement, the one about both me and Cato being allowed to win. Because it's definitely down to us. I mean, obviously it's to get the stupid star-crossed lovers of District Twelve out alive so they don't have a full-blown riot on their hands in the Capitol but there's simply no way a half-dead boy and a scared-rabbit girl could possibly bring down the furious and unstoppable killing force that is Cato. And me, too, of course. I feel foolish, though, for that singular display of weakness back in the Capitol. Worrying that I'd have to kill him, worrying, but not saying, that he might have to kill me. I feel stupid, and foolish and stupid are two things I must not feel. I do not have the liberty of feeling either, because doing so would mean weakness and weakness means death. And now there's too much promise for death to come. I am going home and I won't have to kill or be killed by Cato, who, for some reason I don't understand, doesn't want my blood. He should have killed me long ago. He knows I am his most deadly adversary. If not for skill then simply for the fact that he doesn't want to kill me. And if he doesn't want to, that means there's some part of him that can't. And if there's some part of him that can't then I'm practically home free. Never mind that there's some part of me that doesn't want to kill him.
"Listen," he says quietly, and I grip a knife tightly, expecting someone to be sneaking up on us or something like that. But there's no sound of footsteps, no low, supposed quiet breathing. Instead, there's the first flicker of birdsong. Then another joins in. And another. And another. I think about that first bird, the early riser who must have pushed his way over his brothers and sisters to get first call of the day. Somebody's got to be first and there will be somebody who's last. But only one bird ever starts the day. I think back to the early mornings in District Two, when the grasses nobody bothers to cut are trimmed with frost and heavy and your boots leave dewy footprints on the way to the training center. Really early mornings. Hardly anyone else is up and I have to use my special key to get in which I only have because I'm me. And sometimes Cato's there and sometimes there are other people there and they're all special and promising and "full of potential," like I am. But in the morning, there's always a first birdsong. I don't go looking for birds, I don't have time to locate every little twitter. But I know the first birds are always the fastest, the quickest to pick up the beat. They set the pace for the day and they make the decisions for the music to be sung. That's what I want to be, the first bird. But that's awfully ambiguous and sentimental and uncharacteristic and a waste of space in my head. What I really think about the first birdsong is that it's time for everything to start. I remember looking at a clock when I heard the first bird, just to see what time birds got up. Four twenty. Exactly. Birds start the day at four twenty. And that's awfully early for these other tributes, the ones unaccustomed to early morning training. And that's, oh, right, all of them.
"Birds, so what?" I sniff, because I have more important things to think about. I scan the area. The sun is turning the arena gray and greens are starting to become noticeable. I don't like crouching in a bush, I want out of here. I want out into the open where I can get a knife into Twelve, assuming she's here.
"So it's dawn," he says, his eyes not moving from the misty shine of the Cornucopia we've staked out.
"No kidding," I growl. "What else is new?"
"I mean it's dawn. Templesmith specifically said dawn."
"Who's worrying now?" I ask him, because, come to think of it, he does look on edge. What could we possibly need desperately? Cato's a match for the size and strength of that enormous ox from Eleven, that red-headed girl from Five couldn't last a day without people to pickpocket and I can already imagine one of my knives in her chest, and our camp's cleaned up. Lover Boy has got to be on his way out and wherever will his little princess be without him? Why are we even here? There's so much risk, really, unnecessary risk. But we've been over this before and our strategy involves getting the items we most desperately need. And everyone else's. We can't wait around for the odds to be in our favor, which is why Cato volunteered, I guess. We've got to make decisions for the world sometimes and neither Cato nor I see anything wrong with that.
But neither of us have reason to worry for long, either, because as the forest lights up with birds singing the Cornucopia's gold plating catches the sunlight and it lights up, too. There's a movement in the field, like a rift in empty space. The ground opens up and a table rises out of the ground, reminding me that no matter how many birds there are in here, no matter how real they sound, we're in an arena and we're fighting to the death here. Perfect. As the round table swivels into place I slide one of my fingers along the blade of my knife, rolling my fingers together as they're dribbled with blood. I stick those fingers into my mouth to taste that delicious slow dying flavor and I study this table. It has places set, as if we really were attending a feast of some kind. The first thing I see is a very large black backpack with the number 2 printed on it. That's for me and Cato. And there's an identical one with an 11. We'll be taking that, thank you very much. Between those two is a slightly smaller pack, green, marked with a 5. What could that little thief possibly need? They certainly couldn't send her a weapon, I doubt she could even use it. What she needs is a ticket out of here. Maybe that's in Twelve's bag, because the only thing left is tiny and I think it's orange and it's truly too small to even hold one of my knives, except, of course, for my three collapsible blades.
