Here you go! The much anticipated chapter 3! A lot of filler with the tiniest bit of citrus. Chapters can only get better from here on out! As usual, tell me what you think!
Love . Nicolette
ox Chapter 3 xo
Katniss' POV
"Good morning tributes!"
A shrill voice wakes me from my dreamless sleep. I'm absolutely positive that they've been drugging Cato and I into sleeping every night, because I almost always fall asleep moments after I watch Kerin, our nurse, mess with the control panel nearest to the door and then leave for the night. And although my days are haunted with memories of what happened in the arena, my nights are somehow always dreamless. And if it weren't for the sleep caught in the corners of my eyes each morning, I wouldn't think I had slept at all.
"I wanted to wake you up a little early to get you dressed and ready to meet your tutors, who will be helping you with the scenes for the propos and help keep you in shape for when the Hunger Games are off hiatus!" Kerin gives us a large, peppy smile that rivals Effie Trinket's and walks away from the console that controls the speaker. Thankfully she left it on so that we can hear what's going on in the room next to us, which somehow makes me feel slightly less trapped.
I wonder if her being so excited about our torture is a facade. She's been so nice the last few nights, giving me little snippets of information that I'm not sure she should be giving me. I'm down to three conclusions. The first being that she is a part of the rebellion effort and is testing to see how receptive I am to helping them in any way. The second, she's one hundred percent with the Capitol and simply trying to weasel any information that I may have known about the rebellion out of me and is feeding me lies to get me to trust her. Or the third most likely option, she's a complete idiot who will most likely be found out for feeding me what little information she does know.
After a few moments of her messing around with the control panel across the room, the same door that a few days ago held that strange robot that cleaned up my vomit, and the same door that I know holds a toilet if I press a smooth nearly invisible button against the wall, today holds a closet. Inside is a small grey and blue jumpsuit that hangs on a simple silver hanger.
"If you wouldn't mind putting the clothes you're currently wearing onto the hanger to be cleaned that would be much appreciated!" She flips the switch off this time from the outside room and we are left in silence.
For the last few days I've successfully managed to completely avoid looking over at Cato's side of the cell, but now I can hear his breathing and a bit of shuffling as he removes his clothes. I look over at the jumpsuit I'm meant to put on and swallow hard.
For some reason changing in front of Cato seems a lot harder than changing in front of my entire prep team. I take a quick glance over at him and catch a bit more of his backside than I ever intended to see, before turning quickly to take my own jumpsuit off of the hanger. If I hurry he won't have time to look over and catch me changing. There isn't much of a chance of him wanting to look over here at me, but there's still some chance that he will. I don't want to look like a complete fool by trying to hide behind the big black chair in my room, so I decide to just change as quickly as possible.
I quickly slip out of everything below the waist, happy to be out of the clothes I've been in for three days, but upset about slipping into a thin jumpsuit sans-underwear. Considering it's the only option I have, I comply. I slip into the jumpsuit up to my waist and grab the hem of my shirt to pull it over my head, but before I remove it completely I look over toward Cato to make sure he isn't looking. And to my surprise, he is. We lock eyes for a moment and he pulls the zipper of his jumpsuit up to his neck before looking away. I don't miss what looks like the tiniest of blushes dance across his features.
This makes me uncomfortable in more ways than one.
I realize I'm being absolutely ridiculous, surely Cato has done much more than look at dozens of women. I hear the rumors about the career districts, they're all hormones and have absolutely no reservations whatsoever when it comes to sex. We've been subjugated more than once to the scenes of tributes fooling around in the arena, not very often, but often enough to leave an impression on a person. And ninety percent of the time it's the careers who aren't ashamed in the slightest.
I turn away from him, my torso towards the wall, before taking a deep breath and, as quickly as I can manage, slipping my shirt off. I frantically reach down to pull the jumpsuit up to cover my breasts. I remind myself that Cato doesn't care in the slightest, but something about letting that monster see me naked and vulnerable turns my stomach the wrong way, even if my body wouldn't be a thing like the girls in the more privileged districts.
"Katniss, dear." I look toward the plastiglass to my right and see Kerin looking into my cell, attempting to talk quietly through the communication system although it's completely superfluous considering Cato stands 15 feet away and has a speaker in his cell as well. "Close your closet door for a second, we're going to send you something else." I move to do as she says, cramming the white capris and t-shirt I've been wearing for the last three days into the door before closing it. "Also, you'll both be allowed to take a shower after the training today! So that's something to look forward to!"
