Chapter Eight: Jealousy Sucks

"Clove!"

Banging noises. Ugh, they're too loud. I roll over and pull the covers over my face to block out the sound.

"Clove!"

Who is that? Why are they waking me up?

"CLOVE FLAIR!"

My eyes fly open. Shit!

It's Enobaria, and when I yank the door open she's absolutely livid. "It's about time!" she seethes. "I've been trying to wake you up for twenty minutes! It's almost ten, you need to have breakfast and get downstairs!"

"I'll be there in two minutes," I say. I shut the door and run across the room in a frenzy, grabbing the outfit that has been set out for me – black pants, a black shirt, and a pink and green headband – and throwing it on. Then I step into a pair of black shoes and sprint to the dining room.

"I'm here," I gasp somewhat unnecessarily.

"Eat something, quickly," Enobaria snaps. I quickly eat a muffin, a banana, and some toast. Then I slam a glass of orange juice.

"No coffee," Enobaria says sternly. I nod.

Cato and Yoh – who I didn't realize were even here until just now – are laughing at me. I glare at them both.

"Shut up," I mutter in their general direction.

"You two need to get downstairs," Yoh says, still chuckling. "Go on – we'll see you this afternoon."

"Good luck on your private sessions!" Enobaria says. Then she speaks to me quickly, in a low voice. "Remember – throw knives for most of it, actually it might be best to just stick with them the whole time. Don't use the close targets too much, maybe you should go to the archery range. The distance will be better for you." I nod rapidly. I can see Yoh whispering to Cato out of the corner of my eye. "Go. You'll do great. Good luck, Clove."

"Thanks," I say quietly. Then Cato and I step onto the elevator.

Cato looks at me as the doors close. "So."

I almost smile. "So."

"So, I know we said yesterday that we'd all pair off again, but I was thinking it might be smarter to keep the whole alliance in a big group today, since we won't be able to switch off anyway – the private sessions are after lunch. We'll be able to see how well everyone works together, and all that."

I nod. "Sounds good to me. And remember, we need to ask them about District Eleven."

"Thresh," he corrects me. "If we want him as an ally, we're going to need to be friendly, not degrading."

This irritates me a bit, but he's right. "'Kay. We'll ask him at lunch."

"And we'll ask the others about him right away – remember, we need their permission," he adds.

The elevator doors open, and we step into the room. Most of the other tributes are here already, including all of our allies. We quickly walk over to them, and Cato begins without preamble.

"I think – and Clove agrees – that Thresh, from District Eleven, would be a good choice for an additional ally."

They all seem to think about it for a minute, and one by one, they nod. "Cool," says Glimmer. "It seems like he's pretty good at almost everything, and we don't want someone like that working against us… sounds good to me."

Shell grins. "Awesome! He looks like a fighter… and we can always use more of those."

"Don't forget, he might be able to lead us to Little Eleven," I remind them, smirking.

Marvel and Zen both laugh at this, and I scowl. I still don't like either one of them.

"All right," Cato continues. "We've decided that we're all going to stay in one large group today, so we can see how well we all work together, and get that out of the way. We won't have time to figure it all out in the arena."

They all nod, and when we're released, we head over to the rock wall. "Ladies first," Cato says, smirking. Glimmer, Shell and I each grab a foothold and begin to climb. We make it to the top of the sturdy wall easily, then scramble back down.

Cato, Marvel, and Zen have a bit of a harder time getting all the way up, since they're so much bigger than us. But they make it after a couple of minutes, and grin down at us.

"I think we're all good at this," Marvel says. "Where next?"

We only have a few hours left of training, so we only go to a couple different stations – knives and spears (it's great being in charge). Then it's time for lunch.

I nod to the others, and we all head over to where Thresh is sitting by himself. Crowding around him, we all smile, trying to be somewhat friendly.

Cato speaks first. "Hi."

Thresh doesn't speak.

