Cato POV

I wake up covered in sweat. I'm still thinking about that nightmare that has worked it's way into my mind again. It's me. In the Games. I make my way over to the lake to fill up my canteen. As I reach my hands in to splash my face, the water has turned red. It's thick and leaves a long trail. I look up and see a pile of people, dead. But these aren't just people. These are my loved ones. Mom, Dad, Chloe, and at the very top of the pile, lies Clove, her stormy eyes staring into oblivion. I scream and immediately wake up.

That's how the nightmare happens every time. Except for the fact that I haven't had this nightmare in over two years. What could that mean?

"Are you okay?" I hear as I begin to sit up. I look up and she's sitting beside me on my bed, looking at me with a worried expression on her face.

"Yeah, I'm fine," I say, as I take her into my arms. I don't want her to worry about me.

"Are you sure? I woke up and you were screaming and..." She trails off. I look at her and I see the smallest trace of tears in her eyes. Wow. I must've really worried her. There's only been three times that I've seen her break down. Two of them were in the same day, two years ago. One, I had told her I was thinking about going into the Games, and the other was her damned father's fault. That bastard is better off out of her life completely. And the third time, well, we don't talk about that time.

I grab her face in my hands gently and look her in the eyes. "I'm fine. It's nothing more than a common nightmare."

"You screamed my name, Cato," she says. Now that I hadn't known about.

"Trust me. You have nothing to worry about, okay? I'll be fine."

She nods her head, but I can tell she's still worried. "Okay." I kiss her forehead and hold her in a tight embrace. I'm glad she's here in the mornings and nights to hold on to like this. Ever since that day two years ago, she's been staying with us. My family practically made her. We wouldn't let her even close to her pathetic excuse of a father.

Much has happened in the past two years. Me and Clove have become closer than ever and we are almost inseperable. She lives here all the time because no one in my family would even consider her going back to that place. Even before that whole incident they wanted her to live here.

Clove has become aquainted with my other friends, but most of the time, we just kind of ignore them. We all still go to training together. My friends, unfortunately, still think that I'm planning on volunteering for the Games this year. I mean, I'm the best male trainee in the entire district. When I was fourteen, I was able to take down the seventeen year olds. Everyone, including me, knows I would win. But I promised Clove that I wouldn't. She knows that I would win, but just the possibility of me dying was enough to make her break down.

Clove. I look down at the girl in my arms and smile. The day she told me yes is easily the best day of my life. I don't know what I would do without her. People might think it odd, because we've been dating for two years now, but we've never said those three words to each other. We know that we love each other, there's no question about that, but we promised we wouldn't say them until after our last reaping. We didn't want to say them and then be hurt if one of us was reaped.

But we would still be hurt without saying those words. We are too close. Losing each other is almost unthinkable.

We just sit there, holding on to each other for what feels like forever, when she finally says, "We should get ready for training." I look at my clock and realize that we have about fifteen minutes until training starts.

"Yeah. Good old training," I say. We both put on our training clothes in silence and head downstairs. My mom has already made us breakfast, which is only a bagel. she knows we don't have a lot of time. We each grab half and head out the door, eating along the way.

Once we reach the training center, we settle into our seperate routines. Because we are better at different things, we need to train to get better at different things, so our schedules are never the same. I head over to the sword area and Clove heads over to her knives. I watch her as she hits every target, dead center. She never misses. Never has.

I focus on decapitating the mannequins that are in front of me with my sword, dismembering each of them in a new specific way that is never like another.

Once I start to tire from the sword, I get into wrestling down the other males in my year and the year above me. I can take down any of them within three minutes.

Just as I'm finishing, I realize Clove has been watching me the past ten minutes. "I bet I would last longer against you than any of them would," she says with a smirk. I actually agree. I mean, we have gotten in little fake fights before, and with each of us giving our all, she lasted fifteen minutes against me before I finally pinned her down.

"Is that a challenge?" I ask with a slight grin. Right as I finish my sentence, she jumps onto my back and locks her arms around my neck tightly. She's trying to make me run out of breath so that I'll fall to the ground, but I'm stronger than her, and untighten her arms and whisk her around.

