I've got to admit, I wasn't too far off with my expectations for killing. I've killed how many, four? I'm not sure. I forgot to count. I think Clove's counting, though. I'll ask her when she gets back. She's getting food or something, I don't remember much of today, really. I remember seeing our food destroyed. And then it all goes red and blurry. But I'll ask Clove when she gets back. I wonder how long they've been gone. She and Glimmer and Marvel. Most of the day, I'm pretty sure. It's almost evening. Maybe I killed someone today. That would be lucky. Not Clove, I wouldn't kill Clove. But I think I'm thirsty. Do we have any water around here?
I glance around at where I am. Doesn't look good. It's a little forest clearing where we've got our camp. The ground's soft and mossy which is helpful, since we don't have particularly comfortable beds, just sleeping bags. It's also rather damp, which is even less inviting at the end of a long day, lying down and feeling tangible cold seeping into your bones, which is what damp does. There's a dead fire nearby because nobody would dare touch us, at least, that's what I thought, but it's there anyway, ashy and sooty and smelling of smoke. That isn't the problem, though. That's normal, that's not new. What's new is the trees. Well, the trees aren't new. It's their updates, I guess. All around the bark and wood is hacked and splintered into bits, homemade sawdust absolutely litters the ground. The fractured pieces hang off the trunks like little spears jutting out. I'm sitting on my sleeping bag and I stand up and I walk over to the base of one of the trees and pick up some of this wood dust. I rub it between my fingers so it flakes like dried blood and falls away. It all smells woody and if I imagine hard enough I can think I catch a whiff of cold steel in there, too. Someone was feeling destructive when this happened, so that really only means one person could have done it. That Glimmer might be fast and strong but she's clumsy with most weapons, she lost that bow and—no. Glimmer's dead. I'd forgotten. But Marvel, he's from One, too. He's with Clove somewhere, right? Where is Clove? She's not dead, is she?
"The raving madman awakes."
No, Clove's alive. That's her voice, I know that much. I look away from the fascinating bits of wood and yes, that's her. She's standing beside one of these chopped up trees but she isn't smiling, which isn't much of a surprise since she doesn't really do it a lot. I can see a knife tucked into her belt and know she has quite a collection in her jacket. It's a lot easier to bring down a squirrel with a silent little knife flying through the air than chucking a spear at it, though I've done my share of the work. We have an enormous store of food, lots to last us a long, long time, I think. We could sit here and wait for District 12 if we wanted to but of course, we don't want to. That's not our style, of course not. We're not the sitting ducks here. Food. I just thought about that and it was different. Something isn't right here.
"You were out most of the day," she tells me stiffly, walking in. She's got a jug of water in each hand. One of them is patched up with some heavy duty tape; did it break? Out most of the day. What's she talking about? It's morning. Or so. But somebody hacked up our trees and I'm pretty sure it was me, even if I can't remember doing it. I'm about to ask her to clarify when she does anyway.
"I guess we didn't really get rid of the tracker jacker stuff that well," she says, pouring out some water into a cup and handing it to me. "Or something. Drink this." Sure. Fine. Why not? I drink the entire volume of the thin plastic cup. Actually, it does seem to clear my head a little. I feel groggy, like waking up after a long nap, which, according to my District Two partner, I've just done. Everything still seems disjointed and like it doesn't make sense, though. But Clove takes the cup back and fills it up again. This time, however, she pulls out a little package from her pocket. It's orange plastic and shiny on the top. She peels that bit back to reveal a little compartment pressed into the package. There's a pill of some kind or something like it. She knocks the box against the lip of the cup so it falls in and watches it dissolve into a fireworks display of bubbles in the water, fizzling out when they reach the surface and the air of the arena. And she hands the cup back to me, looking a bit exasperated, like she doesn't think she should have to be playing nanny or whatever it is she's doing.
"What is it?" I ask, glancing at it suspiciously. For all I know, it's poison of some kind. Maybe she's trying to get rid of me right here and now. She's going to have to, I know that. She's going to have to try. That time will come and why can't it be now? But Clove rolls her eyes as if I'm going to have to take her word for it.
"It's just medicine," she says, holding up the box. It's printed like the boxes back home, the sort of thing you'd take if you had a headache before a very important training session or something. Nothing lethal and this isn't even a strong dose. "Drink it."
