Disclaimer: I own nothing.
Note: this is based on the film. And I know in the books the Careers make it back to the lake before collapsing from the stingers, but, for the sake of this story, I changed a few things. Hope it's okay. On other note, this is kind of a sequel for my other story, A Certain Kind of Sadness. You don't need to have read it to understand, though.
A Smoke and Mirrors Game
The hallucinations are already affecting me while I trod down the path, following the sound of the shouts more than trusting my sight. I can still hear it resonating in my ears, the cannon, her screams, the trackers' buzz as they hunted us down, when we were the preys and she got caught.
When I finally pass the last trees and come face to face with Peeta and Katniss, my vision has been almost completely obscured by the black spots in my eyes. It doesn't stop me from swaging my sword in their general direction, and I think I hear someone running away, but my sword found something and it's human flesh and I don't really care who got away, because whoever stayed is going to pay, and they're going to pay hard.
But then something hits me and I stumble back, my back finding some tree to lay against, and whoever I harmed is running away too, tripping through the ground. I try to follow, but my vision is confused and I turn around, trying to find something to guide me, but then I trip over something that feels sickly like a body and fall to the ground, rolling down some hill there just had to be there. I blackout before I stop moving.
When I wake up, as far as I can sense, the only part of me still hurting from the trackers' stingers is the flesh under my right eye, so I get up as fast as I can, because I can't afford to lay down and wait to heal. Clove and Marvel are here, though, and they've made a fire.
"Glimmer's dead," Clove tells me as soon as she realizes I'm up, and I just nod, because I can't afford to do anything else. Marvel looks at me for a second, and something tells me that maybe he understand, because they''d known each other their entire lives, just like Clove and I have known each other since we began attending the training center, but there's no place for heartbroken conversations here. I have a death to revenge.
"What about 12?" I ask, walking closer to the fire.
"Both alive, but Lover Boy was pretty hurt from what I gathered. He passed by the river, but I was still hallucination. Couldn't do anything."
I nod, because it was my fault he wasn't dead already. If only the hallucinations had waited a bit more before starting, at least I would have made sure the stroke had been fatal. My only regret is that he was the one hit. I'd still make her pay, though. She isn't getting away with this.
"We should go back to the Cornucopia," Marvel says after a few moments, staring intensely to the fire. Clove nods and start packing the few things they've brought from our last camp by the tree, and I start helping her although I can tell my hands are shaking a little.
"You okay, Cato?" Clove asks me when she realizes I'm struggling to close a zipper. I shake my head, dropping the bag, and put my hands behind my neck, touching the small hairs in the base of it, remembering Glimmer doing this once, just for one second, the slightest of touches.
"Let's go," I say, closing the zipper with one pull and putting the bag on my back. Clove's still looking at me, but she and Marvel don't ask any more questions and start walking in the direction of the lake. I go last, sword in hand, scraping the trees we pass with it, imagining Katniss' neck behind the blade and the blood covering it.
She has to die.
Suddenly, up front, Clove stops walking and raises a finger to her lips, indicating her right with one of the knifes on her hands. I look at the direction, straightening my ears, and hear it too: steps, not that careful, not worried. Whoever it is, probably saw what happened back there and thinks we still are collapsed.
"I got it," I say, because I need it, and Clove just nods and she and Marvel keep going down the path to the lake while I stay behind, walking carefully in the direction the steps are coming from. It won't be quickly, I can already feel it. I close my hands tightly in the sword, like it's just an extension of my body, and I walk.
I see him long before he sees me. It's a boy, although I can't remember which district he's from, and his shoulders are light, as if he's happy he can walk around for a while without having to worry about us coming after him. It's this naiveness that makes the decision for me. He needs to learn he can't trust life that easy. It simply doesn't work like this.
I follow him silently until we're in some kind of clearing where it will be easier to move. Then I say, "Hello."
