I ran for my life across that dry, grass-choked field, hoping that the sound of my rapidly drumming heart would not cease in my ears.
Even if he was a Career, I was confident in the tall grass. We grew plenty of it back home to fill the stomachs of Panem—the land in which we lived, which was forged together over a century ago by an apocalyptic war. Running came quite naturally to me. Despite my poor diet growing up, I towered over most people and my long legs set their own speed, synchronized with my breath, my pumping arms, and my beating heart.
Cato did not care to stop my legs. The blond Career boy from District Two wanted to stop my heart. He did not know that I had run from foes fiercer than he. Cato was fueled in his chase by anger, revenge, and pride. He would tire eventually, and when he did, he would make mistakes.
I heard his sword slicing through the air behind me. His first mistake: Throwing the weapon from so far away.
Within the second before the sword would have impaled me, my legs steered my body to the left. The sword struck fast into a tree at the edge of the line of woods established for our Arena.
In the second before Cato spotted his error and gasped in shock, I found a rock the size of a Seeding child back home. I bent down, lifted it in both arms, and tossed it high into the air with a grunt.
In the seconds it took Cato to run to the weapon and retrieve it from its holding place, I pulled myself into the tree's upper branches. Although I lacked the grace of my late little sister, I managed to wrap my legs around a sturdy branch, caught the rock as it descended, and waited. The grief I felt from thinking about her would soon be Cato's.
Cato was focused on the spear. His second mistake: Ignoring the absence of his enemy.
I hurled the rock at his head. It missed by a few inches but struck his left shoulder with a nauseating crunch and bounced off. Yet the impact was made and under that impact, Cato collapsed to the ground. To his credit, he did not utter a sound from pain.
I dropped from the tree, retrieved my rock, and studied my blond adversary. His left side, including the shoulder, was devastated by the force of the rock. I could see his shoulder bone sticking through his torn and bloody vest. Yet he stubbornly crawled toward his sword.
I had to hand it to him: To throw a sword with such accuracy required significant skill.
When he realized I loomed over him, his bland, anguished face turned furious. "You killed Clove! I'll make you pay, you District Eleven scum!"
I introduced my boot to his teeth. His blood stained my boots and his face. Cato, to his credit, did not cry out, but lashed out with his left leg in an effort to topple me. I stumbled but did not fall, and in retaliation, I slammed my rock on both of his kneecaps, crippling him.
Cato's body jerked and his face contorted in pain I could not imagine. But he did not cry out, grunt, or even whimper from his bloody, cracked lips.
I wanted more from him.
If I knew anything of the sadistic audiences that watched, they craved more.
Rue deserved more.
Several more times I crashed that rock against his feeble legs, until they were a mass of blood, shattered bones, and shredded cloth from the knees down. I had not killed him, but Cato would never run down another human again at least. He seemed resilient in his willingness to endure pain, so I raised the rock again, ready to deliver the lethal final strike. He began to laugh.
"You don't deserve to kill me," Cato taunted. He spat out a few dislocated teeth in a glob of bright red blood and continued without his words being hindered. "I've spent my entire life preparing for this. From my mother's womb, I was trained to be a pawn of the Capitol. I don't deserve to die at your hand. I will not die this way!"
"You ought ask for pity."
"No," he whimpered finally, "I ask for justice."
I detested his pleading, as much as I yearned for it. Clove had said that Rue begged for her life and bragged about slaughtering my little sister. The blond beast of a human at my feet had slaughtered at least six other Tributes. I had seen his murderous actions with my own eyes. Even if he had not slain my sister himself, he and men like him were the reason we were in the Games.
He knew nothing of justice.
But I understood mercy.
I tossed the rock into the distance with one hand. "You should live," I said with a glance at his useless legs. "You have Sponsors. They will send medicines to restore you." I turned to walk away and suddenly realized that I heard nothing. I stood at the edge of the forest, but there were no bird songs and no breezes rushing past my ears. Rue had told me that when the birds fell silent in the fields and in the forest, she always knew danger was near.
Silence did not cause me to run. The ominous snapping of twigs caused me to run.
I had gone only fifty yards at most when I afforded myself a backward glance. Their glittering eyes stared at me from the edge of the forest in shades of blue, green, gold, hazel, and grey. They emerged from the protective shadows with the pace of a hunter who knows the quarry is caught and the hunt finished. Growling, salivating, wolf-like mutations with brown, black, and blond coats; I had seen real wolves without their distinctive furs many a time while on watch over our pastures.
These were unnatural, and so frightened me more than the natural ones. Clearly the Games Master had decided we were t0o slow in killing each other. I had known this to happen in years past, whether by an unnatural flood or a cataclysmic thunderstorm. The Games were never slow to finish off reluctant, merciful Tributes.
Cato called to me as the pack of twenty emerged from the woods. "Eleven! Come back! Please, come back! Don't leave me to die!"
I glanced back again as I ran desperately. The pack flanked him on both sides. At the first of his anguished screams, I set my eyes forward and increased my pace toward the Cornucopia. Cato's screams as the mutts ripped him apart filled the forest.
He should have known better. His third mistake: Being crippled and calling for help when surrounded by unfriendly mutations.