I narrow my eyes at her and I'm about to tell her to try it first when I meet her already-threatening gaze. Her green eyes are just as tense as mine. This means that she's either lying to me and trying to murder me or she's insulted that I immediately assume that. I lift up the cup and look into the water. It's stopped fizzling and is just a little cloudy with the oxygen released into it. I really don't want to drink it. I really don't want to accept that Clove could be trying to kill me, me. But everything's so foggy and I can't go stumbling blindly through the forest after forcing this stuff down her throat to save myself because I'm not sure I can leave Clove.
"Drink it, Cato. I'm not trying to kill you yet," she insists from where she's sitting on her heels on the ground and I decide it's worth a shot, right? So I huff and down the thing in one gulp, waiting for it to shut down my brain and for my muscles to seize up as my blood crystallizes. But it doesn't. If anything, there's a sharp splitting pain that shoots through every shaky thought I've got and then it's gone. And I'm a new man.
"Tastes awful," I inform her and crush the cup in my fist. I almost feel bad for indirectly accusing her of trying to kill me but one never can never be too sure in this arena and in our circumstances.
"Nice job. Now there're only two cups left." Clove snatches the cracked cup out of my hand and drops it on the ground while she starts up another fire. There's still enough light out here that it wouldn't be noticed, assuming there wouldn't be much smoke. When it's crackling and red she slams the cup into it and glares without a word. The plastic melts slowly and drips off itself into the ashes, little beads dropping to harden on the ground.
"I did that, right?" I ask, pointing to the trees. Clove shrugs and nods her head. I did do that. I wonder why. "How come?"
She raises her eyebrows at me. There's something wrong. She's awfully sullen. She's been in a great mood, considering the circumstances, since we got into the arena. She had a man down hardly two minutes into the Games and has been on a roll since. And now she looks like she wants to smash my head in. Only Clove.
"I've blamed the tracker jackers for lack of more solid evidence," she says coldly. "You lost it when we found the food had been blown up."
"What?" This is news to me. Sort of. No, the medicine is clearing my head and I vaguely remember walking in to find the carefully stacked pyramids toppled and blasted apart with our own mines. I can feel every little muscle in my face and shoulders tensing. Destroyed. Our carefully monopolized stores are gone.
"We don't know who did it," Clove continues, scowling at the little flames. "Wish we did. I'd like to give them a piece of steel, myself. You took out that kid from Three, though. Snapped his neck." Her green eyes glow at this, eerie in the firelight and certainly full of admiration. "Just. Like. That." She suddenly whips a knife out of her pocket and there's a flash of silver through the air before it quivers in a tree opposite her. "It was magnificent."
"Yes, I have a gift." I do remember but I don't remember properly. Whether it was those tracker jackers from a while back or some slippage in my sanity I don't recall the event like that. There was a more immediate need to kill, something sharp and gripping inside that made everyone around me require immediate impalement. Except Clove, of course, I can always tell where Clove is, even if everything else is full of bubbles and red smoke. Always constant and constantly Clove.
"No kidding," she sniffs, dropping back to lie flat on her sleeping bag so that she's facing the break in the canopy of the trees. "We may have needed him later."
"We've got Marvel, right?" I'm not concerned at all about the demise of my teammate. Hey, it's one less scrawny person standing between me and that crown.
"No."
"What?"
"I think he's dead, too."
Oh. Well, our little group is just dropping like flies, isn't it? I wonder who'll be next to die. "Did I do that, too?" She screws up her face like she's trying to think but shakes her head. No. I didn't kill Marvel. At least, not that she knows of. But he's still dead. "What makes you think he's been killed?"
"He went out earlier and hasn't come back yet. I only assumed he was dead because he isn't following protocol."
Marvel is—was, perhaps—big on setting procedures and following them. Me, I'm more of a let's-just-gang-up-on-all-of-them guy. But Marvel needed carefully laid plans like the mines scheme he and the kid from Three cooked up. For him to wander off without telling anyone where he was going and not checking in isn't like him. So sure. He's dead. Why not?
"So what are we gonna do for food?" I ask, since Clove seems to have been busy while I passed out or however I spent my day. She points the toe of her boot at a crate across the fire from me. There are a few apples and not much else. A dead squirrel is draped across the wood, pelt still on and I can smell it from here.
