This chapter is dedicated to a friend I lost exactly a year ago, someone who taught me to have the strength that Katniss has within myself.
I fight against my captor's grip with a fierce persistence, but the immense amount of strength they possess causes me to stop. I may be tiny, but I am a fighter. Regardless, there's really only one person who could hold me almost completely still and silent, let alone in a tree.
"I really would have liked to leave this encounter without a bruise, you know." Cato whispers. "I guess I didn't expect much less though." His grip releases on me and now I'm able to position my seating so that I am facing him. I frown. There is already a nice shiner starting to form under his eye.
"I'm sorry," I gasp, and he puts a finger to his lips, scolding me for being so loud. "Sorry!" I whisper this time, fearfully. I glance down at the rest of the group, but nothing seems out of order. I relax, but then realize the matter at hand. "What the hell are you doing up here?!" I half hiss, half whisper. By the look on his face, he doesn't seem to know. Instead, he takes the container out of my hands and opens it back up. He takes a nice amount of the salve and applies it to my leg. I instantly tense up at the contact, expecting searing pain, but the relief from the burn that replaces it instead makes me blissfully sigh. He rubs a tiny bit more on before meeting my gaze again.
"I…" he starts. "I guess I just wanted to see you. Without, you know, having to be surrounded by people who want to kill you, except for Lover Boy, of course." He smirks, and I scowl right back at him. But I do not miss the fact that he admitted he wanted to see me. Why that actually warms my heart, I have no idea. Well, maybe I do a little.
"How sweet it is to know that there are two people in this arena that don't want to kill me," I decided to respond with. "Such comfort it provides." He laughs quietly at me.
"You're not going to die, Katniss."
"You don't know that."
This is the only time I have experienced a silence so awkward between us because that is exactly the problem. Neither of us knows. We couldn't protect each other all the time, whether we did it blatantly or not. It scares me.
"Why didn't you ever say anything back, on the radio, I mean?" He asks after a while. I think for a moment.
"You never asked if anyone was listening. Besides, I was afraid that would prevent you from confiding," I sigh. "I couldn't let that happen."
"Fair enough." He muses. "But what I don't understand is how you found it."
"In the woods, of course. Back in Twelve." I begin. "I was hunting with my father and I wandered off. It was settled in the mud near a creek. I had dug it out and started back to him to ask what it was, but I hear something. A girl, crying. I hid behind a tree, wondering what the matter was. She was so young, and so upset. I knew what she was looking for, but I was selfish. I wanted the lovely thing for myself." I search his face for a reaction, but he turns away from me. He looks hurt, and I am instantly regretful. "What's wrong?" I whisper.
"I used to live in Twelve, you know." I open my mouth to inquire further, but he shushes me. "I was about four when we moved there. My father didn't want us going to the Academy, my siblings and I. My older brother would have been turning seven that year, the age that they usually enroll you. My twin and I would have had a about three more years. My sister wasn't born yet, but my mom was far along pregnant with her. Four kids. Could you imagine what my parents must have been feelings? Four kids all destined to be trained into killers. They wouldn't have it.
When we got older, the walkie talkies were how we'd keep in touch with each other, whenever we'd go out into the woods. It was the only area that we were allowed out into, which is probably why you'd never seen me around. My mother taught us at home, and both my parents were the only ones who'd go out for shopping. The only people who knew about us were the mayor and the major shop owners. But my parents couldn't stand locking us up in the house, so every weekend we'd be allowed to play in the woods.
The walkie talkie you found was my sister's, Callisto, her name was. I remember her being so upset over losing it, but it was okay. I told her it would be alright, that we would get her a new one, but she tore the house apart looking for it. It was almost funny. She was only five, and I couldn't remember her being more determined.
The matter dropped when she became sick. Your mother… I remember her trying everything she could, and she was the only healer who had any knowledge remotely close to those of the Capitol. But it wasn't enough. Nobody knew what was wrong, and I was still too young to fully understand. She died in the winter, on her seventh birthday. I had never been so full of pain, and neither had the rest of my family. My parents couldn't take being in Twelve anymore, so we moved back, and we were all enrolled in the Academy. I learned to put all my pain into training, but all I felt once the pain left was anger. All I ever feel now is anger."
The whole time he told his story, I didn't notice his clenched hands or the little tears that fell from his eyes. His labored breathing scares me too. I lightly sweep away the wetness on his cheeks and then unraveled his fingers, taking his hands softly in my own. I don't think to say anything. I don't know what I would say.
I honestly can't believe I didn't put it together at first. The blonde hair and blue eyes that I saw rushing around the woods that day were unmistakably the same as Cato's. No wonder he was so angry when I first tried to explain to him in the hallway. He must have thought that I was trying to play some sick joke. The radio brought back too many awful memories.
"I'm sorry," I say again, once I know he's calmed down. "I'm sorry for what happened, and I'm sorry that it had to end up in my hands. I'm sorry it all had to be connected like this. You should be home with her, in Twelve, like it all started out. This should not have happened to you." My voice cracks at the end, and I look away before tears can't escape out of my own eyes. His hands are still in mine.
