Quick announcement: I added an extra ending onto the last chapter! So for those of you who didn't read it make sure you do before you continue on : )

Sorry this took me so long to get out. These chapters are gonna start cranking out a little slower from now until finals week due to copious amounts of school work. But I will try to use as much free time as I have to make sure they still come out in a timely fashion. The support I have receiving from you guys has been AMAZING. Seriously I can NOT stress enough how happy it makes me! I continue writing for all of you. All your reviews motivate me and inspire me to keep going. Thank you so much!

Also for all you Clato lovers out there, you guys should check out the stories by Azalea419 and pll-love who both have some fanfics on the two. I've read the first chapters and they are absolutely stunning. You guys are super talented!

Okay anyway… hope ya'll enjoy! WARNING: there's going to be swearing in this. And as usual Suzanne owns all.

A boy with a coin he crammed in his jeans
Then making a wish, and tossed in the sea.
He walked to a town that all of us burned
When God left the ground to circle the world.

- Boy With a Coin, Iron and Wine.

5.

Another night crept past before her wide open eyes. Silent. Slow.

By the time the sun ushered in a pink sky over the gleaming buildings of the Capitol, exhaustion and frustration weighed down her limbs. As she moved, her mind only processed a few select images; pale feet on a plush green carpet, a red towel draped over an arm, a wide white door, a placid face glaring from the mirror, droplets of water from a shower head.

Two more days.

The thought was enough to arouse her dulled senses.

Two more days.

"Sleep well, Princess?"

Cato was giving her his usual sneer as they stood together in the elevator, taking in the untamed hair she had thrown up in a dark bun and the purple shadows beneath her eyes that almost extended down to her cheeks. They hadn't seen each other at breakfast this morning- they both had private meetings with their mentors. Today was the third day of training and therefore, the private training sessions.

She was in no mood to deal with him.

"Go to hell," she snarled.

The training sessions were a chance for tributes to show their off their talents to the Game Makers and in turn receive a score that would be broadcasted to all of Panem. But as a District Two tribute, Clove's score would be much more than just a handsome number to attract sponsors. It would be a reflection of not only how vigilantly she had trained throughout the years, but of her academy, her sector, and the entirety of District Two. Tributes from her district weren't just expected to earn high scores; they were expected to be the highest. The only thing that was more important than receiving a good score was winning the Hunger Games themselves.

In return for allowing tributes to participate in the games, an excellent score was a way of saying thank you to their district for granting them the honor and privilege.

However, Clove had more to prove than a normal District Two tribute did.

Normal District Two tributes were seventeen or eighteen. Normal District Two tributes, even the girls, were massive in size and power. Normal District Two tributes had brute force that showed in their very ascetics.

And here she stood, fifteen years old, with a small frame and short height; with freckled cheeks and a youthful face. Even at her reaping, the expressions of her peers had said it as she passed them on her way to the stage– that was their female tribute this year?

But she was more than worthy.

Not only had she exceeded all the older girls in skill at her own academy, but she had exceeded all the girls in every academy that existed in her district. To be permitted to volunteer at the reaping wasn't easy. Several prospects were chosen from all fourteen sectors of the district then judged by a panel over the course of fourty days. It was vigorous work but in the end one male and one female best suited would be granted approval to participate in the games. For their districts reapings, names weren't even drawn anymore. They simply had Pallas- who had been their Capitol Escort for a decade now- step up on stage and call for the volunteers. No tribute that hailed from Two got to the Hunger Games by mistake.

However if she was to obtain anything other than a phenomenal score it wouldn't just bring shame to her district. It would bring dishonor to all the teachers she had had throughout the years and to her entire sector. It wasn't often that someone so young was allowed to represent a district that had made the Hunger Games a profession. As a matter of fact, Lyme had informed Clove just that morning that she was the youngest competitor to hail from their district in forty-five years.

To say that this was an important day for her was an understatement.

"That was rude of you," Cato responded, just in time for the elevator doors to open.

