Chapter 9: We found you, Girl on Fire

Clove:

Two nights ago; that was our latest kill. Since then our nightly hunts have turned out to be failures.

"We're going hunting. Now." Cato demands.

"But it's the afternoon!" Marvel complains.

"Exactly; hunting at night hasn't been done us any good lately, so we're going now, and there's nothing you can do about it." Cato remarks authoritatively.

"I don't have to obey your every command. Heck, I could kill you right now!" Marvel shouts.

I fight the urge to defend Cato and fold my arms across my chest and roll my eyes. "You wouldn't dare." I note. Even if he did try to kill Cato, he would that battle. Marvel may be tall and muscular, but even he looks small in comparison to Cato.

Marvel shrugs his shoulders. "We'll see." he says indifferently.

I welcome the threat to our alliance; the sooner it is broken, the sooner I can win. Suddenly, thoughts of Cato pop into my head. The two of us haven't talked about the predicament we're in and what we're going to do about it. I'm honestly glad that we haven't discussed it; I just want whatever happened between my district partner and I to disappear. But no, I don't get that comfort. I don't know exactly what happened between us, but it changed me. Before last week, the only thing I yearned for was the pleasure of killing; the adrenaline it gave me. But since that night on the train, I've for something different; I've longed for him.

"We're going to split up again. Sparkles, you go with Clove to the left." Cato begins, snapping me back to reality.

"My name is Glimmer." she snarls at him. He ignores her comment and continues.

"Marvel, you'll go with Coral to the right. And Lover Boy and I will go straight. Meet up back here at sundown." he finishes.

I take off at a sprint to left and don't stop running until I've reached the edge of the forest. As I wait for Glimmer to catch up, I can't help but hate myself. How could I think such sappy thoughts? It makes me want to puke. If I wanted to fall in love, I would be anywhere but here. I came here to kill; to be victorious and revel in the glory of winning the Hunger Games.

The District 1 girl finally catches up and I start moving again, but this time at a walk. I figure it's safe enough to spark up a quiet conversation while we're still on the outer edge, so I decide to have some fun.

"God, I hate Cato." I complain.

"Why?" she asks, looking at me quizzically.

"Because he paired me up with you." I take this opportunity to insult her; after all, who knows if I'll ever get this chance again? "He probably only did it because he wanted to stay away from you. I don't blame him, who would want to be paired up with a stupid, shallow priss?" I ask.

She turns to attack me, but I simply step to the side and catch her in the rib with my foot. "Try that again and it'll a knife instead of a foot hitting you." I hiss at her.

Before I can get a reaction from her, both of ours heads snap up and Glimmer scrambles to her feet. There's a smell, and it fills my nostrils and burns the back of my throat. Wait, smoke? "Oh shit." I say under my breath. The Gamemakers have set the forest on fire to drive us together.

I pull the collar of my shirt up over my nose and look to see where the flames are coming from. My eyes start to sting and get watery, blurring my vision. I wipe them with my sleeve and see a clear path to safety to my right. I run towards it with Glimmer in the lead. Out of nowhere, a wall of flames jumps up from the ground just a few feet ahead of me, separating me from my ally. I stumble back and try not to panic as I search for another way out of the inferno. The dirty air fills my lungs and threatens to pull me out of consciousness, but I fight it with all my might. There's a small stream a ways to my left, and I sprint towards like my life depends on it because, well, it does.

I jump into the body of water and follow it downstream as fast as my heavy boots will allow me. The water comes up to about mid-calf and I splash through it until I reach its end a minute later. I dunk my head under the water, hoping it will wake me up enough to find a new escape route. I stand back up again and look around, pulling my shirt over my nose again. My chest heaves and I'm getting dizzy; I don't know how much longer it will be until I succumb to the flames.

All around me is fire; the only way out is the way I came. Panic settles in and tears start to well up in my eyes; I can't tell if it's because of the smoke or if it's because I will probably die here. But this is not how it's going to end. If I'm going to die, it better be in an epic battle, not due to a lousy fire.