"Do something useful for once," is the little girl's command and she closes her eyes and crosses her arms across her chest and that is that.
Fine. I grumble as I heave myself up to my feet and stomp over to this squirrel. "Knife."
"Get it out of the tree."
Tree-knife, okay. She's buried the blade pretty deep in the rough brown bark but the edges are sharp and it slips out easily. I toss it in the air and catch the hilt in my hand. I did this with an axe in training only a week or so ago. I think that's how long it's been. The edges are a little fuzzy, still.
"So what's been going on?" I ask and I flick the squirrel out and lop off the head easily, immediately meeting the sweet smell of blood. "What all did I miss?"
"Where should I start?" Clove asks, and her eyes are still closed.
"Right after I killed Three."
I see her smile at that. Yes, I am impressive. But she opens her eyes to watch the most probably fake clouds drifting through the sky and she starts her story. I almost don't listen because for a moment I'm struck with how idealistic right now is. A warm sunny day with no rain or mutts to hide from, just the two of us chopping the heads of squirrels and enjoying a calm pause where neither of us is in any immediate danger. Probably.
"You really lost it after the food was blown up. Yeah, Marvel and I thought there might be some tracker jacker venom still inside you and that it was triggered by the adrenaline or something. We're not sure. Of course, you could simply be going barking mad, which is perfectly plausible."
"Just tell the story," I growl at her and hack the squirrel's tail off a little more raggedly than I intend to.
She snickers and does continue. "Well, you were a little out of it for a while. I mean, you were right along with us and everything, you crashed a little later. Anyway, we just kinda hung around after we didn't hear the cannon go off because we all—you, me, and Marvel—assumed whoever blew the stuff up must be nearby. It got darker and darker and we started wandering aimlessly through the woods with the nightvision glasses to find our little visitor. You slammed into a tree and pretty much knocked yourself out, I guess, though Marvel thought you were out before impact. So he and I dragged your sorry self all the way back here and the two of us switched watch halfway through the night since we couldn't wake you up for anything. Sun came up, Marvel said he had an idea and went off to pursue it, you woke up and started swinging your sword around like some crazed animal. I wasn't in the mood for having my head chopped off so I left and sat up in a tree for most of the day, making sure you didn't hurt yourself and hunting down that little guy." She points over her head at the squirrel. I've gotten most of the meat off and slip the chunks onto a long stick we've stripped of bark to cook over the fire. There's a little spit-rotisserie set up to give it a more civilized feeling, even though a televised fight to the death among children isn't the most civilized of settings.
"Then you crashed again and I guess that's pretty much it."
"Sounds like an interesting day," I remark, putting the squirrel over the flames. The air is starting to cool and the sun will be disappearing behind the trees soon enough. This interesting day is almost over and I've missed most of it. Marvel's gone. We can only assume he is and frankly, I don't mind at all. I would have ended him before long anyway. But I could have spent today tracking down those idiots from District Twelve. I hit Lover Boy well, I know. Serves him right for betraying us like that. We could have gotten his whiny girlfriend right away but he just had to get there first. I should have known he was lying to us. I hate liars.
The fire crackles and just thinking about him makes me want to pick up this sword beside me and slam off into these woods and find him. Pin him against some tree or rock wall or something with the blade. Watch his scared little eyes darting all around. Listen to him ask me to spare him or, even more hilariously, the stupid girl. Feel his warm blood, traitorous blood running through my fingers and dripping in the grass and pouring into a stream like a tributary. Red flowing down a river in a misty consistency in the water, trickling into the girl from Five and the crazy monster from Eleven's drinking water so they're drinking the life out of the boy who betrayed us. I can almost imagine it's true and really happening and that I can feel such deliciously morbid water in my throat when Clove kicks me and turns the spit.
"Wake up, dreamer boy," she retorts. "That's the only squirrel I got. Don't kill it again."
