The first thing Cato ever gets from Clove is a punch in the face.
They're ten years old, and they've just met, and Cato hasn't even said one word to her, and she sends her fist flying right into his jaw.
There's a cracking noise, and Cato stumbling backwards, and Clove shaking out her hand, then a few silent moments, where Cato studies Clove and Cloves studies Cato.
She has soft pale skin, this girl, and her eyes are dark, so dark that it almost seems unnatural. But if he looks close enough, Cato can see flecks of color in her irises, blue and green and brown, and just a bit of red.
While Clove is distracted, Cato moves forward and throws his knuckles into Clove's chin; bone hits bone, and Cato can hear something break, and Clove yelps and grabs her face. She glares at him, her expression a mixture of fury and malice and admiration, and Cato just smiles.
A dark red mark is forming on Clove's cheek.
And it matches her eyes.
x
The second thing Cato gets from Clove is a cut on his thigh; a huge, gaping wound that pours out blood and is disconcertingly close to exposing bone.
They're fighting—Cato with a sword and Clove with a knife—when it happens, when Clove finds an open spot and plunges her knife deep into his leg. She shows no mercy, and it fucking hurts, and Cato has to fight the urge to burst into tears and curl into the fetal position in pain.
Instead, he gives her a tight-lipped smile, biting his cheek to distract himself from the injury, refusing to show any sign of weakness.
And later that night, after his trainers have patched up the wound, Cato really smiles, because despite how much pain Clove causes him, he can't help but like her, can't help but like how strong she is.
He traces of the outline of the rapidly healing wound. The scar is bright, and fierce, and red, and it reminds him of Clove.
It will be gone by tomorrow.
x
The third thing Cato gets from Clove is a smile. Not a malicious grin, or a dry laugh, or a tiny upward movement of her lips, but a real smile, the first real smile she's ever shown him.
They're eleven now, and evening has fallen, and they're walking through the outside area between the training center and their dorms.
They're talking about something, speaking in low voices, chatting and teasing each other as usual, when Cato says something—he isn't sure what—that, for the first time ever makes her smile.
And even though it's night out, and the clouds over the moon make it even darker, Cato can see Clove clearly: how her smile takes up her whole face, how her usually dark eyes become bright, how for the first time ever she looks really happy.
And it makes his heart leap, just a little, to know that it's because of him.
But he tries to ignore that part.
x
The fourth thing Cato gets from Clove is a broken leg.
It happens during training, in the middle of combat practice, when clove pins him onto the floor and digs her right knee into his left leg, with just the right amount of force to move a bone into just the wrong place.
It doesn't take long to heal, of course, what with District 2's highly advanced medical system, but something else inside of Cato has started to break.
He's started to really like this Clove girl, and he's worried that no amount of Capitol technology will be able to change that.
x
The fifth thing that Cato gets from Clove is a bloody nose.
They're thirteen years old, and their parents are visiting the training academy today, and they have to look nice, so both of them have been dressed up. Cato is wearing a dark blue suit and Clove is wearing a pale pink dress and it's the first time she's ever worn anything besides a training uniform or an ill-fitting t-shirt.
So when Cato first sees Clove, he can't help but stare: her skin is glowing and her hair is shiny and she looks pretty, and Cato finds his eyes trailing over things he's never even noticed before—her neck, her chest, her hips and legs.
And before he's able to snap out of it, Clove's fist is making contact with his nose, and he stumbles back to see her glaring at him, her eyes just daring him to look at her like that again.
And that night, as parents gather into the academy and Cato spends time with his family, he can't stop himself from glancing over at Clove every few seconds, taking in her hair and her eyes and her voice and her everything.
And he wishes he didn't like her so damn much, because if there ever comes a time when he has to kill her, he won't be able to afford to hesitate.
Or she'll kill him first.
x
The sixth thing Cato gets from Clove—the one that changes everything—is a kiss.
It's late at night, and they're outside walking to their dorms, and Clove's reddish eyes are especially bright in in the starlight, and before he can think better of it, Cato has grabbed Clove and kissed her.
