Disclaimer: I do not own the Hunger Games.
From the moment that the harsh midday light drawls its way though her bedroom window to prod her from sleep, Clove decides that she will call a truce with the sun. Even as its glow plants the seeds of a groan in her throat and a sting in her eyes, she's begun to clench back her resentment at the burning mass so hostile towards her pale skin. It will shine no matter how much frigidity she emanates. It will remain bright no matter how threateningly she handles the dagger that her slumbering fingers managed to retrieve from underneath her pillow. All she can do is channel its bright rays away from the memories that she'd rather not see illuminated.
Her father. Cato. Her father's words. Cato. Her father's scorn. CatoCatoCato-
Cinching her lips together, Clove tightens her grip around her knife. Forces her attention to its sharp, lithe form, its pitiless point, its smooth surface.
Her lips still contort into a grimace. She's clutched this blade in the midst of plenty of violent daydreams, ones that have featured a variety of stars, methods, and mindsets. Not once before, though, has she ever experienced this desire to inflict a stab wound on some tender piece of her own skin - especially not in penance for such completely self-inflicted stupidity as she'd committed the night before. And that is the only word that she can use to describe the mistake of kissing Cato. Stupid. Clove has thought so, with a condescending roll of her eyes, through each testimony that she's overheard from his multitude of intimate partners, and she continues to think so now that she has a testimony of her own to tell. Not that she ever, under any circumstances, will.
Straightening her posture, Clove darts her arm out. Her knife hits the target hung against the opposite wall with a satisfying bump.
Not that she'll ever, under any circumstances, even think about it again herself. Not ever.
She's grateful for the sun if only for the forgotten dreams of frenzy that it frightens away from the forefront of her mind.
The room is sparsely decorated, without much to characterize it. The walls are eggshell and the bedding is white and, since his sword collection's move down to his family's weapons room, the shelves are empty. Were it not for the moaning pair of bodies undulating on the bed pushed up into the far right corner, the space would lack any semblance of life whatsoever.
Of the two mouths hovering against each other, one grunts with much more fervor than the other. The latter can hardly claim any passion whatsoever.
Sex has never brought Cato such boredom.
It shouldn't bother him that she yields so easily to his touch, but it does. It frustrated him when Andie did the day before and it irks him when this nameless brunette does now. No fight. No power play. No challenge. And he has no idea why that's suddenly a problem.
Rolling off of her voluptuous body and onto his mattress, Cato turns away from the inexplicably inadequate girl with a frown that screams mute stories of aggravation and disconcertion.
"Leave," he says flatly. He doesn't bother to look over, to ensure that she follows his command. Her scurrying departure resonates as clearly as the insulted glare that she attempts to etch into his skull.
"Sorry about your back," she mutters on her way out the door, not sounding particularly apologetic at all.
The chuckle that rings from Cato's lips is as cold as it as amused. "Forget it." He quickly dismisses the idea of informing her that not one of the wounds scarring the hard surface of his back - not the remnants of the lashing he'd received for his tardiness at the Academy and certainly not the faint scratch marks left by a slender set of crawling, clawing fingers - is her work. He doesn't care enough to trouble himself with her name, let alone her conceptions.
Releasing a long groan, Cato flips his head over into a pillow.
Weekends rarely pass quickly for Clove. They're more often slow, snail-like affairs that leave her muscles aching for a return to the Academy, a return to routine.
Not this one. This one might as well have had the duration of a blink of her eyelids, a snap of her fingers, a toss of her knife.
Clove's legs descend into the kitchen Sunday night without a quirk of yearning or impatience. Only dread and disbelief. Did she not know better, she would have sworn that she'd spent the last two days in some sort of robbing time warp, rather than in a daze of knife-throwing and jogging and scrubbing in the shower at marks that won't disappear. Even now, after roughly seven showers in less than two days, the bruises remain. She knows that her violent efforts to dispel them are useless, that they won't buckle under her attacks. That the mere idea is impossible. Not a piece of that knowledge weakens her desire to erase the shadows of Cato's hands, of her own idiocy, from her body.
She prepares her salad with more care than usual that night, slicing each ingredient precisely, tossing each leaf of lettuce assiduously, and then eating each bite of the freshly prepared dish thoroughly. Clove will readily admit that it's a silly ritual; superstitious even. Nevertheless, she chews diligently, well aware that she'd skipped her nightly salad the Friday before and unwilling to ever allow that Friday to repeat itself.
