Nervousness, fear, sadness, love.

These were typically not emotions that I liked to possess, but due to annoying, biological mechanics of the female species, once a month I was subjected to these horrible, horrible feelings.

Anger, power, adrenaline, fury.

Now that was more like it.

To some, those may have been regarded as negative emotions, but to me, they were aides to battle.

After I had missed my target during training, I vowed to never let that happen again.

For months, I practiced my throwing and refined my skills.

I could now hit anywhere on a target with deadly accuracy without breaking a sweat.

Except for once a month, coupled with when he distracted to me.

Cato, the boy with the sword.

Cato, the model Career tribute.

Cato, my own personal dose of poison.

There was just sometime about him that caused a funny feeling in my stomach. Not in a bad way, but it sure was different. Almost like something was fluttering around in there while my brain was simultaneously being turned off and I lost the ability to his my target. Sure, we were friends. For two years, we trained together and sat with each other at lunch some days and he would tease me for being such a shrimp compared to him, but I had never thought of him as anything more than my only, and by default best, friend; just another kid in these games. But the fact that he could get so far into my mind angered me, yet at the same time, I was powerless to stop it.

But then one day, everything changed.

It was late, perhaps a little after midnight, when I heard a strange tap on my dorm room window. Curious, I sat up from my bed where I was sharpening my knives to see what the hell could be going on this late at night.

"Clove! Clove, you awake? Come on!" Cato hissed from the other side of the window.

"Cato? What the hell... it's midnight!" I whispered, angrily.

"I know what time it is! Just come on!" he said as he motioned for me to open the window and climb out.

I rolled my eyes and climbed out of bed as I grabbed a jacket and a pouch with several throwing knives. I carelessly slipped into the coat and sloppily planted my feet in a pair of tennis shoes. Cato glanced side to side and then back to me as he grinned from ear to ear. I unlatched the window and pushed it open, carefully slipping out and onto the dewy grass.

"So what's the big emergency that required me to sneak out at midnight in my pajamas?" I grumbled as I began to follow his large strides. He just stuck out his hand and waved a keyring around, the many keys jingling excitedly.

"Woah, keys!" I exclaimed sarcastically. "Care to elaborate some? Cause if you brought me out here in the middle of the night to show off a set of fucking keys, I swear..."

"You'll see" he smirked, taking obviously pleasure in my discontent.

After what seemed like hours of walking, we finally ended up at the outside of one of the old CTF buildings. More specifically, the building where they store all the new weapons and target dummies. I stared, open-mouthed, as Cato inserted a key into the lock and the door swung open.

"Welcome to paradise" Cato said as he gestured to endless supplies of knives and swords, with a plentiful amount of dummies for the both of us.

"Cato!" I exclaimed. "What the... How did you-"

"Janitor" He said, as he cut me off. "$50 and the place is ours whenever we want."

I walked over and picked up a black-bladed knife. I turned it over in my hands, once, before whipping it at a dummy hitting it straight where it's heart would be.

I laughed. Throwing knives was the only place I ever really felt comfortable and at ease. I picked up a few more and chucked them at various dummies around the gym, hitting my target ever time.

"Hold up, save a few for me!" Cato yelled as he grabbed a sword and lunged at the first dummy that I had hit. One slice and it's head was on the ground and he was laughing too. We kept this up for hours. I found a peculiar knife with a compartment for poison in the handle and Cato stumbled upon a sword with a ruby encrusted handle. We both tested our new toys until a fair amount of the dummies were reduced to nothing more than a pile of limbs.

That was until Cato threw down his sword and flopped onto his back as he grinned. I walked over to him and looked down on him from above as a smirk played on my lips.

"Now who's the shrimp?" I said as I raised an eyebrow.

"Hmm... Still you" he yawned and sat up as he stretched his arms in the air.

I wrinkled my nose in obvious protest, but didn't say anything. Instead, I sat down next to him, cross-legged, and stared out at the pile of dummies.

"What're you thinking about?" he asked. He had always been able to read me better than anyone else. He was my best friend, after all.

"Do you think Garmond or Gazelle will make it back this year?" I said as I referenced the two District 2 tributes who had volunteered this year for the Games. In my opinion, neither one had been particularly good at anything, unlike me and Cato, but they had been the only two 18 year olds who jumped at the opportunity to "bring pride to the district."

"Not a chance" Cato said as he shook his head sadly. I frowned, temporarily feeling sad for the two who I had briefly trained with during my time at the CTF.

"Two more years, though. Those will be my Games" he continued.

"What'll happen... I mean, what if you don't come back?" I whispered, suddenly afraid for my best friend. I didn't like feeling this way. Screw being a teenage female. Having this many different emotions was exhausting.

"Don't worry about it" he said as he leaned over and planted a kiss on my small lips. I stared back at him, unblinking as something stirred from inside my chest.

"I'll be back" he smirked as he waved goodnight and walked away from my dorm.

I ran inside and locked the door. No, no, no. This could not be happening. I couldn't actually like Cato. I mean, he was Cato! My training partner, my best friend! But the harder I protested, the louder the thing in my chest roared. I climbed back into bed and rested my head on my pillow, my head racing.

"It's just the hormones" I whispered to myself. "Just the hormones."

I didn't know it yet, but unfortunately, it wasn't.

A Note From The Author:
Here's to remembering that even the Careers are people too!
Reviews are really appreciated, so please, keep reviewing and all that awesome jazz :)