confessional hymns for the devil, himself
Disclaimer: I own nothing that has a copyright attached.
Chapter Five
The house is quiet tonight as Clove lies in the dark nursing a headache. Her own stash of pills, taken two hours prior, are only beginning to take some of the edge off, leaving the pressure behind her eyes just short of excruciating. Cato had gotten up some time earlier and is wandering the small home, opening cabinets and rifling through closets.
The hallway outside her door creaks suddenly, but she has no way of knowing if he is still directly outside. Clove thinks briefly of telling him to come in if he had something so important to tell her, but honestly, she doesn't feel up to entertaining his antics. If Cato can't fall asleep, well, that's his problem.
Ignoring his clattering, Clove begins devising the routines she will use to whip the other Tributes into some semblance of order. She knows the training well enough, but still lacks any real desire to lead them. Furthermore, most of them hate her for killing them in the arena even despite knowing the truth. She needed someone to help that they will be agreeable to take orders from. Cato, while an obvious partnership is beneficial given their mutual skill sets, will go over with everyone as well as she.
District 1, maybe? No.
It will be a cold day in Hell before she takes orders from Marvel and she can only imagine the thought of Glimmer in command with her perfectly polished hair and lip gloss.
Clove exhales loudly into the quiet room. All this thinking is giving her a worse headache.
During her Career training, when her instructors weren't breaking them to the point of exhaustion, information on the other Districts was passed down to them. What interested Clove most were the environmental advantages one District has over the other. For instance, those from District 7 possess amazing physical strength due to their trade in lumber, and those in District 3, although destitute, are the most resourceful and technologically advanced.
Her best plan for personalizing the training for the Tributes is to fashion it to their unique skills, just how their mentors should have trained them prior to entering the arena.
Later, after the sun finally sets, Clove emerges from her bedroom to explore. She expects to find Cato somewhere in the house, but it's too silent. He slams doors and bumps into walls enough to announce his presence. The eerie calm that has settled over everything lets her know he's not inside.
She jogs out the front door wanting to feel the burn in her calves. It's time to scan the perimeter; she's stayed two(? ) nights too long in this place without exploring where they're at. Past the squat buildings, the plains around them stretch out almost never-ending into the moonlit horizon. Wildflowers grow in dense bunches in a multitude of colors and the smell of juniper hangs heavy on the breeze.
It is too dark out to decipher if the large shadow on the horizon are mountains or a town, but Clove feels in her gut that she is closer to her district than she realizes. The grass is grown up on either side of her legs and the vast openness of the plains engulfs her in a heady weight. She sinks down onto the wispy grass, thankful for her small stature because if someone were to look out past where the lamplights cast their shadow, they would still be unable to see her sitting there. It is calm, and for the first time in a long time, Clove feels at peace. The turmoil she went through preparing for the Games is absent for once, the raw aching anxiety that left her twitching in her sleep.
Rue is the answer.
The young girl emboldened hope everywhere she went, and strangers loved her without knowing from where or why. It went against everything in Clove's dominant personality, but quiet Rue would be the perfect partner for their ragtag group. She would be the one to tailor the training, and Rue would be the glue that held everyone together. Clove didn't want to be the glue. She didn't even want to be the less semi-permanent tape that held everyone together.
After this was all said and done, if she survived, she wanted to quietly escape back to her district to a small cabin in the middle of the wilderness. Away from the Games. Away from Snow. Away from the possibilities of ever having to mentor another child. She loved training. She loved the grit and the sweat of a good hard workout. She adored her knives. She could do without the rest of it.
Soon, the grass beneath her turns soggy with dew and she stands, brushing off the back of her pants with one hand. A fox yips in the distance, and Clove staggers back towards the lit courtyard, struggling to hold onto the peace inside her. It feels strange to be this lost in the world.
Before, she had purpose in her training. She was going to be the winning Tribute of the 74th Hunger Games. But that was before. Before she woke up in this alternate-universe-turned-real-time and learned it was all for show.
She stumbles back into the small home she temporarily shares with Cato. Her pain medication is making her drowsy finally - a drunk, heavy feeling settling down over her limbs. She kicks off her boots and clothes at the foot of the bed before crawling under the thick blankets that faintly smell of the hay you would find in a barn. Clove's last thought before succumbing to sleep is not a reassuring one.
How is she going to convince them to trust her?
"I think I should go with you. Do this as a team."
Clove deadpans a look that's far from humored at Cato. She has barely finished telling him the plan. "I think that's a terrible idea, really. Look, I'll bring it up, I promise, but I think I should go over there alone today."
Cato frowns. "What if something happens?"
Clove shoots him a wry smirk in return, deftly lifting the edge of her tunic to display the sharp daggers she has tucked into the waistband of her pants. The one and only armory in their compound is poorly guarded and almost too easy to break into. Cato almost looks proud of her for a moment.
Later that morning, Clove feels almost jittery as she knocks on the front door of Rue's and Thresh's home. As expected, Thresh answers and is immediately suspicious. He darts his eyes back and forth over her head to check for what he feels must be an ambush, stone-faced and nostrils flared. Clove has never been this close enough in a non-threatening manner to notice the mild yellowing of the whites of his eyes or that overall, Thresh is kind of handsome.
When he's not killing her, of course.
"Can we talk?" She tries polite on for size, even though the soft-spoken tone leaves an unfamiliar taste in her mouth.
"What makes you think we would want to talk with you?"
