We are walking down the winding hallways of Division when I see a strangely familiar face with messy red hair pass by us. It really looks like... but it can't be. It's with a tentative voice that I call out.
"Darius?"
The figure swivels towards me and before I know it I'm running.
"Katniss?" I slam into him with the force of my hug. I can't believe my eyes. How is he even alive?
"How is this possible Darius? I heard you had been canceled after... after what happened. How are you standing here, talking to me?"
"They saw some use in me so they didn't cancel me, they preferred that I was kept alive to do other things." I find it strange that he's looking everywhere but my eyes. We were so close before.
"One way or another I'm so glad that they were brought to their senses but I thought they wouldn't let you be a field agent."
"I'm not." That seems to be all he has to say on the matter but I don't push, I don't want to alienate the one person who hasn't been hostile to me the moment he laid eyes on me.
Out of the corner of my eye I see Cato with his arms crossed assessing our conversation.
"Darius meet Cato, he is my guard. Cato meet Darius, he was a great friend to me when I was in training."
They shake hands both with blank faces but I've spent enough time with Cato to know when he feels uneasy. It's probably from the lack of information Darius was willing to give about himself so of course in true Cato fashion he questions him bluntly about it.
"What is your designation?"
Darius seems uncomfortable by Cato's question and looks at me before replying.
"Cleaner. I'm sorry Katniss but I have to go." With that he turns around and leaves.
Cleaner also known as the person that cleans up after Division's ops; whether that is killing witnesses, disposing of evidence or killing romantic entanglements, the fancy word for killing the people their targets love.
I cringe at the last part as I think of Peeta. I can't believe my once dear friend has been reduced to that.
Both Cato and I remained quiet until we reached our room where I immediately lie on the bed.
"How is it that you seem to make friends with everyone?"
"I don't know, I just do."
"Sometimes I envy that. Your ability to make people like you, to make them want to stand by you."
I'm surprised to say the least when he confesses this so openly.
"What's the story with him though? I never imagined you to be such good friends with a Cleaner."
"I'm not, when I met him he was a recruit just like I was although he had started a while before me, he was nice, funny and I don't know I guess we just bonded. I remember him telling me how much he wanted to be an agent, how he wanted to see the world. He wanted to be like James Bond. When they told him he had finished his recruit program he was overjoyed because he had been training for so long, longer than any of us at the time.
Next thing I know I find him in the training room long after hours punching and kicking the lockers. Turns out he hadn't been promoted to a field agent but to a guard. He was furious, screaming about how he hadn't worked so hard just to be a baby-sitter.
The guards were ruthless constantly teasing him over the fact that he was unsettled in his new position. Two days later as I am finishing my workout I hear shots from the training room next to us and the guards yelling, I never thought it would be him, he killed all the guards in his training room and he was moving on to mine, I tried talking to him, warn him but he never listened, next thing I know he was lying face down on the ground with five guards hovering over him.
A few hours later all the recruits were informed that he had been executed.
I can't tell you how much it hurt me when I heard."
I look over to him and see pity written all over his face.
"I'm truly sorry Katniss."
"I just don't understand why they didn't execute him I mean I'm happy of course but I just don't understand."
"They must have liked his lack of emotional attachments, that's usually a wanted characteristic for that job although it usually doesn't take such extreme measures for them to realize a recruit has it. He killed people that were with him, watching over him for months without a single thought, that must have been why they chose him."
"But that just doesn't make sense to me, didn't then and it sure doesn't now. He is a good person, a caring person, if something happened to me he was there, we would wonder about what it would be like to live outside again, how we'd wear fancy clothes, we talked about our lives before Division. He didn't deserve this Cato. He is a good person, he shouldn't have to do the things Cleaners do."
"Maybe you didn't know him as well as you thought. He could've killed you when he rebelled."
"He wouldn't."
"But that's just the thing Katniss, you don't know because it never came to that. He snapped."
"Can we please stop talking about this? I'm tired, I just want to rest Cato."
"Of course, rest, I'll wake you in an hour so that we can go see Snow."
I had forgotten the old man but how is that even possible when he is the one controlling everything I do.