I decide to try to get a response from him. "So, Thresh, we've all been talking, and we've decided that we'd like you to join our alliance. We all agree that you'd be a great addition, and it would benefit you to join." I don't add that if he refuses our offer, it will be all the worse for him. But it's implied.

Well, I get a response, and it's colorful. He speaks in a low voice that's filled with venom. "Never," he practically spits after he gets over his little fit. "All of you are hated among the other districts. I will never disgrace my home by associating myself with you. We will never be allies. You kill me, I don't care. Better than what you want. You go now."

My eyes widen. Is he serious? No one ever refuses an offer to join the Career alliance. Ever.

He's going to pay for this.

Cato seems speechless – a first – and I'm afraid that when he regains the power to use words he'll do something stupid, so I grab his arm and drag him back to a different table. The others follow us wordlessly.

"That little shit," he snarls after a minute. "He's going to pay."

I glower at the table. "Definitely."

Glimmer scowls. "Of course. But right now we need to focus on our private sessions with the Gamemakers. We need good scores, we need sponsors."

She's right, of course. I force myself not to think about Thresh, because I've been looking forward to this since I turned seven and I refuse to ruin it now.

This is going to be fun.

I'm hoping to get at least a nine. That's what my mother got when she was a tribute – and she hates it when I fall short of her expectations. Besides that, though, I need a really good score to get good sponsors. Getting a low or even moderate score is simply not an option.

Suddenly, a Gamemaker pokes her head through a slim doorway and tells Marvel that he can come in. He smirks at us before following her back into the training room, and the rest of us roll our eyes when the door closes.

Marvel's session takes about fifteen minutes. Then Glimmer is called – I give her a tentative smile, which she returns before leaving. She's in there for a shorter amount of time, maybe ten minutes. Then Cato's called.

"Good luck," I blurt out before mentally berating myself. What a stupid thing to say. If he has any luck, it means I'm going to die.

"You too," he says, sounding a little surprised. I nod curtly at him.

I don't know how much time passes before my name is called. It might be ten minutes, or an hour. It seems to take forever, though. But finally, the Gamemaker comes back and asks for Clove Flair, and I happily get up and follow her to the others. I'm glad to see that they're still paying attention – that's another advantage of being from District Two.

"Okay, Clove, you may begin," says the Head Gamemaker, whose name I don't know. I smirk at them all and practically skip over to the knives.

Grabbing a dozen of them, I make my way to the archery range like Enobaria suggested. I stand pretty far back from the first target and get a good grip on the blade. Then I let it fly.

As expected, it hits dead center. A few of the Gamemakers raise their eyebrows, and I give them a smug smile. You think that was good? One by one, I go to the other targets and put a knife in the center of each. I glance back at the Gamemakers and am pleased to see that they're all gazing at me, captivated.

Now, for the grand finale. I grab a large, very straight, very sharp blade and head over to the dummies. I stand as far back as I can manage from the one nearest to the Gamemakers. Then, I turn and face it, taking a deep breath. Holding the knife exactly parallel to the ground, I whip around in a full circle and release the blade.

It slices the dummy's head right off.

The Gamemakers are staring at me in awe. "Y-you're dismissed, Clove," the Head Gamemaker stutters.

I nod respectfully. "One last thing," I say. "I'm sure you noticed the mark in the rock wall? Well, let me tell you, you'll see even more impressive shots in the Games."

On that note I walk out, leaving them to figure out what I just said. When I close the door, though, I can't help holding one ear to it to try and hear what they're saying. All I can make out is some mumbling, though.

I strut to the elevator and back to the second floor. "Clove!" When the doors open, Enobaria immediately swoops down on me. "How did you do? I need to know everything! Every detail, you hear? Go on, tell me! What are you waiting for?"

I resist the urge to point out to Enobaria that she hasn't given me a chance to get a word in. Instead, I recount my session to her, giving every detail I can remember.

When I finish, Enobaria smirks in a satisfied way. "Excellent job. I'm telling you, Clove, I'll be very surprised if you don't win this." With that, she turns her back on me. "Meet us for dinner in two hours, got it?"

I grin to myself. Awesome.

