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II
Part Two
He's as damned as he seems, he's strong is what I believe
A tragedy with more damage than a soul should see
He's never enough and still he's more than I can take
He's such a beautiful disaster
When she wakes, it's to a tangle of dirty sheets and empty bed. A scribbled note lays on Caemon's side of the mattress.
Had to go to training -Cato
It's probably the closest they'll ever get to talking about the night before. To be honest, Rhagia is just fine with that. She holds nothing against Cato, but the thought of betraying her husband so soon after his death makes her sick. She can almost hear his ghost haunting her now. Did I mean so little to you? Was I so easy to forget? How long have you had eyes for my little brother? Crumpling the note up, she tosses it in the trash and gets up so she can strip the bed. She ignores the soreness between her legs. It's almost nice to feel pain as she used to. It was such a familiar friend every morning at the Training Center for twelve long years. She realizes now that she misses pain. The sting of a cut. The ache of a bruise. The tenderness of muscles overextended.
Rhagia has often wished she could go back to those days. Living with her fellow trainees, the reverence of the community at their feet, the Capitol showering them with gifts for every accomplishment. It's a hard pedestal to fall from and she often wonders if her identity will always be caught up in something she is no longer truly a part of. In the youth she no longer has.
Catching sight of herself in a mirror, she's forced to admit to herself that she'd be embarrassed to walk into the Center today. So pathetically thin and frail. She can't even remember the last time she stretched. Can she still back flip three times in a row? Would her high kicks still knock a grown man to the floor? Would her sinewy arms still be able to wrestle an enemy down? She knows the answers already, but she can't even voice them in her own head. It would be voicing the loss of herself.
"Get your head out of your ass or get out of my gym!" Ravine screams loud enough for the whole room to hear her before she blows her whistle. Cato sighs heavily, heading back to his corner of the sparring mats. He grabs some water and wipes the sweat off his forehead. The hell is wrong with you today? He asks himself, disgusted with how off beat his rhythm is.
He's been sparring for an hour and hasn't come out on top once. Even his trainers are getting fed up with him. The frustration boils inside of him until he's sure he'll burst. Throwing his towel down hard, he kicks his water bottle hard enough to make it hit the far wall. Moments later he's facing his next opponent. Ravine herself has rolled up her sleeves and gotten onto the mats. She's shorter than Cato, but she's quick. And she's strong.
In seconds she's darted around him, jumped up onto his back and curled her arm around his neck in a headlock. Choking, he rolls them both onto their backs, easily knocking the air from her lungs. But when he gets her pinned down, her dark hair and smaller frame make his mind flash back to the night before and his focus is gone. Before he even realizes what's happening, he's the one on his back and Ravine has her boot pressed hard against windpipe. He tries to get up and she presses harder.
"Keep it up, Travertine. You'll be going to bed hungry tonight. Or worse." She growls angrily, a droplet of sweat rolling down her temple. The toe of her boot shoves down extra hard for a moment before she's moved on, ordering Cato to the locker room. He's on laundry duty. And he's furious.
It takes exactly three minutes and twelve seconds for the locker room to get torn apart. Detergent splashes on the floor. Shower curtains are torn down. Trash cans get kicked over. It isn't until he's standing in the middle of the mess, red faced and panting, that a truth dawns on him. He's not just angry about performing like a twelve-year old girl today. He's fucking pissed off at everything.
The quarry. His mother. His father. The Center. Fucking Ravine. Caemon. Stupid, skinny, beautiful, soft, weak Rhagia who cries too much. Himself. Leaning back against a locker, Cato slumps down to the floor. Surveys the room with little regard for the wreck someone else is going to have to clean up. For the first time in his life, he feels trapped here. He doesn't want to be here. The forest, the creek, up into town, maybe down by Caemon's house. But not here. He doesn't want to follow his training schedule. He wants to kick down the doors and run out. Go wherever he feels like going. But freedom isn't an option. Not until he wins the damn Games.
So he stays there on the floor, staring at the locker room for a while, before getting up and doing the fucking laundry.
Clove finally surpasses Cato on the depth chart and for the first time in two months she cracks a smile. All week long she's been scoring higher in weaponry, simulations and hand-to-hand combat. She may not be as tall or muscular as the boys, but she's smart. Quick. Agile. Cunning. Ruthless. She's been pouring her blood, sweat and even tears into her training for years now.
Ravine can't say she isn't a little disappointed in Cato. He's been the Center's pride and joy ever since Caemon graduated. But she's happy. Clove moving to number one sends two messages. First, it ensures that Cato's loss of focus lately is loudly and clearly punished. That everyone understands: they better not slip up for a second. That this will result in failure once in the arena. Shame on District 2. Lower funds to the Center. These are not options.
More importantly it reminds the trainees that brute strength isn't always the best weapon. Ravine herself won the games just over a decade ago. She was neither tall nor exceptionally muscular. The curse of a woman's body. Too often the world around her seems to forget that women should be feared too. That they can be brutal and fearless and strong. She sees that strength in Clove. The iron in her spine that refuses to break. The salt water of the sea that flows and adapts. The darkness in her eyes that doesn't let anyone in. Doesn't let anyone shake her, not for a second. And that is her advantage over Cato.
He's too emotional. He wastes time and energy giving in to anger and frustration, where Clove just adapts. Many of the other trainers like to play this up. Anger can make wrath, wrath can so easily make death. But Ravine has been in the arena. She knows it isn't always that simple.
When she submits the depth chart into the computers that night, the odds of favor change for the first time in what seems like an era of tall, blonde, over muscular men. If the Reaping were to be held that evening, Cato would still be taken as tribute. But so would Clove. And Ravine's money would be on the girl.