Even though they were district partners, in this they were competing against each other. While they had both hailed from District Two they were from entirely different sectors and therefore different academies; Clove from sector seven which was located in the most eastern part of the district, nearest the Capitol, and Cato from sector twelve which was to the north. Whereas Clove had spent her life among rich cobbled streets and aristocrats, Cato had spent his life among stone masons and mountain wilderness. While her academy was known for producing mostly peace keepers, his academy was known for producing brutal tributes. And as for his sector, well, they were known for even more than that. Clove had heard many things about sector twelve- stories of rabid barbarians with almost no law, a land where a scuffle over property could quickly be turned into a vicious, deadly fight. They used to say that natural selection actually still took place among humans there; the small and weak would be killed before they could reproduce, and the ones who were physically strong would mate and keep the sector going. It's no wonder Cato was such a brute.

When they stepped into the training center the first pair they saw was Marvel and Glimmer who, upon eye contact, turned their backs to them.

The small rivalry between Clove and Cato to get the best score to represent their sector had nothing on the overall competition to the get the best scores to represent all of Two. This was crucial in winning the support of Panem and honor for their district- proving that they were better than the others. Though, almost every year the tributes of Districts One, Two and Four were nearly equal. Clove couldn't recall a games where a tribute from one of the lesser districts earned a score higher than these three.

Cato was snickering at the sight of Marvel and Glimmer who were taking every measure possible to shun them as they walked past.

"Did Brutus tell you about them too?" Clove asked.

"Yeah," said Cato. "Doesn't surprise me though. Frilly little pricks."

Apparently it was custom for District One tributes to out rightly ignore every other tribute on the day of private training sessions- including those in their pack. It was some stupid way of showing superiority, Clove guessed. It didn't mean an alliance was broken. It was just district tradition.

District Two didn't need such nonsense. They're preeminence came from just a name.

Fish Head approached them; jittering with so much energy he was nearly bouncing off the walls, as usual. The boy was like a damn puppy. However, the sandy blonde head of his partner could be seen bobbing past, heading straight for Glimmer's station.

"Ah, Finnick told her not to talk to them," Fish Head said.

They watched as Marina leaned against the rack of various swords with a smile on her face that couldn't possibly have been more of a guise. Glimmer's back was too them but Clove was sure the expression wasn't returned.

When Marina came over to where they stood, the smile had turned to a sneer.

"What?" she asked innocently in response to their inquisitive looks. "I just wanted to say hello."

Perhaps the little sea slug had more fire than Clove had thought. Either way it wouldn't make killing her any less desirable.

Training was vicious that day.

The other tributes might as well have been invisible. The tension between the careers was so tangible Clove could almost feel it around her as she walked. And the others could too. She noticed Cato glancing at Marvel after making a vicious display of hacking the all of limbs off a dummy in less than a minute. She noticed Marvel smiling obnoxiously to himself after spearing the bulls eye of a target over twenty yards away. Glimmer flicked her eyes to Clove when she thought she wasn't looking. Even Marina, who must have been feeling awfully gutsy today, made a point to sneer at Clove after pulling her usual harpoon trick.

This was enough to make Clove laugh. Stupid girl. Stupid, stupid little sea slug.

Those blue eyes of hers were going to get carved right out of their sockets in a matter of days.

Clove was next in line for hand-to-hand combat training, which to her pleasure, was located in the center of the coupling of stations all occupied by her fellow Careers.

This would show them.

At the sight of her, the tall male instructor waved over a woman from another station. But Clove shook her head.

"No," she said. "I want you."

The instructor eyed her.

"I don't know if that's such a good idea," he said hesitantly.

"I said," Clove repeated slowly. "I want you."

"Alright," the trainer quipped at her disrespect. "Very well then."

In her years at the academy, she learned a little something about the pressure points of the human body that was valuable enough to make up for her small size and light weight. It was her hidden talent – maybe she couldn't knock her victims down with sheer force, but she could get them to the ground through a series of sharp attacks to concentrated areas with just her hands, and then keep them pinned down for almost as long as she pleased. If her precision was particularly spot on, she could even stun some of her victims.