He freezes immediately, hand-emptied, with just a small bag on his left shoulder. If I were looking for a quick kill before joining Clove and Marvel by the lake, I would've just attacked him from behind. It would be lazily easy.
But I don't want a quick kill. I can't find Katniss, but I can find him, and someone has to pay.
Bad for him.
"Won't you say hi back? Don't they teach you good manners in that hellhole you came from?" I add, taking one step closer. The boy still hasn't moved, but his hands close in fists, and I can't be sure if it's because he's angry at his own stupidity or because he doesn't want me to see them shaking.
"What, did you lost your tongue already? This would be fortunate. If you ever had a shot at winning this thing, which you clearly don't, maybe you could get a job as an Avox in the Capitol. Wouldn't that be dreamy?"
The boy finally turns and—okay, now he actually has a weapon. It's a small sword, clean of any dirty like it's never been used and he jumps on me like an afraid kitten. I avoid the blow easily and strike him in the shoulder with the clean side of my sword. The boy stumbles forward, holding his injured shoulder with the free hand, and tries to reach me again. I strike him right above the hipbone this time, deep enough to make it extremely painful, but nor nearly high enough that he can actually die because of it. The boy falls down, letting go of his shoulder to hold the new bruise, and I just stand back, watching.
The boy looks up to me, fire in his eyes, and I have to give it to him: he's not a totally loser. He's actually trying to fight me. He could just beg. It's a nice change.
"Kill me already, you asshole," he says with a bitter voice, trying to force a grim from his face while pressing the bruise. I can see all the blood covering his shirt and hand, and, even though I know there wasn't any blood involved on her death, I can see Glimmer's lifeless body covered on her own blood, intense and fierce just like her.
"Don't feel like it," I say simply.
"Why? Because you can't kill her? It was her, wasn't she? The girl from twelve? The girl on fire? She killed your girlfriend? Poor thing. You realize you were never getting out of here with her, right? Only one comes out. And hopefully it won't be you."
This time, I hit him in the injured shoulder. He yells in pain, bending over his body and resting his head on the ground, moaning and groaning. There a lot more blood now, yet not enough for him to die, but he'll pass out soon if it keeps going like this. I straight my ears to check if there's anyone around, and then knell down.
"You don't talk about her, okay? You. Don't. Talk. About. Her." I raise and kick him, and he's so weak by now that he just rolls over. His face is screwed up in pain and his lips are pursed together tightly, as if he's stopping himself from screaming.
And then he opens his eyes, and I know he's going to say something he's going to regret badly, and I know he knows that too, but he says it anyway: "You're all fools, thinking this is some kind of honor. We're all just pieces in their games. Useless. Dispensable. I am, you are." His eyes bore deep into mine. "She was."
I lower the sword. His now dead eyes are still looking at my direction while the blood leaves his neck. The cannon shots, and I remember again her cannon, and I hit the lifeless body of this insane boy one more time before grabbing all his stuff and walking away.
When I arrive at the lake, Clove comes to me immediately. "What the hell took you so long?" she asks, raising a eyebrow.
"He didn't want to die," I simply say.
She looks at me for one more second before shrugging. "Well, I got us a little pet." She gesticulates behind her.
Only them I notice Marvel isn't sitting alone by the camp. The dark-haired boy from 3 is sitting with him, looking scared and small and totally submissive.
"He's doing us a little favor," Clove says, indicating the deactivated mines near the Cornucopia. I look at it, then at the boy again, and then back to Clove, and then I'm seeing Katniss, tossing around on the floor, bleeding, while I hit her over and over again with my sword, and I can almost hear Glimmer's excited laugh behind me, as if this is the best show on the planet.
I smile at Clove.
"Excellent."
I promised I wouldn't write about them anymore, so this is just another proof that I suck at not doing things I promised I wouldn't do. Well, it was fun as well. And because it's tradition—after two times, yeah—the title's also from Goyte, Smoke and Mirrors this time, obviously.