AN: I'm SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO sorry. First semester of senior year is death. And I had to rewrite this chapter like five times because it affects the plans I have for the rest of this story. And for the last month, my account has been acting up and I haven't been able to upload this.

I completely understand if you all hate me. It's been months. But I tried to make this chapter worth the wait (a lot of things happen). I highly suggest re-reading the earlier chapters, even though it's probably not completely necessary to get up to speed.

Again, I'm really sorry. Expect another chapter in the next week or so, my schedule's remarkably clearer now that college applications are in. Please review though, that's what gave me the final push to finally update- your wonderful reviews!

Chapter Eleven

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I wake up the next morning abruptly, shaken by the image of President Snow's challenging eyes. I remember the Victory Tour, and Lyme's meeting today.

But then I remember who's next to me, whose hand I'm still firmly gripping onto. I need to tell Cato about all this. He doesn't even know that the Victory Tour is in three weeks.

I slowly let go of his hand, and wait for him to wake up.

I wait, sitting on the bed with my legs crossed.

I wait some more, practicing my knife twirling.

Finally, I noisily rustle the bed sheets and kick him hard in the hip.

He wakes up suddenly, and I quickly resume a neutral position. Cato glares at me, and I blink at him innocently. "Morning, Princess," he rasps at me, his voice still scratchy with sleep.

I take a good look at him and am slightly taken aback at how attractive I find him right now, with his rough voice, ruffled hair and wrinkled shirt. I lick my lips before I tease, "It's about time you woke up, lazy."

"Hate to break it to you Clo, but you snore- it's a miracle I even got any sleep at all."

My face flushes red before I can help myself. I turn away, making to get out of bed. "I don't know what you're talking about." Before I can get out though, Cato pushes me onto the bed.

"Not so fast, Clove. You promised that we'd pick up where we left off, remember?" He starts to nibble down my neck before he stops. "And you definitely snore."

I laugh breathlessly before it gets caught in my throat. As I lay soft-boned and pliant under him, Cato has worked his way down my body. His hot tongue tracing patterns into my collar bone has got me much more worked up than expected. I feel flustered, and my mind is working in over drive- I barely reciprocate at all. But Cato has taken matters in his own hands and pushed up my shirt completely, leaving my chest completely exposed. My hands stop running through his hair, and I start to fidget self-consciously.

Cato's stopped too. His eyes run over my body, from my flushed face to my chest- back and forth. Why does he keep staring? I start to cross my arms over my chest, but he brushes my arms away, intent on studying me. I wrap my hands around his waist under his shirt, fingers slowly feeling every inch of his sculpted back. I pull Cato tight against my body, hoping that he'll stop staring when more of our skin is touching.

I pull him close, but he keeps his body up, propping his elbows up on both sides of my head, pinning my hands above my head at the same time. "Cato," I order. "Stop staring."

He shakes his head, stubborn as ever. "Clove," he whispers slowly. "You're gorgeous." His eyes widen as I push my chest out in a misguided effort to free my arms. He grins down at me superiorly, "You know struggling only makes it worse."

He's teasing me, he always teases me. Our relationship is so disorienting- do people typically harass each other when they're in bed together? Is it strange that I wouldn't have it any other way?

Cato finally stops heckling and rolls off me. I am left with tingling lips and wonder how in the world Cato and I got here.

I have always been the clever, sharp one- more of a partner in crime than a love interest for Cato. When I got chosen to compete with Cato in the 74th Hunger Games, I expected to feel some sort of emotion but was prepared to squash it down to survive. When we got to the Capitol, I was shocked by how miserable I secretly was- it was much stronger than I expected. And then Cato kept trying to kiss me, and I didn't have the willpower to fight him like I probably should have. I let myself get swept up in everything. When he suddenly distanced himself during the Games from me in favor of Glimmer, I felt a more poisonous anger than I had ever experienced: jealousy. Cato was mine.

The night of the trackerjackers, watching Glimmer and Cato snuggle, I vowed to keep my emotions in check so I could get out alive. I was determined to disregard my lingering affections for this callous boy. If he ignored me, why shouldn't I forget about him?

Of course, that same night, Cato dragged me to safety after I had fallen asleep.

I didn't know how I felt about that, being saved by someone I was determined to kill at some point. So I held him at a distance, even when I secretly wanted to spend however much time we had left together on good terms.

But a few days later, I was granted a wish I wasn't even aware I had. I could go home with Cato. He pulled me into his arms as I struggled against him, until I finally relented and relaxed into his comforting arms. We're going home together or I'll die trying, he whispered with his lips brushing against my cheek once when he thought I was asleep.

