Ok, I'm ashamed...it's been almost 3 months since my last update. If I still have followers, I hope you like it. I don't blame you if you've left though. Anyways, here you go! DISCLAIMER: I don't own The Hunger Games
I'm woken up by the sun shining through the blinds hanging on the window and into my eyes. I sit up, stretch and squint through the light to look outside. All that I see is people rushing everywhere. Today is the first day of training. We'll have two and a half days to train before our session with the gamemakers. Then we have the interviews on our final night before the arena.
In less than four days, I'll be inside the arena, doing what I've trained to do for the past eleven years. Kill. The thought of it makes me nervous, excited, and anxious to get it over with and return home to my family. I guess I've had a change of heart about going home.
I realized just how much I miss my family and want to be back with them. But in order to do that, I'll probably have to kill Cato. I'm dreading that day. He's my best friend, he's always been there for me and now I have to kill him, otherwise, he'll kill me.
I groan at the thought and get out of bed and go through my morning routine. When I'm all dried off from the shower and my teeth are clean, I walk to my dresser and pull out my training uniform for the next few days.
It's a simple black bodysuit with our district number on each sleeve and the back of our necks. I zip up the back and put on black boots that stop just above my ankles. I pull my hair up into a ponytail, secure it and head to the dining room.
I'm the first one there so I decide to sit and wait on everybody else to come. After a few minutes, I hear something banging down the hallway. I stand up just as Kish come crashing through the doorway and falls face down on the floor. When I walk over to help him up, my nose is overwhelmed by the smell of alcohol and body odor.
"Out partying all night?" I ask him. "Yep!" he says with a hiccup. I manage to get him to a chair and plop him down. I straighten myself up and return back to my seat. I wait for a good ten minutes before I finally decide to go ahead and eat. Brutus and Enorbia are probably nursing hangovers too. They were just smart enough to stay in bed.
I eat in silence considering Kish is passed out with his face in his oatmeal. I finish breakfast and decide to go and see if Cato's up yet. I walk down the hall to his room and knock a few times on his door. He doesn't respond so I decide to try the handle. It's unlocked. I quietly open the door and peek inside. He's passed out like a baby on his bed.
His blankets are a mess all around him and he has bed head. I notice something else. He's all sweaty. He must have had a nightmare. He would get them sometimes when we would camp in the mountains in District 2. He would yell and sweat and all I could do was listen. He didn't like it when I woke him up in the middle of one. He said he wanted to know how it ended and I always thought that was stupid.
I decide to let him sleep a little longer. We don't have to be down to training for a few hours anyway. I'm sure he'll need all the sleep he can get. I turn around and tip toe quietly out the door. It's just about shut when I hear him mumble something. The mumble is followed by a yell. I force myself to walk away telling myself I'm just honoring his wishes.
I walk back out to the living room and plop down on the sofa. I click the remote until I find the morning news playing. I know it won't be like the news back home. It'll probably be all about the famous Capitol celebrities' latest surgeries or hairdos. I end up getting fed up with it and just turn the TV off. I find a magazine on the table and lay down on the couch to read it. I get about four sentences in before I'm so bored that I fall asleep.
"Hey, Clove! Wake up!" I open my eyes to see Cato staring down at me. "What?" I moan sleepily. "We have to be at training in 10 minutes. I've been trying to wake you up for the past half hour but you sleep like a log!" he says. "Crap!" I yell as I'm yanked out of grogginess. I rush to the bathroom, splash some water on my face and run to meet Cato at the elevator. I make it just as the stainless doors are closing. On the ride down, I re-braid my hair and smooth out my clothes.
A few moments later, the elevator dings and the doors slide open to reveal a huge gymnasium with different weapon and survival stations all around the room. There are also obstacle courses to test your agility and speed. As we step out, I notice that we're not the last ones here; in fact, we're one of the first Districts to arrive. The only others that are here are Districts 1, 4 and 7. They're all gathered in a circle in the heart of the room.
Cato and I walk over to join them. The girl from District 1 glances up and sees us, well mainly Cato, walking over and starts gussying up. "Oh Lord" I say as I roll my eyes. This chick is really starting to get on my nerves. As soon as we reach them, she's practically glued to Cato. "Sleep well?" she asks while batting her eyelashes. I want to go throw up. "Yes, fine thank you." Cato says bluntly and then walks away from her without even a glance back.
