Chapter 14: Silence
Cato's forehead pressed against the cool window glass of the car that was bringing him to his destination – his new home with Peeta on the outskirts of the Capitol. It was raining out.
Of course it was.
The chill of the window against his forehead gave him a shiver, but he didn't pull away. He stared, unblinking at the pastel colored homes as they blurred past.
His fingers tried, without success to dig into the fine leather of the seat beneath him. The careful stitching, the soft cushion; it all felt so wrong after his weeks of torture. He was uncertain whether he was really there, or whether he had lost his mind in the haze of pain and misery, and simply imagined that he had been released.
It certainly didn't feel like he was really here. It felt as if he was outside himself, watching the car propel him down the cobblestone streets.
He swallowed, which was more difficult than it used to be, now that he didn't have a tongue. Now that he was an Avox.
The effort caused him a great deal of pain. His mouth was still healing from the brutal surgery in which they had practically ripped his tongue out. He remembered, because they hadn't used anesthetic. He'd been awake, choking on his own blood and screams – which no longer sounded human, with no tongue to articulate them.
Cato tried to shake himself free of the memory. and startled back away from the window. He looked in the rearview mirror of the car at the driver, whose eyes were focused forward, and paying Cato no mind.
He moved his hands to his lap, placing them palm up, and flexed his fingers a few times. It still brought the sensation of pain, though not as sharp as the pain in his used to be tongue and throat. He turned his hands over, inspecting the new scars, the evidence of his torture.
He hadn't been sure that it was possible for him to look worse than he had his first few weeks after the Games, but sure enough, he had found a way. After the Games, he had simply looked worse for wear, but after his torture, after his being turned into an Avox, he looked broken.
He wondered if he was… broken.
He felt numb, dull. Even the thought of seeing Peeta brought him little feeling, nonetheless the happiness he'd felt before. His body was all wrong – stitched up tight, contained. He had been weakened to the point of no recovery. He would heal, in time, but never again would be in fighting condition.
He was lucky they'd bothered to put him back together at all, or so the doctors had told him. The stitches too had been done with no anesthetic, so he had felt, had counted each and every pin-prick of the needle and tug of the thread. He could actually quantify just how broken he was.
His face was a hollow shell of his once radiant, handsome façade, and he shied away from mirrors. In fact, he shied away from just about everything, afraid of his own shadow. In his dreams, reruns of the Capitol's monitors played over and over and over. In his waking, each sound, each dancing shadow put him on high alert.
What would Peeta even say to him? What could Peeta do but pity him? Maybe Peeta would tear up the deed to his life and just let him die. That would be best, Cato thought. He didn't know how he could live like this.
He must be broken. Unfixable. Beyond repair.
The car was beginning to take fewer turns, and Cato noticed that the streets were getting less crowded, the houses spreading out. They were getting to the outskirts, which meant they were getting closer to Peeta.
A cold sweat broke out across Cato's palms, stinging the cuts that had been too small to stitch up, but had not yet healed. Cato felt himself begin to tremble. He bit his lip until he the sensation of his own blood dripping down his chin forced him to relent. He tried to stop his shaking, and planted his hands on either side of himself on the seat. He steadied his breathing, and closed his eyes, only to force them back open when images of Clove's skull being bashed in flashed behind his eyelids.
Even the feeling of breathing was more unsettling without a tongue. He wondered if the true torture of being Avox, besides crippling isolation due to inability to communicate, was feeling constantly unnatural.
"You're new." The driver spoke.
Cato's eyes darted up to the mirror and he saw the eyes in the rearview watching him, studying him. He quickly dropped his eyes.
"Usually, if a Victor hires an Avox while they're in town, they'll send someone reliable, who knows the ropes." There was no judgment in the driver's voice, only curiosity. "But you're fresh from the operating table."
Cato nodded, knew somehow without looking that the driver was still watching him. The driver laughed, her tone unreadable, as she said, "You're a fast learner. Most of them in your position are still trying to answer with words… but maybe you were quiet to start with?"
Cato flicked his eyes up to the mirror and was surprised to see a smile in the woman's green eyes – not a cruel smile, but a gentle one. He nodded again, but didn't drop his eyes.
The woman continued, "There now. It's nice to see your eyes for longer than a second. You were pretty handsome before they got to you huh?"
Cato, unsure of how to answer, stayed still.
"I'll take your silence as a yes." The woman laughed again, and Cato's temper flared for just a moment, but he didn't have the energy to maintain the emotion. He knew, of course, that she wasn't making fun of his situation. She was in fact trying to be nice. It was at the expense of his pride, but what did he have left to be proud of anyway?
This thought penetrated his numbness enough for him to give a weak smile.
The woman assumed a more professional tone, and turned her eyes back to the road as she offered, "Anyway, it seems like Peeta Mellark is a different sort of Victor. I don't know quite how to put it, but, I don't think he'll be too hard on you."
With that, the car came to a stop, and Cato realized that they must be at their destination – his new home. He could see Peeta standing outside on their front step waiting for him, looking anxious.