I've sucked every last drop of excess blood off my finger when I see a flash of red up at the Cornucopia. That sneak from Five has darted out of the horn! She was in there, waiting. She grabs her bag and disappears into the woods. I consider shooting out after her and letting Cato take the others, get her out of the way quickly, but I feel him inhale quickly and stiffen out of instinct at her sudden movement. No. We've got bigger problems. Namely that Eleven. Or maybe Twelve.
That whiny little girl has sprinted out of a bush way off on our left, close enough that I'm surprised we didn't notice her but far enough away that it doesn't matter. I feel the blood pound back into my finger and my throat closes and every fiber of my being pulses in one big demand for her cannon shot and her name added to my list of kills. I'm about to just leave and already have pulled a knife out when I feel Cato's big hand on my shoulder. I turn and I know I've got my most sadistic smirk going strong and even his eyes are burning slightly insanely because we know she doesn't stand a chance against me, even with her fancy bows and arrows and that we are guaranteed to be the only remaining district partners in this arena.
"Remember," he says with that bloodthirsty grin I've only ever seen from him, "give them a good show."
A good show? How could I forget? I've been imagining, choreographing, practicing for that good show for what has it been? Weeks? It'll be beautiful and bloody and this arena floor will be stained for years to come and they'll scrub all they want but the blood will never come out and they'll point at it and say, "Clove did that. She was from District Two. Boy, was that ever a good show! I've never seen anything like it!" And it'll serve her right for getting an eleven in training.
"A good show," I repeat, because already my mind is on a track that includes disjointed comments about knives and blood and death and her screaming in pain. I lick my lips at the thought and grip that knife even more tightly. "I'll give them a good show," I promise again under my breath and without even another glance at Cato I burst out of the bush like a firecracker, heading for Twelve, knife already poised to throw.
She can't have heard me because although I am fast and although I've just exploded out of the undergrowth, I know how to be silent. But even as I let my first knife fly, a direct shot at the back of her head, (maybe I can pull her braid through her nose), she dodges. Her stupid shiny bow comes up as if she's hiding under it like an imbecile. But the tip of my beautiful, straight, and true blade hits the metal of her wimpy weapon and the angle of trajectory is thrown so far off it doesn't matter anymore. It's not going to touch her. I growl and grit my teeth and I already have another knife out when she turns on the heel of her boot, running backwards now, aims the stupid arrow at me and fires. It's nowhere near me, it can't hit me.
The arrow lands in my left arm, just under my shoulder. It doesn't hurt, it doesn't hurt at all. But it's a little disconcerting, looking down at a foreign arrow jutting out of one's arm. I grab the shaft and yank it out, the smell of blood hitting me immediately. There's fabric in there, I recognize, and I think it might sting a little. The bone seems to have blocked the arrow, and I consider for a moment the strong possibility that it may have shattered or chipped a bit. But she's picked up speed and locked another arrow in and so I throw the arrow away, licking my lips once again and pretending it's Twelve's blood all over me, and promising myself that it will be and Cato will never be able to tell the difference. Today's the day this ends. Today I will get out of here and go home.
Twelve reaches the table. She snatches her stupid little bag up and stuffs her wrist through the looped strap. There's no way she'd get it out otherwise. It's tiny and I wonder why she doesn't put it in her pocket. For a moment I'm struck with an odd and involuntary vision of myself hacking away at her in a very unrefined way, pockets destroyed, that little bag destroyed, the smell and the feeling of blood mixing and pooling together and becoming identically defined in my mind with wordless screams of agony ripping from a red and mangled throat. Keep it together, Clove. I shake my head once because if I'm going to spend my time in a dream world annihilating Twelve I can't do it here. Twelve pivots around for the third time and now I'm ready for her. The idiot slum rat hit my left arm. Of course, it really wouldn't matter where she did, I suppose. Where she can only fumble around with those arrows on one side, years of training has made these two arms equally powerful. So my right hand lets another knife fly and this time it hits its mark. She's perhaps a quarter of the length of the field away from the table when it slips elegantly past her face, slitting right up her eyebrow so that one moment she's Lover Boy's pristine goddess and the next half her face is pouring with delicious, warm, red blood, catnip for Clove. She stumbles and fires her prepared arrow but it whizzes by ten feet from me. She can't see where she's going, there's blood her eye. (Delicious glorious beautiful blood in her eye, blinding blood.) So I pounce.
