Chapter Three: Crazy Clove
Clove
A hospital. I felt my head. There was a bumpy bandage wrapped around it. I winced. I had a horrible headache. I bit my lip hard, and, once again, blood entered my mouth. Ugh. More blood.
The woman who had helped me before came over to my bed and told me what happened.
I had a concussion, obviously, and a dented skull. I was pretty much dead when the hovercraft picked me up, but my heart was just barely beating. Apparently it had stopped beating for a split second, which caused my cannon to fire. They'd done immediate surgery when I got here.
"Clove?" a shaky voice said next to me. I gasped.
Lying in the bed next to mine was a creature, so horribly ugly that I could barely look at it.
"Cato?" I cried in disbelief.
Cato's legs were chewed to little stumps, probably making him the size of a second grader. He was wearing chunky headgear like a crown, and his head jutted forward, making him look like a turtle. I also noticed he had a hunchback. What had happened to my beautiful, intimidating boyfriend?
Oh, yeah. Me and Cato used to be a couple. We were always trying to compete with each other. Then, at the reaping, Cato started the ultimate competition by volunteering for the Games. So I volunteered too, thinking what the hell, he'd probably die anyway.
"Clove! I misthed you tho much!" Cato said with a lisp.
"Uh, ya, me too, Cato," I said, rolling my eyes.
He beckoned for me to come closer. I gave him a quick kiss. He smelled weird, like rotting cheese.
We talked for a while. Each explain how we got there.
"May I?" I asked, pointing to the IV that shot morphling up his arm. He nodded. I jammed the needle into one of my veins. A sound of pleasure escaped my mouth. It had been so long…
During my training, I had met a mentor from District 7 named Johanna. She wasn't much older than me, and she had had a secret stash of morphling.
Each day Johanna and I found an empty room and overdoes on that wonderful stuff. It was awesome. Well, until some bastard Avoxes discovered us and confiscated the morphling. When I arrived here, the doctors had been very careful not to give me any for the pain. I HATE these stupid doctors!
I heard footsteps. I ripped the needle out of my arm and jumped back in bed.
A doctor walked in. Whoa! Hot stuff there!
Dr. Hottie looked at me, saw the disconnected tubes around me and snapped, "Don't leave your bed!"
I fluttered my eyelashes. "Of courrrse…" I purred.
Dr. Hottie rolled his eyes. "Don't even think about it," he said. "I'm engaged already." He held out his left hand, where a gold engagement ring glittered on his fourth finger. I wondered who was lucky enough to have snagged this Australian beauty. Probably some gorgeous Capitol girl. Lucky bitch.
"So who's still alive in the Games?" I asked.
"The games are over." Cato said.
"Over? Well then, who was the victor?" God, these people were not telling me ANYTHING!
Dr. Hottie's mouth set itself into a straight line. "There were two victors," he said in a strained voice.
"What the hell?" I cried. "TWO fricken victors? How is that even possible?"
"They broke the rules." The doctor spat out. "Thought they could get away with that, acting like stupid star-crossed lovers!"
"Wait. One. Minute. Are you saying that those butthole bastards from District 12 won The Games?" I yelled. "How the hell did that happen?"
Dr. Hottie grimaced. "Like I said, they broke the rules. If you ask me, their whole love strategy was so obvious from the start. Faker than District 13 being extinct."
At this, Cato and I gasped. "What…about Disthwict Thirteen?" Cato lisped.
The doctor's face turned bright red. "Uhh…I mean, I was uhhh..talking about all the refugees from Thirteen living in the other districts. So, uhh..it's not technically extinct." He stammered. He checked the monitors hooked up to us one more time and hurriedly left the room.
I turned to Cato. "Dr. Hottie has left the building!"
Cato laughed. "Isth's good to have you back, Clove!"
Suddenly Dr. Hottie poked his head through the doorway. "Oh, Clove," he said smirking. "It seems as though you got my name wrong. It's Dr. Samuel, NOT Dr. Hottie."
My cheeks burned. "Uh, yeah, I knew that, duh!" I stuttered as he left the room.
Cato, being his annoying competitive self, snickered. "Well, now we know the persthon who holdsth the record for being embarasthed the mosth!"
I just noticed how annoying that lisp was. "God, Cato, just stop TALKING!" I shouted, throwing a magazine at his head.
"Clove, what the hell-" he tried to say, but the drugs pulled him under. Idiot. A thin white line of drool started trickling down his chin. Gah-ross! Once I made sure he was out cold, I checked the door, then punched the glass door of a abinet, and plled out something you would use to scalp someone with. Perfect.
I walked over to Cato's bed. The trickle of saliva had now turned to a steady stream from the corner of his mouth all the way down to his neck. Instead of snoring, he was making a sound that was a cross between a snort, a gurgle, and a fart. Speaking of farts, a farting noise escaped Cato's butt and the smell of rotting cheese grew stronger. I heard a hissing sound, and…EW. A big wet spot was pooling around Cato's butt area. I gagged. There was no way I was going to let THIS disaster live!
As I raised my weapon to stab him, ANOTHER farting sound came out from Cato's nose and he sat up, startled. His eyes widened when he saw the tool in my hand.
"DR. STHAMUEL!" he screamed.
Dr. Samuel rushed in. He ran to me and snatched the tool out of my hands.
Two big muscular guys came in next and grabbed me by the shoulders and dragged me down the hall to a door marked: MENTALLY DISORIENTED. They shoved me through the doorway and closed the door.
I was in another huge white room with five small cots lined up against each wall, and a small steel toilet in the middle of the room. Five other people stared at me. One wrinkled old man was squatting in a corner of the room, with a constipated look on his face. His face melted into a look of pleasure as a watery explosion of brown cascaded from his behind onto the floor. He looked around the room, smiling and pointing happily at what he'd just done. I looked away in disgust I tried to open the door. As I expected, it was locked.
"SHIT!" I screamed, kicking it hard.
