(Apologies for the long delay. As always thanks so much for the encouraging words. :-)
Chapter 7:
The slap of flesh and a sick crunch of breaking bone echoed through the massive training hall as Peeta slammed Cato's face into the wall with unnatural force. A guttural tone roared from Cato, blood curdling and raw as he thrashed back against Peeta. Blood, dark and thick, pumped from Cato's nose in time with his erratic heartbeats. It gushed out in pulses as Peeta stymied his attempt to get free. Growing desperate Cato realized he was fully subdued by the smaller though stronger male from twelve. He breathed short violent gulps of air as he spit blood against the wall in splattered patterns. Eyes glittering black, he let out a loud feral growl.
From a distance, they all heard the whistles and shouts of the advancing Peacekeepers. Peeta only tightened his grip in response. He cast a quick glance down to the floor to see a wide-eyed and terrified Katniss backing away on her hands. Blood trickled from a gash on her forehead. Around them the other tributes had gathered.
Not one person stepped forward to free Cato. Not one dared to approach Peeta. The trained killer from two had been rendered impotent by a monstrous show of strength. None of the emaciated wretches from twelve ever had strength, and they certainly never fought back.
The cluster of Tributes shared one thought in unison. He saw one boy whisper to another, their dark eyes narrowing in on him. He didn't need to hear what was said to know their exchange. It was written across their faces plainly. It was written in their guarded and anxious stances and in their clenched fists. It was written in their eyes, that bright mixture of mortal fear and lasting promise.
Peeta Everdeen would be the first to die in the arena.
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(Six Hours Prior)
"Good heavens, where is that girl?" Effie paced along the length of the dining table as Haymitch shoveled a spoonful of breakfast potatoes past his chapped lips. Forgetting to chew, he instantly broke into a spastic coughing fit, spitting bits of food projectile style all across the table. Effie backed away, disgusted. She opened her mouth to say something, but shut it at once and marched from the room, muttering under her breath. An Avox poured Haymitch a glass of water, which he promptly refused with a push of his hand, as he gripped the tumbler full of his standard. Throwing it back in one gulp, tears began to leak from the corners of his eyes as his coughing slowed.
"Are you alright?" Peeta asked, half alarmed, half amused at his mentor's episode. Haymitch glowered in response as he slowly regained control of himself. From the hall they could hear Effie pounding on Katniss' door.
"Katniss!" She drew out the 's' sound as those with capitol accents were want to do, and rapped a succinct 'rat-a-tat' on the door again, "Hurry up!... Please!" She added as an after thought. "We are needed down in the training facility in ten minuets! Can someone please get this door open!" She had yelled it to no one in particular, but Peeta noticed two Avoxes move towards the hallway from the corner of his eye. Their help, in the end, was not required as the door opened and a breathless Katniss breezed into the dining area, her hair still dripping wet.
"Sorry," she called back to Effie as she plucked an orange from the pile of fruit on the table, and slumped into the chair across from Peeta. Effie, glided in behind her and snatched her clipboard up from the table, giving it yet another 'once over' as she tapped her pen against the side of it.
Katniss busied herself with peeling her orange as she attempted to avoid the piercing blue eyes across the table. After making it to her bedroom the night before, she lay in the plush bed and stared at the ceiling. She stared and stared and stared. Sleep eluding her as the multitude of emotions swirling about in her mind crashed down upon her relentlessly. She had slept in his shirt, unable to take it off. Smelling the collar from time to time as a baby would a security blanket.
"How'd you sleep?" his soft, strong voice startled her from her thoughts as she dropped the orange onto the plate with an audible, 'clank'. Grey eyes collided into blue, as she returned his gaze.
"Not well," it was barely a whisper, and she couldn't help herself as her cheeks tinted pink. The blush betrayed her secrets. He stared at her for a moment before the corner of his mouth tipped up into the slightest of smirks. He reached for an apple and took a bite from it, his eyes never leaving hers,
"Me either."
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Atala was a truly fearsome woman.
Standing upon the first station's platform, her towering height demanded attention. She stared down at them with a shrewd eye and cemented grimace. One would get the impression that she didn't particularly care for her job. She approached it as you would any necessary burden: with haste and an overwhelming sense of detachment.
She sugarcoated nothing. At least they were afforded that dignity. Saying the words they were all loathe to hear, but needed to embrace. She spoke about their impending deaths with such a serious finality that by the end of her speech even the career tributes were quiet and still.
"Don't let your arrogance best you," her voice boomed and echoed throughout the iron rafters of the training hall, "Most of you will die from exposure. Do not pass up the opportunity of the survival stations. We will break for lunch at 2:00. Tributes will NOT engage in any form of combat prior to the games. Use your time wisely. You are dismissed."
And with that they were off. The Careers headed straight for the weapon stations. The others lingered only for a moment before shuffling over to whatever station had caught their eye.