My eyes dart up to the vent that feeds cold seemingly-clean air into mine and Cato's cell. I wonder if we stink and the room she stands in shares a vent with hers. She walks to the control panel, after a few moments of tinkering she shouts,
"Should be ready now Katniss!"
I open the door and see that a small black hairbrush has been placed on a shallow shelf in the closet. I am reluctant to pick it up as Cato is standing near the bars that adjoin our cell, craning his neck to see what I was given that he was not. I pick it up quickly and hide it behind my back, turning to look at Cato with it concealed. His eyes narrow at me and I see the familiar killer that I have been avoiding looking at for days shining through his eyes at last. It's almost cathartic when I see this in his eyes, it helps to remind me exactly what he is, exactly what he's done. It helps me to keep the hate fresh, which is necessary when we know that we'll be in the arena together someday soon.
"What did they give you, fire girl?" He asks, his voice laced with intense indignation. For some reason sending him into another fit by not letting him know what I was given seems like a good idea. After all, there's not much we've been doing the last three days besides sleeping and asking various questions about what's going on of whoever may be in the control room on the other side of the window. Receiving few answers.
I ignore his question and move over to the black chair. I sit down and tuck the brush into the cushions where he won't see, then stand and turn the chair so that the back faces him, then sit back down and begin to attempt to pull the brush from my hair.
"What the fuck?" I hear him say behind me. "Hey!" He shouts louder when I don't respond. The high and wide back of the chair hides my ministrations from his view, I can't help the smile that stretches across my face. Pissing off Cato when he can do nothing about it is fun.
My smile fades, however, when I remember the lifeless face of the boy from District Three after Cato snapped his neck, I realize how terrifying it would be to make Cato angry when he isn't restricted to a cage.
"What the fuck!"
I'm not sure if he's shouting at me or at Kerin in the next room, but I get my answer when he begins pounding on the plastiglass with his fist. "What did you give to her?"
I smile at my immaturity. I don't care that it's petty. He deserves anything I can give him. Which isn't much in this prison.
I don't look to my right, but I can see Kerin in my peripheral vision moving towards the speaker counsel between our cells.
"You need to stop playing around now. Please hurry and brush your hair, Katniss. Your tutors are on their way." She chimes in, but I honestly feel like I detect a hint of laughter in her voice.
"WHAT DID YOU GIVE HER?" Cato shouts, apparently not grasping what she just said. I smile again at his rage. I think of the reason for my treatment of him and it sends a pang of hurt through my chest that wracks me to the core. I stop brushing out my hair and hunch over in the chair my elbows leaning against my knees.
Peeta.
His blue eyes that wanted nothing more than to love and to be loved in return. Did he really feel so strongly about me? Had he really loved me since we started school? What would we be doing if he were here now?
"It's just a hairbrush Cato. Please." Is all Kerin says in response before walking away. High heels clicking against the floor rhythmically. I hear Cato make a noise of annoyance, or perhaps it was a laugh at the fact that I needed a hairbrush, but I can almost feel him move away from the bars behind me.
Not even two seconds later we hear the door open at the far end of the other room. Two men walk in, one in a long flowing blue dress, the other in a finely fitted navy military suit. They walk up to Kerin and talk to her for a few minutes. Simply asking what we've been doing, what we've been told and how much we have yet to be briefed about. She gives them the answers, and they finally walk up to the plastiglass speak to us.
"Hello tributes!" The man in the flowing blue dress holds up his hand at us, he's leaning toward the speaker and talking far far too loud. His voice reverberates around the room and I fight the urge to cover my ears with both hands. I've been deaf in one ear once, and I have no urge to relive it. "My name is Plutarch and not only have I been chosen to take a large part in the next Hunger Games..."
He continues to prattle, but when I take in his sentence, it finally hits me. If the rebels could somehow be successful against the Capitol there wouldn't be another Hunger Games. Snow had said they are using propos of Peeta and I to make it seem like the Capitol is cruel and uncaring, and they are! They took a perfect, innocent, caring boy and inadvertently murdered him. For absolutely no reason whatsoever.
I know now that I can't in any way help with their propos.