I decide to spend the time in my room looking through everything. But the closet is mostly empty, and the drawers are too. I sigh in frustration, thinking maybe I'll just take a nap.

Since I can't think of anything better to do, I lie down on the bed and shut my eyes. When I open them again, I glance at the clock. It's been nearly two hours. Ah, I love sleeping. After quickly brushing through my hair, I walk to the dining room.

"Good, you're here," Enobaria says briskly. "Sit down, eat quickly. They're going to announce the scores in half an hour."

Filled with excitement, I quickly eat whatever's in front of me – I really don't notice what it is. It's unprofessional, but I'm actually bouncing up and down in my seat.

It doesn't take long before we're all done, so the six of us – me, Cato, Enobaria, Yoh, Maio, and Cato's stylist – crowd in front of the television. Yoh grabs the remote and turns it on, and we all stare avidly at the screen.

Finally, the program begins. I bite my lip so hard it nearly starts bleeding, but frankly, at this point I'm beyond caring. I just want to know what score I've received.

Marvel gets an eight – a pretty good score overall, but not overly impressive for a Career. Glimmer gets a nine; she probably threw axes around for most of her session. It's actually a good score, there's a huge difference between eight and nine when it comes to the Careers.

Cato gets a ten – he must have used spears the whole time, plus maybe a sword… and so do I.

I gasp and feel a grin spread across my face. I got a ten! That's even better than Mother! Cato and I high five, and I don't even care that it's not proper etiquette for a tribute, because I'm so thrilled.

Oh, yes. I'm sure to win now.

"Congratulations, Clove!" Maio shrieks.

"Well done, both of you," Enobaria says, beaming. Yoh seems beyond words.

I smile at them happily and turn my attention back to the screen. I've missed the scores for the District Three tributes, but Shell and Zen each get an eight. I glance over at Cato and we smirk at each other. Everyone else does poorly, the exceptions being Little Eleven, who gets a seven, and Thresh, who gets a nine.

Cato swears. "He's so dead."

I nod. "Yeah… he's going to wish he hadn't refused us."

Enobaria smirks. "Well, I know I wouldn't want to have either of you as an enemy. Now, should we bother to keep watching and see what Twelve gets, or should we just turn it off?"

"Let's keep watching," Yoh says. "I always love seeing how pathetic that district is!"

Lover Boy's face appears on the screen – he gets an eight.

I raise my eyebrows. "Seriously?" That's odd… I don't think anyone from Twelve has gotten above a four for as long as I can remember.

Cato shrugs. "I'm not worried." Well, I'm not going to appear weak by acting concerned, then. I look back at the screen just in time to see the number eleven flashing on the screen under Fire Girl's face.

Eleven?

I let out a wordless shriek in defiance. "No way!" I screech. "Eleven? Her? You have got to be kidding me!"

I whip around to look at Cato, my eyes wide. He's breathing heavily, and his face if slowly turning red. "Cato?" I say uncertainly. He shakes his head, and I see him mouth something, but I'm not sure what.

I realize I'm shaking with fury, and something else as well – wait – jealously? That's a new one. I don't remember ever being jealous in my life.

I stare at the screen, not seeing it. I'm going to kill her, I vow to myself. Screw Cato. She's dead. No one – especially someone from Twelve – can steal my spotlight that easily. I'm going to kill her. Whatever it takes.

I was going to wait until tomorrow to post this, but... I didn't. ;)

Okay, someone did leave a review asking if the story is going to end when Clove dies or if it will continue until Cato does. I'm going to answer that here in case anyone else was wondering. The answer... is neither. There will be a surprise epilogue after Clove dies, hopefully it'll come out well... either way, I'm really excited to write it. :D No, I'm not going to tell you what it is, but feel free to guess. The credit for the idea goes to neelyn8r, she suggested it to me. (Go to her page, she has an awesome HG one-shot called Bloody Fingers.)

Anyway, I won't get to that point for a while longer. For now, be the awesome people I know you all are and REVIEW! :D

~What the Quell