A/N: Again, it's been a long time since I've written anything for this site, but I've had an urge to put down original fiction and begin writing on here once more. So here's a chapter telling the story of a character I began fleshing out many years ago, told for the first time through his perspective.

This is a scene that I've wanted to write for years, and it largely turned out as I'd imagined it many years ago. I hope you all enjoy the chapter :)


"I will not back down to anything or anyone

You cannot contend 'cause in my head I'm number one."

Colin MacDonald, 2008.


Chapter Twenty-Three

Sextus Aurelius Cato (18), District 2 Male

4.00 pm, Sunday 2nd August, Day 15 of the 74th Annual Hunger Games

The Trews - Hold Me in Your Arms (2008)


It's been two days since the feast.

It's been two days since Clove Stephenson died.

For the first time, I am alone in the arena, but I don't mind. The son and grandson of the two greatest victors Panem has ever seen, these final days in the arena are what I have been training my whole life for, to define my legacy.

I just wish Clove was here with me.

For the two days since the feast, when Thresh, the graceless mountain of a boy who ended her life, ran away into the wheat fields to the north of the arena, I've known what I must do. I don't care that I'm forcing the issue, and will likely be confronting Thresh on his terms and not my own. I cannot get the image of Clove's broken body out of my mind.

By the time I reached her, she was already too far gone. Broken and battered, unconscious and barely breathing, there was nothing I could do but watch her drift away. Her last words to me ringing in my ears, spoken as she looked back at me for a final time, breaking from cover into the fracas at the feast.

"I'll take care of Twelve."

It took the cannon to blast overhead for me to finally believe she was gone. Kneeling in the dirt beside her body, the most tortured part of my mind demanded that I give her a proper burial there and then, to give her the send-off she deserved. But I didn't have a monopoly on loving her. There are others back home in Two who would want to pay their respects.

As I closed her eyes and stood to turn away from the woman I loved, the grief cleared from my mind and focused into a burning rage, driving me after one man. Whatever concerns I had with District 12 being the most dangerous threat in the arena, they were cast to one side immediately.

The most important thing to me in this Hunger Games is now making sure that Thresh doesn't get out of here alive.

I've been stalking the fields of long grass for the past two days; the first in the burning sun, the past day through torrential rain. I don't care that there's no cover, that my shirt is sodden and clings to my chest. I don't care that there are likely hidden mutts waiting to strike in the long grass. I don't even care that I wouldn't know how to harvest food from any of these plants, the way that Thresh does. I'm a Cato; I have all the sponsor support I need.

Over the last day, the ground has gotten increasingly soft underfoot, turning uneven footing into a slippery marsh. A wrong step and it takes fifteen seconds to pull my boot out. Travel is slow, and in an area almost as large as the woodland I've largely been confined to, hunting one tribute has been a real task.

Finally, after two days of travelling, this afternoon I have reached the edge of a large lake that disappears northwards towards the horizon. I'm fairly certain this is the arena's edge. The land drops away, sloping down towards the choppy water; what would have been barren and dusty land is now a muddy shore.

Along this shore is where I see Thresh for the first time since the feast; perhaps half a mile west of me along the shore. A blurry figure barely recognisable through the heavy rain, identified by the glint of his sword, already drawn for a fight.

As much as I'm desperate to sprint along the shore and strike his head from his shoulders, I've got enough sense about me to make him travel to me. I've come this far for him. Desperate as I am, I'm not walking into a trap. He can travel this last leg to me.

And he does, moving remarkably well through the mud for a man of our size. I notice that he dropped his supplies, the two heavy backpacks he took at the feast, on the ground behind him. My prize once this is over.

There are five tributes left alive in the arena, although I'd wager we'll be down to four within the hour. If nothing else comes of this battle, if Thresh manages to take me down with him, then at least Clove will be avenged.

Thresh stops ten metres from me, sword drawn. He's probably got three or four inches on me, and possibly twenty or thirty pounds. He's certainly bulkier, but I'm more athletic, and there is no question who is the better trained.

The only two swords left in the arena rest in our weapon hands.

Battered by the wind and the rain, spray crashing up from waves hitting the steep shore, I can barely hear Thresh as he shouts at me.

"Finally dared come to find me, Two?"

