Chapter Ten
After ten minutes at the lunch table, I begin to understand why Clove hates the tributes of District Four.
It's not because they're cruel—that would actually be useful in the arena. What bothers me about them is that they think they're indispensable, as if the rest of us will fall apart the moment they die because we won't have any way to get food. Ludicrous. But until we assess our food supplies in the arena, I have to hold this alliance together. If there's nothing to eat at the Cornucopia, their fishing skills might just save our lives.
Mostly, though, I try not to talk to them. Marvel, however quiet he was during dinner last night, is a better conversationalist. I spend most of lunch talking to him, trying to figure out the subtleties of his strategy. "So, you're pretty good with a spear," I say. I spent a few minutes at the spear-throwing station this morning. The two of us exchanged greetings when I left and headed for the sword rack, and I got to watch Marvel nail his target's heart from twice as far as I could.
He smiles at me, spinning his fork through a mound of spaghetti. His voice is low enough that it doesn't carry. "Yeah. My trainers thought it'd be a good weapon for me. Good upper body strength, you know." He takes a bite, then dabs at his chin with a napkin to wipe away the tomato sauce. "You're pretty good with a sword."
"Yeah," I say, trying not to grin. "My trainers thought it would be a good weapon for me. Good upper body strength, and all that."
His grin widens as I echo his words. "You're not bad with a spear, either," he adds. "You been working at this a long time?"
"A while," I say. I've been training for this since I could walk after all. My father gave me my first real sword when I was six, and he put me through lessons before any personal trainers saw potential in me. I suppose that means I owe him.
Marvel nods, growing quiet again. Beside me, Clove talks animatedly with Glimmer, discussing different ideas she's had about killing the other tributes based on the geography of the arena. Right now, Clove is describing how the blood would sink into the sand if she stabbed a tribute to death in a desert. Sometimes, she specifies which tribute she intends to kill, often making remarks about District Ten or District Twelve. But once in a while, her eyes flicker to Remora, the other half of the District Four alliance, and I can tell she's not thinking about smothering the fiery tributes that vexed her before.
Lunch passes. We return to the Training Center, riding down the glass elevators to the subterranean floor. Our alliance takes up the whole elevator, but unlike during lunch, an uneasy silence presses down us. We share bread and fill our stomachs aboveground, but as we descend, reality sweeps over us with brutal force. All but one of us has to die, and standing among the most powerful players in the Games shakes up a lot of assumptions about who that might be.
The afternoon is spent much the same as the morning. I practice with a sword for a good part of the afternoon, then switch over to the knives station, where Clove is throwing blades into targets with the precision of laser-guided missiles. I've never worked much with throwing knives before—I'm fairly adept at other long-range weapons, like spears, and those generally pack enough punch that a glancing blow will do the job. Knife-throwing, however, takes a fair amount of precision to bring down a target, and given my talent with other, more conventional weapons, I've never been drilled on this by my trainers.
I look at the knives a little doubtfully, my eyes flickering back to Clove as she launches blades toward her target. I analyze the angle of her wrists, the precise moment at which she releases the knife. Most of these are double-bladed, like the one she threw into the wall in District Two.
When she runs out of knives to throw, she pushes a button to call the target to her. As the mechanical pulleys maneuver it closer, she turns to me. "Hoping for some lessons, Cato?"
"Maybe," I allow, lounging against the wall. "Are you giving lessons?"
"Maybe," she says, turning away to rip the knives from her target. As I get a closer look, I realize she wasn't aiming for a tight pattern, but to score hits on vital organs. Two knives stick out where the target's eyes would be. Three are embedded in the red square labeled as the target's heart, so close together that it would be difficult to slide a sheet of paper between them. There's one buried in the abdomen, a hefty thing I suspect is too unfamiliar in her hands to be much use to her. If I remember my anatomy sessions correctly, that knife landed in the target's liver.
"Mind if I give it a try?" I ask.
Clove steps aside without a word. Her lips twitch as if she's about to smile.
Knowing I'm about to humiliate myself, I send the target out to half the distance she was practicing at and pick one of the throwing knives from the table. I hold it just like I saw her hold hers a moment ago, but before I can even line up to aim, she interrupts. "You'll want to move your index finger further down the blade, if you're using that one. Better control."
I do as she says—this is one field where she's the expert, and I'm sadly lacking. But that's what these training days are for: learning skills you won't have an opportunity to learn while you're busy plotting ways to murder your fellow tributes.
Besides, Panem would go nuts if I were to kill Clove with throwing knives. They like competitors with a sense of humor.
I take aim, drawing on all my knowledge of spear-throwing as I line up with my target. I make several, slow movements as if I'm about to throw, just getting used to the weight of the knife. Then, with a swift, graceful motion, I let it fly.
The results are . . . less than spectacular. To my credit, the knife does hit the target. It just bounces off before cutting into the paper. I wince as the blade collides with the floor.