Normal. This day, Clove tells herself the instant that her eyes peal open the next morning, will be completely normal. She reminds herself of this vow when her toothbrush bends to the tension in her fingers, and again when the first elastic that she grabs snaps mid-stretch from its too-tight clasp around her melted chocolate locks.
She will spend the day at the Academy. She will eat a salad for lunch. Cato will, at some point, try his hand at an unintentional imitation of a Neanderthal.
A completely normal Monday.
All of that extensive mental preparation for such an average start to the week, however, does nothing to weaken the brief wave of shocked panic that comes close to overwhelming her when she finds Cato waiting languidly in her kitchen - exactly as he seems to do, lately, on any completely normal day.
Steeling herself, she dons an expression of apathy and slips into recognizable terrain.
Cato wasn't sure of exactly what he'd been expecting when he'd walked into Clove's house that morning. It must have been something appealing though - appealing enough to call a smug smirk onto his mouth, enough to warrant the excitement with which he'd claimed a seat at her kitchen table. Unrealistic enough to leave him vaguely infuriated by the reality that quickly introduces itself; reality being a frustratingly straight faced Clove who gives him no further greeting than an eye roll and a dose of utter disregard when she enters the room. Cato blinks, clenching his fists with nonplused annoyance. He knows his training partner, knows her better than to believe that she'd succumb to a blush or a stutter after plunging her tongue into his mouth. But this- he can't remember a girl so ready to pretend that she's never met him, never mind than that she'd ever fucking touched him.
When she does speak to him a moment later, it's with so much indifference that, did he not know better, Cato might have wondered if she'd gotten drunk enough at Andie's party to forget the night altogether. Never mind that there hadn't been a drop of alcohol tainting her breath.
"I wasn't kidding the other day about having you arrested," she says on her way past his reclined form. Not a spared glance in his direction accompanies the flippant threat. Cato's knuckles whiten. He glares at her cabinet-bound figure, shaking the air with a cold chuckle.
"Go ahead," he replies. "Run to a Peacekeeper. I'm sure there's one capable of protecting you, little girl."
Tense composure reins on her features when she, very slowly, turns around to face him. With some satisfaction, he decides that she probably needed time to collect herself. Even now, Cato can see sharp shards of ice poking through her calm exterior.
"I'm fully capable of finishing you off myself."
His smirk widens. "I wouldn't say that you finished anything at Andie's party."
A different sort of ice comes to seize her, the sort that stills a person's muscles, that traps one in immobility.
Despite his irritation with Clove, Cato steals the opportunity to drawl his gaze along the length of her frozen body. His inspection lingers on the curve of her slim waist and the clothing-concealed bruises that line the flesh there. Bruises left by his hands.
"Look," she shatters her silence with a stone-clad word, bucking away from the horrified paralysis that had seized her. "That party never happened. I was never there. I never showed up and I certainly never laid a finger on you." Her arms cross in rigid resolution. "Are we clear?"
Through a mirthless grin, he says, "Don't tell me the bruises have already faded." Relishing in the way that she grows even tighter, Cato yanks himself out of his chair to stalk towards her.
"As far as I'm concerned," she says with a challenging cock to her flat voice, "the bruises don't exist." The reply comes out cramped, revealing no room for argument.
"Can't say the same about the claw marks on my back. I should have known you'd like it rough."
Her pale blue eyes harden with steel. "What you should know is that I'll cut your tongue clean out of your mouth if you ever mention last Friday night again."
Although entirely unamused, he can't stop grinning. Snaking a hand out, he reaches to brush the pads of his fingertips against her undoubtedly darkened waist. Before he can grab her, though, shake her, force her to admit that she finds this game they've started no less exhilarating than he does, she turns on her heel.
"You should also know," her harshly sweet voice carries behind her from the front doorway, "that we're both going to be late if we don't leave right now." Malicious pleasure twinges its way into her tone. "And I can't imagine that you'd want that. Unless you're in the market for a fresh set of whip marks to match last week's."
The urge to beat the stubbornness out of her with several hard blows to her pretty head might have proven too tempting for his fists to quench if a darted glance at his watch hadn't proven her point valid. There's no reason to volunteer for further punishment; his back already has enough decoration.
His vocal chords, however, see no point in indulging her with such leniency on their walk. "I never took you for a coward."
Incredulity shades the look she throws him. "What the hell is that supposed to mean?"
"Think about the first thing we learned at the Academy."
"I'm fully aware of the futility of compassion, thank you very much," she says. A soft soundtrack, the noise of her feet beating into the unyielding sunlit ground, hums behind the reply.
"The other first thing then."