"...Perhaps even getting your siblings in on a few propos with you! Showing your reunions since you haven't seen them in such a long time..."
This brings me back to reality, I'll probably have no other option than to comply with what they tell me to do. I wouldn't risk Prim's safety for all of Panem. Literally.
"...So today after your training we'll get you all dolled up and try to shoot something! We have a lovely scene set up on the stage in the auditorium..."
What was that? "Shoot something?" I can't help but ask.
"Err..." Plutarch looks over at the man in military garb standing next to him for help, but receives a shrug in answer.
"They're going to try and make a commercial about you and I to show to the districts. How could you not hear him, he's ridiculously loud."
I don't turn my head to look at his cold eyes, but I hear the disdain in his voice. Cato apparently hasn't realized what it could mean if we could somehow get out of participating in their propos. Or perhaps he has and doesn't care. They have everything they could ever want in District Two, because of the Capitol, why would they want the tyranny to end when they're benefiting from it?
The man in the pressed navy suit finally speaks up, "You can call me General. That is my rank, not my name, you do not need to know my name, just that I am your superior. I will be keeping you in shape for your return to the Hunger Games. We will also be working on some team-building exercises that will be recorded and possibly used in the propos as well. Today we're starting out simple, so if you would please exit your cells..." A door opens to my left, the one that usually holds the toilet, but this time it's a long tunnel leading to a white washed room that I can barely make out in the distance. I had wondered many times in the last few days how we were supposed to enter and leave these cells. Although I'm excited to leave my prison, something about walking through this pristine tunnel makes my heart beat quicken. I've never been claustrophobic before, but I don't trust these strange people, I don't trust that I won't go inside and they'll simply close up both openings, leaving me trapped in a long white tunnel with illuminated walls. Forever.
I look over and Cato has already disappeared inside his tunnel. Seeing him doing it takes a bit of my anxiety away, I take a deep breath and step inside my own.
Fear cannot control me forever.
I walk a little too quickly through the tunnel and enter the white room on the other side, it looks almost like a closet back home, except much cleaner and more organized, with more food. Tall shelves line the wall with boxes littering the floor and the shelves themselves. I see several filled to the brim with the breakfast bars they've been feeding me for the last three days, the box that holds them is titled 'weight gain bars'. I roll my eyes.
This room holds another long empty hallway. I walk to the end and stand in a very large room with tall ceilings. Grey walls and matching floors. I look over and see Cato a few feet to my left. It's the first time that he and I have been in a space together without him being chained up or on the other side of iron bars since we were in the hovercraft.
I can't help the fear that once again catches in my chest. How am I to know that he isn't going to walk over and strangle me right now? What would I do? I could do nothing.
"That fear is exactly what we're hoping to at least diminish a bit in our team building training today and every day for the foreseeable future." I turn quickly at the unexpected voice. Plutarch and General have finally arrived.
"Yes, our propos won't be very convincing if you're terrified of one another."
I hear Cato laugh once to my left.
"I am not afraid. There are no bows here."
I'm surprised at this, simply because he leaves room to imply that he would be afraid if there were a bow here. My own eyes narrow this time, he should be afraid.
xoxo
Cato's POV
She's trying not to act nervous. I can tell.
She's fidgeting when she forgets that we can see her.
Why won't she fucking stop it? How am I supposed to pay attention to what's going on with this lesson, when District Twelve scum keeps fidgeting an inch and a half from my face?
"Cato..?"
My eyes come into focus on General's face, he's obviously been speaking to me, but I can't for the life of me seem to remember what he said.
"I'm sorry sir."
"We're going to need you to pay attention. Are you capable of paying attention District Two?"
"Yes sir." I grit my teeth. I can feel the scum looking at me now, but I don't look in her direction. I hate her. I hate everything that she is and everything that she's taken from me. I hate that she's alive and breathing.
"I feel the need to insert-" Plutarch begins speaking, but is cut off when General gives him a look that speaks volumes.
"There's nothing to insert." He says coldly. Plutarch looks as if he's visibly shrinking away from General, although he doesn't move.
But to my surprise Plutarch gets brave and says his sentence anyway. "It's important that you try to seem, at the very least, amicable with one another. The propos won't have the desired effect if it seems as if you hate each other." General stares him down for a few moments, but doesn't scold him.