And ever since then, we've been struggling with this magnetic pull to each other. I've never been lucky- my dad died when I was a kid, my mother was absent my whole life, and I have been trained my entire life to kill children. But here, with Cato, I feel like the luckiest girl alive.

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"You're beautiful, Clo," Cato whispers now, and I'm drawn out of my reverie. I smile at him before pushing him onto his back. I crawl on top of him and kiss him fiercely. Our teeth scrape together in some sort of beautiful chaos, and his tongue pries into my mouth to wreak havoc on my senses. I move against him in an agonizingly perfect slow rhythm, attempting to show him how lucky we are to have each other.

I moan when his arms wrap around my waist and his hand creeps to cup my bottom. "This is nice," he says when I pry my lips off his own.

"Cato," I whisper as I burn under his blue gaze. "What are we?" I roll my eyes as his hand sneaks under the waistband of my shorts to trace the perimeter of my lace underwear. "Stop feeling me up and focus."

"It's sort of hard with you on top of me," he informs me gruffly. I quirk my eyebrows and move to get off him, but he only holds me tighter to him. "Alright, alright. Well, we're…" He bites his lower lip in concentration, and I unconsciously lick my lips as I watch the motion. He catches me and smirks, "Who needs to focus now?"

"Hey, shut up." What exactly are we? We tease each other too much to be considered lovers, are too entwined and involved to be simply be girlfriend and boyfriend, and like kissing each other too much to be just friends. "You haven't answered my question yet."

It stumps him like it did the last time I asked the question a few days ago. "Because I don't know, okay?" He idly strokes my bare skin. "We're just…. us. We just... are."

I snort at his less than clear answer. But I kind of like that we're on the same page of mutual confusion at least. Cato and I, we just are. I spare a glance at the clock until I realize that it's way later than I realized.

"Shit," I yelp. "Get up, we've got to go to Lyme's in like five hours and I haven't eaten in like 15 hours."

He huffs and releases me from his hold. "Why is that?" He sits up and then clenches his jaw. "Fuck, my head hurts like a bitch."

I hazard him a glance as I yank my shorts to their proper position on my hips. "The Victory Tour… it's scheduled to start in three weeks." Maybe there's some painkillers somewhere around the house.

Cato's shoulders tense up at the prospect of getting mixed up with the Capitol again. I place a comforting hand on his shoulder as he sits at the edge of the bed. It was an effort to calm him, but it only seems to aggravate him further. Cato shoves my hand away, and I realize that he is angry with me. "And why didn't you tell me this earlier?"

I blink at him, confused. For once, I haven't done anything wrong yet. "What? Didn't tell you which part?"

"-Any of it! I know you think that you're so much smarter than me. You think I'm an idiot, but I still deserve to know." Cato pushes off the bed and stormily crosses the room to pull on his pants. Something is wrong.

"Does your head hurt?" I ask suspiciously. Sometimes my temper has flared for no reason as well after the Games. One minute, I'm fine. The next, I have bitten a hole into my cheek in frustration at my stubbornly messy ponytail and ripped out several locks of my own hair.

"Yeah, but don't pretend you care about that either. You just keep worrying about yourself, Princess."

"Cato!" I'm frustrated at his conceitedness and am thrown for a loop at the sudden change in mood. "I just forgot to tell you last night, okay? I didn't not tell you on purpose- not everything I do is about you!" I feel completely ambushed- our last fight was less than a day ago, and Cato's picking a fight with me again.

But this is different, this is not the teasing and bickers we usually get into. No, there is undeniable spite laced into each word that Cato hurls at me.

"You're right! It's never about me! No matter how I feel about you, how honest I am with you, you always only think of yourself. We're supposed to be a team, but you can't even bother with me! It's always about you, you, you-" In his anger, Cato has hit a sore topic. It's something I've had to deal with all my life: having my mother's killer instincts along with my father's heart. I'd say that my mother won out- I am a trained assassin after all, but I can never win - I'm always too heartless or too sentimental. "You're selfish, and-"

How can he think that? I have to tell myself that this isn't really Cato, that he would never say these things to me if it weren't for his traumatic experiences in the Games. I stare at Cato from across the room, an impossibly large distance between us. I whip the sheets off me and storm up to stand nose to nose with him. "You need to calm down, asshole."

I would ordinarily have given someone a black eye for yelling at me. I am an aggressive person- I am the one to start fights. But Cato has always gotten away with things with me, for one reason or another. And this has been the case even more so after the Games- because I understand what he is feeling right now. What it feels like to have uncontrollable anger rack your body for no real reason. To feel the buzzing in your skull, to get the urge to lash out, just to relieve the pressure in your chest.

"Leave Cato," I order. "Before you say something you regret." I can see the turmoil in his eyes behind the anger and wrath.