A comprehending smirk contorts her mouth. "Nice try, but I don't think that the Academy was referring to sexual intercourse when they told use to 'never leave a job unfinished."
"That's too bad," he says, exaggerating his leer just to see how angry he can get her.
Disgust dictates her expression. "Unless you have some sort of bizarre grudge against your tongue, I'd stop talking."
"Unless you want a sword through your chest," he retorts with a raised eyebrow, "I wouldn't put your knife anywhere near my mouth."
A sharp crunch gnaws at his ears. Lowering his eyes, he manages to catch a short glimpse of Clove's foot slamming into a rock that happened to reside along its path.
It's a start, he notes as they start up the Academy steps, but he's still not anywhere close to stealing her beloved control away from her. The corners of his mouth rise. Not yet.
Clove's glare grows darker with each step she takes; darker than her hair, darker than her bruises, darker than even the blood stained air waiting for her in the Academy.
It turns coal black when she sees the sign pinned up onto the gym door.
For a horrifying span of seconds, Clove worries that she'll be confined to a chair in some random viewing room for the day, barred from seeking any release other than the vicarious stimulation gained from watching former tributes tear each other apart. Her fist clenches, beginning to ache at the knifeless emptiness in her palm. She needs Medea, needs the knife's rage, needs to warm its handle with the angry blood pooling through her fingers. She needs to throw something lethal at Cato's face.
And, if it weren't for the notice instructing their level to assemble out on the track for a morning run, she would have gotten exactly that satisfaction. Exactly that comfort.
Then again, she also would have been stuck in a closed space with Cato all morning. The tips of her nails relax slightly against her pink flesh. She'd sacrifice almost anything at the moment to get away from him and his asinine comments.
Clove slips away from her partner, using her petite size to disappear into the swarm of trainees. Her lips twist into a cold smile. A few hours away from Cato nearly makes up for the forced separation from her knives.
The doors are persuaded with an easy push to welcome her back into the fresh air. Blinking away the sun's jarring greeting, she makes her way over to the track. There's no doubt in her mind that Cato is fast; she'd expect nothing less of the Academy's golden boy. Not to mention the advantage that his long legs give him over in respect to stride-length. Still, there's even less doubt in her mind that avoiding him will be a fairly simple task, that she's swift enough, practiced enough, to evade him if necessary. Which it might not be. A betraying backwards flicker of her eyes tells her that he's already fallen into conversation with the genial-faced boy - an adequate trainee but no one impressive to deserve much attention from her - who always seems to be hanging around him.
Stepping out onto the thin dirt of the track, Clove accelerates her pace, determined to catch up to the trainees who had arrived earlier, started sooner.
No matter how fast as she hastens, however, snippets of her earlier conversation with Cato still succeed in catching up to her. She should have known that he would enjoy reminding her of her severe judgment lapse, that he'd find entertainment in her discomfiture. Pounding her feet against the ground with more force than necessary, she allows decision to clench her jaw.
Completely normal Monday.
She'll just have to refrain from giving him the satisfaction.
Accomplishment colors Clove's short breaths when she reenters the gym; accomplishment with the pace she'd kept, the people she'd passed, and her impeccably executed avoidance of Cato.
Pulling her sack off of her shoulders, Clove gropes through its interior, eager to retrieve her water bottle. Without wasting any time, she closes her lips around its opening and begins to greedily imbibe the cool liquid inside. She indulges her exertion-dried throat until the bottle has lost nearly half of its water-weight. Finally, with a soft sigh, she pulls it away from her mouth and proceeds to press it against the pulse point of her wrist. A sensation more placid than she'd expected to feel for quite a while sets her shoulders into a relaxed slump.
"That was some getaway Friday."
Tension comes rushing back into her muscles. That nightmare of an evening just won't leave her alone. Whirling around her head around, Clove throws a glare at the figure who saw fit to intrude into her space. "I think you're using the term 'getaway' a bit liberally."
Aside from the sweat that flattens his dark curls around the flushed skin of his temples, Gregoric's face reveals no more fatigue than her own. A shame, in Clove opinion. He'd likely be much easier to stand if he lacked the energy to speak. "And what would you call your sudden exit?" Leaning casually against the wall, he quirks a dubious eyebrow at her.
"Not any of your concern." An aggravated scowl depresses her mouth. Gregoric's false grin is almost as infuriating as Cato's chronic smirk; even more so when it looks as though it's about to emit words. Not in any mood to put up with his pathetic cracks at cajoling information out of her, Clove rushes to continue. "But, if you must know, I wasn't feeling well."
