The Missed Shot

Cato stands before me, almost at the lip of the horn, holding Peeta in some kind of headlock, cutting off his air. Peeta's clawing at Cato's arm, but weakly, as if confused over whether its more important to breathe, or try and stem the gush of blood from the gaping hole a mutt left in his calf.

I aimed one of my last two arrows at Cat's head, knowing it'll have no effect on his trunk or limbs, which I can now see are clothed in a skintight, flesh colored mesh. Some high-grade body armour from the Capitol.

Cato just laughs. 'Shoot me and he goes down with me."

He's right. If I take him out and he falls to the mutts, Peeta is sure to die with him. We've reached a stalemate.

I can't shoot Cato without killing Peeta too.

As if in a last-ditch effort, Peeta raises his fingers, dripping with blood from his leg, up to Cato's arm. Instead of trying to wrestle his way free, his forefinger veers off and makes a deliberate X on the back of Cato's hand. I realise what he wants me to do a second before Cato does. I take notch my arrow in my bow, take aim, and shoot. Time stands still, as I watch my arrow sail across the cornucopia. It misses Cato's hand by three centimeters, embedding itself into Peeta's chest.

"Peeta-" I breath out, in realisation. "No!" Cato puts Peeta down, steps over him carefully, sits down with his head in his hands and tried to grimace at me.

My aim was faulty. I failed. I had missed. Realisation hit me like a ton of bricks and my heart clenched in anguished fear. My mind was spinning and then came the realisation: I now have to pay the price of everlasting guilt. Now all I have left to remember Peeta by is the look of shock and pain in his eyes as he died at my own hands. I collapsed into a messy sprawl in an effortless and almost robotic motion some three feet from Cato, and glance at him, desire for life escaping me, and just stare expectantly, waiting, just waiting for him to kill me. I wish he would get it over with; I don't want to live any more. I'm steadily going weak from blood-loss, and there is a pool of blood around Cato. It is evident we are both badly injured. He has a chunk of his shoulder missing and his clothing is matted to him from the thick slowly drying blood from his countless wounds.

'Let death claim both of us' I prayed, 'let them have no victor.'

A searing white invaded my sleep. I opened my eyes, and and did a double take, the white blinding me and hurting my sensitive eyes. Throwing my hands up to cover my eyes, as I clench them shut, I jumped as a racket of beeping went on and I whipped my head around, eyes still clenched, trying to assess where and what the sound of the beeping was, not eager to let the bright light attack my sensitive eyes. I slowly opened them again, blinking furiously, hoping to speed up the process in which I would get used to the light.

I glanced down at my hands. There were many red marks and tubes flailing around my lap that I must have ripped out with the force of the suddenness that I moved my hands. There were machines that the tubes were connected to that the noise was actually coming from. A subtle ringing was in my head, and a headache was forming. I was dressed in a paper-thin hospital gown. I had won the hunger games. And with that registration, I collapsed back to the bed.

Grey encircled me, on all sides. The only difference, one side appeared to be a solid wall while the others were dull curtains that bore stains and small holes in the fabric from seemingly years and years of use. Shadows danced against them, depicting action and movement from other areas of the room.

A green haired nurse came bustling through the curtains, pulling them aside with a rustling of cloth swooning over me. "Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear! Sweetie, you have to keep this in!" and with that she popped the tubes back under my skin. The beeping stopped, much to my relief.

"What happened?" the words tumbled out of my mouth, my brain too groggy to realised I had actually processed it the words in the first place.

"You won the games! And you did a lovely job too, everyone knew you were a survivor! The fans adore you, I personally had betted on you from the very beginning, I always knew you'd turn the tides. And all the connections you made? That little girl? Genius! So much to learn from you, I swear, the entire world must be raving with your ingenuity. Tales of your victory will be told for generations!" She squealed. I hated the fake sweetness, the pity, but I bit my tongue and looked as contrite as I could manage.

The nurse seemed to have failed to pick up my distaste for her stories, and so she prattled on. "Of course the shared victory is simply too bad, everyone knows you're the true victor, but sadly given the situation, really, I suppose it just couldn't be helped, you know? Plus you never know, we may yet have another Finnick Odair on our hands! My sister will still go on to anyone who will listen about how Mr. Odair actually looked at her once. Can you even imagine? Personally, I think we're always understocked of public figures of that physique. Its just so refreshing to have a new face, don't you quite agree? Of course, he'll need some work, maybe some bone reconstruction to calm down that angry jaw line, maybe even a name change, because rest assured, no lady is going to want to call out 'Cato' from under the sheets. Maybe Alabaster or Vladimiro, something more exotic. Oh, I'm getting myself worked up just thinking about it! I mean, bloody hell, I actually get to say I got to touch him! Changed his pants too. And what a package he ha-" Quite tired of her insistent yammering, I cut her off with a mix of a groan and a cough, and the Nurse blushed crimson.

"Pardon me, that was unprofessional on an unbelievable scale. Oh do swear you wont tell? I couldn't bear to have my position changed, this is the opportunity of a lifetime to work with people like you." He pathetic attempt at flattery was not lost on me, but not having the energy to roll my eyes as I dearly wished I could, I settled for opening my mouth slowly before managing to scrape out a raspy "Cato?"

"He's still asleep sweetie, you can talk to him later, don't worry! Believe you me, he's in no situation to be talked to, sugar." the Nurse sheepishly replied with.

A pang of guilt washed over me and left a bitter taste on my tongue. He was alive, breathing, and probably consulting with a beaming and fawning crowd of women, while Peeta was not only dead, he was murdered, with no one but myself to blame. I closed my eyes in hope that the world would fade away and the darkness would swallow me up to deliver me away from this hell, but despite my silent pleas, no such bliss was bestowed to me.