They must be insane if they think that's even an impossibility. If I somehow manage to not strangle her, they'll be lucky.
"What is the desired effect of the propos actually supposed to be?" Katniss says her first words that weren't, 'shoot something?' all day. What a strange pathetic girl.
"Well..." Plutarch begins, but looks to General for an answer, he gives none. "...we are trying to show that you're unified in the fact that you're proud to fight in the Hunger Games for your district!"
Katniss doesn't give a response.
I had mostly forgotten about the whispers between our nurse and Katniss from a few days ago. Katniss already knows what the effect of the propos is intended to be. They're supposed to make the rebels see that Katniss is fickle. That whatever romance her and loverboy had or didn't have, meant absolutely nothing. That she could fall in love with anyone, even me.
The thought makes me angry in more ways than one. I shouldn't be subjected to all this nonsense. I shouldn't have to play some stupid part. I was trained nearly my entire life to be a victor, not to be a fucking actor in some stupid commercials.
And where the hell do they get off? Why would being in love with me be such a huge stretch? I feel my teeth grind together, making a loud noise that I hope no one else heard but me. This weak, skinny, malnourished thing next to me would be damn lucky if I gave her the time of day! I've had my fair share of girls, they nearly fall at my feet, knowing that some day I'm likely to be a victor. I have good looks; tall, muscular build, straight white teeth, thick blond hair. I'm strong. Possibly a little unstable. But hey, that's what makes me so mysterious right?
Girls love a little mystery.
People would think there was something wrong with her if she didn't fall in love with me.
This is what I tell myself.
"Let me introduce you to today's training." General gestures to a large contraption sitting in the middle of the room. It looks like a giant hamster wheel inside of a large plastiglass cube. Several faucets hang from the ceiling above the wheel. "We call this the Water Wheel. We put you in, you run. It's as simple as that. As long as you run, the water won't pour out from the faucets from above. If you stop or don't go fast enough, water will pour from the ceiling, slowly filling the cube. You will run until we tell you to stop, if you stop before we tell you, the cube will fill with water and we'll have two less tributes. If you want to test the theory of whether or not we would allow you both to drown during your training," Here he stops speaking for a moment to shrug, "...then all you have to do is stop running and allow the cube to fill with water. But let's just say I wouldn't recommend that. If one of you stop, it will be twice as hard for the other to turn the wheel. If you run quickly enough any water that you collected inside the box will begin to slowly drain." General looks right at me with two beady black eyes, "You're familiar with this Cato?"
I nod my head, trying to block out the images of my very first partner in victory training, Haven. We use a water wheel exactly like this one during our training in District Two. During one of my first months of training, when I was only eight years old, they'd assigned me my first partner to train with. Her name was Haven, she wasn't pretty, but she was strong and fast. She'd been training for a full two years longer than me, since she was six. We were meant to grow up and enter into the Hunger Games together when we turned seventeen. One day they had us use the water wheel, and, because of me, she didn't make it out alive. I almost didn't make it out myself, apparently they found her a bit more expendable than me. They thought I had more potential, or maybe they knew my father wouldn't be very happy about his investment drowning so early in the game. Either way they finally drained the water after Haven had already turned blue.
So began my life as a victor in training.
xoxo
Katniss' POV
"You have to work together! If you don't work together you won't last very long!" I hear General shouting through the pounding in my ears and the water falling from the ceiling above.
I've just fallen flat on my back for the fifth time since we started running nearly forty minutes ago, the water has risen nearly up to our knees, making it all but impossible to turn the wheel.
"God damn it twelve! Get the fuck up!" I look up through the water dripping into my eyes from my soaked hair to see Cato, actually extending his hand to help me up from the pool of water.
I don't take it.
I try to stand on my own, but Cato refuses to stop running for even a moment. So every time that I try to stand the wheel moves beneath me and I fall back down. And while I'm on the ground, sitting in the pool of water that we've acquired, Cato runs and forces the wheel underneath me, the treads hitting my knees and elbows as I try to stand.
"Cato you have to stop moving!"
"Do you want to drown?" He shouts back, a crazed look in his eyes.
What is wrong with him?
After watching the Hunger Games for my entire life I did come to realize that the careers were usually insane, but Cato takes the cake.
With me weighing the wheel down (and stopping it with my knees whenever Cato forces a tread into them) Cato can't run fast enough. The water level is rising quickly.
