Clove POV:
Nerves bubble in my stomach as I lead Katniss through my old streets. Every corner I turn I expect to come face to face with my father. Haymitch follows us a few steps behind us. He keeps his hands in his pockets. I wonder why he decided to follow us. Surely he'd rather be waiting on the train drinking bottle after bottle of spirits.
There is only one place I want to go before the train takes us on to the next district. It's been so long since I've last been there. I bite my lip guiltily, remembering how I didn't even go there on reaping day. When I knew I would be going to volunteer for the games that would most likely be the death of me.
I spot a field in front of me, glancing at the flag pole I quicken my steps when I see no flag there. Katniss hesitates when she sees the sudden green field. A small smile appears on her lips "I was beginning to think this whole district was made of stone." She murmurs to me playfully nodding towards the identical grey, stone house behind that are us lined up in a military fashion.
I shrug. "Most of it is…This is one of the few places that's not…" I look away. "This is a peacekeeper training ground, they play war games here." I explain, Katniss looks at me her eyes wide as she stops in her tracks.
Haymitch snorts. "And you think it's a good idea to walk over here?" He asks disbelievingly. I shrug shooting him a glare.
"It's not being used at the moment, they put the flag up when it's being used. Do you really think they'd want to risk shooting someone, it'd cause a riot." I glare at Haymitch as he stares at me disbelievingly. "Believe it or not the people here aren't that heartless, if they shot a little kid they wouldn't stand for it. There's no honour in that death." I spit turning my glare to the ground. I never realised before how much I hate the people of my home district.
Of course the people would care that a kid died, but only if they died in a way that they deemed dishonourable. Their mentality only being that the chid could've gone into the games and made their district great.
Fingers brush against mine and I look up into Katniss' eye. She takes my hand, gently squeezing it. I shake my head to clear it before continuing to walk. "Come on, we better keep going." I lead Katniss through the field.
I don't mind Katniss being here for this but the fact that Haymitch is here makes my skin prickle. He follows visibly irritated as if someone forced him to come with us. This is kind of private, I'm not too pleased about him seeing this, but I need to do this before we leave.
"So where are we going?" Katniss asks after a while
"You'll see." Is the only answer I give, I don't want to say where we're going out loud. I don't want Haymitch to think I'm soft, although he probably already thinks that. I purse my lips irritably, wishing he'd just go back to the train.
I spot the iron fence in front of us and speed up my pace. The familiar grey stones come into sight. "What is this place?" Katniss asks when she sees the headstones, she already knows of course, it's pretty obvious.
"Graveyard…My mother was buried here…" I gulp, suddenly becoming very interested in my feet. Katniss is quiet for a moment. Her lips meet mine as she kisses me gently.
"Let's go then. Where's the gate?" She asks her eyes soft as she speaks. I shake my head a laugh escaping me.
"We're not going to use the gate, there's peacekeepers at the gate and they ask too many questions." With that I tug at one of the bars in front of me. As usual it comes loose and I slip through the hole.
Katniss follows me with some difficulty. Haymitch stares at us as we wait for him on the other side of the fence. "Do any of the other bars come loose?" He asks scowling at me. I shrug, I've never needed to pull any more of the bars loose.
Haymitch sighs and tries to get through the hole, he's much bigger than Katniss and I so he struggles considerably. I almost laugh when he seems to give up half way, stopping to catch his breath. But he glares at me and wiggles some more, eventually getting through the tiny gap. I put the bar back in place.
Everyone knows about this way into the graveyard but luckily the peacekeepers have never deemed it a big enough deal to fix it. I suppose they have better things to do than stop people from visiting the graves whenever they wanted.
I'm not even entirely sure why they bother putting peacekeepers at the gates. They ask people which grave they're here to visit and why. It always irritated me so I started using the back way to get in.
I walk between the graves not even bothering to look at the names. This part of the graveyard is reserved for deceased tributes, I used to be fascinated by the names carved onto the stones but now the thought just sickens me. The tribute graves go on for a long time. There's' over 100 graves here here though I've never counted.
