Lifted a lot of stuff straight from Catching Fire in the first part of this chapter. Some of it word for word. Some of it just slightly adjusted. So yes, you're correct if you think "this looks awfully familiar." (Thanks, Suzanne Collins!)
xxxxxxxxxx
Cinna begs off going to the Justice Center in 11 due to a migraine. "My head is pounding," he says. "I just want to crawl into a dark hole and die."
He really does look like shit.
"Feel better man," Cato says before they leave.
He had assumed the day would be fairly uneventful. Maybe just a few tears from Katniss over Rue. But as he sits at the side of the stage he can feel it. Something's strange, something's weird. There's a restless energy-a dangerous energy-running through the crowd, simmering just beneath the surface. It's palpable. It practically glows red.
For a minute or two he's concerned for Katniss's safety, but when they call her out on stage, it immediately becomes apparent that whatever this is, it isn't aimed at her. They chant her name over and over again. Like a battle cry.
Once they quiet down, she sets her bouquet on the podium and picks up the card that Effie gave her on the car ride there, and she reads her colorless, uninspiring speech, just like she's supposed to. Within a few sentences, the simmering quality in the air settles down. As though the fire under the people of 11's asses has been snuffed out. Their eyes glaze over with boredom and disappointment.
As he looks at one strapping young man in the crowd, Cato swears he can read his expression plain as day. Really? This is all you've got for us?
He doesn't understand what's going on and it frightens him.
After Katniss finishes her speech, he heaves a sigh of relief. Now they can go have dinner and get out of here.
The mayor thanks her and hands her a plaque and the now-deflated audience claps politely.
Cato rises to his feet as the mayor offers her his arm and starts to lead her offstage.
But then she stops and turns back around and with two quick steps she's back at the mic. "Wait," she says to the crowd just as they're dispersing. "Please wait."
What is she doing?
"I have something else to say." The crowd quiets itself and grows still again. "I didn't know Thresh." She's looking right at the male tribute's family. "I never even spoke to him. But I respected him. For his power. For his refusal to play the games on anyone's terms but his own. I heard that the careers wanted him to team up with them from the beginning, but he wouldn't do it. I respected him for that."
It's like she's flipped a switch and the power is back on. The fires have been relit under their asses. They're restless again. Dangerous. The air is glowing red.
She turns to Rue's family. "But I feel as if I did know Rue, and she'll always be with me. Everything beautiful brings her to mind. I see her in the yellow flowers that grow in the meadow by my house. I see her in the mockingjays that sing in the trees. But most of all, I see her in my sister, Prim."
Her voice is shaky as she speaks her final words. "Thank you for your children. And thank you all for the gloves."
Cato expects they'll all erupt with cheers and applause, but it's so quiet you could hear a pin drop.
And then, from somewhere in the middle of the crowd, an old man presses the three middle fingers of his left hand to his lips and extends them toward Katniss. And then the man beside him does the same. And the woman behind him. And then two more people. And then handfuls and then waves until the entire crowd has their arms extended toward her.
And as the tears stream down her face, she returns their gesture in kind.
And then she turns and exits the stage in absolute silence.
They're almost inside when she looks up at him. "I forgot my flowers," she says, and turns back toward the front of the stage yet again.
Cato turns with her. "I'll get them for you. You go with-"
But the rest of his words are drowned out by the sound of the gunshot the Peacekeepers put through the head of the old man, the first to give Katniss the traditional salute from 12.
Cato jumps and immediately looks down at his tribute, praying that she saw nothing. Praying that she has no idea what happened. But the look on her face tells him she saw everything.
And then a line of Peacekeepers forms in front of them, their weapons bared.
"We got it," he says, and steps behind Katniss, who is paralyzed with shock. He puts his hands on her shoulders. "We're going." He spins her around, gently but firmly and walks her into the building. She's shaking uncontrollably.
"What the fuck?" he says to everyone and no one in particular when the doors are safely closed behind them.
Seeder, one of 11's former Victors, comes rushing in to join them. "Come on," she says. "Upstairs. Now." She leads them up and up and up, floor after floor, and then down a hall and through a small door and up another long, shallow staircase and through another small door until they're in a tiny old storage room.
"They rioted here when Rue was killed," she says as she shuts the door. "Right after Katniss kissed her and put the flowers in her hands. They had to send in reinforcements from the Capitol to put it down. Dozens of people were killed and even more were flogged or beaten or imprisoned as punishment. What they did just now out there, that was a symbol of defiance."