I feel a hand on my shoulder and immediately go into attack mode, taking the offenders hand and twisting it behind their back until I realize that 'offender' was Cato.
"Are you crazy? You can't just sneak up on people like that!"
"Excuse me for trying to wake you up! Can you let go now or do you want to keep holding my hand?" I release the hand I was pinning behind his back and step away from him.
"You didn't used to snark so much you know?"
"Must be you rubbing off on me. Let's go meet Snow, he must have been waiting for us for quite some time and I would rather not have to talk to an angry superior."
"He waited this long, he can wait a little more and for the love of all that is holy don't call Snow your superior, it feeds his ego too much."
"I can't disrespect my superior. It's part of my training."
"Is that why you always call him 'sir'? Cause that really gets on my nerves. He already thinks he is better than everyone else without you helping."
"You woke up to be a pain in my ass now Fire Girl?"
"Maybe. Let's see how the rest of the day goes."
"Shut up and get going."
I am once again in these awful halls, everything here is too perfect, too clean, almost as if to hide the things that go on here. As if anyone would ever forget, I certainly won't.
He knocks twice and waits until Snow tells us that we can enter.
"Cato, my boy, how are you?"
"I am well, sir."
"How was the mission?"
"It was done smoothly without any required assistance. Sir, if I may ask why were we called?"
"Yes, of course, my dear Kat please do sit."
"The last time I sat down in your office you gave me electroshocks so I'd rather not and may that be the last time you call me Kat unless you want me to start treating you by Cory."
I feel a hand grabbing my elbow and Cato's hissing voice telling me to shut up before he pushes me to sit in the chair behind me while keeping my shoulder in his grasp, a thing a notice when I try to get up and he easily pushes me back down with enough strength that I know I'll bruise. The nerve of that boy.
"Never mind that Cato, there's no need to restrain her, it does not bother me, I know that it's just the way she is."
I pull my body from Cato's grasp harshly and turn fully to Snow.
"What do you want?"
"I just wanted to see how things are going. How you are dealing with your captivity."
"Isn't that Alma's job."
"Perhaps but we both know that she sometimes has a bit of difficulty keeping her affairs separated. She is not like us Katniss."
I keep silent because I don't want him to speak of the things I've done in front Cato even though he probably already knows everything about me.
"Is that all? Because if it is I want to leave."
"Have you already had the opportunity to talk to your former mentor?"
"No."
"What a shame. I'll make sure he stops by your room for a chat soon then."
"There's no need."
"Of course there is. Cato make sure our girl here is returned to her room safely."
"Of course sir."
"You are excused." Before walking out I saw out of the corner of my eye how Cato bowed his head before leaving. Ugh.
The moment we find ourselves back to our room I swiftly turn around to face him before he can put me in my glorified cage.
"What the hell?"
"What?"
"Are you seriously asking me that? Don't ever grab me that way again, I get the whole superior thing but that is way out of line. Snow knows that's the way I am, what you did was uncalled for."
"Out of line? You have got to be kidding me. That is the way I should've been treating you all along. Do you realize that? I give you the most freedom I can Katniss! I let you train when you want, I let you out of there when you want, I let you say whatever you want but not in front of Snow."
"Why? Why are you so afraid of him?"
"We've had this conversation, I'm not afraid of him, he is my superior, I am obligated to respect and obey my superiors."
"You really are the perfect little soldier aren't you?"
I see a tick in his jaw the moment I say that so I keep going. "Of course you are, you do what you are told, never ask questions, why don't you wake up and stop being blindly lead? Follow your gut feelings, you know this is a bad place and you know that Snow is a bad man, I don't know how you couldn't know."
"It's not-"
"God Cato are you really that blind?
Rebel, use your mind and your heart, seek the truth, see the other sides of the stories, the other possibilities, get curious, ask questions, do something because your heart tells you that it's the right thing to do instead of making a rational decision!"
I see something flash in his eyes and the next thing I know I feel his hands on each side of my face and his lips on mine.
I just want to thank the people who reviewed, this chapter and the last, both the guests, MetallicMedallion and Mely-the-Mockingjay! Thank you so much for taking the time to review!