"Better now, I hope?" he asks, with about as much belief in his voice as she'd imagine he would use if discussing District Twelve's likelihood of producing a victor.
"Well, I was."
Gregoric chuckles insincerely. "You ran away-sorry." He pauses to raise his hands in mock apology. "You got sick so quickly the other night that we never got to finish our conversation."
"Pity."
"So," he says, ignoring her sarcastic interjection. "I thought I'd fix that now."
Busy storing her water bottle away into her bag, Clove doesn't bother to look at him as she repeats herself. "Pity."
Façade shimmering for a flash, his grin falters. He takes a few moments resuscitate it back into life before replying. "Look, I just wanted to give you one last opportunity to prevent yourself from making a colossal mistake."
"And what would that be?"
He pushes himself off from the wall to step closer to her. "Rejecting me as your training partner."
Clove rolls her eyes before moving to walk wordlessly away.
Not particularly worried by the rapidly expiring shelf life of her tolerance, however, Gregoric doesn't hesitate to jog in front of her. "I don't understand why you're being so difficult about this."
"Funny," she replies, her tone poisonous. "I could say the same to you."
He infuses his next words with all the warmth of a rabid dog's panting. "Hey, I'm doing you a favor here. There are plenty of people who would be happy to have me as a partner, but I'm putting off my decision. For you."
Clove releases a tense exhale. "I've told you that I don't want to transfer partners in every single way that I know how." Short of carving the words into his forehead, an idea that's gaining appeal with each breath he takes in her direction.
"I know. I'm anxiously waiting for you to run out and agree."
Her eyes dart with violent longing over to the display of knives.
Possibly becoming aware of the bloody turn of her thoughts, he tempers his grin with a note of gravity. "In all seriousness, though," his speech persists through her interjected snort of laughter, "are you really this committed to spending quality time with Ludwig?"
Clove hesitates. She would love the chance to get away from Cato, from his unwanted reminders of her idiocy, from the marks that she knows for a fact her nails scratched into his back. Still, Gregoric hardly seems like an attractive substitute. For any number of reasons.
"And what makes you think that I'd want to spend quality time with you?"
Phoniness floods back onto his face. "Aside from my dashing good looks?"
"I'm not transferring to a weaker partner," she says through irritation cinched lips. "No matter how much I'd enjoy banning Cato from my life."
"I am not weaker than Ludwig." Genuineness smears his face into a snarl.
Before she can remind him of the very publicly presented proof that had disputed that claim right in front of her, Julius's gravelly cadence calls them to attention.
"Break's over." Clove, like the rest of her peers, stands rigidly, waiting for further instruction. With only an hour until lunch, she can't help but hope that he'll direct them to use the short gap of time left for solitary activity. That she'll have the chance to seek solace in Medea rather than agony in Cato's presence. She hopes it with so much vehemence that it takes her a few moments to register Julius's words when he grants her wish's fruition. A rare smile comes close to curving onto her face.
"After lunch," Julius continues, "you'll engage in randomized combat. Listen up for your opponent. I won't be repeating myself." This time a smile does manage to overtake her, a smile of relief and unexpected elation. Just speaking to Cato this morning had proven her plan to forget ever attending Andromeda's party problematic. She can't imagine what damage actual physical contact could wreak on her psyche.
The names he reads off largely pass by her ears, most of them striking her as fairly irrelevant. She takes note of her own assignment, bookmarks the surname 'Gellar' in her brain, but otherwise tunes out. Despite themselves, though, her ears can't help but revive at the sound of Cato's name.
"Ludwig and Aldrin," Julius calls out between glimpses down at his list.
It's not a smile that wrangles her lips into motion now, but something much darker, something calculating.
Eager to claim Medea, she turns immediately to Gregoric upon their dismissal. "Beat Cato this afternoon," she says, her voice low with intent, "and I'll tell Calliope that I've changed my mind about your request."
She walks off then without waiting for a reaction.
The knives have already garnered a small group by the time she reaches their case, but no one protests when she goes to wrap her fingers around Medea. She strokes the blade with reverence. Caressing her handle, she feels more like herself than she has all weekend.
Author's Note: Thank you so much to everyone reading this story! Especially to those who have reviewed: Marina, luvxas37, GottaLoveMEgan, xoxo .Amethyst. xoxo , HungerGamesHarryPotter7887, Ombre de la Lune, thatiismahogany, MarvelousMarvel, ClatoEverthorne, RiRiandHGLover, and, of course, all who have commented anonymously. You have no idea how much I appreciate your feedback.
Thanks again for reading!