Katniss noticed that the Fire Making Station was vacant. Having lost sight of Peeta, who had stood at the far end of the group, she decided to give it a shot.
On the elevator ride down, Peeta had explained that he felt it was important that the other tributes not know they were a team. Haymitch had dually agreed, going on at length about the edge it would give them. Katniss had nodded along, however now in the midst of it, she couldn't help the nagging sense of abandonment as he intentionally ignored her. He walked in to the gym with out her, stood far away from her, and didn't look at her once. She knew it was an irrational response given the situation, but her already dark mood was nevertheless flavored sour.
Katniss, as it happened, was good at starting fires. You couldn't work around ovens all day with out being skilled at that. Her mother was always quite neglectful of the business needs of the bakery, and the task of compensating for a lack of materials fell to Katniss. She could start a fire from nearly anything. She could use a knife against flint. That was standard. But from time to time the flint disappeared. Several times she used a broken bit of her father's glasses. At high noon when a lonely ray of light shot down into the chimney, she would position the lens over some hay until it started to smoke. The key was then to keep the fire going all day and night. Before that she used the groove of an old wooden cutting board and the broken handle of an old knife. By rubbing the handle in the groove over and over enough friction would cause the dry grass to ignite.
By the end of her time at the station she had been taught how to make a drill from a bendable twig and a shoelace. The station trainer praised her patient skills at helping the ember grow into a large flame.
From there, she moved on to the Edible Insects Station and studied specifically the poisonous bugs. It seemed more important to know the threats of the game makers than the little mercies of the few edible bugs.
As the day progressed, she made her way over to the hand to hand combat station and was laid out on her back five times in a row before she managed to master the most basic of offensive maneuvers. She was covered in a light sheen of sweat as she attempted yet again to throw her instructor over her shoulder. He pointed out the weak areas of the body, and gave her a bow staff to practice on a dummy, targeting said weak points. Ear, throat, back of the knee, back of the thigh, back of the neck, crotch, lower back, lower abdomen. He showed her how to grip an assortment of knives and how to twist it after puncturing an appendage to cause more damage and added debilitation. She shuddered as she played at killing him, knowing all the while that in a few short days this would be her reality.
She looked out at the faces of the other children she would be tasked with killing and an unrelenting sadness swept her up with such an ardent force that she lost her breath. Some seemed just as lost and scared as her. Others, the survivor types, had come to grips with their reality and were soaking up the knowledge offered like a dirty sponge. The six careers exuded a sick sense of excitement and raced around the stations as though it was a game. To them, she supposed, it was. They acted like giddy children as they played with the gleaming Capitol toys. Machetes, axes, bone saws, scythes, maces covered in spikes, and other various death instruments Katniss didn't know the names of.
Across the room she saw Peeta approached the empty shooting range. His hands gently caressed the metal bows as he thoughtfully decided which one to pick up. Holding up a shiny stainless steel bow he held it out to survey how it was weighted.
Katniss bit back a smile as she watched him. It was a well-known secret in Twelve that Peeta knew how to bow hunt. She had never seen him do it of course, but from all the game he and Gale brought back, he was obviously quite skilled at it. Even assuming this, she was not prepared.
Her mouth dropped open with the rest of the hall as their attention was drawn to the odd noise the metal tip of the arrow made as it sunk into the cork targets. Having held four arrows up to the bow between his fingers, he let one go at a time at each of the four targets, hitting each one square on in rapid succession.
Shock and silence abounded.
"Do you have any moving targets?" Peeta's voice echoed in the now quiet gym, and a collective shudder worked its way down the other tributes' spines. The trainers, happy to oblige, pulled out a machine that shot out weighted cork disks.
His aim was impeccable. By the time they broke for lunch, half the tributes, Katniss included, were standing towards the back just watching him. Three trainers would shoot off three disks at once in their attempt to challenge him. They were just about to pull out a fourth machine when Atala blew the whistle for lunch.
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Having no appetite, and no desire to form connections with the people she was about to kill, Katniss sat at the back of the room at a lonely table and pushed around the food on her plate. She was fighting the urge to look over at Peeta when she was drawn from her thoughts by the sound of a tray dropping on the table next to her followed by a flash of long blonde hair.
"So… you're very pretty," the words dripped from her mouth in an accusatory tone. Glimmer turned her grey-green eyes on Katniss, looking her over with narrowed slits. Katniss didn't know how to respond, so she didn't. Drawing a strawberry up to her full lips, Glimmer asked, "So, what's the deal with the boy from your district?"
Ah… so she was on a recon mission. It wasn't surprising. Peeta had taken to the archery range on purpose. It was his attempt to psyche out the careers. Apparently it had worked. Katniss narrowed her eyes in return,
"I barely know him," She lied as smoothly as she could, as she forced herself to eat a grape.