"Don't cry," he whispers. "It's not your fault, and neither of us can change the past. This is how things are, and we have to make the best of it." I scoff. How can this situation be taken to the best? "I know what you're thinking, that this couldn't get better, but it will. If we both get out of this, then that's rewarding enough. We will have our lives. If only you survive, then that's okay too. I can go home to her." I don't miss how he doesn't mention an ending with my death. Why is he so convinced that I will not die?
I would die for him, and he needs to get home.
"You should go back down," I find myself saying. "We both know that it cannot go on like this. You need to get home, which means not wasting your time trying to sort out things between us. You need to focus on what's right."
"Katniss, don't even give me that," he says, a little louder than I'd prefer. "I don't give a damn about these Games, but I give a damn about yo-"
"No, I don't care." I lie, harsher than I mean to. "I… I don't want this." I instantly regret the words out of my mouth once the hurt registers on his face. "Go."
But he doesn't move. He just stares at me, and I watch his gaze go from hurt to regret and then anger to confusion. And then there's something in his eyes that I can't place.
My hands are somehow still in his, so he brings them to his lips and places light kisses on each knuckle, the warmth of his breath stirring comfort in me. I can't bring myself to pull away. I never understood how things could be both wrong and right, in between shades of grey, but I do now. My eyes flutter shut as it is now my face he cradles in his hands, bringing his lips to the hollow of my skin behind my ear. The trail of kisses he leaves down my jaw and across my cheek leave me trembling, and I can't tell if it's from arousal or fear. This mixture of feelings is so new but too real.
His breath stops at the corner of my lips, lingering in the air with my own troubled breathing. But he does not kiss me. He brushes the tip of his nose against mine, like he's having a hard time staying away, but I understand. The closeness that we are experiencing, the idea of being almost together, is all we will ever have.
Before I can change my mind, he is several feet below me, scaling down the tree as easily as I had climbed up earlier. I watch him solemnly the whole way down, making sure that he returns to sleep without notice by the others. Once he lies still without a last glance at me, I turn away and swipe at the tears that have surfaced again.
This is ridiculous. I should not be letting these emotions, these silly feelings, get in the way of what I had set my mind to do. But what is my real goal now?
Am I meant to get home to Prim or to make sure that Cato survives? I almost want to be the one responsible for my death for not knowing the answer.
I must have fallen sleep for only a short amount of time because I am awaken at dawn by a soft hissing, sounding like it's trying to get my attention. My eyes snap open, and I immediately spot a small figure crouched in a tree a few away from mine. My preyful gaze softens. Rue.
She points a little ways above her, and I follow her gaze to find a nest settled a few yards up my tree. I almost panic. How could I have no noticed how close I was resting to a nest of tracker jackers? Before I can try to communicate my confusion, she points back down to the Careers and makes a sawing motion. Ah, now I understand. Before I can start my climb, I look back to the tree to thank Rue, but the little bird is already gone. I smile to myself.
I apply some more salve to the burn before I collect my things and begin to scale the tree. The knife Clove threw at me is still settled into my belt, and the rest of my possessions are secure in the backpack strapped onto me. I climb as quietly as I can, making sure to avoid the thinner branches as they become more abundant as I get higher into the tree. I reach a branch connecting to the one with the nest on it. I shimmy closer to the buzzing, not thinking about the stray jackers that hum near my head and hands. I glance back down to make sure my aim will be perfect, and my eyes catch on Cato's sleeping figure. Should I try to wake him up before I drop it? How would I do that? I shake the idea away before I can become more distracted. He's the strongest tribute in this arena. He can handle a few bugs.
I begin to saw away at the sustaining branch, making a little progress within about a minute. I am halfway through when I feel my first sting. The pain is sharp and immense. Black clouds part of my view and I greatly fight the urge to scream. But my arms keep moving, taking away more and more of the wood, wanting to get these awful things away from me. I feel two more stings before I am able to shove the branch away from me, sending it sailing down to the ground with pleasure.
Once it hits the middle of the camp, it cracks open and the swarm searches for its disturbers. I hear Glimmer's piercing wail as she awakes, and I know that it can only go downscale from here. The other Careers have awakened and they're scrambling like lost puppies, and this is the only time I will probably witness their vulnerability. Against other humans, they are lethal. Against the forces of nature, however, they are weak.
They've all run away now, except for Glimmer, who I notice is now dead as I try to climb down from the tree, wooziness overtaking my senses. I fall from a branch before I can get close enough to the ground, and I land with a painful thud, making my judgment even worse. But nothing could cloud my vision enough to cause me to lose my gaze on the bow clutched in the blonde's swollen hand. I stumble forward and rip it from the corpse, tossing her roughly aside as well to obtain the quiver of bows that is on her back. Once I am equipped to my satisfaction, I wander away from the scene, losing my balance more times than I can count. All I hear are voices clawing at me and the screams of the lost Glimmer. I mercilessly killed her.
Before I can feel any sort of remorse, I roughly hit the ground for a final time, blackness swallowing me from all directions.