I tackle her and throw all of my weight into the front of her so that she topples like a skyscraper to the ground, crumbling and leaking blood. My own little bloodbath. My knees hold her shoulders still and even though she wiggles her arms and legs I've got quite a bit of muscle here and she looks like she hasn't been eating regularly enough to keep herself in top form. The prey is frightened and it's time for the cat to play with the mouse. One more time, I lick my lips, as if I can taste some of her blood and perhaps it's sprayed onto me. No, there's not enough for that. (But it would be nice, wouldn't it?) I'll give them a good show.
"Where's your boyfriend, District Twelve?" I ask her, feeling the clever irony swirling up inside me, popping red bubbles in front of my vision, shiny shiny pictures of birds and training rooms and knives and my father's back and my mother's broken neck and bubbles that burst into splashes of blood across some inside-my-head picture of Cato and then everything goes fuzzy and delicious and every little cell in me is screeching and clawing for Twelve's blood to flood this arena.
And then it's not.
"What'd you do to that little girl?" the monster demands and I'm too deathly afraid of him to realize I must have broken my ankle. "You kill her?"
I know what I am now. I'm neither winner nor loser. I'm a coward. I'd never considered that possibility. The word doesn't exist in District Two. If you're a Career, you're no coward. I'd never thought about it before but the idea goes shooting through my mind like the tribute train. When I didn't want Cato to kill me, I was a coward. When I didn't want to kill Cato, I was a coward. When I let myself consider caring about him, I was a coward. Confronted and accused of something I didn't do. I was happy a few seconds ago, I imagine. I don't remember it properly, but I can see it, as if I'm being shown a Capitol broadcast after it's been aired. Watching District Twelve's blood run down her face, staining the dirty skin, trickling down to mix in her hair, blinding her eye. A knife poised just above her face, a sweet little delicate thing, ready to slip between the layers of her skin and make a mutilated work of art. It was a feeling the very essence my bloodthirsty being lived for. Just me, District Twelve, and a knife. But now I suddenly think for some inexplicable reason that I want Cato more than I ever have but I can't even cry out, I'm so shocked. I'm shocked that suddenly my arm and my leg and I think it's my ribs hurt. I'm shocked that District Twelve is alive. I'm shocked that I actually honestly think that I want Cato here. But mostly I'm shocked that I'm suddenly threatened by this gorilla from Eleven.
"No!" I tell him, and I'm shocked that my voice doesn't sound like me at all. It sounds like what I wanted to hear from Twelve. It sounds like what I want to hear from any victim. It sounds scared. I'm sounding scared. I sound scared in front of Twelve and I sound scared in front of Eleven and I sound scared in front of Cato (No, Cato's hunting Lover Boy. How? When? How do I know this?) and I sound scared in front of all of Panem because the cameras are all on me because this is the most excitement we've had in days. "No, it wasn't me!" I hate myself.
"I heard you say her name," he explains, but it isn't calmly. His eyes are golden and shining and full of a rage I've only ever thought I could see in Cato or a mirror. He is going to kill me. He is going to kill me. He is going to kill me. Oh, Cato, help me. The dignity, it's all gone. "I heard you." He couldn't have. I didn't kill her! I think I'm shrieking this but I can't tell because my entire chest is consumed in a pain I should be able to ignore and my mind is still like the tribute train, but it's pulling into the station, slowing down and limited to one track. Why can't this giant realize I'm telling the truth? He's going to kill me. He's going to kill me. Someone help me. Help me. I don't care about the cameras or the audience or the Capitol or the crown. I am a coward and I don't want to die.
No. I am Clove. I am from District Two. I am steady and unwavering and I will not give up and I am a rock. I have knives, knives in my jacket and—no. No, it isn't possible. But it is. It's very possible. I gasp once involuntarily because suddenly breath isn't working right. Fumbling hands of mine pull the jacket away and yes, there it is. Rows of cuts, some deep, some shallow. None have touched vital organs, though. Why was I so stupid? No, it was a clever plan. They never expected it. Hidden collections of portable weapons. I'm clever. I'm clever enough to stab myself thirty-seven times. But there's something wrong inside my chest, something very wrong. I think he's broken some ribs. In me, of course. And I think it's hit me in the lungs. I think he's punctured a lung. Is this what that feels like? I can't breathe. Cato, help me. Just, anybody help me. I want to jump up, I want to whip out this big black knife I have with the ten-inch blade and I want to bury it in his chest, handle and all. I can imagine myself grinding it in there, killing him for killing me, but I don't do it. I can't do it. I can't get to my feet and I can't catch my breath. Why can't Twelve stand up and distract him? Bulls attack when they see movement. Move, for the love of all things deadly, Twelve, move!