She bristles at first, but smiles through clenched teeth. Progress. However how slow. "It'll be worth your time. Now, please, can I come in?"
Thresh's upper lip curls in disgust at her, but he pushes the door open wider so she can pass underneath his arm. The layout on the inside is an exact replica of her own humble settings. This strikes Clove as odd since the Capitol has always been known for flair and excess.
Rue is sitting at the small table in the kitchen, painstakingly and meticulously weaving wildflowers through the thick braids she's fashioned from her hair.
Her doe eyes track Clove's every move as she pulls out a chair opposite Rue. The younger girl is well-mannered enough to lie down the wildflowers and fold her hands demurely on top of the table. Thresh, however, bangs around the small kitchen clearly annoyed by Clove's intrusion into their safe space.
"I'll make this quick. You two are intelligent, right? I'm sure you've figured out Snow's true plan already."
Rue nods imperceptibly.
"We don't know who our target is, but I do know the rest of those kids aren't ready."
"We don't know our target, but we know our enemy," Rue agrees.
"Snow must pay for everything he's done. He has to die," Thresh adds, gripping the counter behind him with white knuckles.
"I agree with you, but we have a better chance if all of us did this together. We have no hope of killing Snow on our own."
"Only he must die," Rue begs quietly.
Clove whips her head back around to face Rue. "I can't promise that." And she couldn't. Clove is angrier than she ever remembers being; there are going to be many victims in her war-path.
"I can keep you out of the fighting," Clove rushes, seeing the apprehension on the young girl's face. She didn't want to lose their only hope. "If you'll help me rally and strategize, I promise I'll find a way to keep you out of harm's way."
"We all deserve to live, "Rue replies, meekly. Clove couldn't honestly say she agreed with that sentiment, but it was an opinion best kept to herself at the moment. "I'll help you. We'll help you," Rue caves finally, glancing up at Thresh. The black boy makes a face that suggests this is the worst idea in the history of ever, but Clove knows he will comply with Rue's any and every wish.
Rue picks at a yellow flowerbud before her. "You'll talk to the Careers, won't you? I can get the rest of the Tributes on the same page, but I'm not the only one not wanting to deal with them."
Clove nods in affirmation. "They'll act right, or they'll answer to me personally."
Thresh huffs angrily all of a sudden and throws his hands up in the air. "How do we know this isn't some trick for you Careers to kill us all and escape on your own?!"
"You don't," Clove shrugs innocently. Honestly, that hasn't crossed her mind, but she files it away in the back of her brain as a plausible possibility if things went South. "I've never given either of you reason to trust me, but I want to go home as much as you do, and I can't do that without your help."
Thresh only sighs and crosses his arms over his chest, but Clove takes that as a positive sign.
As she is leaving District 11's house, Clove spots Docere across the courtyard. He is instructing Snow's staff on where to erect the wooden dummies and training equipment Snow has provided for the Tributes. He waves her over when he sees her.
"I take it you're busy making amends this morning," he teases, mopping his glistening brow with a soft cloth.
"You could say that." Clove has grown to respect the good doctor in her own little way.
"Two down. Eighteen more to go," she sighs. "I think I'll let Cato take over from here." He is far more charismatic than she. Blood-thirsty and insane, yes, but charming. At some point in the last few days, Clove began seeing Cato as more level-headed and grounded than her. She really was losing touch with reality.
"How long do we have to train?"
Docere raises his shoulders in a shrug. "Don't know. He really doesn't tell me a whole lot, you know."
"Funny. I would have pegged you as his right hand man."
Docere smirks and turns his attention back to the workers. "Your brain works in funny ways, Clove."
Clove walks away then, pondering the cryptic aura surrounding the doctor. Snow is not the type of person to put someone in charge of his master plan without some type of knowledge of what was going on. She couldn't decide if Docere was truly left in the dark or just playing a long game. Was he also faking his intense fear of Snow?
She is stopped in her tracks as she enters the home to the sight of Cato doing push-ups, shirtless, in the middle of the living room floor. Sweat glistens across his broad, freckled back, the muscles of his shoulder blades rippling beneath his skin with every downward movement. Clove flushes slightly (then flushes again for flushing in the first place), caught off-guard. She balks inwardly at her own heated response. She's seen Cato work out in various states of undress a hundred times before now; this time is no different than the last twenty. She frowns, more to herself than anything, and clears her throat loudly.
"I already heard you come in. My goal is 250 so I'm not stopping. Just talk," Cato grunts out.
"250 is a weak goal, just saying. Anyway, I spoke with Rue and Thresh. They're on board."
This news is enough to bring Cato to a complete halt. He frowns and scrunches his face as if he's smelled something bad. "That was almost a little too easy, right?"
Clove shrugs and gingerly steps between his splayed legs in order to plop down on the couch next to him. "I'm trying to get in the habit of not questioning things when they go right for once. Rue said she and Thresh would get everyone else on board. We're supposed to talk to the Careers, though."
"Oh great," he replies sarcastically, resuming his push-ups. "Might as well kill them both off now. Marvel would never take orders from either of us; he's far too proud for that, you know."
Clove taps her lip thoughtfully with her index nail. Killing the Careers sounds like Christmas come early, but unfortunately they are needed. No use cutting down their numbers this early on. She watches Cato do another set of push-ups - watches the smooth rippling of his abs and arms flexing with every movement. Disgusted, she pushes against his side with her boot and knocks him over. He yelps and glares back up at her. She only smiles in return.
No point in punching another spot on his Macho-Man card; they had work to do.