"I got it," I snap back and my hand accidentally but instinctively moves toward my sword at the insult. Her eyes go wide and I see her breath catch in her throat. She doesn't flinch or move away from me but I know I've scared her. No, not scared, Clove doesn't get scared. Clove is a little girl who will scare you. But I've concerned her. I wonder just how violent I must have been after whatever it was inside me snapped when our food blew up. I wonder if I came close to taking her out too early. I can't kill her yet, it's Clove. I know it'll come down to the two of us. Lover Boy is probably dead or at least on his way out, District Twelve will be scrambling around in trees with the little girl after the tracker jacker incident. The girl's district partner, what's-his-name from Eleven, he's hiding out in the tall grass over there, the big coward. And sneaky little Five is still nosing around after people, picking stuff up when you've dropped it before you even notice it's gone. Altogether, an easy route to the finish line. Until we get to Clove, of course. I'm considering just killing her in her sleep. I couldn't stand to have to face her at the end. As much as I love that sweet feeling of the desperate shine leaving a person's eyes, I don't want to see that in Clove. She's been tagging along behind me since I was, what, eight? She punched me in the face and I guess we never left after that.
All I wanted to do was keep to myself and get to the Games and come home and get a few pats on the back and a nice big house. I didn't want a little kid following me and showing me up. But that's what she did. If I could hit a mark from fifty feet with a spear she'd stay up all night with some knives so she could show me in the morning that I was no better than her. And the entire strategy changed from that point. No more silent but deadly Cato, no. Now it was Cato, big brother. Or Cato, sort-of-friend. She doesn't trust me, she never did. She doesn't trust anybody, and neither do I. But I think she could. I think she could want to trust me. Maybe in another time, in another place where both of us might live we could have been friends instead of allies. We'd never be like District Twelve and Lover Boy because they're moronic weaklings. But we could be strong and we could be together. We could be like the Victors. Some of them get together in the gym to throw things or scratch things or cut things or hack things and relive the Games and the memories and remember each other. That could have been me and Clove. But I had to go and volunteer.
I don't regret it, though. Not at all. At least here I know that as long as I'm nearby that ox from Eleven won't sneak in and murder her while she's asleep, even if that is my ultimate plan. At least while I'm here she won't be face-to-snotty-face with District Twelve and slip and get hit with one of those stupid arrows she got off Glimmer. I guess I gave up a risk by taking a risk. A lose-lose situation. A catch-twenty-two.
"Earth to the madman! Do you need to lie down again?"
I've neglected to turn the squirrel yet again. But my hand's still on the sword hilt, I realize. I snap it back and cross my arms. Clove's voice is high and her eyes follow my hand in such a manner that I'm almost guilty. Almost, but not quite. I'm me, I don't feel guilt. I can see her breathing and I can see her nostrils flaring with every quick inhale. She's just as worried as I was earlier with the cup.
"No." I turn the spit once more. The thing's almost done, I think, but cooking is not something I exactly excel at. Clove is sitting cross-legged across from me, hands in her lap. At least, they appear to be. Actually, and you'd only be able to tell if you knew Clove, her fingertips are resting on the handle of a knife hidden in her jacket. One wrong move with my sword and my hand will be pinned into the ground. That's Clove for you. Funny, it seemed so long ago that we were riding up on those silver plates into the arena. Clove was scared but she wouldn't tell you so if you asked her. Actually, if you asked her, she'd probably punch you in the side or slam her heel into your toe. I'd know. I asked her. But she wasn't like that before. She seemed to accept for a short time that she wasn't this indestructible little whirlwind of power. She seemed to think she was just a little girl being forced in to a slaughtering party. She was almost reluctant. And then it was morning and she came roaring back to life, green eyes flashing angrily, trying to sneak knives all around, hacking gouges into the tables in our apartment, slashing up a lampshade "because of nerves," she explained to me with a sly grin that said she was destroying for the sake of destroying, getting herself in the mood to kill.
"That's good. Take it off." Clove hands me a plate she's gotten out but when I just stare at it with no real desire to personally serve her she snatches the squirrel-stick from my hands and gives herself a more generous portion than she gives me. "I was out hunting all day," she rationalizes, giving me my unfair share. "You were destroying our campsite and sleeping. You're absolutely useless. I don't know why I've put up with you this long."
