Author's Note: Sorry, this chapter is a lot shorter than I would have liked it to be. But I've been studying for exams which are beginning at the end of this week so I have had barely any time to write. I thought I should upload this because a short chapter is better than nothing in my opinion! Read, review, you know the drill.
Also, I'm open to suggestions of what you want to happen, so feel free to tell me what you want to read! Enjoy!
Chapter twelve – I'll protect you
Cato's POV
Earlier…
I'm in the middle of the forest built into the arena, holding my sword tightly in my right hand.
"Cato!" My vision starts fading in and out, as if I'd been training for hours without staying hydrated. I want to throw up but I force myself to look in the direction that the scream came from. Grey is on the ground in front of me and Spens towers over her with a bloody knife held in his hand. She's screaming and cowering away from Spens with a petrified look in her eyes, oblivious to me standing there, but Spens sees me and laughs in my face.
"Bet you can't save her, Cato." He spits, and I angrily try to slash him with my sword. But my left hand is damaged and it's agony to even control the blade.
Grey is still screaming for me, even though I'm standing right there. I try and tell her that it is going to be okay but my voice won't make the words, it's like I don't exist anymore.
"Cato! Ca-to! Please, where are you?"
I sit up straight with a gasp, my breathing uneven and choked. It's dark and cold and I'm shivering. Was that a nightmare? Careers aren't meant to get scared. I try and steel myself by breathing deeply. There's a painful throbbing in my injured hand and softly prodding it with my finger makes me wince.
There's a quiet mumble and the body on me stirs a little. My eyes adjust to the light and I realise that there's a dull orange glow streaming in from the cornucopia entrance. Using it for light I can see Grey curled up on top of me. Her hair is flowing down my stomach and onto the sleeping bag that we're lying on. She's got her cheek pressed against my chest and I can feel her warm breath against my cool skin. Hang on, why can I feel her on my bare skin? I sit up on my elbows while trying not to disturb her and see that my shirt's been pulled open to reveal my torso. What the hell happened last night? Did we? No, she wouldn't have let me anyway. I snigger at my own joke and it must disrupt Grey's sleep because she breathes in deeply and pushes herself up my body until her head tucks under my chin.
Caught in the moment, I hold her skinny shoulder with my hand so she doesn't slip off me and kiss the top of her head. Even in the arena her hair is like silk. I feel her eyelashes flutter on the skin of my neck and I quickly move my hands away from her, tucking the uninjured one under my head and trying to muster up a sly smirk. It takes a few seconds before she fully wakes up, I wonder what she was dreaming about, but I know when she realises what she's lying on. She's up in an instant, instinctively crossing her arms over her chest. What, she thinks I'd take her shirt off without her permission?
"Aww," I coo, "You ruined the moment." Grey glares at me.
"How long were you awake, you pervert! I bet you purposefully opened your shirt like that." She replies, gesturing in the general direction of my chest. She thinks she's sneaky, but I see her eyes hover over me for a second too long. I run my fingers through my hair and stand up, stretching my sore muscles. Grey looks like she's in fight or flight mode, as if she doesn't trust me. I close up the gap between us and bring her into my arms. She doesn't push away but I feel the tension in her frame.
"What are you doing?" She says into my neck. I growl into her hair, a mixture of a "no" and a "shush," but I end up answering anyway.
"I was feeling generous." Truthfully, after my nightmare I just wanted to know that she was okay, but I would never admit it to her.
BOOM
BOOM
I feel Grey jump. That's two more tributes dead. How many does that leave? I hadn't really been concentrating on the exact number of tributes left; my plan was to fight until I won, no matter how many tributes I had to go through. While I'm strategizing, Grey breaks out of my embrace and hurriedly scans around us.
"Where's Clove and Marvel? You don't think it was them do you?" She says to me, her eyes showing such innocent fear that for a moment I just want to shield her from this crappy world. Okay maybe not shield, I'd rather hop into a sleeping bag with her. But that's not the point.
"I don't know. They must have gone hunting while we were both asleep. All we can do right now is wait, if they're alive then they will come back here."
Grey stands there looking at me for a few seconds with a look of partial disgust on her face. Whoops, I don't think I had enough sympathy in my voice when I said that. She's standing beside our pile of supplies, holding her arms around herself to shield from the cold wind that has begun to whistle through the cornucopia. It makes her look small and unprotected. I think over my options; I could reply with some heartless sarcastic comment that would probably hurt her, or I could actually try and comfort her. I didn't normally do comfort, but I could try. I stride over to her and bring her into my arms again. She squeaks as the skin of her arms touches the flesh of my still-bare chest but then goes quiet.
I can feel her heartbeat beating against my chest and it shocks me how fast its rhythm is. She's stressed out.
"Hey come on, calm down," I say quietly to her, squeezing a little tighter to emphasise my words, "Deep breathing is good." I hear something that sounds like a cough in reply, but it takes me a moment to realise that it's probably her attempt at a laugh. I pull my head away from her so I can look her in the face, and although she looks worried there's a certain amount of defiance showing in her eyes.