She was a scorpion- lethal, quick, poisonous.

Why was she ever even nervous about her performance today? When it came, she would be perfect.

But for now, she performed for her allies.

The trainer took his stance before her but his posture was all wrong. He was already making mistakes.

She zeroed in on several parts of his body and the diagram from her days in the academy came to life before her eyes.

A bead of sweat that dripped down his collar bone. Subclavian. A flexed muscle in his arm. Brachial. A turf of red hair covering his ears along the side of his jaw. Superfical temporal. The blue waistband of his shorts. Iliaca. The inner most portion of his hair ridden thigh. Femoral.

"Now, we're going to take it slow so- AGH!"

Before he could even finish his sentence she made her attack. Two index fingers to his pelvic area was all it took to kick his legs out from underneath him. She held her hands around his arms, pushing down on the sensitive spots beneath them. Her feet were on his thighs, her body arched like a hissing cat.

"What?" she asked coyly.

He pushed her off him and positioned himself again, more alert now.

"Well," he said in a low voice only she could hear. "Looks like someone's a professional."

The districts weren't technically 'allowed' to have academies. But everyone knew they existed. The other districts knew they existed- that's why they all referred to tributes from One, Two and Four as 'Careers.' The Capitol knew they existed. The president himself had made an appearance at her academy once when she was just a little girl.

So why the trainer had such distaste in his voice when he nearly spit the words at her, she wasn't sure. Maybe because she humiliated him. Or maybe it was because he had some sort of ties to one of the lesser districts. It didn't matter to her ether way.

The second time, because he was expecting it, he was harder to take down. He immediately grabbed her right arm but before he could get a hold on her left she was able to shove two fingers into the pressure point on the upper side of his jaw– superfical temporal. Then with a swift kick into his fermoral, he was down again.

She managed to pin him three more times after that, and though not consecutively, it was still quite the accomplishment considering he was at least twice her size.

The shocked faces surrounding her certainly thought so. Some belonged to trainers, some belonged to tributes. She had gained quite the audience.

Their fear, it was exhilarating.

Fish Head had out rightly dropped his knife and gapped at her in a way that was worthy of his nickname. Marina turned her head as soon as Clove made eye contact but she had not missed the girl's teeth biting down onto her lip. Marvel was focused on the target at his station- maybe a bit too focused. Glimmer was analyzing her through narrowed eyes.

When she found Cato, his expression wasn't like the others. He was smiling.

Not only was he not at a station, he wasn't even pretending to be busy with something. He was standing maybe ten yards away from her with his arms crossed. His head was tilted to the side as if he had been watching a curious street performance, and he leaned with his back to a wall. His posture was completely relaxed. But his eyes said something else entirely.

The intensity in those icy orbs could smother her.

Suddenly he didn't look so relaxed anymore. The rising and falling of his chest, the fingers digging into the flesh of his biceps, the teeth clenched beneath his smile…

She had to break her eyes away. But even as she turned from the trainer and moved onto another station, she still felt elated. Something was pulsating inside her body and electricity seemed to run through her veins. She was high off those eyes.

"District 2- female"

The automated voice rang through the speakers in the dining hall. Clove rose to her feet with assurance.

Hopefully the Game Makers were ready. It was too bad the best show of the night would have to come so soon.

Cato was strolling out of the training center as she entered. He looked cocky but really, what could he have done that was so special? Hacked up a few dummies probably. Nothing they hadn't seen some big Career do before.

"Don't slice your fingers off," he whispered as they brushed shoulders.

Bastard.

The Game Makers were all aligned in their purple robs at the head of the center. They sat with attention, some with hands folded, some murmuring to each other. Cato's performance must have been a good one. The head Game Maker sat in the front. He nodded at her.

After a curt nod in return she turned on her heal and marched to the weapon rack.

Oh.