I follow him and look over my shoulder to see her standing frozen with her jaw wide open. I laugh and jog to catch up to Cato and his long strides. "You know, you're probably the first one to turn her down and walk away like that." I say breathlessly as I catch up. "So?" he says with a smirk and continues walking. I laugh again and follow him over to the sword station.
He walks to the rack that contains a very wide variety of swords and runs his hand over them. "The others need to hurry up and get here so I can get my hands onto one of these babies." He says with a gleam in his eye. We walk around the gym admiring all the different stations while we wait on the other tributes and getting more and more anxious by the minute.
After a few more minutes, all but one of the Districts, are here. "Who's missing?" I whisper to Cato. He looks around at everyone for a few seconds, putting his height into good use then leans down to my ear to tell me. "It's 12. Fire Girl's District." He says with a scowl. Just as he's said it, the elevator dings and the doors open as they walk out. They look around and realize that they're the last ones to arrive.
"Well, that must be embarrassing." I say to Cato with a smirk. He chuckles and shakes his head at them as they quickly walk over to join the rest of us. I notice that they try to keep their distance from Cato and me. I'm busy studying all of the tributes when I'm snapped out of focus by someone clapping. I look over to see a woman standing in the middle of the room on an elevated platform.
"Everyone come and gather around!" she yells. We as told and she begins speaking again. "My name is Atala. I'll be your head trainer for the next couple of days." She says. She continues to go through out all of the rules, and then describes the different stations. I'm hardly paying any attention because I've gone back to studying the other tributes.
I try to pick up and weakness I can get from them. Such as any fear, doubt or anxiety that I can use against them in the arena but also so that they respect and fear me during training. Atala finishes talking and releases us to go train. Cato immediately heads towards the sword station, no surprise, while I go to the knives. As I'm walking over, I feel Fire Girl's eyes on me so I decide that now would be a good time to show what I can do.
"Do you know how to throw?" The instructor asks me. "Yeah" I reply. "Ok, just tell me when." He says as he holds his hand over a button. I roll my shoulders, pop my neck and knuckles and take my stance with my hands over a smorgasbord of knives. I take a deep breath and exhale. "Go." I tell him. He pushes the button and dummies with targets on them light up.
I grab and knife, flick my wrist and the knife goes hurling towards the bulls eye on the first target. Without missing a beat, I send three more knives flying towards various targets, hitting them dead on every time. There's one more dummy that I haven't hit in the back of the bunch. I grab a small dagger, take another deep breath, and launch it at the dummy's head. It imbeds itself right between it's eyes.
My whole show is over in less than thirty seconds. I look over to see Fire Girl's reaction. To my delight, it's a mix of shock and pure terror. I smile and take a bow before I walk over to join Cato at the swords. He's in the process of decapitating dummies when I arrive. I observe as he severs its limbs and watch as its head fall to the ground as he removes it with a single swipe. Just as he's finished, the bell that signals that its lunch time rings.
We all file into the cafeteria and get in line in order of Districts. We move down the line as machines slop and pour food onto our trays. Once we have all of our food, we head to the tables to sit down. I sit first, and Cato follows, sitting right next to me. The boy from District 1 sits on the other side of me causing me to be squished between to sweaty, smelly guys.
At first, there's a little bit of awkwardness at the table between all of us because we hardly know each other, but then, Marvel, the boy from District 1 cracks a hilarious joke to break the ice and he succeeds because we're all laughing our heads off and exchanging other jokes.
Before we know it, the bell that signals the end of lunch rings and we all file back into the gym for a few more hours of training. We walk back in and Cato heads for the spears but I grab his hand and pull him the opposite direction towards the survival stations.
"Why Clove?" he complains. "Because, it's important for us to know what kind of things we can eat if our food ever runs out." I say. "Ha! Fat chance of that happening." He snorts. I roll my eyes at his cockiness and try to pay attention to the instructor, who's explaining the different kinds of poisonous and eatable berries, but it gets to be difficult over the sound of Cato pretending to yawn and acting bored. I finally get fed up with him and snap. "You know what!" I exclaim "Why don't you just go back over to your shiny toys and show off more!" "And I'll try to be sad when you die of eating a poisonous plant out of starvation" I finish with a loud exhale of air.