"We're both going to drown if you don't let me get up!"
Finally he stops for a moment to reach down and grab me by the arm. Where his fingers bore into my skin I feel a burning sensation grow. Something about allowing this awful excuse for a person touch me in any way makes my skin wish as if it could melt away just to avoid feeling him touch me. I wonder how many people have been murdered by the same hand that yanks on my arm now. He pulls me to my feet and I've barely got my footing before he begins to run again.
But now he's moving too quickly.
I always took myself as a fast runner, but apparently I'm not a strong runner. When I step onto the treadmill and try to push it forward beneath my feet, it barely moves. Cato has no problem. Basically I have to stand and run simply to stay out of his way. But when I can't keep up with his pace, and I'm already horribly out of breath from the last 40 minutes of running, I'm likely to fall again.
"Cato we have to slow it down a little bit."
"We can't."
"We don't have to drain the water we just have to-"
He cuts me off, "Obviously you've never used one of these before, the longer you run, the more water comes in when you stop, we're almost an hour in now, if I don't keep up this pace, it will fill with water before the two hours are up."
"What makes you think it's two hours?"
"They can only set them on two hour cycles. I don't think they'd go any longer with you in here unless they wanted you dead."
I stop for a moment to take in what he said. Would they want me dead? But that thought leaves me when I realize that I just had my first actual conversation with Cato. I don't like that they're tricking me into actually talking to the maniac with 'team-building' exercises. Talking so amicably to the murderer of my friend and ally isn't exactly on my list of things to do.
But it's hard to focus on that when I'm forced to keep running.
And they know it.
xoxo
Thanks to Cato being so afraid of drowning, we manage to survive our training, barely an hour later we're standing on a large stage meant to look like the inside of some kind of crudely made hut. A bed of pine needles sits in one corner and a small synthetic fire burns in the middle. The fire doesn't actually burn and it immediately reminds me of the costumes that Cinna made for Peeta and I during the opening ceremonies of the Hunger Games.
Was that really only a few months ago?
They've forced Cato and I to shower and change, simply to put us in rough dirty outfits similar to the ones we wore in the arena and smudge dirt on our faces. And now they're trying to find the best way to make it look like Cato and I are beginning some kind of strange romance.
They want for us to look as if we're sleeping together in this hut. I don't know why it would make sense for us two tributes to be in some kind of strange hut, but they don't tell us much. They've already made us sign a waiver that says we're to be punished if we ever mention to anyone on the outside that anything we act out in these propos was not real.
xoxo
Cato's POV
"What the fuck do I get out of this? Embarrassment? Being the fucking joke of my entire district? Give me one good fucking reason I should-"
"Because I am asking for your help. To help rub out the rebellion before it has time to spread."
I stop my tirade when I realize who is speaking. I look up to see President Snow walking toward us. Two armed body guards walk a few paces behind him. A horrible stench of roses enters my nostrils and I fight the urge to cough.
"We need your help. And as silly as these scenes may seem to you, we truly believe that they will be very helpful in destroying some of the support that the rebels have managed to gain in the last couple of weeks." He extends his hand to place it on my shoulder. "All we are asking is that you film a few propos. This doesn't seem like too much for me to ask."
I try to keep the anger from showing on my face when I respond.
"I just don't understand why it has to be so... intimate."
What I want to say is, 'I don't understand why I have to touch her.'
"My dear boy." He pats my shoulder again, which seems condescending and thoroughly annoys me, "I can understand why it would be hard for you to go from trying to kill one another to touching so..." Here he pauses and looks to his body guard for support.
"Romantically?" The guard offers.
"Yes, romantically." He smiles and returns his gaze to me. For some reason ignoring Katniss in all of this. "I can understand why it would be hard for both of you to go from attempting to kill each other one week to acting so romantically the next. But luckily we have fitted your dispensers with something that may help you to calm down a bit."
"Pheromones?" Katniss speaks up for the first time since they've been attempting to force us to lay down together.
I watch as the president's eyes suddenly go dark. His eyes narrow and his gaze bores down upon Katniss.
"Yes, Pheromones." He says quietly. Then reaches up to brush a fleck of dust off of her shoulder. He stops for a moment and slouches his head down so that he is eye level with her. "You have beautiful eyes, my dear." He says in almost a whisper. This takes me aback and a flash of Katniss' very silver eyes dances across my vision.