"No," Katniss whimpers. "It's my fault. It's my fault."
Seeder, who has a warm, motherly aura, turns to her and takes her in her arms. "No honey," she says soothingly. "It's not your fault at all. We've been on the verge of rebellion here for a long time. No one here blames you. They were looking for an excuse. For a reason."
But Katniss is sobbing into Seeder's shoulder. "Hush now sweetie," the older woman murmurs. "It's alright."
As Cato looks at her, the wheels in his head start to turn. Katniss had been terrified when she danced with Snow, who, unbeknownst to her, had sold her off to Tony Waterford. This has to be connected to that. Somehow.
"Katniss," he says softly as her sobs die down. "What did Snow say to you when he danced with you after your games?"
She looks up at him and sniffles. She seems confused and then it's like some kind of light bulb goes off in her head. "That what I did for Rue was sweet. A little too sweet for a Victor. And then I told him I did it because she reminded me of Prim. And he said he was glad I'd volunteered for her. That it would have been a shame if something had happened to her."
"Did he have a tone when he said it?" Seeder asks. "Do you know what I mean by that?"
Katniss nods. "Yes. It was the way he said a little too sweet. And that it would have been a shame if something happened to Prim."
Cato looks at Seeder. She looks at him. "What do we do?" Cato asks.
"Nothing much you can do," she says. "But I don't know what the climate's like in the other districts. It's probably best to just stick to the speech on the card from now on."
Katniss is tearing up again. "I should have known what he meant!'" she wails. "I'm so fucking stupid!"
"Oh, honey, no you're not," Seeder murmurs and pulls her into her arms again as Cato wonders how the hell they're ever going to get through dinner.
xxxxxxxxxx
They shoot her up with morphling.
That's how they get through dinner.
He hates what the drug does to her. It makes her docile. Pliable. Apathetic. The very opposite of who she is.
"Smile," he says through the side of his mouth whenever she's supposed to smile. She smiles.
"Dance with him," he says when the mayor approaches. "And smile the whole time." She dances with the mayor. She smiles the whole time.
"Say thank you and that you've had such a wonderful time here and you appreciate the hospitality," he whispers as they approach her with a wireless mic at the end of the night. "And smile." She takes the mic and she thanks them and says she's had such a wonderful time here and she appreciates the hospitality. She smiles.
He misses her scowl.
xxxxxxxxxx
He's not at all surprised when he wakes to the sound of her crying in her sleep, but that doesn't mean he feels equipped to deal with it.
He briefly considers waking Cinna, who is still feeling awful, but decides against it.
So he stands outside of her doorway and he takes a deep breath and he ducks into her room.
She's shaking and sobbing and screaming. He can't see her face. She's asleep on her right side, her back toward him.
"Katniss," he says quietly, leaning over her to shake her left shoulder. But at the last second he remembers it's her bad one. Of course. That's probably why she sleeps on her right side. He hesitates and then moves his hand to the next logical place: the curve of her waist. He squeezes it gently and shakes her just a little, trying desperately to ignore how perfectly it dips down between her ribcage and her hipbones, how good it feels under his palm. "Katniss."
She stills momentarily and sucks in a deep breath and then she rolls onto her back to look up at him. Her hair is in her eyes so he can only see hints of mercury glowing through the strands. Her cheeks are wet. She starts shaking again.
"It's ok," he says. "You're ok. It's just a nightmare."
"No it's not!" she wails. "It actually happened. That man, it's my fault. It's my fault he's dead."
"No it's not," he says, but she's got her hands over her face and she's sobbing. "It's not your fault. It's not your fault." He repeats it over and over again, but he's getting nowhere with her.
God he wishes Cinna were here. Cinna would know what to do. He'd know what to say. He'd push her hair off her forehead.
Cato knows that touch can be comforting. He knows that Katniss finds it comforting. But coming from him? He's different. He doesn't know how she'd feel about him being the one to push her hair out of her face.
But he's all she's got right now.
So he stops thinking and he lets instinct take over and he sits down on the edge of the bed.
"Katniss," he says again, as he pries her hands away. Her face is twisted with misery and it's the sorriest sight he's ever seen. He can't bear it. So with his hands around her wrists he leans down and puts his lips to her forehead.