"Cato?" She asks, "Do you remember back in the Capitol the night before the games?" I grunt an affirmative.
"You said that you didn't want to show emotion because the Capitol would use it against you, but why here and now?" I find her hand and clasp it in my own.
"Does it matter? I am not going let the Capitol try to control me anymore. All you need to know is that I will always protect you. I will always come and find you. Every time, I promise. Got it?" Grey doesn't reply but I feel her nod slightly, as if her body is giving away her true emotions.
I give her one last squeeze, so she'll remember my arms on her, and I re-button my shirt and start to rummage in the backpacks for something we can eat. I'd call it breakfast but the sun has already partially gone down so it's more like dinner. We must have both slept for a good 12 hours. Grey's standing where I let go of her, perfectly still. I think she's shocked by my sudden display of emotion, and to be honest I am too. It would have probably been easier to have just said something sarcastic.
I unwrap some dried meat and a loaf of bread and I break off a piece for Grey and myself. Having not eaten for a long time, I hungrily tear at the food while Grey looks on.
"Come here." I manage to say in between chewing. "You have to eat something." She hesitates a little but I know she's hungry so I decide to joke around.
"Fine, don't eat if you don't want to Grey. But I will eat your share. I swear I'll do it." I tease, smirking and holding her piece of meat temptingly near my open mouth. Her face breaks into a smile, the first smile I've seen on her face this morning. The Hunger Games bring the solemn expressions out of everybody. She groans in an over exaggerated way and snatches her food off me, sitting down beside me.
Grey's POV
Cato actually cares about me? I knew he looked out for me in an alliance way, but I felt more like a disposable toy sometimes. I mean, this was a game where only one person got out alive; it was kind of hard to decide that you were going to look after someone until the end. 'I'm going to protect you.' Does that mean he'll kill himself so I can win? Or is it some cryptic comment that makes him feel less guilty about killing me? I decide that it's easier to just not ask.
I notice out of the corner of my eye that Cato is only using his right hand to eat and his left is sitting loosely in his lap.
"Is your hand okay?" I ask, and Cato lifts it slightly as if he's testing it.
"No" is his reply. I realise that it won't improve unless we receive medicine from sponsors. I'm sure nothing in the arena would help him; the Gamemaker wouldn't have lifesaving ingredients growing on trees because that would be too easy.
We finish eating without talking and as soon as I'm done I hurry outside. I feel Cato come up beside me like some silent bodyguard. I try and think of a way to ask someone I can't even see for medicine, but before I can do anything, I see Clove and Marvel come jogging towards us. Relief floods over me.
"Clove!" I shout out, and I see her smile and smirk at me. I want to give her a hug because I'm so happy that she's okay, but I force myself to stay where I am.
"We thought you were dead." We all say at the same time when Marvel and Cato join us. Everyone looks relieved, even Cato who didn't seem particularly affected has the ghost of a smile on his face.
Before we can head into the cornucopia, the Panem anthem starts playing and a hologram is projected on the wall of the arena. It shows a picture of a male and a female tribute, neither of which I recognize. I don't think Cato had been keeping count but I know that there are only nine tributes left in the games now.
"Who's still alive?" I hear Cato ask, and Marvel begins to list the nine tributes. Some I've never even heard of. When he says Spens' name, Cato tenses beside me.
"He can't be alive!" He hisses, "I stabbed him! He was lying on the ground!" I start getting a feeling of dread in the pit of my stomach. I knew Spens was still alive, but the fact that Cato thought he was dead frightened me a little. Marvel starts wringing his hands nervously.
"When we found you and Glimmer in the clearing, Spens was gone. I think it's time you told us what happened."
So Cato tells us everything that happened from the moment he left the camp until when he woke up in the cornucopia. He misses out the part about me sleeping on top of him, but Marvel has a strange look on his face, almost as if he's expecting to hear it. Weird. I get a cold feeling when Cato talks about stabbing Spens and passing out, expecting his enemy to be taken care of permanently. I can tell he's pretty angry about it; he doesn't strike me as someone who ever misses a kill. As he stands there talking he wrings his hands in irritation and I keep wanting to stop him so he doesn't damage his hand. By the time Cato finishes his story I can almost feel the anger radiating off him, and Marvel and Clove are both sneering and looking around suspiciously as if they expect Spens to jump out at any second. I try not to have any emotion, blanking my expressions as much as I can. If I don't think about it then it doesn't exist.
Suddenly, we all hear a beeping sound. Marvel and Cato throw themselves forward and shield the two of us girls behind them. I hear Clove grumble but I'm too frightened thinking about whether it could be a bomb, or the mines resetting, to be annoyed that the male tributes are protecting me. We stand in a huddle for a few long seconds; it would make a perfect action shot to be used to publicise the games next year. Then Cato holds his hand up to catch the sponsor parachute that slowly floats down from the sky. He turns on his heel to face us and smirks, one eyebrow raised.