A burst of adrenaline rushes through my veins and I pull myself out of the water and leap through the wall of fire. Where I jumped, the flames had been considerably thin, and I thank my lucky stars for that. I had suffered few injuries from that leap of what I thought was certain death and I hit the ground running. The inferno gets farther and farther away, but I don't stop running.

I stumble through the forest, not looking back to see if the flames are chasing me. Eventually, I fall, and I can't bring myself to sit upright. I lay coughing and gagging for a good five minutes until I hear heavy footsteps approaching me.

"Put your spear down, you idiot. It's Clove." Coral says to who I'm guessing is Marvel. I'm too weak to turn over and look at them, so I just lay there until they reach me.

Two hands reach down and pull me up to sit against a tree. I really hate being man handled, but right now it's probably my only option. I look up and see Cato's eyes boring into mine. He looks at me with a look of concern, but puts on an emotionless mask when the others approach.

Coral assesses my wounds as Cato reaches into my pack a few feet away and throws me my water bottle.

"What happened?" Marvel asks

"What do you think, dumbass?" I retort. Could he seriously not tell that I had just almost died in a fucking fire?

"Look! Over there!" Glimmer shouts.

We all snap our heads in the direction Glimmer is pointing to and a tribute look at us, then take off running, her dark brown braid bobbing behind her.

Katniss' dark brown braid.

"You fucking idiot! She heard you!" I shout at her.

The six of us take off after the girl from District 12, and after a while, we reach a clearing. We run right up to the base of the tree Katniss has scrambled up and wait at the bottom.

We found you, Girl on Fire.


Cato:

After days of searching, we finally caught her.

She smiles down at us. "How's everything with you?" She calls down cheerfully from her perch 20 feet up the tree.

Well that was unexpected. I was so sure she'd be cowering in the branches, begging for us to spare her life.

"Well enough. Yourself?" I ask her indifferently.

"It's been a bit warm for my taste." she adds.

Well you don't say.

"The air's better up here. Why don't you come up?" She asks, challenging me.

Challenge accepted. "Think I will."

"Here, take this, Cato." Glimmer says, shoving the bow and arrows in my face.

"No, I'll do better with my sword." I have just hoisted myself into the tree when Katniss starts to climb again. A sharp, cracking sound fills my ears and I fall to the ground hard, hitting a few branches on my way down. "Dammit!" I shout. We finally get her, but we can't kill her.

Glimmer tries next, and she scales the tree until the branches start to crack under her feet. Katniss is probably eighty feet up now, and there is no way Glimmer is going to be able to shoot her down. One of the arrows gets lodged into the tree and the District 12 girl grabs and waves it teasingly above Glimmer's head.

Glimmer climbs back down the tree and we regroup.

"We can't just leave her here, we have to do something, and it's almost twilight." Marvel comments.

Coral, Clove and I glare at him. "No shit, dumbass." Clove spits at him.

"Well what do you suppose we do?" Coral asks with frustration.

We all start to talk over one another, arguing over what our next move should be.

"Oh, let her stay up there. It's not like she's going anywhere. We'll deal with her in the morning." Peeta says harshly.

The other five of us mumble signs of agreement and set up camp around the base of the tree.

"I'll take first watch." Clove says.

She leans herself up against the tree and the rest of us nod off to sleep.


What I assume is a few hours later, I wake up and offer to take Clove's spot.

"Okay." she says.

I sit down next to her, but she doesn't move, so I decide that now's a good time to talk. There's no easy way to say it, so I just blurt it out.

"You know that if it comes down to us, I'm still going to kill you, right?" I ask her.

"I was hoping you'd say something like that." she admits.

"And I expect you to fight to the death; don't just give up because it's me fighting you." I add. I turn my head to look at her, trying to see what's going on in that head of hers.

"Now that's a promise I know I can keep." Clove responds, turning to face me and smiling at me.