"Oh please," Glimmer scoffed, "I don't believe that for a second." She stabbed at a piece of meat on her plate, "I think the two of you know each other quite well. You think we haven't noticed the way he looks at you?" Katniss tried to ignore the beat her heart skipped at this, "You'd be wise to tell me what you know. I could make things easier for you."
"I don't know him," Katniss repeated mechanically, suddenly aware that they'd been watching them all along.
"I don't think you understand what I'm offering here!" Glimmer hissed, her voice turning cruel.
"I don't think you understand that I don't care." Katniss responded, trying to sound brave. Glimmer's eyes turned dark at this, as her lovely lips turned thin in a hard grimace.
"You just made a huge mistake!" Glimmer spat, picking up her tray roughly and returning to her seat at the Career table, swaying her hips angrily as she went. Katniss wondered if she was not accustomed to getting her way. Glimmer huddled down and whispered something to the group animatedly and Katniss suddenly found all of their eyes upon her. She shifted her gaze back down to her plate, but not before catching the sadistic leer on Cato's face.
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"Quite the dress you were wearing last night."
Katniss cringed as Cato approached her at the table of throwing knives. His arm gently and purposely brushed hers as he reached over for a gruesome hunting knife. "And they call us pets," he sneered. Katniss swallowed hard and stepped away. Nervously glancing about for the station's trainer, Cato noticed the shift of her gaze and asked,
"Looking for Loverboy?" His tone was equal parts menacing and mocking. Katniss' mouth went dry as her heart rate sped.
"I don't know what you're talking about," she tried to play it off, but they both heard the waver in her voice.
"Knock it off!" Cato hissed as he stepped towards her, his curtain of civility blowing up for only a moment before it fluttered back down and he schooled his moment of rage. "I also saw him pull you from the ballroom… Where did you two go?"
"I… what!" Katniss stammered, afraid to step back again. Cato leaned in and her blood ran cold,
"Loverboy give you a quick fuck in the closet?" He leered down at her, his eyes dark and terrifying.
"That's absurd!" Katniss spat, repulsed by his vulgar language, as well as alarmed at his mention of a closet.
"Is it?" Cato stepped in closer, his voice challenging. Katniss eyes went wide. Did he know? "I can't really blame him though," he eyed her up and down lasciviously, "I'd kill to have those legs wrapped around me." Katniss's shuddered in horror at the thought. "Literally," he added, "I'd kill for it," his tone was deadly serious.
"I don't know him," Katniss managed to get out, trying to change the subject from his implied threat. Her heart slammed against her chest wildly, as warning bells rang in her mind at a dizzying volume.
"Then why did you volunteer for his sister?" he asked while spinning the tip of the knife on his pointer finger.
"Apparently I have a death wish," she replied evenly.
"Apparently." Cato looked up and a cruel smirk lit up his face, "He's looking over here," Katniss' fist clenched as she fought the urge to look back, her heart sinking to the bottom of her stomach, "Now, why do you think he'd do that?" Cato sneered patronizingly.
"Probably just worried I'm making an alliance with you," She cringed at her lame excuse.
"Now, now…" Cato smiled down at her with wild eyes, "You already had your chance at that didn't you?" His creepy smile fell away, and was replaced by a horrifying glare as his voice rose, "But instead you'd rather lie to my face! I don't like being lied to, Katniss," he hissed her name, and Katniss took a step back.
"I'm not lying," she lied.
"Everything okay over here?"
And suddenly he was there, and Katniss could breath again. Peeta spoke the question directly to her. She looked up at him, unable to speak, unsure of what to say. His jaw clenched involuntarily, as he searched her face.
"Don't know him, huh?" Cato leered. Peeta didn't even bother with a glance at Cato. He simply ignored his existence all together. Katniss marveled at how calm he appeared.
"Let's go," Peeta nodded towards the next station. Katniss swallowed hard and nodded. She started to edge her way around Cato who was gripping the knife with white knuckles. She was just out of his reach when Cato shot out his foot, hooking it in front of Katniss'. She hardly had a moment to realize what was happening as she tumbled forward so fast, her forehead smacking the corner of the table as she went down.
Peeta stood and watched it as though in slow motion.
And then, his mind went black.
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It took six peacekeepers to pull them apart. Chaos had erupted in the hall. There were whistles and yells, and people being pushed out of the way. Just as each young man was being dragged roughly towards a separate door, Cato snarled,
"I'm going to kill her slowly and make you watch, Everdeen!" Blood bubbled from his nose and mouth as he screamed his promises, "You're both dead! DEAD!"
(To be cont.)
Always love to hear your thoughts and feedback… thanks for reading!
**Not sure what the comments about my story getting possibly deleted were about? I think I'm out of the loop… Regardless, I compose in word, so everything is saved, thanks for your concern though… you guys are sweet
