Last Light
My Clove.
Mine.
She's dying. She's dead.
I know, but I don't want to believe it. I won't.
I cradle her crushed head in my lap, spear in one hand, her hair in my other.
"Clove...Clove, come on. Wake up, wake up. Please. Clove!" I whimper, refusing to let tears fall at first, but now they do once the truth that she's dead hits me hard. The moment I saw her on the ground, well, my heart stopped, but now it's disintegrating, slowly burning away from a fire I know can't be stopped. It spreads, and it fuels the small embers that made a home in my lungs, heart, brain, everything, until there's an insurmountable forest fire raging inside of me, destroying everything in its path.
That path of destruction only intensifies when Clove's cannon fires, and the wind of an approaching hovercraft freezes the back of my neck and exposed hands.
"No! No! No, you're not taking her away from me!" I shout into empty air, still holding Clove close and tight to me, sobbing harder. They can't do this, they can't just...just steal her away.
I love her.
The hovercraft drifts closer, probably waiting for me to leave so they can collect her body. I won't let them; I'll stay here until the Gamemakers kill me on the spot if I have to. All my thoughts seem to swarm together as I recall the last moment I saw Clove really believe we had a chance, racing, the desire to win set deep in her eyes without any chance of being removed.
We both lazily look up as an announcement starts, both searching for the source of the voice in hope it'll give us some relief, some reassurance that this nightmare can end, that there is still a world outside of the Games. Deafeningly, Claudius Templesmith's loud and resonant voice soon overtakes the entire arena.
"Attention tributes, attention. The regulations requiring a single victor have been suspended. From now on, two victors may be crowned if both originate from the same district. This will be the only announcement."
I've never seen a brighter look dominate Clove's features.
Hope. So much hope.
She turns to me from her crouch by the lake. "Cato," she whispers, "Cato, we can do it. This is our chance, this is—this is what we've been waiting for. We can go home." And then she begins laughing, a little manically, sorting through all her knives to find the perfect one for the remaining four tributes. I'm happy with hysteria myself. Clove and I, me and Clove, we can go home. We're the strongest, we're a team.
We can make it.
We gather up the supplies we have left after someone—I'd assume it was Katniss, we found the arrow buried deep within the remains—blew up our stash, leaving us with what we only carried with us at the time, which was not much. Weapons and a small supply of food.
We need food, the only thing Clove's been able to hunt are small reptiles that prove to be inedible anyway.
"Cato?" Clove inquires as we noisily march around the forest, switching roles of leading every so often.
"What?" I ask looking back at her. It was very seldom that we actually communicated during the Games besides asking where we should camp or who to kill.
"When did you know?" Clove's taken it upon herself to deem it practicing time, and effortlessly heaves a knife into a nearby tree, wedging it perfectly in the splintered wood.
"Know what?" As Clove reached out to retrieve her knife, I threw my spear only inches above her head, locking it firmly in the tree as well. She let out a little gasp of wonder, not fear, Clove never showed fear, but amusement was evident in her eyes. Violence always amused her, the sick little vixen.
I sauntered up behind her, towering over her small frame. She's always been a little thing, petite but strong. She looked up curiously as I reached over her, momentarily encapsulating her against the tree between my arms. I smile down at her reassuringly, knowing what she was thinking.
I allow my hand to linger across her arm as I pull my spear from the tree, resting my fingers on her shoulders, the best I can offer at comfort. For a moment, I consider leaning in and kissing her, but push that thought away once I realize how many cameras are watching. Besides, Peeta's supposed to be the Lover Boy, not me.
"You know," she said teasingly, "that you wanted to compete?"
All caresses and playful tactics ceased, and I gripped the spear with more force than was necessary, which was exactly the effect Clove was going for. She smiled sinisterly. It was well known that District Two were the closest to the Capitol, and therefore bred more victors. We were trained for it, desired it. While the other districts cowered in the corners of their homes, awaiting the day of the Reaping, those in Two obtained an insatiable need for it.
But we never stopped to really look at what we wanted. We were children, all of us, and every year we just wanted to go home like the rest. The Games, and our advantage in them, have dictated what we believed to be inhuman, now makes it what we think we desire most.
"When I was twelve, I suppose." I answer finally, looking anywhere but Clove's demanding eyes. "That was when I knew I was really ready. When my name first went in and I thought...I thought that's all it took. A name, and I could do it. I could kill them all." I reminisce harshly.
And then Clove looks at me with such elation and sacrilege, I almost don't know which one is worse.
"I was eight when I knew," she huffed proudly, chipping away at the tree. "I've always had a...passion for destroying things, and at home that was never approved of." She laughed, mocking her life and yet, disregarding it as well. "And I thought, hey, I can do this. I want to do this. I wanna be someplace where killing is accepted, encouraged, admired..." The smile drops from her lips, the same way it did after we made camp the night of tracking The Girl on Fire. "I never got that at home."
Monotone. Dead. Remembering something she wishes she never saw.
"I was blamed for everything at home...just because I was the one with the talent, I was the one who could defend herself. My sister never could, and looked what happened to her in the Games!"
I'm amazed, if not sagely disturbed at everything Clove can feel at once, at how quickly her memories can distort her and blur her until there's nothing but a sadistic virago. I've learned more about Clove in the Games than I ever have being in school with her, talking with her, training with her. In an instant, she's been arrogant, repulsed, exuberant and dead.
All in an instant.
The Games do that.
I remember Clove's sister. Rose. She was thirteen with she got reaped into the 66th Hunger Games. Pretty girl, didn't last very long. She had no muscle, a cheerleader-type girl I suppose. Had her arms ripped off, bled to death. Clove was seven at the time.