She lets out another great big sob and he immediately starts to pull away, because obviously he's just made it worse, but when he lets go of her wrists she clutches at his ribs. She arches up off of the bed and buries her face in his neck.
Automatically, he catches her up in his arms and settles her on his lap. He rocks from side to side slowly as she sobs and runs his fingers through her hair.
And that's how they stay, the two of them. For how long Cato has no idea, but as the minutes pass her sobs die down to hiccups and soft whimpers and finally, to one long sigh against his neck. She's still crying. He can feel her tears on his skin but she's quiet and calm. It reminds him of the soft steady rain that comes after one of the mammoth thunderstorms in 2.
He smiles in the dark. She smells like rain. She cries like a storm. Her eyes are the color of the bottom of a cloud. And yet she's the Girl on Fire.
He glances around the room. A boot here. One over there. Her dress is tossed on the back of the chair. There's a sock by the door. Its twin is nowhere to be found. And what do you do with your clothes? Throw them in a heap on the floor? No. She scatters them all over. Like a tornado.
He smiles a little more and closes his eyes and pulls her in tighter.
She curls her fingers around his ribs tightly. "Will you stay with me?" she whispers.
He freezes and opens his eyes again. Is his mind playing tricks on him or did she really just ask that? "Do you want me to?" he asks.
She nods against his neck.
There's no way she can't hear the pounding in his chest. "Umm, yeah, sure. Ok. I...do you want to lay down? How do you want-?"
"Yeah." She pushes up off of him and swipes at her face, which is plastered with wet strands of hair. But she's too impatient. If she'd just slow down.
Little tornado.
"Here. Stop." He pushes her hands away and starts at the top of her forehead and he runs his fingers along her hairline on either side down to her temples, collecting the strands along the way, and then he tucks them behind her ears.
"You're like a tornado," he tells her. "You know that? A little tornado."
She harrumphs and climbs off of his lap and settles under the covers just the way he found her when he first entered. On her right side.
He's not sure what to do. Yes, she asked him to stay with her, but still. It just seems too presumptuous, too forward to climb right under there with her. Especially since she's turned her back on him.
But then she gives him a look over her shoulder. Well? Are you coming?
He stands up and walks around to the other side of the bed and he climbs under the covers with her, settling on his back with his right arm under his head and his left hand on his stomach. He glances over at her and she's watching him.
"Do you have nightmares?" she asks.
"Yeah. Sometimes."
"About your games?"
"Yeah."
"How do you deal with them?"
He shakes his head. He's not going to tell her about his lighter. "I don't know. Just do."
She studies his face for a few seconds and then she sighs. "Tell me something."
He doesn't say anything at first because he assumes she's going to follow up her request with a question. But she's silent. "Ok...what do you want me to tell you?" he finally asks.
"Anything. Just talk. So I'll stop thinking about today."
He looks up at the ceiling. "The colored pencils were Brutus's."
"Really?"
"Yeah." He tells her how he found them in Brutus's desk and how he copied his mentor's drawings until one day he started doing his own. He tells her about that last night of Brutus's life. About how depressed he was and about the things he said: that no one wanted him just for himself and he'd never done anything good and he was gonna die alone. About how maybe he drank himself to death on purpose. "I wish I'd stayed longer," Cato says. "Until he passed out."
He feels her hand on his left forearm. Just beneath the crook of his elbow. "It's not your fault," she whispers.
He turns his head to look at her. But she's focused on his arm. On the burn scar beneath her fingers. It's not very old. Maybe a month or so.
He holds his breath. Shit.
She opens her mouth to ask a question, no doubt something along the lines of How did you get this?
But when her eyes meet his they widen and he realizes his face is an open book. I did it to myself. Please don't ask me about it.
She closes her mouth and runs her fingers over the scar one more time, and then she settles her hand overtop of it and closes her eyes.
Cato looks back up at the ceiling and lets his mind wander. He should be upset. About Brutus. About the man the Peacekeepers shot today. About Katniss discovering his dirty little secret.
And he is upset.
But for the first time he can remember he's not lonely. She's beside him, breathing steadily, and she understands him. It's comforting. It softens the edges of his melancholy.
The next time he looks over at her she's fast asleep, and in the moonlight he can see the tear stains on one of her cheeks.
He closes his eyes.
He doesn't fall asleep right away, but when he does he dreams of the rain on his face. The gentle kind that comes after a storm.