Chapter 14- Cato's P.O.V
"Wake up soldiers- Busy day- Not much time"
Boggs stood over my bed and I aggressively pulled the duvet over my face.
"Come on special-K get up" He tore the covers off and I shuddered as the air hit me.
"Cato-move it-Were not waiting for you."
I sighed and kicked my legs out of bed.
Today, I was going on my first mission assisting district thirteen to bring down the capitol, hopefully I'd be allowed to be in a genuine battle as the war progressed.
As I stretched my back I saw marvel feebly attempting to get up.
"Not as easy as it looks" he laughed.
I gave him a smirk and nodded my head sarcastically.
"Having problems marvel?" I sniggered as he was heaved up by Boggs.
"Move it people- You have twenty minutes maximum then meet us up by the docking station." Boggs nodded at me curtly and walked out of our dormitory.
"Ok guys, better hurry it up" Said a tall man sleeping opposite us.
The room that the remaining tributes had been sleeping in had also been shared with some of the' top-dog' soldiers who seemed to know the repeating schedule like the back of their hands. I wearily plodded to get my fresh grey uniform out of the wardrobe when glimmer came and linked my arm.
"I love you… stay with marvel and look after each other- ok?" she smiled at me and my knees melted. She was still the same beautiful glimmer, her skin was obviously a lot paler and her body still had the faint discoloured circle scars, but she was so beautiful.
"I love you too-you know that don't you? Because…you really are everything that I have now…" I put a hand on her neck and ran my fingers in her hair.
She smiled and shook her head.
"You're not everything to me; you're much much more than that" She winked and smiled and made me smirk.
"Kiss me" She said.
I looked around me jokingly to make sure no one was watching and then pressed my lips against hers. Warmth flooded threw me and I felt her breath tickling my eyes it made me laugh and she pulled away almost snorting.
"WHAT!" she laughed.
I opened my mouth to reply but Boggs' yelling voice commanded me away.
I winked at her and threw my jacket over my shoulders.
"Hey Cato" marvel called and waved over at me, still pulling up his trousers.
I bit my lip as I saw how ridiculous he looked. Saying as district thirteen never wasted anything they'd given him a uniform that could fit Thresh.
"Marvel, I think you brought a size too big" I joked and pulled the baggy shirt at least a metre away from him.
He looked at me unimpressed and slapped my hand away.
"Are you ready" He said bitterly.
"Course" I folded my arms and looked at him mockingly.
"I hate you-" he said.
"Haha- really?" I nudged his arm and clove came running over straight past Boggs.
"Bye Cato!" she said and wrapped her arms around me. I held her tightly and shoved her off when Boggs came marching over.
"If you please, Boys come with me, we need to escort soldier Everdeen into our hovercraft." I looked at Marvel and rolled my eyes but he wasn't looking at me.
Marvel stared at clove who seemed to be completely avoiding his gaze. Maybe this was pretty serious- I just never knew marvel could let her get this angry with him. Clove leant over to him and put her lips close to his ear.
"Stop playing with the enemy marvel- or are we nothing to you anymore- don't pretend you don't know- you're just trying to fit in with the wrong crowd." She pulled away and looked into his eyes longingly then she turned off immediately and walked out the room with glimmer. I pretended that I hadn't heard her and just tried to look as chuffed as I was before. But as a matter of fact I was furious that I didn't know what she was talking about.
We followed Boggs without speaking to one another. Thresh stood next to marvel and another five men stood beside me. After what seemed like days of walking we reached a large metallic chamber with around seven capitol hovercrafts sleeping in their stations- Then katniss strolled in, her eyes itchy with lack of sleep.
"Katniss" Boggs smiled.
She greeted him in a giant feathered suit of armour- Obviously built around her whole 'mockingjay' thing saying as the feathers were black and white. She walked off and I immediately realized why we were here. The softer districts could see a bird outfit and give their lives for its cause… but district two? One? No…they would need a lot more than some fancy costume…they'd need there tributes...I wondered if marvel had the same thought but I was abruptly interrupted by the shoving and pointing to get me into the hovercraft. They guided me to a white seat by the window and I gladly took it, peering outside to see what could be seen from my viewpoint. A Giant opening in the ceiling started to move to the sides making a clear path for the hovercraft to take off on. As the roof moved, sunlight came flooding in the room. My eyes squinted and I looked through my fingers as the giant heap of metal propelled itself off the floor. Sunlight dazzled around us, making my head throb with the sudden change of scenery.
Marvel sat opposite me with thresh and we all looked amazed as district thirteen closed back into the soil and vanished from sight.