I turn my attention back to the instructor, listening intently as he continues his lecture. After a while, I notice that Cato hasn't left yet. I shrug it off and walk away as the instructor finishes. We train for another hour or then we're dismissed to go back to our rooms.
We all pile into an elevator and begin our ascent. Cato and I get off earlier than the others because we're so close the bottom in the first place. I storm out of the doors, still seething at Cato and go to my room and slam the door behind me.
I shower all of the days sweat off of me and change into some sweat pants and a tank top. I let my hair down and brush it out leaving slight waves in my hair. I walk out to the dining room and ask an avox to get me some coffee. As I'm waiting for it, Cato comes walking out of his room. I pay no attention to him as he plops on the couch and turns on the TV.
The avox comes out with my drinks and I accept it, thank her and head to the end of the hall. I push open the door and walk up the eleven flights of stairs to get to the roof. I lean up against the edge of a railing looking down into a small pond and watch as the fish swim happily inside the water.
I'm so into watching the fish that I don't notice Cato come up. He stands next to me and doesn't say a word. I can tell he's tensed up about something by the way that he's standing. "What do you want?" I ask him plainly after a few minutes of silence. "To say I'm sorry" he replies. Well, that took me aback.
"I shouldn't have acted the way I did earlier. I just thought that if the other tributes saw me at a survival station, they would assume that I didn't know what I was doing, which would be true. All that I know is weapons and fighting and you were right, I did need to hear that. I was actually listening after you blew up at me. It was kind of interesting. So, you were right and I'm sorry."
I look up at him and see by his face that everything that he said was true. "It's ok, I forgive you." I say. As soon as I've said it, relief washes over his face and he doesn't stand so tense anymore. "Good" he replies with a smile "I didn't want there to be anything unresolved between us before the games." He finishes.
I nod and turn my attention back to the water. I suddenly shiver and realize how cold it is up here without a jacket. "Are you cold?" Cato asks urgently "Yeah, kind of. I think I'll head back inside." I say as I turn around about to head back to the stairwell. "No, wait." Cato says as he grabs my wrist. "Take my jacket" He says as he slips it off of his shoulders and onto me without me being able to react.
"Thanks" I say with a slight smile, but I feel bad because now he'll probably be cold. I glance over at him and see that he's only wearing a thin white t-shirt. His sculpted muscles are quite visible through it and when he crosses his arms to keep warm, I can't help but notice his impressive biceps. I allow myself to think about what it would be like if those arms held me.
I suddenly mentally slap myself for thinking that and turn away before he notices the blush that has started to creep onto my cheeks. Unluckily for me he does. "What?" he says with a raised eyebrow "Like the view?" he finishes with a smile that would make any other girl melt, but not me. I know he's just trying to get on my nerves. Well, two can play at that game. "Maybe" I say flirtatiously while giving him my best smile. "Whatever" he says with a chuckle. "Well, it's getting late, we should head down." I say.
He nods and follows me to the stairwell, but before I can open the door, he lunges forward and opens it before me. "Ladies first." He says with a hand gesture. I can't help the giggle that escapes me and kick myself mentally for acting so girlish and innocent. We walk down the stairs back to our rooms and stop in front of mine like last night.
Cato gets a look in his eye as he turns towards me and I know what's coming. "Well, see you in the morning!" I say quickly as I open my door and shut it behind me before Cato can act. I hear him groan as I'm walking toward my bathroom.
Was he disappointed? I didn't think he liked me that way. We're just best friends, aren't we? Wasn't he still messing with me? I should have played along and not chickened out. My thoughts are filled with questions like that as I go through the routine of showering, brushing my teeth, changing, and getting into bed.
The last thought that enters my head is "How bad would it be if I hadn't fled?" I realize the mistake I made and release my own groan upon realizing that I might actually like as more than a friend too."This could get complicated" I say to myself as sleep overtakes me.
So, as always, reviews are appreciated. I'm still trying to decide if I should go with the book or have someone else survive (hint hint) Hmmm? Well, thanks for reading and being patient!