"I'm just going to leave you here to rest, if you need anything, food will be brought to you by my colleague if you just pushed this button." said the idiotic woman, gesturing to something I couldn't see from behind my closed lids.

I slipped into an easy slumber, and was met with painfully vivid re-enactments of Peeta's death, over and over, each more gruesome than the next, in one, I had taken Cato's place, and in my hand was a knife that I repeatedly plunged in and out of the flesh adorning his vital spots. In another, I had his entrails in my hands as I gleefully shared them with Cato, and we feasted on him, his eyes somehow open and seeing, looking nothing but broken and sad. Blood had poured down through my teeth and down my chin. Tears had adorned his face and all I did was smile a bloody smile, teeth blackened with blood and entrails. In the background, Cato giggled hysterically.

"I still love you." he had whispered, "Now I'll be a part of you forever." he finished, warily eyeing his left kidney that I had gripped in my tight left fist.

"I love you too." I whispered back, only to realise I had all too real tears running down my face as I gradually fought my way back into consciousness.

"He's here any more. He's gone. Grow up, you pathetic piece of ash" Come a voice from next to me in the cot that the grey curtain to the right had once blocked off.

"Cato?" I whimpered, choking back my dismay, and grimacing at the weakness in my voice as I listened to it waver as if I were on the brink of tears coupled with bouts of uncontrollable sobbing.

"Who else. Good sleep, twelve? Sounded like you were really enjoying it. Wet dream? I bet your boyfriend was screwing you really well. From behind too I assume, given the whimpers you kept making. Oh thats right, the perfect blond git is dead isn't. Well thats cute. I'll let you get back to your wet dreams, I have my own to attend to, and a few other things, although I won't say no to some help, but I suppose I really could do better than you."

My mind swam in his words, not quite sure what to make of them. Taking my silence as a cue to go on, he continued with his belittling. "Of course, you actually are quite desirable, not because you are in any way attractive, that was what that slut Glimmer was for. No, see a twit like you is probably still a virgin, and the capitol perverts like nothing better than a victor's cherry. Apparently they're some kind of foreign fruit that is better than no other. Perhaps I should get me some of that. At the very least, depriving them of it would make it worth my while."

I ignore him as tears well in my eyes. I steal a glance at him in the darkness of the room, and I regret it. While it is dark, its still bright enough to see that he wasn't wearing any clothing, without even a blanket to cover up. He looked almost alien with all the tubes connected to him, pumping silvery fluids into his body. The capitol must have made alterations to him, because even in the darkness that swam around the room, I could make out that his skin was once again flawless, no sign of gaping wounds. I saw him smirk and I looked at the ceiling. He knew I was looking at him, and I cursed my stupidity for letting myself get caught.

Chuckling darkly, he went on. "You know what the best part is? It would fit so well. Can you begin to image? You and all your inexperienced glory at my disposal, just because of your own fuck up. This could really turn out quite well."

Every inch of me wanted to get up and strangle, punch, and scratch Cato for all he's worth, anything as long I left him in some form of agony. Thinking twice on my rashness, I allowed his words to sink in.

"Fits in. Fits into what? You conniving shit, speak plainly or don't speak at all." My voice sounding wrong in my ears, the words left my mouth, and they danced around the room playing in the folds of the curtains and bouncing off the walls.

"We're the next generation of the games. What an honour, huh, Twelve? See, they think if they stick us in a room together for years on end, we'll finally accept each other and out fate and will fall in deep and unfailing love. Peachy isn't it? I nearly hurled when I found out. And it gets more fun too, because there are terms and catches. See, apparently they're starting up a new program, and the question that remains now is 'how good can you act?'."

"You're speaking in riddles. I never took a career to know anything other than how to throw a spear, so you can imagine my surprise at the fact that you could actually make a sentence that long. You surprise me. Now speak plainly."

"Rude. I don't think I will share any details now, not with that attitude, mistress of coal dust. Not unless you say please. Go on, say it with me, I promise its not hard. 'I'm sorry, Cato, your honour, for being a blithering unsightly bitch.'"

"You can go suck one. What was that you said about terms." My voice was finding strength, and in the heat of the discussion and my flaring emotions and whiling mind, I sat up in despite of my muscle's spasms of pain in protest.

"You'll find out, my betrothal, you'll find out. Now kiss your husband to be, my sweet, be a dear."

Dear readers,

I had originally posted this story long ago, and since then I have decided to revisit it, edit, and all around correct it, smooth out sharp corners, and just do what I can do better fix the story. Before I go on, I'd like to stress that I in no way own the Hunger Games, nor the characters, original plot line or concepts, nor am I in any way affiliated with the various publishing co. designated to the Hunger Games, nor Suzanne Collins herself.

To those of you who have read this story before, I'm sorry if you're getting unnecessary new notifications, although I suppose the new material will be better, however the plot will more or less be the same. I will likely be adding bonus material as the editing process goes on.

Another note, I'll be integrating the (unfinished) sequel into this. I'm aware I was on a very long hiatus and break from writing, however I have recently found the incentive to pick my work back up and once this is done, I believe I will be pursuing other writing activities. I hope those of you who are reading better like this version, and if you are new to The Missed Shot, I hope you enjoy. As always, leave me a review letting me know how you like the edits, favorite or follow to your own will, and have an amazing day, night, or whatever occasion.

Thank you all for being amazing and reading,

Forever yours,

Kato Everdeen