"It's a clever place- thirteen- playing dead for all these years…they've managed just fine" I say, as the hovercraft propels its way into the clouds.
Boggs came towards us and started to give us the briefing- he went on about all the old classic rules- number one: stay together, number two: never leave a man behind, Number 3:Make sure we are in the camera footage helping people and looking respectable and blah-de-blah-de-blah…. I rolled my eyes and put my head in my hands.
"You better have paid attention soldier… any of you get out of hand- you will be punished." I peeped up to see him glaring at me.
"Got it"
I smiled sweetly and he stormed off.
"I mean seriously- how old does he think I am? It's not like we front row of a battle- were going to take some pretty pictures of katniss hugging children I mean how low can we get…" I moaned and looked to marvel for support but he was just laughing.
"Cato, you never know when you might bump into some rabid children these days, better to be safe than sorry" He smiled and I shook my head smirking.
"You're an idiot" I smiled.
"I know!" he smiled back.
We waited for a couple of hours in that hovercraft- chatting and occasionally making funny remarks. But by the time we landed in district eight I was bored as hell. The landing lights flashed above my head, but I chose to ignore them. I peered out of my window to see the tiny figures of people developing as we neared the ground. I felt a harsh thud and a dust cloud blocked my view.
"District of textiles right?" I asked.
"Ohh yeah! This will be FUN!" marvel replied- his face lacking any positive emotion.
"Oh come on wuss-puss, you can make pretty sewing patterns!" I joked.
Marvel slapped his hands on his cheeks and faked a gasp of surprise.
"CAN I!" he squeaked.
Me and thresh laughed but stopped after are gaze locked in some flick of anger.
"Alright people- let's move out- go directly to your given destination as soon as you are told" Boggs walked straight out with Katniss- and the cameras followed them absorbing every ounce of their bodies. As the idiots trailed out- Me, Thresh and marvel were escorted to the entrance of district eights hospital.
We casually waited outside and watched katniss and the rest of them walk inside. A few young children and civilians came over and stared at us.
I felt like waving sarcastically but apparently we had a reputation to uphold.
I nodded at them warmly and looked away the irritation eating away inside of me.
The three of us looked around humming a tune or whistling along. I was insanely bored again, how could they call this a mission? We were waiting outside a hospital for katniss to come out with her OTT camera crew.
"That's a wrap" I heard a voice say from inside.
'Thank god it is' I thought.
After another agonisingly slow minuet katniss made her exit. She came out her head held high smiling at the crowd of children that bothered me so much. Boggs gestured his hand for us to follow and we trailed behind. The heat in the air made my skin prickle and I rubbed my arms to remove the weird sensation. But it didn't go away.
A rumbling grew in my head like the aggressive buzzing of tracker jackers and it grew louder and louder. I looked into the cloudy sky but nothing was there. We stopped walking and katniss and Boggs turned around.
"What's wrong?" he said.
I shrugged still looking in the sky.
"Probably nothing" I sighed.
An explosion of fire threw me into a brick wall a good few meters to my left. I spat out blood on the floor, shock gripping me. Another explosion went off and hundreds of capitol bomber planes came rapidly over our heads.
"Shit!" I screamed "Run!"
I got to my feet immediately to see katniss scaling a nearby wall and Boggs falling to the floor with what looked like a broken nose. I didn't stop to help I just kept running.
The sound of a building tumbled behind me made me sprint even faster.
"Cato!" marvels voice coughed behind me.
I stopped and span on my heel to come face to face with the wild looking marvel.
"Where's thresh!" he yelled
My complexion faded.
"Who cares!" I yelled again over the sound of complete chaos.
"Cato! We can't leave him to die! No man left behind!" Marvel grabbed my arm.
I rolled my eyes and groaned.
"Ok-where is he?" I yelled.
Marvel had already run back into the fire and I followed begrudgingly.
"Thresh" He screamed. And we looked in every opening we could.
But still no sign of him, Smoke started to block our vision and my head felt heavy and sick.
"Cato! Over here!" I heard a frantic cracking and saw what must be Thresh's body squirming under a burning beam of a building. I sprinted over and placed my hands on the scorching metal- it hurt like hell- but we lifted the heap of metal high enough for thresh to scramble out. By now I couldn't hear anything except the on-going explosions of the capitols bombs. Thresh stood up with a seeping burn of his chest.
"Let's keep going" Thresh cried. But I couldn't exactly hear him. The three of us charged through the roaring flames into a large opening. My watering eyes felt a whoosh of relief as the clean air hit them.
"To the hovercraft! Now!" I pointed to the giant ship and ran as fast as I could. My thighs stung like crazy but there was nothing that could make me stop now.