"You cut her up like you were going to cut up this girl here?" he demands of me and I want to cry. I hate myself. I have never wanted to cry. I may have thought I did but it was not so immediate, so necessary. How in the world will tears help? They will do nothing. He will not be merciful because I show fear and let insignificant streams of water come out of my eyes. I may have lost all dignity now but I mustn't loose the dignity of our district. I can't let them think District Two is cowardly, even if I am. If I was desperate before there are no words for what I feel now. I want to sob and beg for mercy. I'm on the other side now. This is the basic human response to such a threat, I assume. District Twelve didn't cry and she wasn't pleading with me. She was spitting her blood and bile into my face. (I don't remember that. Yes, I do. She spit in my face and I didn't want to taste it because it glittered. Who am I?) But I've seen the flash through an opponent's eyes before they disappear into a lifeless rock. I want time to stop so I can catch my erratic breath and tell this Eleven that I'm innocent and not to hurt me and to explain but I can't. And I want Twelve to stop him and tell him not to kill me and I want to tell him I'm sorry and that I didn't kill the Rue-girl. Every shred of the aloof and fierce dignity I possessed before has been thrown to the wind for self-preservation. I want Cato to come charging up with his spear because Lover Boy isn't out there and I want him to smash that spearhead into my attacker and end this. And I want Cato to pick me up and let me be a little girl so that I can die a human being like the rest of them. And I want Cato to hold me like District Twelve must hold the sister she volunteered for and I want to wrap my arms around his neck and cry into his shoulder. But I can't. I can't let anyone I know I think such disgustingly weak things. I can't let myself be a blemish on the perfect record of District Two's tributes, fierce, strong, and everything I am. I am supposed to be.
"No! I—" I manage to stutter around all of this, begging inside my head for anyone who will listen because my voice won't work and my throat is throttling me and I can't breathe properly and my mind is spinning and I think I'm going to throw up and my chest is on fire and I can't move away. And then I see it. It's not even big, no boulder. It's just a rock, just a rock as long as my dirk blade and as wide as his massive hand. It's gray and round with uncomfortable-looking craters and crevices scattered about the surface and everything in me excepting my leg runs cold. He's holding it aloft and glaring at me like I've singlehandedly destroyed every ray of sunlight ever to warm the earth. And that's when I really and truly snap.
The stone turns into a lightning bolt and it flashes down in front of my eyes. The world turns to metal and the sun gleams off it like a knife blade catching the light and it burns and it blinds and it hurts every nerve from my line of vision to my suddenly-agonized brain. Everything that is Clove but isn't body gives one great shudder and there's a wordless scream that comes from every part of me, every thought turning into a screech.
My voice wrenches itself loose from the stranglehold my throat held it in. It's so high, octaves too high, and desperate and pleading and earnest. "Cato!" I scream, I shriek at the top of my bruised and overactive lungs. "Cato!" I think I'm considering sobbing but there are no tears on my face but I haven't even got enough of the recognizable Clove that isn't being bombarded with the impossible decision of kill or be killed in me now to care. Cato is my only chance now. If I scrabble these useless shaking hands into my jacket to find a knife that rock will hit me and I'll be a gone in unimaginable pain. If I so much as move I won't have these few precious seconds in which the only person in this world who cares about whether I live or die, and not for the money they've bet on me, could come charging up and stop all of this nightmare.
And I hear it, resonating far away, so, so far away, but affirming nevertheless. "Clove!" That's my name. Whoever I am, this cowardly, begging, beaten, threatened little girl in a deadly game, whoever that is, her name is Clove. And the voice, it's the most beautiful voice in the world. A voice coming to save me and let me live. Never have I wanted to hear my name so much, never have I wanted to hear his voice so much because now it doesn't matter what my name is or who is shouting it, it's saving me and I won't die. He's realized Lover Boy isn't out there. Why didn't I call out earlier? Tell him sooner? What's taking so long? Oh, Cato, help me. Help me. Don't do it, Eleven, please don't do it. Thresh, your name is Thresh. Please don't kill me, Thresh, don't kill me. Help me, Cato. Who am I? Why am I doing this? I am Clove. I am from District Two and I am a rock and I will not be moved from my own strength. Who are you to take away my dignity and to take away my power? Who are you and who am I? Cato, help.
