Four

When I left Elora's just after sunset Zuzanna was waiting for me right outside. Sayre, Saren, Calla, and I said our good-byes for the night before I approached my friend. "What is it?" I asked.

"Your mother's been asking for you," Zuzanna said. "I told her you were out with friends and she demanded that I send you up to her the instant you were finished."

"Ouch," I mumbled, wincing. "Sorry Zuzanna."

"It isn't your fault," Zuzanna said, walking me across the road. "I'll wait for you with Jacques in the parking garage."

"Thanks," I told her before walking into the tribute building. I pressed the up button on the elevator and then stepped in when it opened. I pressed the two button and the doors silently slid shut before the elevator rose to the second floor. I stepped out and marched to the correct door, knocking briskly. Enobaria was the one who answered.

"What do you want?" she asked sharply, catching Cato, Clove, and Brutus' attention.

"I'm here to see my mother," I said, finishing the sentence with a roll of my eyes. Enobaria snorted and opened the door for me.

"You know where to go." I nodded and walked past her down a long hall and kicked open my mother's door with a bang.

"That isn't polite," she snipped, still doing her eyeliner at the vanity.

"What do you want?" I snipped back, using Enobaria's line.

"Being rude will get you nowhere," my mother said primly.

"I could leave," I retorted and she spun her chair around to glare at me.

"Where were you today?" she snapped. "I needed to go out after training but I just can't leave the two tributes alone here."

"Being an escort isn't my job," I growled.

"You are my daughter," Mother grumbled. "You should obey me."

"And you should do your job," I complained but she ignored me, continuing to talk.

"When I say come up you should come up immediately, not have Zuzanna head me off," she complained.

"I was having supper with friends," I moaned.

"It shouldn't matter," Mother said primly. "A good daughter would have obeyed and come up immediately."

"Come up?" I shrieked, finally losing my temper. "It isn't coming up! YOU'RE ON THE SECOND FLOOR!"

"Theresa," my mother shrieked back, eyes wide.

"SHUT UP!" I yelled, whirling on my heel and storming out.

"You come back here young lady!" Mother yelled after me but I ignored her, stalking out of the District 2 rooms and toward the elevator. I slammed my fist into the down button and glared at my reflection in the shiny silver doors. I noticed Cato too late.

I saw a flash of him in the reflective surface just as the doors whooshed open. He had the advantage, shoving me into the back wall and calmly,pressing the button that would shut the doors before hitting the stop button. I lunged at him, fully intending to hit him in the kidneys as hard as I could, but he caught both my wrists in one hand, jerking them over my head. I growled, kicking out at him. My foot collided with his leg as he slammed me into the back of the elevator wall but he didn't so much as wince. Honestly I hadn't expected him to. I was mostly standing on my toes so I couldn't put much weight into my kick.

I quickly changed tactic and decided to go for the standard knee to the groin but he moved faster than I did, actually catching my leg and pinning it against his. I tried to twist but I was out of luck. Cato had trapped me, a girl who had trained almost all of her life because of her father, in a matter of a couple minutes. "Hitting someone won't help anything," he said and I growled, baring my teeth at him. He chuckled, actually laughing at me, and I gritted my teeth, pulling in a deep breath as I tried calm myself.

Coming down from my anger high I became almost hyper aware of his hand against my thigh holding my leg up so I couldn't knee him. I glared at him and clung to the anger, trying to ignore the flush I knew was working it's way across my cheeks. Why did he do this to me? Why couldn't I be as immune to him as I was to every other boy that crossed my path? "Hitting someone would make me feel better," I ground out between still clenched teeth.

"I'm not sure your mother would appreciate being hit," He said, sounding highly amused.

"I doubt you'd appreciate being hit either," I snarled and he chuckled again.

"And how exactly do you intend to hit me?" he asked, still sounding amused, curse him.

"I don't know but I'll figure something out," I threatened. He just laughed at me.

"Let me know when you figure it out sweetheart," he drawled lazily.

"Don't call me that," I growled, baring my teeth again. "I'm nobody's sweetheart. Least of all yours."

"You wound me," he mocked and I threw all my weight off my foot and into him. I had hoped to unbalance him but instead he caught me and dropped me to the ground. I hit on back, slightly stunned but not completely breathless. "Later sweetheart," he called, stepping out of the now open elevator doors and sauntering off. I glared after him from the floor for a moment before standing and hitting the button that would take me to the main floor so I could walk to the parking garage next door. One thought cycled through my mind on the way home. I didn't know how but I was going to make Cato regret playing with me like that.