I turn to Clove, shoulders tight, waiting for her judgment. Her green eyes are far away, as if she's trying to look into the distance through a thick fog. "Not bad," she says. "Try putting a faster spin on it. You'll be more likely to stick it in the target that way."
I take a similar knife from the tray. Her fingers—delicate as silk compared to my callused hands—wrap around mine as she adjusts my grip. The knife feels slightly awkward, but I remember, however vaguely, the same sense of wrongness I felt the first time I picked up a sword. It's something you get used to, with practice.
I try again. The knife sticks, but it's so low in the target that, had it been a moving person, I would've missed.
"Try releasing it just a bit sooner," Clove suggests.
I spend almost an hour working through the techniques. Clove keeps her voice level, always picking out little things about my technique that I can improve upon. By the time the hour goes by, I'm able to score a debilitating wound. Assuming the target is standing still. And that I'm at a range where I might as well run after them with my sword. "Where did you learn to be so patient?" I ask.
Clove's face softens, her eyes becoming somehow more distant. When she doesn't answer after several seconds, I let it go.
It's not my business anyway.
After that first session at the knife-throwing station, we meet up every day, learning each other's strengths. I learn how to throw a knife with precision, and after a while, Clove admits I might actually be able to use it in the arena, if it comes down to it.
Something strange happens, during those three days in the Training Center. It's not that Clove and I are becoming friends—you can't afford friends in the Games, only allies—but we come to a sort of understanding. Since she's teaching me about throwing knives, I don't complain when she asks me to teach her how to use a sword. We're only allowed to spar the trainers they have on sight, but I show her some moves and critique her as she imitates them. Her small stature means she'll probably never have much use for sword training. More often than not, killing something with a sword depends on raw power more than careful technique. But then again, if I get killed and she's one of the last left standing, it might be wise for her to pick up a weapon she doesn't have to throw away.
The meals pass much the same as they did before. Clove shuns Remora and Jeremiah from District Four, but talks animatedly to Glimmer over steaming plates of lobster and cloyingly sweet crème brulee. Sometimes, their topics stray to more mundane things than killing people—things like how the sunset bleeds into the clouds as it settles near the horizon, or how Clove used to sneak away from her house and practice throwing knives near a stream by her village.
There's only one time when the chatter between Clove and Glimmer cuts off, and it's when Glimmer asks about her family.
"My mother trained me for the Games," Clove says shortly. "My father divorced her when I was ten. I have a younger sister."
The last two pieces are news to me, but apparently, it matters to Glimmer because she ignores the terseness of Clove's response and presses on.
"What's your sister like?"
Clove's eyes flicker up to Glimmer's face, her gaze sharp enough to bore holes through steel armor. "She's normal, I guess." Clove looks intensely at her baked potato, stabbing her fork through the dirt-colored skin.
It doesn't help matters when Remora opens her mouth. "I bet she's the favorite daughter, isn't she? Always spoiled, always gets what she wants."
"No," Clove snaps, glaring at her carrots as she smashes them under her fork.
"That's enough," I say, because I'm her district partner, and I'm obligated to defend her until I stick a sword through her heart.
"I bet that's it, isn't it," Remora goes on, her voice rising in pitch as if she thinks she's stumbled across something remarkable. "You're jealous of your little sister, so you volunteered for the Games hoping to gain your parents' respect."
"That's not the reason."
Remora scoffs, tilting her head back and grinning. "Whatever you say, little girl."
And I thought I was arrogant.
The last jab hits Clove harder than I expect. She shoots up from her seat, knocking her chair back. It clatters to the ground, loud enough to make Glimmer squeal in surprise. Clove's hands slam down on the table, but she doesn't say a word. Her lower lip trembles, and for one awful second, I think she's going to cry.
But she doesn't. She throws back her head and laughs. "At least my parents cared enough to teach me manners," she says. "I'd hate to see what goes on in your house."
Remora rises from her chair, face burning with anger. "You little troll."
A grin splits Clove's face, making her look almost feral. Remora throws her a look so full of menace, I jump to my feet. My response makes Jeremiah stand, and within seconds, our whole table is on their feet, claws out.
Peacekeepers swarm into the room from doors I hadn't even noticed until now. Within seconds, they're standing between every one of us, blocking our paths to each other. "All right, break it up!" one of them commands. Remora throws the man a withering look and slides back a step, tilting her head back until it looks like she's staring at the ceiling.
"Well," she says. "I won't have any part in this farce. I'm going up to my room." She flounces off, leaving the rest of us behind. I jerk my arm away from the Peacekeeper latching onto me, annoyed. We're supposed to save the fighting for the arena. It looks bad to be caught at it now.
Clove wriggles free of the group, strands of loose hair sticking up from her head like strange antennae. Her gaze finds mine. All traces of amusement have vanished from her face. In the fluorescents, her eyes shimmer with nascent tears.
She rips her gaze away from mine and stalks past me, heading for the elevator. By the time I'm able to process her near-breakdown, she's shooting up to the second floor.
I can't help but feel a little bit like I've witnessed a tornado in progress.