Cato gave the rearview a panicked look, but the woman was polite enough not to acknowledge it.
"I'm told your things have already been delivered here, so, you should be all set." The woman's voice was professional, but not insincere. Cato nodded in response and pushed the door open.
He was about 20 feet from the porch steps, and tried not to make eye contact with Peeta. Instead, he took in their new home. It was modest, as their apartment had been, smaller than the biggest houses in 2 certainly, but big enough for the two of them, especially in comparison with the underground apartment in which they had been living.
Their house was a dusty shade of pale blue, with white trim; simple, down to earth.
Most importantly, Cato noticed with a turn of his head, they had a yard. It wasn't expansive, but it was theirs. It was enough. Cato fixed his eyes on the single tree in their yard. He couldn't place its species, but he knew that in the summer it would have wide, flat green leaves. In the fall, they would change colors and float to the ground.
It would be their calendar of sorts, to remind them that life would always keep going, no matter what.
Cato became aware of the icy rain tracing stinging paths down his skin. Despite irritating his injuries, the rain felt good on his tight skin, which seemed perpetually warm from the multitude of the burns he'd received. Cato looked up towards the sky, and shut his eyes, letting the rain pierce the cloud of apathy that had settled around him.
"Cato…" Peeta's voice, terrified, concerned, angry, sad.
It wasn't surprising, since Cato was wearing the Avox uniform of a simple tunic and pants. His bare arms would betray only a fraction of his injuries, and yet their multitude would seem shocking to Peeta, who had just returned from a being pampered and perfected on his tour the three weeks.
Cato's mouth ached, from the tilt of his head, from the chill of the rain. He relaxed his neck and brought his head back to a level position.
"Cato…" Peeta sounded as if he might cry.
Cato turned to Peeta, opening his arms slightly in a way that might suggest that he meant no harm, had no weapons. What he really meant was that he was open, empty. He had nothing left to give. As soon as his eyes met Peeta's, the boy's blue eyes released the tears that had been brimming at his blonde lashes.
Peeta didn't move, couldn't perhaps, from the shock of seeing Cato like this. He just stood and wept, covering his mouth with a hand to quiet his sobs. Cato clenched his jaw. It hurt. Everything hurt. He didn't feel angry. He didn't feel as if he could be strong for Peeta, even if he wanted to. He just kept standing there.
This is it. I have nothing left to give you.
Peeta finally choked back his tears, and wrapped his arms around himself protectively. "Why aren't you saying anything?" He sounded angry. Cato could have been upset, but he just envied the energy Peeta seemed to have.
"I don't see you, don't hear from you, for 3 weeks. Then you come back and stand at a distance like we're strangers?" Peeta demanded.
Cato just shook his head, ever so slightly. It wasn't like that. It wasn't as simple as all that.
"And look at you!?" Peeta's voice broke, and tears threatened again as he shouted, "What the hell happened to you?!"
Cato could only look, could only stare at Peeta with empty eyes as Peeta continued to shout at him. "What happened?!" He was getting desperate, hysterical. "Why won't you say anything? Please! Tell me-," he choked. "Tell me what happened!"
Cato wanted to go to him, to touch him, to tell him it was okay.
He couldn't. He knew he couldn't speak, but the distance between them seemed to stretch, and walking it seemed an impossibility. He felt so weak, and his head was spinning. He had to try. He had to go to Peeta and try to find a way to tell him what had happened, what was happening, that he was broken and unfixable and worthless… and that he still needed him, that he loved him.
He took one step and collapsed in the mud.
Peeta rushed to him, and dropped to his knees beside where he lay. Cato felt Peeta's arms wrap around him, and pick his torso up off the ground. He was surrounded with Peeta's warmth, his face so close that Cato could taste the boy's sweet breath, smell him, even through the cold wet smell of the rain.
Cato's vision, though, was a blur. He could see Peeta's face, but it felt as if he was looking at him through a long dark tunnel.
Peeta was crying again, hot tears hitting Cato's face, intermingling with the droplets of icy rain. "Why won't you say anything?" Peeta's voice seemed echo-y and far away.
Cato lifted a weak, limp-wristed hand to his mouth, and point, dropping his jaw as he did so, showing Peeta the scar where his tongue used to be.
Peeta sounded panicked when his voice caught up to his ragged breathing, "No. No. Oh no no no no no… Cato… No." Peeta held Cato's face in his hands, crying, pleading with Cato as if there were anything he could do to change that he had been mutilated, that he was an Avox.
Cato reached up with his hand into what seemed like nothingness, as his vision blurred to blackness, but before he lost consciousness, his fingertips reached Peeta's face, trailing a gentle path down the boy's cheek as he went limp.
Tears and rain dappled Cato's closed eyelids. He wondered if he was dying. He could feel, somewhere far away, his body being dragged up the steps towards the house. Peeta's distant voice promised to find him help, to take care of him.
Cato wished he could answer Peeta, but trapped as he was, in muteness, and then finally, in unconsciousness, there were no words. There was only silence.