Eyes flashing, and chest heaving, he does.

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I knock on Lyme's familiar door. She answers quickly and ushers me in almost urgently. She leads me to an unfamiliar room, one that I have never seen in all my years training with her. Cato is seated on the couch, and I stiffen. Cato and I try not to get in each other's way when we're fighting. We avoid each other until one of us gives in. Where do we stand, after I kicked him out this morning? Lyme sits in the armchair facing the couch, so I am left to stiffly seat myself next to him.

Cato is looking at me with an ingratiating look on his handsome face. I purse my lips at him and he immediately scoots over on the couch so that I can take up a majority of the free space. I sit down imperiously and give him a nod as a way of saying that all is forgiven this time.

Lyme watches this with amusement. She suddenly stands up with a knowing look on her face. "I'm going to get us all something to drink." She wants to give us some time to sort through our differences.

We watch her leave, and immediately I turn to face him again. "Calmed down yet, drama queen?"

He nods earnestly. "I don't know what came over me, Clo. I shouldn't have said those things."

A little uncomfortable with this heart-to-heart, I shift in my seat. "It's fine."

"You should have told me about this meeting the second you found out though," he points out. "I wasn't a complete idiot."

"Fine," I acquiesce. "I'm sorry too."

But Cato places his hand under my chin and forces me to look at him. The crafty bastard- he knows that he could get me to do practically anything when he looks at me with those eyes. "You have to let me in, Clo."

"I know-"

"We're a team, Clove. You take care of me, and I take care of you. It's the only way we could ever stay alive. And a team has to be on the same page."

He's right. Working as a team is our only chance of keeping the Capitol happy. As close as I am to Cato, I am not used to sharing all my inner thoughts with anyone. Frankly, dying is looking like a viable option.

I look up at him through my lashes. Even sitting down, he's still so much bigger than me. "I'll try my best," I promise softly. He smiles crookedly at me, pleased. I want to kiss him right now for how much we have both grown as people. I haven't had to resort to hitting him to resolve our problems in an admirable amount of time.

However, just as I inch closer, Lyme returns. I blush scarlet once Lyme spots what we were up to. "Keep your hands to yourself, Feldspar." Cato chuckles under his breath. Lyme's joking demeanor suddenly disappears when she seats herself in front of us. I am reminded that we are here for a reason.

"So what do we need to know about the Victory Tour?"

"This isn't about the Victory Tour exactly."

"But I thought…." Cato trails off before glaring at me, convinced that I am keeping more secrets from him.

"I thought that's what this was about!" I hiss defensively to him. "That's what she told me."

Clearing his throat, Cato asks, "Okay, then what is this about?"

Lyme cuts straight to the chase. "The Capitol is not pleased with the two of you." What have we done now?

Cato snorts dismissively. "Are they ever?"

Meanwhile, I just shake my head, "Tell me something I don't know."

"This is different. Before, they were just displeased that you defied them. And then the uprisings started, and they blamed that on you two. They weren't worried though. But these rebellions haven't been fully extinguished yet, and Snow is getting worried. You two need to be careful."

"That's not our fault! How could we be held responsible for the other districts' actions!?"

"Your guess is as good as mine, Cato. But it seems the lower districts have found you two to be a symbol to rally around."

I look at her incredulously. "How could they possibly like us? We killed their tributes- we're murderers!" But I spoke too soon. I remember watching the recap video. How in our moment of desperation, Cato and I looked like something good and pure when we jumped off the waterfall- a reminder of something worth fighting for.

"In the final days of the Games, you both showed some humanity. The lower districts had long forgotten that the Careers were children too."

"So what now? What can we do to make them happy?"

Lyme shakes her head, "I don't know. Your stylists have presented you as innocent children, and it did keep the Capitol off your backs for a while. Unfortunately, it also strengthened the rebellion, seeing you two as helpless lovers. The President would probably prefer a change in public image, but the Capitolites have become quite attached to this version." She paused, "I think the only thing we can do is to keep up the same act- just know that the Capitol is on your back. I'm sure if Snow wanted to go with a different direction, we would all know it."

"So that's it," Cato clarified. "You called us here to warn of impending danger, then just tell us that there's nothing we can do to stop it?" He rolls his eyes angrily, and surprisingly, Lyme does not smack him for his indolence.

"I called you here to warn you about something else." Lyme pauses, then reluctantly, hesitantly tells us. "The president, he has found a use for us victors. If he wants a favor from someone, and if they- they are interested in a victor, he 'loans' them out for a night."

There is a long, painful silence.

"What are you trying to say?" I ask too quietly. I understand exactly what she's trying to say. I should have known that this peace was too good to last.