She says it lightly but the pitch tilts up toward the end. I pretend not to notice for her sake, though. She has this crazy idea she's going to kill me. As if a little girl like her could stand a chance against me. I guess it's the same way I think, really. Someone you've known and grown… attached, for lack of a better word, to suddenly has to die so that you can live. But there's no way she can kill me. There's just no way it's possible. I almost wish I could give her a chance but how can a fifteen-year-old girl hope to even make a dent in me? I'll be sorry to take her life but if I want to go home, that's the way it goes. I almost say something but I decide that it's insensitive and close my mouth again. Clove's eating with her knife again. She does that when she's nervous. She'd never admit it but when she's on edge she spears her food with her knife, rather than use the few utensils we found. She'll say something about it being more comfortable for a killer. When you've known someone nearly ten years you can tell things like that about them.
As I don't have anything to say that won't warrant my immediate death we eat in silence. Clove's eyes are flitting about too much, I think. She's watching me, watching my hands, watching my weapons, watching my feet. If I so much as twitch she'll probably tackle me and have a knife pressed against my throat she's so uneasy. In fact, I tap my toe inside my boot once and she stiffens all over and the hand that isn't eating moves closer to a knife and the grip on the one she's eating with tightens so her knuckles are white. She's afraid of me. I can accept that. My little Clove is afraid of me. It's sad, though, really. I can kill her in a hundred different ways and she couldn't manage a single strategy to get me down. I don't really think it was tracker jacker venom that made me lose it the other night. I don't think it was that at all. I think I really did snap. I think there's something wrong up there in my head. Can't have that. A weakened mind is a weakened body. If her blade got anywhere near me I think at this point it's safe to say I'd kill her without thinking. It's been a steady decline through my years of training, the grip I have on myself. I occasionally felt like I wasn't doing it all for me anymore, like I was training for the Capitol. That's wrong, of course, but I thought it. I thought I was becoming more like a programmed mutt or something.
"You eat awfully slowly," Clove remarks. She's finished with her extra-large portion. She hurls her plate like a disc at a crate we found such things in and I hear it clatter in with the rest. I'm nearly done and finish quickly.
"You can't throw straight," I decide smugly and do the same with my dish, rocking the box from its firm hold on the ground.
"Me?" she scoffs, standing, so I stand, too. "I can't throw straight?"
"That's what I said."
"Watch and learn," she snaps, as she has for nine years. She opens her jacket and fills her hands with her collection she's gathered of knives. But they aren't in her hands for long. She steadily aims and every knife flies, landing perfectly in the trees around the circumference of our clearing. They quiver and stand still as she pivots, putting me behind her so that I don't end up with three knives in me for her little display. But she misses one. I'm not sure if she slips or aims wrong but the last knife goes hurtling into the darkening woods. I'm about to laugh when I see her face turn a shade paler in the firelight. She should be able to do it perfectly. I've never known Clove to miss a shot.
"You distracted me," she blames almost shakily and she pulls out of her pocket the nightvision glasses. "It's your fault."
"If you say so," I shrug. I have no problem accepting responsibility for her sudden lapse of talent. I'm an intimidating person. It's just that she's been doing nearly the same thing for years now with me around with very different results. Clove disappears into the creeping shadows of the forest and for a moment I'm worried for her. There are people out there, people who want her dead, people who want to kill her. People who want her blood running like water. But she's back again with a knife before I can think much further and she walks the perimeter, jerking each knife out of the tree and muttering about how they're going to be dulled if she has to keep teaching me a lesson every five minutes. I don't remind her that they're Capitol blades and won't go dull for at least two years.
She sits down across the fire from me again and stares. It's a little disconcerting, actually. Green eyes glowing almost fearfully at me through the flames and smoke. This fire is a dead giveaway to our campsite now but I realize that someone already knows where we are, after blowing up all of our food, they just don't dare to touch us. There are advantages to being the biggest and the strongest. Or the Clove-est. She isn't the biggest or the strongest or the fastest or the cleverest. She's Clove and she's fierce and she's brutal and she's determined and that about makes up for it, along with her formidable knife skills. She hasn't missed a tribute yet. She made the first kill in the arena, starting up the bloodbath on her terms. She's only played these Games on her terms. Maybe she isn't so much a Capitol mutt as I am. That's what I like about Clove. That's why I let her hang around. She's very real and doesn't play mind games like everyone else does. She tells you how it is, unless it would be some form of weakness, which is pretty much every emotion there's a definition for, but I don't mind either way. Clove is Clove.