Cato tries and tries and tries to get his shit together, but it's as if some higher power is simply against him. When Clove's name moves up on the chart, he snaps. Walks rights out of the Center. As long as he's put in his hours for the day and doesn't wander too far, he's allowed to leave. They have a tracker in him anyway, so what do they care? It's healthy for the trainees to get out into the fresh air now and then. Take a walk. Clear their minds. Kick stray dogs down the side of a hill. Terrorize a few children who are out too late.
He smirks as he walks away with one little girl's candy bracelet. Which is sweeter, he asks himself as he breaks off a piece in his mouth, the sugar or the screams? The bracelet is only half done when he reaches the creek. He hadn't even been conscious of his footsteps leading him here. But somewhere in the back of his mind, he's not surprised.
Rhagia sits on the back porch steps in a thin house dress. The cool air is a relief from the blazing sun that had torn through the quarry that day. The breeze flutters through the material of her dress, so much lighter and easier to wear than her heavy engineer's uniform. A few moths flutter around her lit oil lamps. If she didn't prefer the softness of natural light, she could turn on the flood lights that Caemon put up last year. Power rarely goes out in District 2, even out here by the Sway, where the suburbs trail off into the backwoods and creeks, the mountains and lakes. Through the trees she can see the gentle flicker of other oil lamps. Hung off back porches or flickering in windows. The moonlight breaks into sharp slivers of light over the black water. A gentle wind rustles the leaves of the bushes, the reeds down by the bank. And still, she sees him. Hears him. Feels his presence moving through the dark.
Although which 'him' is lost to her at first. His movements are so fluid, his shadow so silent, he could be a ghost. And indeed, at first glance, she takes him for one. Her eyes brighten and a smile pulls at her lips. Even corporeal and dead, her heart thrills to see Caemon. But a moment later he's smiling back, stepping into the moonlight on his way up the sloping ridge. It's not him at all.
The same DNA. The same small but beautifully curved mouth. The same cheekbones. The same shoulders. The same smoldering arrogance hidden behind dimples and a smooth voice. But life after the Center and a few hard years at the quarry had broken Caemon's strut. Dulled the brightness in his impossibly blue eyes. Caemon had learned what it was to struggle. To sacrifice. To be tired of life. Cato was ignorant to such privileges. The vibrancy of his energy shone around him like some tragic light unaware of its own glare.
Her eyebrows raise a bit at the small cuts all over his skin. There's a thick bandage on his left forearm, a tiny streak of red staining the surface. Head tilting back a bit, she finds his eyes.
"You look like you got into a fight." For all the amusement underscoring her fatigue, she almost doesn't recognize her own voice. It's been a long week at the quarry. Without Caemon standing guard over her the men, and even many of the women, have made the simple walk to and from work a war zone. She must constantly have her defenses up, a knife ever sharpened in her boot.
Cato glances down, having forgotten the deep gash already. What little pain remains tastes even better than the candy on the bracelet still between his fingers. He shrugs, shifting his weight, smirking a bit. Every day is a fight at the Center. Rhagia knows that.
"I won." He assures her. And technically, it's true. He did win. Once or twice.
Amused by his priorities, she chuckles softly. She remembers what it was like. The attitude. The confidence. Feeling as if it's you against the world- and you kind of feel sorry for the world.
"Well, I guess you deserve a drink then." She's too tired to fight her own emotions. If he's here, he wants to come in…so why not just let him? Why not welcome the inevitable? Why not give in and let herself pretend for a while? The only people she could hurt are dead.
He tugs on his lip, knowing there are too many carbohydrates in alcohol than his rigid diet allows for. But a moment later he's nodding. The truth is, he didn't even mean to end up here. Didn't plan on walking up the ridge. Wasn't supposed to go inside again. Sleeping with her once screwed up his life enough. Was he really so stupid as to let his emotions trap him again?
A moment later, Rhagia stands from the steps so he can pass. As she holds the door open and he passes, she catches the scent of Caemon on the gentle breeze.
Everything under his skin keeps telling him to go. He wants to go. But no matter what his brain screams, his body won't move. He shivers a bit when, after a long silence, Rhagia's cold fingertips trace a scar that runs parallel to his spine.
"How did you get this?" She murmurs quietly, pressing a few lazy kisses to the marred skin. Eyes falling closed, he tugs her hand away from the scar, pulls her arm around his ribs, holds her fingers together firmly with his.
"Shh…go to sleep."
Rhagia knows she shouldn't be surprised. She has no right to be disappointed. There is no part of him that she can lay claim to. Even when he's with her, she pretends he's someone else. But it's no use trying to pretend when he can't spoil her like Caemon did. Always opening up so readily, if only for his wife. Ever happy to give her anything and everything and all of himself.
It'd be easier if he wouldn't stay after. If he didn't seem to need to hold her or lay in her bed for reasons that surpass the brief moments they spend fucking. Then she wouldn't suspect that any waters were rippling under his surface. But he does stay. And he does reach out for her and he always looks so desperate in his sleep. For a mother. For trust. For a crutch. For a drug to block everything out. For a place to hide.
She wonders if he's ever really been held. Knows the answer already. The mothers in District 2 don't coddle their children. What would be the point? They're snatched away by the Center so soon and turned against their families within months. Turned inward on themselves. No support beams. No nets to catch them. You win by yourself. You fail all alone. You live and you die and you suffer and you bleed and you triumph alone.
When does it become too much? When does Atlas finally shrug his shoulders?
Her forehead rests against his spine and she thinks, The saddest part is…he doesn't even realize he's breaking