But he's too late. Eleven's rock comes into contact with the side of my head and I die. At least, I think I do. There is at first the shock that always accompanies head injuries, no matter how minor but I try to convince myself that it's a natural mechanism and that my lungs need to wait for the air they have stored to use before drawing innumerable new breaths. A myriad of white floating dots akin to stars bursts across my vision, temporarily blinding my closed eyes. And the pain, oh, the pain. It's impossible. Agony. No one has ever felt pain like this before. Torture. Anguish. Suffering. I'm done. It's time to stop fighting. And even in the very depths of the cowardly empty shell I've become since everything I knew about myself was not just a lie for the audience but to myself, even there I feel a little dash of happiness. Something real and true and promising. I'm done. These Games are over for me. No more impossible decisions. No more sleeping with one eye open. No more knives and no more blood. Just whoever I am now, dying. I wish I'd gotten a chance to become acquainted with whoever I am before now but I suppose it really doesn't matter if Cato comes now. In fact, it would be safer if he stayed away. I'd better tell him.
I try to speak but all I can manage is an agonized moan, since that's all my pain-ridden body can cope with. He must have dented my skull with that rock. Hit my brain. So here I die, on the ground, someone else's blood all over me, broken leg, dented skull, thirty-seven knives just pricking through my shirt into trenches they've already dug through my skin, broken arm, broken ribs, punctured lungs. They're talking, the other two. I wish he'd kill her, just get it over with. My fingers are clawing at the grass, tearing up great handfuls as if ripping at it will make me feel better, give me a better grip on what's happening, keep me here because that fundamentally human Clove does not want to die. I'm breathing so quickly, trying to get as many breaths in as possible before I stop, and I'm choking on blood, I think. I want Eleven to hit Twelve in the head with the rock and I want Twelve to shoot one of her silly little arrows at Eleven and I want them both to fall so it's just Cato and the girl from Five and Lover Boy and neither of them stands a chance. But they're talking, just talking.
"Clove!" I know that voice. I know that voice very well. And while I can hardly be the Clove I was this morning, the Clove I was five minutes ago with Twelve pinned and a knife to her face, I am still Clove and he's still coming. I try to tell him to forget it, to get our backpack and Eleven's backpack, but my voice is strangled and incoherent. I think my eyes are closed but I don't open them because if I open them I'll disappear immediately and as much as I want for District Two for Cato to leave me and get his backpack, I want him to come and be with me when I go, because I will go. I can't understand what Eleven and Twelve are saying but I can hear the steady buzz of their voices. They're so calm. Twelve—no. Katniss, her name is Katniss. If I'm going to die as the soft weak center of a human, I might as well give her the same respect. I don't owe it to her, but she is still a person and now I know how it must have felt under my knife blade with nowhere to go, and she didn't so much as close her eyes. Katniss is strong and I underestimated her. Katniss would have stayed with the Rue-girl when she died. Katniss cares about people, too much, I think, but she cares. And I want someone to care enough about me, even this slimy dying remainder of me, to watch me die and make sure the Capitol doesn't drop my body or some such thing.
"Clove!" shouts the voice again and it's nearer. I try to cry out but the sound is mutilated in my throat and my mouth won't hardly open. The voice is different now, it sounds more like a cry of pain than anything. Maybe he sees me. Wouldn't that be nice? Me being hurt is painful for him. Maybe it's the Clove that once was that's stirring up the sensations that this is a nice feeling, hurting someone by being hurt myself. But I can feel his heavy footsteps coming closer and he's running and it seems to shake the whole earth and I'm being jostled unbelievably and it makes everything so much worse, so much worse. And someone else is running, Katniss, I guess, and someone else is running, Eleven, I presume, and I'm left alone to die, running out of grass to tear from the ground. I'm alone and it's for far too long. Eleven is gone, what's taking Cato so long? I'm slipping, slipping…. Not much longer now, I think. It's taking too long. I'm getting angry. I'm getting angry at Eleven for not killing me thoroughly and leaving me to die slowly in such suffering. I'm angry at the Capitol for these Games and I'm angry at District Two for making us think competing and winning would be the highest honor we could achieve. I'm so angry I want a knife deep in Nero and our old trainers and the Gamemakers and Claudius Templesmith and President Snow. I didn't have to die. I could have lived out my life busting marble and shaping stone back in Two. I could have grown up like every other kid who never went in the Games or prepared for them, or I could have grown up in an idealistic world without Games or Reapings or trainings. I could have made it past eighteen. I could get a real job. A home. I could start a family and never have to worry about seeing my children die like this. Because I know my father doesn't care, not really. He'll be ashamed, of course, since I was definitely a contender. He'll lose money. But someone does care. Someone doesn't want to see me die. And that's enough to make anyone want to keep living, isn't it?