It's weird; the way we're talking sounds like we could be discussing the weather or something trivial, but in reality, we're sealing each other's doom.

"It doesn't change my feelings for you, though." I say even quieter than before.

A few different emotions cross her features, but I don't know exactly how to interpret them.

"How can you say that? Saying 'Hey, I have feelings for you, but I'm going to try my best to kill you anyway' kinda changes things, Cato." she says with frustration.

"Do you think we would kill each other if we had the choice? No. We're being forced to. Yes, it'll hurt me more than you'll ever know if I have to kill you, but we need this. We both have things at stake back in District 2 that we can't forget about. So until the time comes for us to fight, I don't think it changes what I feel for you."

She just bores her eyes into mine, letting the words sink in. I came here to avenge my uncle, who was killed by a District 12 tribute in the second Quarter Quell. I even remember his killer's name; Haymitch Abernathy. Haymitch is probably Katniss' and Peeta's mentor, which makes me hate them even more. I'm also here to avenge my parents, who both committed suicide. I'm also here to make a better life for my two sisters, my brother and I.

Clove came here to end the abuse of her and her two sisters by her dad. He would slash them on the arm with his knife every year one of them didn't volunteer for the Hunger Games. If Clove loses the Games, he'll just go back to harming them.

There's a reason that we've trained all these years, and we can't forget about that reason just because have feelings for each other.

She cups the side of my face with one of her hands and kisses me. Gently at first, but the passion builds like a fire within the two of us and soon enough our lips are crushing against each other's.

I put my hand on her hip and she winces. I break the kiss and look down to see that the fire had given her first and second degree burns. I assess the damage and try my best to treat her wounds; her shirt is now cut off just above her hips, exposing a few burns here and there across her torso.

"You need to take off your shirt." I tell her. She obeys and casts her shirt and jacket to the side, leaving her in her sports bra. My eyes linger on the three thin, pink scars running down the length of her upper left arm. I caught a glimpse of them on the train, but I've never seen their entirety. They look like they were pretty deep, and I can't imagine how it didn't damage the muscle there. I guess that's why she favors her right arm.

"So, how bad is it, doctor?" Clove jokes.

"Well you have some first and second degree burns, but we can't treat them until we get back to our supplies at the lake."

"Eh, I can manage." she says nonchalantly.

She braids her fingers into my hair and pulls my lips to meet hers. Somehow she ends up lying on the ground and I'm propping myself up above her. Her tongue brushes against my teeth and it sends chills down my spine. Being careful not to agitate her burns, I pull both of us up into a sitting position and Clove places herself on top of me, her legs around my torso.

I lightly drag my teeth across her ear lobe and she shivers. I continue to kiss my way down her neck and back up to her lips with my hands tangled into her hair.

Some time passes and we both hear one of the other Careers stir in their sleep. Trying to keep our cover, we quickly disentangle ourselves and Clove puts her shirt and jacket back on and goes to set up her sleeping gear somewhere near mine. Once she's in her sleeping bag, I go and wake up Glimmer.

I lightly kick her leg. "Hey, Sparkles, get up; your turn to watch for tributes." I say tiredly. She yawns and slumps over to the tree and takes a seat, fighting to keep her eyes open. I splash her with some water from the nearest bottle.

"Wake up. If you fall asleep on your shift, you'll have hell to pay." I threaten.

With that, I walk back over to my spot by Clove and crawl into my sleeping bag. She risks the chance of exposing our relationship (if you can call it that) and breaks the barrier between us by extending her hand. I surprise myself and take her hand in mine. Yeah, sure, Clove and I have done almost everything but hold hands, but this feels more intimate than those other times. This proves that, however sick and twisted our relationship may be, we truly care about each other. And, if I won't say it out loud, I'll at least admit it to myself; I love her.

I love Clove Hartwood.


Author's Note: I literally sat here for four hours straight writing this, so I really hope you liked it! Reviews would be lovely, either here or in my ask box at .com