"You should have stayed at the Cornucopia and fought me like a man," I spit back.

Thresh doesn't say anything; he just shrugs, turning the hilt of his sword in his hand.

"If you thought there was any way I wasn't going to find you and cut you down after what you did to Clove, you were wrong," I tell him, gripping my own blade tighter.

"She deserved what she got," Thresh shouts back, his eyes showing emotion to me for the first time. "After what you all did to Rue."

"I don't even know who Rue is," I reply. Most likely she was the girl from his district. I guess Marvel got to her after he ran from us.

"Your lot killed her," Thresh shouts, raising his blade to lunge at me, " You monsters-"

I duck to one side to avoid Thresh's charge, spinning in the slick mud as he crashes past me, struggling to slow on the surface.

"Me, a monster?" I shout back, pursuing Thresh, our blades striking each other as he turns, spinning in the mud. "After what you did to Clove?"

Thresh doesn't reply, but pushes towards me, almost overpowering me with his next strike as I slip backwards. This is a battle that will be won by whoever keeps on their feet for the longest.

His next strike again forces me to block, the blades jarring together, vibrating down to my cold, numb hands. I do well to keep a grip on my sword, but swiftly turn defence into attack, taking a swipe at Thresh's legs. He jumps out of the way, but almost loses his footing as he lands; I sense the opportunity to apply pressure.

He blocks well at first, but with my expert strikes he barely has a moment to rest. I'm slowly pushing him down the bank towards the water. Eventually our blades clash heavily as I go in for a two-handed strike, clattering out of both of our hands into the mud. Thresh turns to start running along the bank, fumbling with something in his belt.

With our swords discarded, I waste no time reaching for the spear tied to my back and hurl it after him.

Thresh drops beneath it with an ungainly crash to the ground, and the spear flies off into the lake.

So much for getting that back...

Twenty yards from me, Thresh flounders in the thick mud as I advance towards him, pulling my final weapon, a small serrated knife, from my belt. He kicks out as I reach him, taking my ankle from under me as I fall to the ground beside him.

I land face first, mud covering my eyes and lodging in my nose. In the time it takes me to use the back of my hand to wipe my eyes, Thresh is on top of me, his hands on my shoulders as he pushes me into the ground, pinning me.

My knife is just out of the reach of my right hand.

"This is for Rue," Thresh says as he punches my jaw, his voice barely audible over the rain and the crashing waves. I gasp, my head knocked from one side to the other. I'm panting as he strikes me again, struggling for air just a few inches out of the mud, spray from the waves crashing across my face and stinging my eyes.

As Thresh reaches back to strike for a third time, I shuffle slightly beneath him to work a leg free, then kick him hard between the legs. He gasps and curses, giving me just long enough to reach for the knife in the mud.

It barely takes me a second to bury it under his ribs.

Thresh grunts in shock, falling limp on top of me. I heave him off of me, pushing him into the mud.

"That was for Clove," I tell him, twisting the knife as I pull it out, straddling him as I push his head into the mud at the water's edge.

As I've always been told, you only need a puddle to drown.

I drive my knife into his back just beneath his shoulder blades - he's so out of it he barely flinches - and push his head under. He struggles for a few moments, his legs kicking pathetically behind me, but then they fall still.

I don't let go until I hear the cannon.

Pulling the knife from his back, I push his body into the lake, to be taken by the water. I'm caked in mud from head to toe, struggling for breath and, unfortunately, a weapon down. Picking up my sword, slowly stumbling towards the supplies Thresh stole from me at the feast, I feel a tremendous relief knowing that I did what I needed to do to avenge Clove. Thresh didn't get away with it.

But Clove is worth more than the life of one boy from the poorer districts. To truly have her remembered, to make her death more than just a number, I need to win the Games. To make her name tied to mine, as it always should have been, I need to make my name unforgettable.

It's time to get out of this mire and back to the woods where I belong; where my enemies are.

Just three tributes stand between me and victory.

Thankfully, I am Sextus Aurelius Cato, the sixth male of the Cato lineage.

Winning is in our DNA.


A/N: If you enjoyed this chapter, please review! Constructive criticism is welcomed :)

I'm sure you can all work out who's left for the next chapter...