"Who will take the first watch?" she asks me and I realize that the sun is entirely gone and we are surrounded by black foggy shadows and the chilly night air is seeping in around us.
"You," I suggest because after a day of nothing but destroying a campsite and eating half a squirrel I am both hungry and tired and would like to take a nap. Clove shrugs and puts the last knife into her pocket. It has been decided, then, and without much debate at all.
It's later, maybe half an hour of silence later that the anthem plays. In that half hour, I've given up on all hopes of conversation with Clove. She seems set on the fact that tonight is her last night alive and she refuses to show weakness for the cameras. She sits ramrod straight and tries to keep her breathing even. I want nothing to do with her dying at this point so I kick my boots in one direction, grumble something at her, pull the sleeping bag over my head to block out the fire's light, and I'm pretty sure I fall asleep.
I wake up at the anthem, though. It's an ingrained reaction. Anthem plays, stop moving, stop talking, stop training. And so I involuntarily wake up. I pull the sleeping bag down. In the dim artificial light of the seal on the sky I see Clove doesn't appear to have moved an inch and is still staring at me unblinkingly. But my boots are standing upright and next to each other at the foot of my sleeping bag.
"It's Marvel, all right," Clove sighs, and I realize she's looked up at the sky. She knows I can't kill her with the anthem playing, that would violate training and respectful procedures learned. I glance up at the exposed portion of the sky and yes, that's Marvel. He glares down at us one more time and then he's gone, replaced by the tiny girl from Eleven. Lover Boy's still hanging on, then. And that leaves the boy from Eleven, the two from Twelve, and the girl from Five. And me and Clove. That means that the Career Alliance now is only District Two. Two left and I suppose I'll count the Eleven as a contender. I'm feeling generous. And it's just me and Clove here now.
I'm about to go back to sleep for a few hours when something different happens. There is a sudden burst of trumpets that rockets my head out again and startles Clove to sit up even taller and I see the knife blade slip farther out of her jacket as if the sound poses some threat. Claudius Templesmith starts talking and I'm surprised at first. Perhaps it's a feast, which really doesn't mean anything like a gathering of people to eat food. It's more like a miniature bloodbath to liven things up and it too is voluntary. We're supposed to be prepared for sudden invitations to a feast, supposed to be able to come up with a strategy on the fly. So what have you got for us, Gamemakers?
"Congratulations to the six remaining tributes of this year's Seventy-Fourth Hunger Games! I am happy to announce that there has been a change to the rules. Effective immediately, two district teammates who succeed in defeating all other opponents will both be declared winners of the Hunger Games. Best wishes and good luck."
There's a moment of silence. I think both Clove and I are holding our breath. Then, as if he doesn't think we've let it sink in or didn't get it the first time, Templesmith repeats the entire thing, word-for-word one more time.
Same district. Me and Clove. Defeat everyone else. Me and Clove. Winners of the Hunger Games. Me and Clove. That takes a little time for me to fully make sense of. We can both go home. We can both get a crown. We can both get a Victor's house. We can both live. I don't have to kill Clove. I don't have to kill the only person in this world I don't want to kill. I look over at her and she's looking at me and I figure she's thinking the same thing. We're going to live. We're both going to live.
Her eyes crinkle at the edges and her mouth pulls itself up into a smirk. I'm pretty sure I look the same. Her knives, my sword. Her tactics, my strength. Together, the two of us are an unstoppable force of killing power. The others have absolutely no chance. District Two is about to fight. And we will fight together.
A/N I know, I know, I cut out an entire day. I really am dreadfully sorry. I don't like deviating from canon as much as you probably don't like reading the deviations but even Katniss didn't do much that day. This is also quite a bit shorter than the first story of this little series-thing, Indestructible, which you might like to read for a teensy bit of background to this and if you like things from Clove's perspective.
This story is dedicated to and written for the Clovely kstylegirl. I hadn't planned on continuing any indepth character explorations of Cato and Clove but I've managed to find someone else who agrees with me on how awesome they are (though that might be influenced by the fact that we appear to be clone-mutts from aliens, but that's another story). So here's your continuation, there ought to be more and you know what comes next. It's a BYOB story. Bring your own bucket.