Clove POV

The next day Cato and I wake up with enough time to get ready and eat breakfast before training. I don't wear my ring because I don't want anyone getting ideas. Although they would be right, I'm just not ready yet.

Before we go into the training center, I make sure to put on my smirk that is permanent whenever I'm around anyone besides Cato and his family, and brace myself for my punishment.

"Where the hell were you yesterday?" Xandra shouted. I knew this would be coming. "You just don't show up for training one day, no message saying you're sick or anything, and just waltz in the next day? Do you know how long I've been training you, Clove? Nine years! Not once have you not shown up or been late! What has gotten into you?"

I hesitate a moment. "It won't happen again," I say, choosing my words carefully. I only resort to apologies as a last resort. Apologies are for the weak. And I am not weak.

"It sure as hell won't. Ten extra laps today, and don't argue or I'll make it twenty. Go on with your training schedule. Check in with me at the end of the day."

I didn't expect to get off so easy. I was expecting much more punishment. But, hey, I'm not complaining.

I look over to where Cato is and notice him getting the same lecture I just did from his trainer. He blows it off as if it's nothing, but this infuriates the trainer even more. I'm assuming he is going to get a lot more punishment than I did.

As I walk over to the knife station, I notice a girl there a couple years younger than me and I immediately switch my attitude to ice cold bitch.

"What do you think you're doing?" I ask her, giving her my famous death glare. She looks scared already.

"I...I was just..."

"I...I was just..." I mock. "You were putting your weak little hands all over my knives. Now get out of here before I send one through your chest." She is frozen. "And trust me, I never miss," I add with a smirk. This sends her running, and as I see the dummies she was aiming at, I start to laugh. She didn't hit a single fatal spot, let alone a target.

I retreive the knives she had thrown and go to the starting line. I throw each one, purposely hitting each target and fatal spot perfectly. I can feel everyone's eyes on me. I turn to them.

"Do you want me to throw these at your heads?" I ask nastily. They quickly become busy with whatever they were doing. Weaklings, I think. They wear their fear on their sleeves. Don't they realize that being a Career means having no fear? And even if you have a fear, no one must know about it. You must conceal it. That is the first thing they teach us in training. Don't fear anything.

When lunch time comes around, I'm trying to find a place to eat, when I hear a girl whisper something about me to her friend. Stupid girl. I turn a start walking toward her. The look on her face said it all. She had become terrified with one glance. Good.

"What did you say about me?" I question, grabbing onto her collar with my left hand and pulling out my knife with the other. I slightly push the edge of my knife against her face. Most people would kill her on the spot, but if I'm going to kill someone, I prefer to play with my food.

"Nothing! Nothing, I swear!" She begs. Ha! Pathetic. Trying to save her stupid life. I know what she said about me wasn't intended as a compliment. I have a way of knowing these things.

"Liar! I heard what you said."

"I didn't mean it! I swear to God!" Does she really think that swearing to God is going to get her out of this situation? Weakling. I push the knife a little harder and it starts to draw a little blood. Suddenly, someone is pulling me back from the girl and I try to defend my self with the knife when I realize it's Cato. Why is he, of all people, tearing me off of her?

"Clove! Stop it! She's not worth it! Just walk away!" he yells as I struggle against him. Finally, I give up and calm down a little. I take a step towards the girl and she recoils a bit.

"Next time, it'll be your neck," I warn her. She nods her head, and I know that she got the message. I walk away, mad at the girl and mad at Cato for pulling me off of her.

I would've done it, too. Killed her. I've killed before. It's all the process of training.

Only then do I realize what I've been thinking. I wanted to kill that girl. Why? I mean, yes I'm a killer, but was it necessary? No! I mean, I get these thoughts a lot, but I usually can control them and make them show on the outside. This time, they were in my mind longer and they are still lurking there.

But the unusual thing is... I kind of like them.

Cato POV

After training and my excessive amount of punishment, I finally have time to confront Clove about her outburst earlier today. It's not unlike her to do something like that, but this time it was different. I don't quite know how, but it was.

"What the hell did you think you were doing?" I yell at her.

"I was giving her a piece of my mind. She deserved it," she answers calmly, like she answers these kind of questions every day.

"What has gotten into you? Don't get me wrong, I like this side of you, but I know when something's wrong. And something's wrong. Please tell me," I ask of her.

"I don't know what's wrong. I really don't. I don't know what's gotten into me. But all I know is that, for some reason, it doesn't want to stop."

"What doesn't want to stop?" I ask, confused.

"My mind. It doesn't want to stop when I get so close to killing someone. It wanted me to kill that girl today, and I would've if you hadn't stopped me. But the worst part is...I like it." She, herself, sounds surprised and disgusted by her own words. The Clove that has never wanted to go into the games has started to enjoy killing.

"I know the feeling. That's what training does to you. It does it to all of us. It happened to me a while ago. And you can't ever get rid of it. Sometimes, it never goes away and I go for days, just wanting, needing to kill something or someone. But you have to control it. It's the Career personality that they have somehow embedded in us finally surfacing." I'm surprised by my words. I never even knew I thought about that until I had said it.

"Can you help me?" she asks. She can't do it alone, and she knows that.

"Of course I will," I answer and rub her back in circles.

That night when we get ready for bed, I think about tomorrow. No training.

"So... tomorrow's the Reaping," I tell Clove, although I know she has been thinking about it already.

"Just like every year. Same old thing, just different people, costumes, and arena. Same concept. Same sick, twisted concept." She climbs into bed with me. "I don't want to talk about it. Neither of us are going to be picked. And that's final. And even if we are picked, someone will volunteer. So don't worry about it, okay?"

"Okay," I reply. She's in denial. She knows that there's a very good chance that I could get reaped this year, but she's trying to convince herself otherwise. She's nervous and scared, too. She rants when she is. That's how I know.

She quickly falls asleep in my arms. I stay awake thinking how all I want is to spend the rest of my life with her. But tomorrow, my entire life could change with the drawing of one slip of paper. I was just hoping that those slips of paper drawn won't have our names on them.