No, I tell myself. No! I care. I am all I need to care. I don't need anybody else to want me alive. I have to be strong, I'm me. And I'm not being strong. I am ashamed of myself. I am ashamed of myself.
"No. Clove!" The voice is near now, near enough that if I opened my eyes I'd see him and I want to but I still feel that if I did let myself see the world I'm leaving as quickly as I draw breath I will die immediately. "Stay with me, Clove, stay with me!" Cato. He's right beside me now, he's kneeling down beside me and his voice is close and his presence is so big and warm and burning with terror and rage. I try to say something but it too is incoherent and nothing more than a moan of agony. "No, Clove, don't go!" There is another side to begging and pleading, I see, another side I hadn't known about. I thought it was all some glorious weak thing a victim does before you dispatch them, so you could feel that power and the rush that comes from killing, assuming you didn't have shiny red bubbles popping all over everything. But it seems there is more to it. It's the voices of all the people behind the person you are going to kill, everyone who loves them gathered around the screens shouting and crying and yelling for someone who can't even hear their words to have mercy on someone they think doesn't deserve to die like that. But there's only one voice to speak up for me. Perhaps if I was different, more like Katniss, who cares and is cared about, maybe if I was like that there would be people in Panem who don't want to see me die. But all I've shown them is a ruthless, savage killer. I was about to torture their precious Girl on Fire to her death. I don't want to lie to them, I hate liars. I want to die as Clove, as the Clove I've always known. And they want her to die. Only one person in all of Panem doesn't want her dead.
Two, I remind myself, pound it into my broken head. Two! I don't want to die, that makes two. Two of us don't want me to die. Cato doesn't matter. He doesn't matter. He doesn't matter. If he matters, I'm dead. I am not weak. I will not die.
"Come on, stay with me!" Somewhere in the depths of my agony-numbed mind I register feeling, a sensation in my hand. Something different. But for the life of me, not that there's much left, I can't figure out what it is. Carefully, ever so carefully, because if I tilt the scale too far in any direction, I will be gone like a puff of smoke from a fire, carefully I open my eyes, centimeters at a time. I have to shift my line of vision down because I'm lying on my back, and I realize I'm entirely incapable of moving any part of my body. My head, oh, my head. Cato, just bash it in, kill me now, please. But when my eyes see my hand someone else is holding it, like it's going to keep me here, like holding on to someone drifting away, trying to anchor a cloud. But it's warm, so warm, and strong and insistent. And attached to the other hand is a person, the only human being in this stinking arena, in this entire country who doesn't want me to go. He's kneeling beside me like he doesn't care about the cameras and all of Panem watching and I don't even wonder if it's all just a scheme of his, like the Star-Crossed Lovers of District Twelve. No one can have such hurt in their eyes without cause. He sees mine open and there's hope, too much hope appearing on his face. No, don't think that, I'm going to die now. There's nothing you can do.
Where is Clove? Why won't it go shiny? Why won't it go shiny and vanish into swirling red bubbles and everything disappear until the fun is over and I have to relive it and rebuild it all when I lay down at night? Why won't it?
"That's it, that's right, come on, just hang on!" I'm trying, I think, because I can't say it. I'm hanging on. I can't reciprocate the hold he has on my hand but it doesn't matter because he squeezes mine tighter and drops his spear. No, pick it up. Fight. Kill them. Win. Get yourself out of these revolting Games. Don't stop for me. Don't leave me. "Don't leave me!"
Shut up, Cato, you idiot. They're watching you. They don't want to see Five run through the forest. They don't want to see Twelve—Katniss run through the forest. They don't want to see Eleven run through that field. They want to see two monsters stop being monsters. Go kill someone, Cato, kill me. Stop doing this. You're supposed to be this big strong guy, you're supposed to know what you're doing. You're supposed to never question what you think because you never do anything wrong. So why would you do this now? District Two is screaming and pulling out their hair. Nero is shouting every awful phrase he can make up at you. Come on, Cato, do it for them. Dignity. Discretion. Win.