What had sounded like a strong resolution initially was beginning to worry me now. Cato had cornered me last night and left me helpless and I was going to try to get back at him. Once my anger faded it had begun to sound stupid. How am I going to beat someone who can bring me down in two minutes flat? I'm assigned with Neo at the hand to hand combat area because today was the day the tributes would test against each other. Atala informed them that this would happen after lunch but they were advised to practice before lunch. I was uncharacteristically relieved when Glimmer came up first and Neo motioned for me to work with her.

Despite her sucky ability with a bow and arrows Glimmer was a fairly good fighter. Neo, Atala, Jax, and I surpassed her but she was better than probably ninety-five percent of the tributes there, maybe more. Neo worked with Marvel a bit before the dark haired boy got bored and sauntered off. I informed Glimmer then that she was definitely better than her district partner. To my surprise Glimmer actually grinned at me. After Glimmer I found myself working with the boy from 3. I fought down the urge to inform him that he was a lost cause and was pleasantly surprised when he showed some natural talent. The girl from 5 was next and her fighting methods may have been simply improv but I informed her that if she didn't try to take on someone who was too much larger than her she would be fine because she was so unpredictable.

In the pause between the girl from 5 and the next person I would try to help I saw Cato sparring with Neo. He was good but Neo was just a little faster. I was distracted when Clove made her way over to me. "Well are you going to help me or keep staring at my annoying district partner?" she asked sharply but her eyes were sparkling with amusement.

"Prickly are we?" I asked wryly, motioning her into one of the circles. "Ready to go?"

"I was born ready," Clove said haughtily but I noticed that some of it was bravado. We sparred for three minutes when I realized Clove wasn't nearly as good as Glimmer. She could fight but the moves weren't natural to her. I slowed everything down then, testing what she knew and what she struggled with. I worked with Clove until the tributes were dismissed for lunch. As for me, I barely ate anything before heading back into the training room for sword practice.

"You're not so good with that," a voice said and I could tell he was smirking without even looking. I glared at the wall in front of me before whirling around and throwing the sword.

I didn't normally throw swords. It's a bad idea to throw a close combat weapon for two reasons. The first is that close combat weapons are not generally weighted for throwing. The second is that throwing a close combat weapon leaves you weaponless and most likely still in close combat. Still the sword stuck in the chest of the dummy I had been aiming for though I doubted it was a lethal shot. I glared at Cato but it didn't serve to intimidate him one bit. In fact, now that I thought about it, I had never actually intimidated him. "You should stick with the bow," he continued, still smirking. "At least you're a better shot than Glimmer like that."

"Are you suggesting that Glimmer can actually use a sword?" I asked and he blinked once, the only sign that I had caught him off guard. After last night he probably hadn't expected me to be my usual snarky self.

"Doubtful," he drawled. "So far the only thing she can possibly do is choke someone to death with her hair." I snorted at that. "Still she could probably muddle her way around with a sword just about as well as you do." I flushed then, my cheeks turning an angry red. I left the sword where it was and stomped over to the knives, trying my best to ignore Cato as I snatched up a few throwing stars. Thus armed I took a calming breath and the whirled, tossing them one after the other. Two lodged in the throat and wrist of one dummy. The next hit between the dummy's ribcage where the heart would be and the last also landed in the throat of the next dummy.

I stomped over and snatched them out, dumping them down in a pile with the rest and then carefully replacing the dummies. Then I made my way over to the one with a sword still impaled in it with Cato still watching. I resigned myself to his presence and moved through the motions again after replacing the dummy. "Why do you even bother with that?" Cato asked after a moment. "A pretty thing like you could get an easier job elsewhere."

"Like what?" I asked, forcing myself to stay calm and arching an eyebrow. "Whoring out my body to whoever happens to come along?" Once again I knew by the slight pause in our conversation that I had caught him off guard again.

"Modelling or working on some television show," he corrected me. "You certainly have the looks for it."

"And the connections," I snapped, not longer keeping up the pretense to working on my swordplay. "But I don't want to go around being known as simply Seneca Crane's daughter. I want to make a name for myself." His eyes snapped to mine just as I realized what I had said. I dropped the sword then and ran. I had just broken my second rule.


Author's Note: Thanks to Lexa Snow, Bee (Glad I'm building everything up properly), EmmaCrane (It's going to be a challenge though keeping this many people straight), childofthe90'shpgeek, and rubyred19 for reviewing the last chapter! I own nothing of the Hunger Games you recognize