Then I heard the biggest explosion of them all burst into life directly behind me. I went hurtling forward my face grinding along the dirt. Very slowly I tried to sit up, there was blood pouring out of my nose and my wrist had been twisted in an inhuman direction.
"Oh my god "Thresh said.
I turned around to see thresh cradling Marvel- or what was left of him.
The boy lay on the floor in some sort of Spasm with half of his right leg missing. Pieces of shrapnel were petruding out of his right arm and body- the most obvious was a large jolt of metal going diagonally into his ribcage. Blood was draining from him unrealistically fast.
"G-Get him to the ship" I snapped.
My body moved quicker than my mind did.
'I've let you die before marvel…im not letting you go again…' I thought to myself.
I grabbed his upper body and thresh took his left leg and right thigh and together we almost flew towards the ship. Marvel was still screaming and crying in his fit so we tried not to touch the wounded parts of his body…but that was pretty hard when almost all of him was wounded. We got into range and a ladder came down and air lifted us into the protection of the hovercraft. As soon as the floor was sealed I saw just how many people were waiting for us. Plutarch stood in front of us, his pupils shrinking, and behind him coin and Boggs were gathering numerous doctors.
"For god's sake help him!"
I screamed and stood to my feet in anger, which almost made me shriek in pain, because only then did I see the shard of metal piercing my leg. The doctors reacted quickly to my fury and around thirty different people lifted marvel onto a hospital bed and ran intio the wards.
"Cato" Boggs said, moving towards me to calm me down.
I brushed him off viciously and sprinted off towards marvel. I followed the bed down the corridor and walked into glimmer and clove.
"Cato, where are you going?" Clove said she reached out a hand but I pushed past her.
Why wouldn't people just leave me alone? Marvels bed was rushed into the A&E room and another ten or so people ran in with me to join him.
Large doses of morphling were injected into his body, and I made my way to join his side. He still looked in utter agony as they began to remove the shrapnel and every time he squealed my fist clenched a little harder.
"He can still feel it" said a small voice.
Everybody turned to look at Rue and Thresh coming in the door. Clove and Glimmer followed them inside and both of them gasped in horror.
"What sweetheart? Look we are really busy and we seriously do not have time for…" the doctor shut up as Rue and thresh brought out a glass of this herbal water.
"He needs this" Rue said and held it out. "I promise it works, we use it all the time in eleven." The doctors cautiously took it from her and examined the bottle.
"Will it work?" they said.
"Well it's not like you've got much choice is it!" I snarled.
Without another word the liquid was poured into marvels screaming mouth. For a second he seemed to gag on the stuff but then his breathing slowed and his eye lids shut and he actually seemed calm.
I looked to thresh and rue gratefully and nodded. They seemed to understand and then watched as the doctors pulled the shards out of his body. Another five doctors bandaged the stump of his leg and prevented any further bleeding. I felt two hands tentatively grab on to my shoulders and I heard both of their owners sobbing helplessly.
"I…I…is he-o-k-kay…" Glimmer stammered and sniffed and put her cheek on my arm.
"I think he'll be ok soon…" I lied. I didn't think he'd be ok at all, I thought he was going to die any minute and leave us all in a state of depression and insanity for the rest of our days.
"Soon" I said again.
"He-h-h-hates me n-now…." Clove sniffed and knelt down beside him. She rested her chin by his hands and kissed his blood stained knuckles. She kept whispering things into his battered skin and then I put my lips into glimmers ear.
"Only now do I really see how lucky I was in that arena…I had you…safe…and then me being an idiot let you go…" my voice was deep and emotionless as if nothing mattered to me anymore.
Glimmer took my face in her hands and I looked into her weeping eyes.
"I died looking into your eyes Cato, that was more than I ever expected, that was the best way to go … you are so p-precious to me. And it wasn't your fault I died Cato it wasn't your fault at all." She sniffed and a tear rolled down her pale cheeks.
"But glimmer, I could have saved you… I could have saved both of us, but instead I was so addicted to myself winning that I didn't care who died!" I stroked the hair out of her eyes and she giggled sadly.
"Cato, that's the thing… you couldn't have saved me… one of us had to die in the end, Cato, that's the way the capitol wanted it to be- and I hate them for it…" We stared into each other's eyes and I shook my head.
"Snow can't get away with this; he was responsible for so many deaths… He was responsible for marvel…" we looked at the bleeding corpse and I wished there was something I could do.
But there wasn't.
I sat down by his bed with glimmer on my lap and waited. Clove knelt on the floor crying into his bed sheets and I twirled glimmers hair around my fingers.
There was nothing we could do to help him, nothing we could do to comfort him, the only thing we could do…was wait…