I feel my breath trying to go faster, trying to catch some oxygen, my head in so much pain it doesn't hurt. I want to scream and cry and claw and bite and bury a knife so deep in President Snow he dies and nobody ever finds out why. No one deserves this. No one deserves to die for a game, for an audience, for retribution to an event generations ago. I want to hold onto Cato's hand and keep myself here. I cough something, choking, trying to say something, anything. What were my last words? I can't even remember. Some cowardly scream, no doubt. What was the last thing I said to Cato? Something about getting Twelve—Katniss, I suppose. I want to say something but I can't, and all I manage is another agonized moan that requires me to close my eyes. When I do get them open again there's so much hurt, fear, even, in Cato's face. I've never seen him afraid. Concerned, angry, teetering on the brink of complete insanity, yes, but never fear. It's such a nice feeling, old Clove decides. Him being afraid for me. The hand that had been holding the spear is hovering over my face, like he wants to hold me in this world more soundly but is afraid of hurting me. Old Clove disappears for a moment and there's nothing I want more than that hug again and the unnaturally hesitant hand to touch me like I'm a real little girl and not a deconstructed killing robot. Because that's what I am. A malfunctioned Capitol mutt. Coughing blood. Lacking all will to kill and slowly the will to survive.
NO. I won't let myself think like this. Hold on, Clove, you're Clove! You're not going to die because you're not weak. You're going to die because you're not weak. Blood, think about blood. Think about someone's blood flowing down your fingers. That's what you live for, right? Right? Then live for it, Clove, live for it!
"Stay with me, Clove," he says and his voice is unlike I've ever heard. It isn't soft and it isn't tender and it isn't anything Lover Boy might manage. It's hard and it's angry but it isn't angry at me. And it cares. It doesn't want me dead and it wants me to stay with him. Never has anyone cared quite so much about me. I am not the sort of person who needs love or affection, not the sort who seeks it. I've never thought about it at all, really. I cough again and the pulling feeling in my lungs sends a fresh attack of unimaginable pain through my head. End it, Cato. Hit it with your spear. Please kill me. "Don't do this." I don't want to go, not really. But the Clove he's talking to is long gone. The Clove he's talking to disappeared at the sight of the rock. She died when she admitted that Twelve—Katniss was her equal when she only ever thought she had one. Continuing to live like this is an insult to her memory and to his concern. I remember what he said to me once, about how he had pushed the thought of me dying so far from his mind he'd forgotten it was possible. And that, I realize, is the mistake we both made all along. We both thought ourselves indestructible. We were both so sure it would be down to the two of us. We were both so sure we'd have to kill the other. And then we were both so sure we could kill all the others. We were both so sure we'd both be going home. And now this. There's no surviving it, I know that. It never mattered, then. Because we aren't indestructible. Contrary to popular belief, the other tributes stood a chance against us, at least, Eleven did. I feel foolish on top of tortured. I feel foolish and arrogant. And from the look on his face Cato feels the same way. I almost try to take my hand away from his but movement is out of the question and every wracked breath shoots heavy daggers into my head and I want to scream and never ever stop. But I make an effort, oh, so much effort, an effort that nearly tears me apart then and there to even consider executing, an effort to speak.
Where has Clove gone? Where has Clove with her knives and her cunning and her bloodlust gone? Why can't she come back now? She could help me, I know it.
"Cato," I say, and it's a whisper and more of a moan and it makes my head explode. But I must tell him. He needs to hear it. And I can't get my voice any louder and it's taking far too long to catch my breath but he notices I've said something. And his face goes absolutely white under the red flush of anger and exertion, like a curtain being pulled down away from a window. If it's possible, his grip on my hand tightens even more and he leans down to my face because I have to tell him. "Cato," I try again, but it doesn't work and I end up coughing blood uncomfortably near his face and hair and he pulls back a little too quickly for my head to take. I'm thrown into a downward spiral of dizziness as the blood clots dribble out the corner of my mouth, adding to the stains in my hair from Katniss. I can't tell which feels more lethal, my head or my lungs. I try to take a deep breath and feel myself slowing down. No. Not yet. Wait. Please wait.
"Cato," I cough and I've never seen a person so upset. Not frightened, not sad, not even angry anymore. Just a ball of energy that's everything but happy. His face is tight and pale and sweaty and his eyes are talking by themselves and they don't want me to go. But he doesn't care about the blood anymore and I think he knows I'm going now and he frowns and leans down again and I manage to say what I've been trying to. "You have to win, Cato."