Once we get into it, no one tries to stop us. They are all for watching a good fight. We've been fighting for nearly twenty minutes when I finally pin her down and pronounce her dead. When we look up, we realize everyone has been staring at us, with their mouths open, Obviously, they didn't expect Clove to last that long against me, and I didn't go easy on her either.

We get up and look at them. "What are you looking at?" she asks them with an angry tone in her voice. But I'm the only one that can catch the hint of satisfaction in her voice. She's glad she left all the other guys wondering how she lastest so much longer against me than any of them were ever able to do.

I stalk off, wondering whether or not the trainers saw us fighting. Surely they did. But why would that matter? It's not like they choose which trainees go into the Games each year. They just make sure that one of each gender that has been training goes in. At least that way we have a bigger chance of winning. So why am I so worried?

Clove POV

"What are you looking at?" I practically scream at all the gawking guys that just watched me and Cato go at it. Even though I sound angry, I can pick up the slightest hint of satisfaction in my voice. I left them all speechless. They quickly disperse, pretending like they didn't see anything, but I know that their embarrassed. I mean, they got beat by a girl. No seventeen or eighteen year old boy could manage that long against Cato. Yet I, a seventeen year old girl, did.

I quickly go back to my regular day. Me and cato exchange looks throughout the rest of the day, both wondering about what had happened earlier. We both know that neither of us are going to volunteer. Everyone thinks that me and Cato are going to volunteer this year, and I can't wait to see the looks on their faces when they are disappointed. It puzzles me how so many of the teenagers here are wanting to go into the games, wanting to kill other teenagers.

I find myself starting to wonder what would happen if I did go into the Games. If Cato didn't go in with me, then I could easily win. I know I could. But it seems too much of a risk for me. If, in a one in a million chance, Cato ended up going into the Games with me, then I couldn't win. Not because I couldn't last against him, and I know that he would try to protect me, but because, if it came down to the two of us, I wouldn't be able to kill him. I would die in there.

I push the thought of going into the Games out of my head. I don't want to go into the games. I've always known that, and I've always known that I'm never going to volunteer whatever the cost. That's why me and Cato made our promise. Neither of us would get hurt because neither of us would go in. There is only the slight possibility that one of our names would actually be drawn, and even then, if someone really wanted it, they would volunteer. But can you always count on someone to volunteer in your place?

Xandra's POV

We watched her. Clove. I've been training her, for what? Nine years now? Yeah, that seems about right. And that Cato character. He's definitely volunteering for the games this year. All his friends are talking about it, even the trainers, and I can see why. He was able to take down the seventeen-year-olds when he was only fourteen.

So when we all saw Clove last nearly twenty minutes in a hand-to-hand battle against Cato, we were all surprised. We knew she was good, she's the best seventeen-year-old, and she can even beat the eighteen-year-old girls, and we knew she was good with knives and had a chance at winning, but we had no idea she was THAT good. Where has she been hiding all that talent? I wonder...

Of course, it's no secret that Clove isn't volunteering for the games. Whenever I would bring it up, she would always flinch at the idea of her volunteering. But she's the best female this year and has the best chance of winning. She needs to go into the Games this year. I know it's a one in a million chance that her name will be drawn, and that she won't volunteer. And even if her name is drawn, someone could very well volunteer in her place.

But she NEEDS to go in this year. It could be her year, I know it.

And then it hits me. At the end of the day, Clove is the first girl out, and so I keep all the others behind for a little chat. All of the boys and Clove have left, so it is the perfect time to start my plan.

"Okay," I start towards my female pupils. "As you all know, The Hunger Games will be beginning in four days. And I'm sure you are all aware that Clove Harwoods is our biggest chance of winning in this group of girls. But as we all know, Clove has told herself that she will never volunteer. And that is not going to fly with us. We are going to make sure that her name is pulled from the bowl at the Reaping and NONE of you will volunteer for her. She is going into these Games one way or another. Let me repeat myself. You WILL NOT volunteer in her place or there will be serious consequences. So I make myself clear?"

All of the girls nod.

"Good. You are dismissed." They start to walk out the door. "Oh, and one more thing. Don't tell this information to anyone. Especially Cato Wenson."

And with that, they left the training center. I left work that day thinking about how these Games are going to be one to be remembered.