I realize after a moment why might be so upset with her. We aren't supposed to know about the pheromones. I wonder how long it will take before that nurse we've had since the beginning of all this disappears without a trace. It turns out Katniss is a typical woman, can't keep her mouth shut to save someone's life.
I smile openly at my own joke.
Katniss doesn't respond to his compliment. Probably realizing the same thing I just did. The president waits for a heartbeat for a response. When he doesn't get one, he continues,
"I'm just wondering how you may have heard about any pheromones?" He asks point blank.
Katniss begins to shake her head slowly.
"I thought, I mean, when you said calming and-"
"You listen to me now Katniss." Snow cuts her off, sticking his index finger in her face. "Don't lie to me. Never lie to me." He reaches forward and grabs the front of her shirt.
It's this that causes something inside my chest to bubble. All at once I am furious and slightly afraid. All at once I am terrified that he's about to hurt her. Or worse, have her put to death. I'm not at all sure what makes me so afraid. Or what makes me care in the slightest, but the fear is there and very very real.
Katniss dying supposed to be exactly what I want.
I settle the conflict inside of me by deciding that I simply want to kill her myself. But it doesn't change the fact that the Presidents red face and his grip on Katniss' shirt is making me uncomfortable.
"Our nurse told her, when she thought I was sleeping." I say quickly. What do I care what happens to the nurse? Anything can happen to her.
The president slowly relinquishes his hold on Katniss' shirt and let's out a slow sigh while turning his head to look toward me.
"Bring Kerin to my office." He says quickly. At first I think he's talking to me when one of his body guards turns on his heel to walk out of the room, following his command.
Out of the corner of my eye I can see Katniss stiffen. Probably guessing what is about to happen to the nurse.
"You will both do exactly as you are told." He says quickly, pointing toward both of us. "Or you will regret it."
And with that statement he turns and walks out of the room with quick even steps.
xoxo
Katniss' POV
"Perhaps if Cato laid on his back, with Katniss on top..."
I cringe for the millionth time since they've been suggesting positions for Cato and I to try. I'm sitting on my knees a few feet from Cato staring at my hands in my lap. It's hard to pay much attention or try and play long for my sister's sake when tears still sting my eyes thinking of what is probably happening to Kerin right now because of me.
Yet another death that Cato is responsible for. I never would have told them who told me about the pheromones, even if they probably would have figured it out on their own.
"I think we should give the pheromones a try." General says, obviously impatient with our progress. He walks over to a control panel on the far wall of the room and swipes his hand against the board.
I immediately feel a small pinch in my ankle where the dispenser is attached. A warm feeling begins to flood through my body. I realize that I must have just been injected with the pheromones.
I look over at Cato, who sits on the bed of pine needles with his arm draped over one leg. I wait for my feelings to change for him, I wait to see if something will make me want to sit on his lap like they were asking me to do earlier. But I feel nothing.
"Katniss?" Plutarch asks timidly. I look toward him,
"Yes?"
"Would you mind lying next to Cato please?"
They're all looking at Cato and I like we're about to go wild. They obviously don't know what the effect of the pheromones will be either. I look at Cato, who's looking at me.
"Can we just get this over with please?" He flops back onto the pine needles sending dust fluttering all around him.
I have to admit I'm a little taken aback, a few moments ago he was completely opposed to the idea. Throwing a tantrum and shooting me dirty looks. And now, somehow, with one tiny dose of pheromones, he's suddenly willing to comply.
It makes me sick to my stomach that even someone as strong willed as Cato is so easily coerced to succumb to whatever whim the Capitol has.
"I really don't think I can do this." I say quietly.
I don't take my eyes from Cato, and he doesn't look away either. I begin to feel it then, a strange feeling that I used to relate to Peeta's arms. A sudden urge to move next to Cato, a strange urge to feel someone next to me, to feel him next to me. I wonder if he feels it too.
But I'm not stupid. I am one hundred percent sure that it's the pheromones, considering I felt uncomfortable even being in the same room as him before.
"Maybe we should try a larger dosage?" Plutarch looks toward General for an answer.
"Sure, why not?" He responds before moving to walk over toward the console.
"NO!"
"NO!"
Cato and I look to one another. It's probably the first time we've agreed on anything since meeting.