"He sells our bodies." The stark truth reverberates in the room uncomfortably.

I shake my head dismissively, "They can't do that to us."

"We won," Cato reminds Lyme desperately. "And- and aren't Clove and I the Capitol's sweethearts right now? They all think of us as a couple. They won't be interested in us."

Lyme closes her eyes. "The Capitol citizens have strange tastes. And they have no concern for our own feelings. Maybe your relationship will spare you for now, but I wouldn't expect it to last for long."

"So, this…this 'transaction'. How does he get the victors to agree to this?"

"Mainly threats on friends and family."

"Do all the victors go through this?" It's cruel of me to ask, because clearly Lyme has had her own experiences, but my thoughts are directed towards my mother. You have no idea what was actually going on, she had said. Did she mean it? Did she mean that Snow forced her into prostitution, forced her to leave me and Daddy? It must have been true, it must have killed her. And I had thrown it all in her face just to hurt her.

Lyme's hands press tightly into her lap. She clears her throat- she can't bring herself to answer. But the answer is obvious. It is clear in the haunted faces of victors, and their secluded lives, and their well-hidden shame. How did I not realize it before?

She rubs her face hard with the palms of her hands and when she emerges, Lyme looks warier than I have ever seen her. "All victors that have something worth keeping go through this," she answers. "The ones who think they don't and refuse…. well they realize how wrong they were." She pauses, "Haymitch Abernathy, for instance."

I wince. Haymitch Abernathy is the laughingstock of the Academy- the lone drunkard from District 12. Did the Capitol do that to him?

Of course they did.

"So that's it, then?" Cato says in a removed voice. "We give in and they won't kill our families."

"That's always the plan- give in. We give the Capitol everything until we die." I grit out.

Lyme exhales slowly, "Well, there is another option." When Cato and I look at her curiously, "How would you like to change your fates?"

.

For the next half hour, Lyme explains to us an underground group she is involved in. For the past ten years, she has been carefully planning the upheaval of the Capitol along with a secret group of victors, Capitol citizens, and government officials.

"Imagine a world where people choose their leaders. If they don't like their government, they change it."

It sounds far too good to be true. But as I look at Cato, I can tell that he is falling for this hook, line, and sinker. He has always been the more optimistic of the two of us.

"So what do you two think? We could use the two of you as a symbol to rally support down the line. Granted it won't be easy and it won't be safe. But I can tell that you both want to stop the Capitol. Clove?" Lyme breaks me out of my trance and waits expectantly for my answer.

It takes me to realize what she's asking. She wants me to help bring down the Capitol.

I want to say yes, so badly. The Capitol has taken so much from me. But I remember how the Command Room stayed unbreakable that night I hurled rocks at it. Then I remember Tara, and Cato, and Cassie, and my own poor, poor mother. The Capitol is here to stay, and there is still more they can take. More that they will take. Although I would love to bring them to their knees, I know the chance of that happening is very small. And I can't risk it.

"I know it's a lot to ask of you."

-And I'm so tired. My whole life, I have been trained to be a weapon. I have been used, told this and that. I don't know if anything I've been told is the complete truth. I'm just so tired.

"No," I say, while shaking my head. "I can't do what you're asking of me."

Lyme stares at me disappointedly. I guess my Career instincts have won out- self preservation and all that. "All right then. Cato?" She turns to Cato, who's been staring intently at me this whole time. I know he's going to try to convince me to join this rebellion with him.

So when he says, "No." I furrow my eyes confusedly as he continues. "I'm not going unless Clove goes. We're a team."

I knock my knee against Cato's lightly. It's a brief touch and no words are exchanged. But the sentiment is clear- even though we're both full of doubt and more scared than we're willing to admit, Cato is mine and I am his. We are bound together by something indescribable.

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We leave quietly, absorbed in our own thoughts. I walk stiffly, my brain processing everything I have just heard. Cato wordlessly tugs me towards my house, but I shake him loose. "I'll be there in a while, I just need to…"

He follows my gaze to my mother's house. The lights are on, and we can see the silhouette of my mother in the living room. He nods, "See you in a bit."

I quietly open the front door, but my mother starts up. "Who is it?" She sees me in the doorway , and her shoulders relax.

"Mama," I whisper. "Lyme told me everything. The Capitol is evil, they can't do that- they shouldn't be able to do that." Words, apologies, confessions spill out of my mouth. I'm sorry. I'm sorry for what I said." I stumble over to her on the couch. "I- I'm so scared. What are they going to do to me?"

My mother's arms encircle my back, and rub soothingly. Her voice trembling just the slightest, "Oh, Clove." I find comfort in my mother's arms for the first time since I can remember. And I am forgiven.

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