And, under the moonlight and in the wintery cold and with Cato's hands wrapped around her neck, Clove doesn't pull away; she doesn't kiss him back, really, but she doesn't move away; allows Cato's mouth to cover her own, allows his fingers to entwine into her hair, allows him to press their bodies closer together than they've ever been before.
And then it's over, and Clove is abruptly stumbling backwards, and while Cato is still recovering she slaps him, hard and fast, leaving Cato's face stinging for the next twenty minutes.
And as he watches Clove huff and stomp off into her dorm, Cato can't help but smile, because those few seconds, those brief moments where she didn't push him away, told him exactly what she had been feeling.
And he knows that what they're doing is stupid, and scary, and simply really fucking dangerous considering his and Clove's circumstances, but for now, he simply doesn't care.
x
The seventh thing Cato gets from Clove is a cut, right across the neck, so deep that it nearly kills him.
It's the day after the sixth thing, and Cato and Clove are at the training center, and the second she sees him she pushes him into the wall, putting her knife against his neck.
"Never do that again," she says, pinning down his wrists. She doesn't specify what she's talking about, but she doesn't need to, because Cato already knows.
And he just laughs, because he knows that Clove doesn't mean what she's saying. She likes to act stronger than she really is.
Greatly agitated at his lack of a reaction, Clove digs her knife into his collarbone and lets him fall to the ground, stalking off and leaving him with a near fatal wound. But at that moment, Cato likes her more than ever.
Her spitefulness, her brutality, her power—that's what drew him to her in the first place.
And that night, and many nights afterward, they kiss again, with passion and heat and fire, and Cato knows that by now he's gotten himself in far too deep with this girl, but he pushes it to the back of his mind and tries not to think about how their story is inevitably going to end.
x
The eighth thing Cato gets from Clove comes when they are both fifteen, when less than a month remains before the Hunger Games where they are both expected to volunteer, when Clove leaves dark blue bruises and bright red scars and small pink cuts all over Cato's body.
It comes late at night, in Cato's dorm, when they fuck for the first time, violently and viciously and with much blood and pain and thrashing and scratching.
And there's something almost desperate about it, something desperate and hopeless and vain, as though each is trying to express how much he's going to miss the other, because this is the only way they can show it when both are too stubborn to ever say it out loud.
And later, after Clove has fallen asleep, Cato sits on the edge of the bed watching her, the way her eyes twitch and her hands shift and her chest rises and falls.
And he's never been very sentimental, but Cato can't help but want to lie down next to her, wrap his arms around her and hold her close forever, but he knows that he can't.
Partially because Clove—who's less a fan of affection than he is—would never put up with it, but mostly because at this point there's no reason to get more attached, to make things harder than they already are.
x
And the ninth thing, the last significant thing, that Cato gets from Clove is a punch to the face.
It's the day before the reaping, and even though it's in vain, even though he knows she'll never agree to it, he approaches her in the training center, pushes her against the wall and forcefully tells her not to volunteer tomorrow.
And just as he expected, she spits at him, shoves him off her, tells him that he's an asshole and that he doesn't control her and that she shouldn't have to quit, shouldn't have to give up on her dreams. And why can't he be the one who doesn't volunteer?
And Cato knows the answer, knew the answer going into this: because he's violent, and brutal, and he wants this, and he's worked too hard to give it up.
And so they stare at each other for a few moments, the stubbornness that each has always had around the other manifesting itself in the most horrible way.
And then Clove marches off, and Cato knows that whatever they had is over, that it isn't going to continue, that one of them is going to die.
And Cato's known it this whole time, and he hates himself for ever involving himself with the fierce, bright, red-eyed girl named Clove.
x
And as he has always expected, one of them does die, and it's Clove, and it's because the boy from District 8 or wherever (he frankly doesn't give a damn) slams a rock into her skull.
And as he watches the life fall out of the eyes that were once so bright, he can't help but run to her, kneel beside her and take her face between his hands and ask her, beg her, not to leave him.
But she does.