Clove turned to the sky suddenly, addressing no one but the world outside our cage, and starts screaming.
"You hear that mom? Huh? Rose never made it this far! YOU THOUGHT I COULDN'T DO IT. YOU ALWAYS THOUGHT I WAS THE WEIRD ONE. WELLLOOKATMENOW!" I don't know if she's on the verge of tears or laughing. She has her knife poised to throw at nothing but what's above, and she's dancing around in a fidgety manner, shrieking and garbling out words faster than a rapid heartbeat, just needing to get her moment of recognition.
"Look...at...me...now." She growled slowly and quietly, the way a murderer would whisper to their victim before killing them. Clove knew all the cameras were on her, on this fiery, burning girl of fifteen, aching to let the world know what she could do.
I knew then that I was truly in love with her.
But I've loved her before then, too. Since, what, since I was nine? Ten? I was always a...persistent child, insisting we go do this, or imploring we go do that. It was never quiet at my house when I was around. The first time I met her, a tough little sixth grader in school who managed to grow breasts at the age of ten, I thought she was annoying as hell, but I had forced my father to put me in her class nonetheless. Then over the years, I saw her—the real Clove. The Clove that took up knife-throwing because her sister assiduously cut her finger with a knife when they were little. The Clove that would find a way to get anything she wanted, including the last piece of cake at her cousin's wedding, whose daughter also died in the Games. The same Games as Rose. I got to see Clove at her best and worst, both at ten years old when the worst time for her was leaving the clothing store, and at fourteen years old when the worst time was when she got jumped by some older guys for being weird, as she put it.
The hovercraft comes closer, and soon a robotic voice broadcasts its displeasure at my staying. But I will not leave. I will not leave the girl who had come so close to winning with me.
"Attention tributes, attention. Commencing at sunrise, there will be a feast tomorrow at the Cornucopia. This will be no ordinary occasion. Each of you need something desperately, and we plan to be generous hosts."
Clove is a deer caught in headlights, only instead of the imminent panic that she's going to be run over, she gracefully frolics over the car kills the driver in the process.
"Armor." She whispers ardently.
I shake my head. "No, weapons."
She grunts in exasperation and hits my arm. "No, Cato! Armor! Protection! There's six of us left, we've been wandering for a few days now, Katniss is probably nursing Peeta, that redheaded girl just teeters her way around, and Thresh is—no offence—a damn steamroller ready to kill anyone in his path; the numbers are dwindling down, Cato, the Gamemakers are going to draw us all together sooner or later, and this is it." Her eyes are filled with light, with—dammit there's this word again—hope.
"I'm stronger than Thresh. I'm stronger than any of them." I say, even though even I can hear the uncertainty in my tone.
Clove just shakes her head like she's talking to a stubborn child that won't leave the grocery store, like looking at herself at ten years old, and seeing this, I'm struck with the odd notion of what Clove would be like as a mother. The thought makes me shiver.
"I wanna kill the girl. Katniss."
"What? Clove, we're not—"
"Dammit Cato! We're going, I'm going, you're gonna watch my back, and when Miss Fire-Dress arrives, I'm killing her, got it?"
"Clove, I can't let you—"
"Yes you can."
"Quit interrupting me!"
"No! We can kill the singles easily, it's District Twelve that's—"
Then I kissed her.
I allowed a moment of vulnerability, of impatience, weakness. I let them see the side of me that wasn't supposed to exist, the side that Peeta was supposed to be playing. The hopeless boy in love.
Well fuck that. I loved Clove.
When I pulled away, agonizingly carefully, afraid I'd hurt her, Clove just stared at me and for the first time, an emotion I had never seen crossed her face.
Shock.
She whispered my name, but our moment was over. We will be killed if anymore stolen kisses passed. "You can have her," I whispered, running my thumbs over her cheeks, "if you give them a show."
She nodded, the way a seductive sadist nods, "Yes. I will."
"I don't think it'll be a problem. Not after your previous outburst." I laugh, pulling away from her. She laughs with me. A normal laugh. A girl's laugh.
I feel my tears dry as I am warned one last time to step away from the body. That was the last time I had heard her laugh normally, like she wasn't a tribute fighting for her life, knowing since she was eight years old that she would be fighting today.
Fine.
If I can't have her, I can avenge her.
I press a kiss to her forehead, leaning down to her ear and whispering, "I'll kill them, Clove. I'll kill for her, I'll win. I promise." And after a minute, "I love you, Clove." And as if my words held some magic to them, I watch as the last light drain from her features, like she was alive that whole time, waiting for my promise. Now that it was made, she could die peacefully.
But she would never be peaceful. Not at home, not now.
I look one last time at her, trying to memorize her, yet trying to forget her, too, in her dead state.
My Clove.
I move out of the way finally, and the hovercraft urgently clamps around her body and pulls her up. In some inane last-second decision, something that'll probably get me killed later by the Gamemakers, by my own district, maybe even by Clove's ghost as they all watch me make the oldest and probably most frowned upon gesture in Panem.
I softly kiss my three middle fingers, and hold them up to the sky where the hovercraft vanishes. I know the cameras are on me as I make District Twelve's gesture. My own district has one similar, where we hold our index finger over our heart and raise it with another hand in ours as a sign of respect, but that gesture is so long forgotten, so asinine; this gesture I know is a symbol of much more coming from such a poor district. Love, admiration, promises. It was much more fitting for Clove.
Even now, I can feel her breathing down my neck, hating me, for making such an obscene signal at her death, but I also think, deep down, she appreciates it, knows that even though it's a disapproved act, it's a powerful one.
And my love for Clove was nothing but powerful.
And I was the boy who stayed.
I was in love with the girl who never missed.