I walk towards some grander tombs of the wealthier people in the district. My mother's grave. A simple tombstone marking the place where she was buried lies just behind them. I glance behind me noticing that Haymitch has stopped at the tribute graves. Staring between two graves and unreadable expression on his face.
Katniss stops looking curiously at a grave near her eyes wide. I stop to glancing at it. Cato's name is carved onto it underneath it says. Died with honour in the 74th Hunger Games. Placed - 2nd. Weapon – Sword. I know many of the headstones will say something similar although some that didn't place high enough just have the games they participated in and their place.
I shake my head turning away and walking the rest of the distance, past the wealthy tombs, to my mother's grave. I reach the familiar plain grey stone, standing in front of the stone I stare at it for a while before working to pull away some of the weeds that have grown there out of habit.
I finally reveal the name of my mother. Valdis Sevina. I sigh, a knot appearing in my throat as I remember how I killed her although I know there was nothing I could do. I stare at the words remembering every time my father told me of how she died so that I may live.
Shoving my hands into my pockets and swallow not allowing tears to fall. I always likes to imagine that she cared about me, that if she'd have lived we would've run away together, got away from my father and I would've never have known the pain caused by my father's fists. I glance towards Katniss, Haymitch has approached her and is talking to her but I'm too far away to hear what he's saying. I turn my gaze back to the cold stone in front of me.
"I knew you'd come here." I jump when I hear my father's voice. I'm not sure how he managed to sneak up on me. I tense up, my hands balling into fists. Why is he here? Can't he just leave me alone? He smirks at me, taking a swig from the bottle of beer in his hand.
He looks thoughtful as he turns to the grave of my mother. "You know I never really got why you spent so much time here. Why visit a grave of someone whose death you caused?" He turns to me, draining his beer before tossing the bottle at a grave behind him. The bottle shatters against the cold stone and the shards of brown glass falls to the floor.
He leans against a headstone as I turn to leave I don't want to be anywhere near him, I can't deal with this. I'm about the call out to Katniss when he speaks again. "It would've been so simple for you to save her you know."
"What the hell are you talking about?" I ask angrily turning back towards him, my father just looks at me as he pulls another bottle of beer out of his oversized pockets. Opening it on a gravestone he takes a swig. I wonder how many he's had since out last meeting, from his bleary eyes I can see it's been quite a few.
"If you had only stopped screaming. She was doing everything she could but you didn't have the common decency to shut up." He growls, standing up straighter and tucking the thumb of his fee hand into his belt. "She wouldn't let me deal with it, I would've shut you up and I definitely did afterwards." He smirks at him, spitting at my feet.
My lips curl up in disgust as I take a step back. What is he talking about anyway? She died giving birth to me, that's what he always told me. "What do you mean?" I ask, dread settling in my chest.
"She protected you and couldn't take a hit to the head." He snaps. "It's all your fault if you'd just stopped screaming…"
"What?" I interrupt dangerously. He killed her? It wasn't my fault, if he was the one who gave her the finishing blow then surely it was his fault, not mine. I feel like I've sunk into the ground, my limbs have gone icy cold and numb.
"If you'd stopped screaming then I wouldn't have had to take matters into my own hands, she wouldn't be dead now." My dad says slowly as if speaking to an idiot. He shakes his head approaching the grave. "You can't even clear up the grave properly you stupid girl." He brushes the weeds obscuring the bottom half of the stone away. I'd never bothered with those, assuming that there wasn't anything important there. A lot of the graves here don't have a date on them so I thought nothing of it.
I spot the date on the bottom of the stone and pause. The date is a week after my birth, how could she have died giving birth to me a week after I was born? "You told me she died giving birth to me." I whisper, my voice breaking. Burning anger floods through me melting the ice that seems to have formed in my limbs, I force myself to look up at him. "You lied to me." I accuse, I can't think properly as my lips curl up into a snarl. "You… Fucking…Lied."