Our 'tutors' look to me.
"This really isn't that big of a deal, Katniss. They only need it for the propos." Cato says, finally tearing his gaze away from me before laying back onto the makeshift bed again and patting the space next to him. Staring up at the ceiling with his very blue eyes. "I really don't think we need a higher dosage."
It's strange hearing him attempt to console me. It's strange that he's asking me to sit next to him.
It's even stranger that I want to.
So finally I succumb to the will of the pheromones, and in doing so, also succumb to the will of the Capitol. I slowly move over to Cato's side. My mind feels warm and hazy. My body has apparently committed to memory those few times that I laid against Peeta's chest in the cave during the games, because I fall easily into place next to Cato. I feel Plutarch moving beside me, pushing my chin upward to get my head in the perfect spot on Cato's shoulder.
He's ridiculously warm. Somewhere a less foggy part of my mind wonders if he's always this warm.
Plutarch says something, but I don't quite hear him, I hear the breath beating in and out of Cato's lungs. I look up a bit and Cato's eyes are shut closed tight. I wonder what he's thinking of.
I feel Cato's arm snake around my waist and I realize that Plutarch is moving it there. Cato's fingers rest a few inches from below my left breast. Plutarch pushes my leg up so that it's wrapped around one of Cato's legs, I'm slightly embarrassed that I'm pressed so intimately against his thigh, but the sooner we comply the sooner we'll be back in our cages, in separate beds. I feel Plutarch pick up my hand and rest it on Cato's chest. The warmth and hardness of it feels amazing beneath my hand. I resist the urge to explore the rest of his chest with my fingers, although I'm itching to trace the bare skin beneath his thin shirt. Plutarch moves away slowly and speaks again, but I can't seem to focus on what he's saying.
"...eyes..."
It's the only word I make out when Plutarch repeats himself. I realize that Cato and I are supposed to be sleeping in this propo, but my mind doesn't seem to want to let me take my eyes off of Cato's face.
"Close your eyes." Cato chokes out between gritted teeth. Somehow I know he's speaking to me.
My eyes slip close.
I try not to think about the fact that I'm lying down with a bloodthirsty murderer. Cato made my life absolute hell since the day that I laid eyes on him, but in these moments and with the help of drugs, it's too easy to forget.
In these moments, with my mind blinded by the pheromones, I realize the real reason I didn't shoot Cato while he battled those mutts in front of the cornucopia. Because he is a bloodthirsty killing machine, yes. But he's simply another victim of circumstance. I honestly don't know if he chose this life. I don't know if he chose to grow up and murder other children for fame. I don't know a single thing about him. It isn't him who forced those children to die in the arena. It wasn't him who threw us into an arena and told us to kill or be killed.
I tell myself in these moments, as I feel the warmth of his arm begin to seep through the fabric of my clothes and into my skin, that I will get to know him better before we are forced to kill one another.
I will gather as much evidence as I can before I pass judgement on this man.
I slip my eyes closed and Cato's strong arm flexes as it tightens around me. Feeling safe for the first time in weeks. The pheromones are a curse... and in a small way, a blessing.
xoxo
Cato's POV
"I heard you guys did very well today!" Kerin stands smiling at us once we've showered and returned to our holding cells. I wonder why she's been allowed to continue working after Snow heard about her telling us about the pheromones. My mind was freed of the effects of the pheromones after I... took care of things ...in the shower. But I can't help but remember how out of control I was.
It took every ounce of self-control that I had to simply shut my eyes tight and place my arms exactly where Plutarch laid them. He had moved her thigh to rest over one of my legs and I felt the heat of Katniss' core pressed against my thigh.
I can't remember wanting anything more in my life.
That night as I lay in my bed, my mind plays over dangerous images of Katniss and I away from the cameras, her on top of me, me deep inside of her. Hands on her hips as she rides me, as she calls my name over and over.
Perhaps I was wrong.
Perhaps the effects last much longer than we were told.
xoxo
There you have it! Sorry it took so long! I want to jump into the smut, but the plot yells at me and I'm forced to write long elaborate chapters to get you used to their day to day. At least I got in a bit of the effects of the pheromones in this chapter, and I hope they don't seem OOC at all.
This is getting a lot harder to write than I thought it would be, but I'm not about to stop now!
As usual, the more reviews the faster I update!