Katniss and Clove: Chapter Sixteen

It's the last day of training, tomorrow around this time we will be arriving in the arena and ten minutes later only half of us will be drawing breath. It's a sombre thought but I have accepted my fate and am comforted by the thought that I will do all I can to help Katniss and then I will be dead.

I leave her alone now, I don't follow her, or try to gain her attention or attempt to talk to her. I look at her a little because she is so attractive, but I'm not watching her. I am hovering by the careers but not with them necessarily, as far as they are concerned I am still one of them, on a recon mission, reporting to them on the girl who outscored them and needs to be punished.

I am throwing knives, totally immersed in my craft, knowing that my days of handling these beautiful weapons are drawing to a close. One day very soon I will have thrown my very last knife. It's a shame that I can't take just one knife with me when I go, I feel naked without them, but I guess that dead people don't feel naked.

I feel Katniss's eyes on me, I look around for her and she is indeed looking at me, her eyes flick to the bathroom and back. It's an odd situation; everyone who matters seems aware that there is something going on between me and Katniss and they all have their own idea what that might be. So when we both end up in the bathroom at the same time for an extended period of time no one is concerned and no one disturbs us.

I take a few moments and then head through the door. I wash my face and hands and then pop up on to the vanity to wait for her. She enters and locks the door, she approaches me directly - I detect in her that same dual panic and courage in her face and her movements. She walks into my body, between my knees, grabs my face and plants her lips on mine.

There are no words. Knowing we could be dead very soon helps one sort out their priorities. What is the worst that could happen to me? I could die right now. At least I have been kissed by her, I am good to go. What's the worst that could happen to her? I could kill her now, I could kill her in the arena, I could tell my crew she is an archer. None of that compares to dying with regret for never having had the courage to kiss me back.

So we kiss one another, with open mouths, with hungry eyes, with searching hands, our bodies straining against each other. We realise the terrible waste it has all been, the thousands of days we have lived in poverty, the virtual slavery, the hunger, the misery. That we have each fought desperately to survive another day, just one more grinding day. And in all that time we never knew the power of this. This, the simple yet powerful act of kissing another human being who wants to kiss us back.

It takes a long time for us to accept that we have to stop. I wanted two things. The first I have received in full. If I am to achieve the second, we must stop. I touch my forehead to hers, take a deep breath and slip down from the vanity. It occurs to me that if Katniss slaps me hard, leaving an obvious mark on my face, nobody will expect us to report back about what we have been doing so long.

She can't bring herself to do it. "Think of Prim" I tell her and the slap I thought I had avoided this morning, I now welcome. My face stings, the skin is hot, and I know it is red without looking. I wouldn't trade that slap for anything, it is my contribution to helping Katniss stay in the Games. I kiss her cheek, squeeze her hand and slam the door for effect, I strategically decide to keep another door open - I search for Cato and give him a little nod.

I spend the next couple of hours sparring with and wasting one trainer after another - spending every drop of my considerable energy. Every punch is a scream of frustration, every kick a sob of despair, not for myself, not even for Katniss. For all the wasted lives the system has exploited, for all the miserable souls who have died and will continue to die under the unyielding wheel of tyranny.

That night I go to bed and masturbate like it is my last night alive, I think of Katniss and all that we have shared, all that could have shared. Tomorrow I will be taken to the arena and unless I care to have my depravity recorded and televised before all of Panem, this may as well be my last night alive. I embrace the certainty of my imminent death, knowing that I have experienced more joy and love in the last 24 hours than I have in my whole life.

I don't know how it is going to play out in the arena but I know I have her back. I will take them out; for Katniss. She is not a killer but I can be, so I will be. I will maintain my connection to the careers until after the bloodbath and then I will review my options. And then I will kill them all, either strategically or in all out massacre, I am coming for them, for you, girl on fire.