He shrugs looking unconcerned. "Not like it matters, it's your fault either way." He says nonchalantly. Something snaps inside me as I let out a scream. I'm flying toward him my fists flying. I know without a doubt if I had a knife on me he'd be dead where he stands.
I'm screaming as my fists pound into him, he barely flinches as my fist collides with his jaw. Suddenly strong hands are pulling me back, I fight against them enraged. "Stop it, you don't want to cause a scene." It's Haymitch that's holding me I realise, he's learnt not to let his hands anywhere near my mouth as he carefully hold my arms behind my back not wanting another bite wound. I can hear footsteps stomping over and shouting but I don't care enough to work out what they're saying.
I blink slowly fighting against the hands holding me. "Haymitch stop it." Katniss' voice cuts through my mind and I turn to her, she's trying to get Haymitch to release me. Haymitch snorts but does as she asks. I almost rush back towards my father intent on doing him some damage but Kantiss' soft hand on my arm stops me.
I turn to her and my anger just drains away. She gazes into my eyes searchingly; I take a few deep breaths I can't talk right now. Peacekeepers surround us, some of them pointing their guns at me, I glare at them, folding my arms across my chest.
"Let's go back to the train." I snap, taking Katniss' hand. The peacekeepers insist on escorting us there. I scowl as they circle us, only Katniss' hand in mine keeps me grounded. People in the streets watch as we pass them. I keep my head high and the glare on my face. Trying to make myself look as intimidating as possible.
We arrive at the station and the peacekeepers stand in two rows allowing us to board the train. Katniss leads me towards our bedroom compartment on the train. She doesn't say anything until we enter.
The door slides shut and she turns to me, I shake my head flopping down onto the bed and burying my face into my hands, my boy shakes slightly with emotion, I'm not even sure what I'm feeling right now. "Clove…" I feel the bed sink as Katniss sits next to me. Her arm slips around my shoulder and I lean into her, leaning my head onto her shoulder and allowing my hands to drop to my lap.
Katniss reaches for my hand, rubbing a thumb over my knuckles as I grip her hand in mine. "He killed her." I find myself whispering. I shake my head not knowing how else to continue. She's silent for a while, giving me an opportunity to keep talking.
"He told me she died giving birth to me, but he lied, he killed her, because he wanted me to stop crying, when I was a week old, he wanted me to stop crying, he was going to hurt me and she protected me..." I gulp, taking a shuddering breath. "I shouldn't have taken you there I'm sorry, it was a stupid idea."
"It wasn't, you don't have to be sorry." Katniss reassures me. "You know it wasn't your fault right?" She asks after a while, reaching up to play with my hair. I nod slowly, it wasn't my fault I know that now. He was the one who killed her, not me.
"What was Haymitch talking to you about?" I ask remembering how Haymitch was talking to Katniss while I stood by my mother's grace, Katniss shrugs in reply.
"He was showing me the headstones. We…we don't have anything like that in 12, for the tributes I mean. Most families can't afford to have their children buried so their bodies get cremated and if the family can't afford to buy the ashes off them they get thrown into the wind."
"That's horrible …" I say shocked. District 2 will at least pay for a tributes funeral as long as the tribute was the person they selected to go to the games and of course doesn't do anything to disgrace them during the games, like falling in love. Katniss shrugs again in response.
"It's just how things are…" She trails off and I pull away from her, her eyes are sad but she smiles at me anyway. We lie down together, both of us exhausted from the day's events. We just lie there, staring into each other's eyes. We don't need to say anything.
Oriel comes to check we're on the train and a few moments later the train starts moving. I sigh, slipping an arm around Katniss' waist. A numbness has settled in my chest, I've felt so much today it feels like if I feel anything else I will explode. I'm not sure how much more of this I can take, but staring into Katniss' beautiful eyes I can't help but be glad that she's here with me. I don't know what I'd do without her.