Right above me his hurt eyes turn hard. Accusatory, but not accusing me. Eleven has our backpack. He needs to go get it. He needs to kill them. He needs to get himself home. Because if he doesn't, I'll have died in vain. And the only thing I can think of worse than dying is dying with no purpose at all. And my only purpose in the last thing I will do in this world is helping Cato get back, a District Two win. I'm about to think some other thought along these lines when I feel myself breathe very deeply, a gasp for air my dying mind didn't request. I choke on the blood when I do and it rattles through the thick gunk in my throat in a sound I'd find deliciously delightful in any other person but myself. It makes me feel sick, which is such a small, insignificant word that doesn't even begin to describe this. Cato looks revolted, too, and I know he's heard me.
"I'm going to," he promises me with a voice so alive I can hardly believe such a thing exists. "I'm going to win for both of us." Both of us. That's such a nice phrase. Nice and inclusive. I hope he doesn't go now. I think I'm dying. I try to breathe again but hardly anything reaches my lungs. That isn't right. Now, look here, Clove. You are a fighter. You've killed and you've tortured. Now's no time to give up! But I try to breathe again and I think the blood in my throat is asphyxiating me. I can't talk to Cato now. I'm done. He sees it. Sees me dying and that upset look in his eyes intensifies so much I think it must kill me itself. But that doesn't matter because I'm dying, you see.
"I'm going to kill him!" he roars rather suddenly and I almost want to laugh because that's what we're here for. My thinking doesn't sound anything like me. Where's Clove? I look around the blackness I'm becoming but I can't find her anywhere. I think she's gone away. I think she's long gone. But yes, kill him, Cato, that's good. He looks back down at me, since it's the air around him he's howled into and I almost want to punch him on the shoulder and tell him to cheer up before he makes me unhappy. And he says it again, but he doesn't say it to me and I can't breathe and he repeats himself with conviction but in the tone of a broken person. "I'm going to kill him."
I think it would be nice and calming for him if I smile but if I try, my head will split in two. But I feel tired, so tired, my eyelids are as heavy as Capitol skyscrapers and they're pulling down and there's nothing I can do about it. And he tightens his grip on my hand and he finally lays the other one's fingers against my face, pushing back the blood- and sweat-streaked hair from my forehead. I give another very half-hearted cough with nothing behind it because I can't get air and I don't want to be treated like a weak child but he sort of whispers "Shh" which is so very unlike Cato I consider keeping myself alive just to ask him why he's being so different. And so I die. It all takes only a few minutes, though, from when he arrives to when whatever it is inside me that takes me does its job. I have no doubt the cameras are on us the entire time because really, what could any of the others be doing that's more interesting than this? Two Capitol mutts who rebelled against their programming in their own small way and cared. I can imagine him leaving my body for the hovercraft and barreling after Eleven, who doesn't have much of a head start. Because I'm dying. Or I'm dead.
And the last thing I feel in this godforsaken arena and meaningless world is Cato's hand holding one of mine and Cato's hand pushing my hair away and it's the last time I sense his enormous and steady presence. Because Cato's alive and I'm glad but I'm still Clove and so I'm still fighting and I'm still—
The end.
A/N P.S. She died. I figure you stop thinking when you die, right? Yeah, I'm a smart one. Anyway, this comes as the threequel in this cute little miniseries I've got going, the first being Indestructible, the second being Deconstructing, and the fourth coming soon. Now here's my question for you. Was this fluffy? Was this out-of-character? I reckon that someone dying is an excuse for anyone acting differently than they would on a day-to-day basis but if there was anything glaringly ooc or fluffy, it MUST be revised. I refuse to have fluff to my name. (That's you, kats96, you tell me if I've got fluff. I shall NOT have fluff.) Please-pretty-please review with any thoughts or comments you might have. Also, I'd like to thank everyone who has favorited or reviewed the previous stories in the miniseries and for your reading. So… thank you!
This story is also dedicated to the Clovely kgirlstyle (but she reviewed with her first name first last time, so I figure she doesn't mind me using it…. Are we on first-name terms?) or Kendall. I'm not sure if you needed a bucket for this one, or even a hole. That's coming up next. Probably. Anyway, here is your Catoful Clovely story from your Catoful Clovely Catolicious writer! Get those shovels and bubbles ready and I'll keep writing.