Clove POV
I wake up later than usual the next morning. I look at the clock to see what time it is and start to freak out, because I'm late to training. But then I remember. There's no training today. Because today is Reaping Day. What a joy.
I wake Cato up because we only have a few hours until the ceremony starts. I take a quick shower so Cato can get in and I look for my Reaping dress. It's been the same one the past two years. It's pretty enough. Plus, I don't have any other need for a dress. I'm not like the other girls in our district. I actually hate dresses.
I don't even bother to do anything with my hair. I let it run wild, not even taking the time to pull it up.
Cato puts on his nice Reaping clothes and we head downstairs. We greet everyone as we sit down at the table for breakfast. Cato tries to get me to eat something, but I can't eat. I'm too nervous. Chloe holds onto my hand as we walk to the town square. Everyone is jumping and shouting, excited for the ceremony to begin.
It sickens me. How they can be so joyed to know that another twenty-three teens are going to die this year, at least one from this district. A family, friends, are going to lose someone close to them, and they don't even care.
But right now, I have to stay concentrated. Everyone is expecting me to be tough and look sadistic, like always, and I must do so. It's just the way things are.
They take a prick of blood from my finger to identify me and I head over to where the seventeen-year-old girls stand. I watch as Cato makes his way through the other males his age. They part to let him through, as if he's a king or something. Well, I guess to some people, he kind of is.
There is a reason our Reaping starts earlier than the other district's. It takes nearly an hour to get the screaming crowd to be quiet so the escort can start the official ceremony.
As Elle Lite makes her way to the stage in her crazy Capitol clothes, the crowd starts to go nuts. I just stand there, completely bored out of my mind and hoping that it's showing on my face.
After Elle, finally calms the crowd down, she introduces our mayor and lets him stand up to the microphone. He delivers the same boring speech about how our same boring country went through the Dark Days and how The Hunger Games were meant to serve as a warning.
He finishes and Elle stands back up to the microphone. "Happy Hunger Games! And may the odds be ever in your favor. Ladies first." She walks over to the glass orb-like bowl to her left. She twirls her hand around in a circle on top of all the slips of paper, and digs her hand into the ocean of names. Her hand comes out, holding a thin piece of paper. She struts back to the microphone, opens the slip, and reads out the name.
"Clove Harwoods."
Cato POV
I barely understand what the hell is happening when I see Clove walking up the stairs to the stage. What? I ask myself. How the hell can this happen to her? The one teenager in our district that doesn't want to go into the games, reaped? How does that happen?
I look up at her face on the big screen and see that, despite her probably screaming inside, she looks sadistic and dangerous, keeping a smirk on her face.
"Any volunteers?" Elle asks. I scan the crowd, hoping, and for the first time ever, praying, that someone will volunteer for her.
But no one does.
"Alright then. On to the boys."
I try to keep calm and look dangerous at the same time, which I hope is working. Elle reaches into the glass orb and pulls out a piece of paper. She walks back to the microphone and opens the slip of paper.
"Krayson Gray." A small twelve-year-old boy makes his way up to the stage, trying to look tough, but I know he's not ready.
"Any volun-"
"I volunteer!" Someone shouts. Everyone is looking at me. It takes a moment for me to realize that it was me who just screamed. I just volunteered to be in The Hunger Games. With my girlfriend. Oh my God, Cato! What the hell have you done? Idiot!
I start to make my way up to the stage and keep my face brutal and dangerous. My friends are all cheering for me and chanting my name, but I pay absolutely no attention to them.
"What's your name, young man?" Elle asks.
"Cato Wenson."
"Citizens of District 2, I give you your tributes for the 74th Annual Hunger Games, Cato Wenson and Clove Harwoods!" she says as she lifts one of my arms up and does the same with Clove. The crowd goes wild as we are all rushed into the justice building. Clove and I exchange one quick look before we are seperated into two different rooms.
The look she gave me wasn't what I expected. I expected it to be a sad look. Instead, her eyes were filled with a fire that suggested anger.
Clove POV
Shit! How could this happen to me? I shouldn't be here! I should not have been on that stage, I should not be in this room right now, and I most definitely should not be going into the Games in a week and a half. And then Cato had to volunteer and make it all worse. Why the hell did he volunteer? Did he not think this through? Obviously he didn't. He wouldn't have volunteered in his right mind. He knows what's going to happen. Only one of us can come out alive! Oh my God. Only one of us can come out alive.
I'm pacing back and forth when the door opens and someone walks in.
"Xandra," I say as I see her.
"Yes, that is my name," she replies. Smart-alec.
"What are you doing here?" I say through clenched teeth.
"Oh, I just came to wish you good luck. And your welcome."
"Wait...what?"
"Oh, I was the one who made sure you were reaped. I made sure all of the slips were carefully printed with your name and I made sure no one volunteered for you. I've been training you for nine years, Clove. I wasn't going to let it all go to waste. And then, when your little boyfriend volunteers, it made it all the more interesting. Just think, a pair of lovers have to fight against each other in a fight to the death on national television. How juicy is that? The audience will eat it right up!"
By the end of her speech, I am shaking with rage. "You little bitch!" I yell at her. I lunge at her, but before I can even touch a hair on her head, peacekeepers are yanking her out the room and trying to hold me back as I struggle to break free, wanting to break every little bone in her body.
After she is out of the room, the peacekeepers set me down on the purple velvet couch, where they leave me to myself. I'm still fuming from what Xandra told me, but I try to at least contain myself, because the next visitor I get is Cato's family. The give me simpathetic looks, but don't say anything. There's nothing to say. They just sit next to me and hold me in a tight embrace before it's time for them to go.
I have no more visitors, which makes me glad, because I know I won't have to see my father.
Before I am taken out of the room and brought to the train, I give myself a pep talk. I will be brutal, sadistic, and dangerous. I will never let the smirk leave my face and I will give the other trubutes something to fear. I will get sponsers in the Capitol by being the cold-hearted killer that they all want me to be.
But I know there's one thing that must be done, that, after it happens, will make me look weak. I need to keep Cato alive.
And in order for Cato to survive, I must die.