It was such a sight to behold; knives and swords and axes of all kinds mounted on midnight velvet and glistening in the dim light as a pool of water would beneath the silver moon. She would have stayed there for moments longer, running her fingers across the different blades, admiring the superior craftsmanship, but she had a purpose here.

With a belt of fine knives latched to her hips, she took center stage. The Game Makers eyed her with curiosity. Good, she had their attention.

An army of human torsos stood before her. She took her stance.

Earlier in the day, she and Lyme planned out the entire demonstration. There would be three deadly acts.

The first act was speed.

Her knives sheared through the thin air as each of them landed directly into their targets. There was never a moment when less than two were in the air at once- another was thrown before the first even had time to reach its destination. In seven seconds, twelve sad torsos stood defeated on their stands before her, each with a knife in the heart.

Some of the Game Makers were nodding but most sat still. They weren't monumentally impressed but that was fine. She didn't expect them to be at this point.

"Can they move?" she asked, sure to add sweetness into her voice.

At this many of the Game Makers began to nod their heads and make noises. The Head Game maker – she was pretty sure his last name was Crane, made a motion to the side of the room. Several personnel stepped out, removing the torsos and placing full bodied dummies on lines drawn into the floor.

"Thank you," she said, and she was sure she had never sounded so gracious in her entire life.

The second act was precision.

She stepped back even further than she had been before. The dummies began to move in all different directions. Some were rapid, some were slow.

No matter what the actual speed was she saw them stand still as time slowed down. One solid breath rang through her ears. Her fingers gripped the first knife.

Glimmer was sprinting past her, the quickest of them all. Thwack. District Twelve was moving toward the back, her dark braid flying through the air. Thwack. The red head from Five was making circles around the rest. Thwack. Marina who had watched the others go down was running away from her, terrified. Thwack. The boy from Eleven was trying to protect his little friend. Thwack. Thwack.

Only one was left. She paused.

Cato was charging right at her, his sword high in the air.

One arm swung across her body and with force the final knife flew right into his head.

The hum of whispers brought her attention back to the Game Makers. They were speaking to each other with excitement. They leaned on the edges of their seats. Even Crane sat with elbows on his knees and chin resting in his hands, watching her with intent.

She had them right where she wanted them.

"Circle?" she asked.

Crane nodded and motioned to the personnel again.

The third act was agility.

Now the plastic bodies moved around her, a great distance from each other. Her eyes closed.

When they opened she was in an arena she had seen one year. It was actually quite beautiful – a wide opened field made up entirely of tall lavender plants. It was a sea of purple. Most of the tributes that year didn't even move off their plates right away, they were completely stunned.

Despite its beauty though, it had to have been one of the deadliest Hunger Games she had ever watched. Nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide.

3… 2… 1.

She took off and immediately thrust a knife into her first opponent- the boy from five. Next was Brutus, coming at her with a raised club. She dodged it with a roll to the ground and appeared behind him, digging a knife into his back. There was Glimmer again, charging at her this time. Clove avoided the swing of her sword and got her in the stomach. She turned on a dime and quickly launched a knife into the throat of Pallas who just stood dumbly on the field. Beside him was Lyme-

No, wait. It wasn't Lyme. No, no. Lyme wasn't here.

It was the girl from eight. Right, that's who it was. The stupid, sniffling girl from eight. Another knife shot through the air and landed in her left eye. She turned. The boy from seven was after her now, swinging the axe he must have been able to wield from birth. She ducted out of its way, evading it by just a hair. Then she jumped on his back, letting out the cry of an animal as she sliced her knife across his neck.

Time had stopped. The lavender plants still swayed back and forth.

She heard breathing. Her own breathing. She heard a heartbeat. Her own heartbeat.

Breathe. Relax. Relax.

Clapping.

The gray walls of the training center came back into focus first. Then the orange glow of the lighting fixture. Then the buzz of voices.

The private training session. The Game Makers. Right.

Almost all of them were on their feet now. Some parted their mouths in shock. They looked at her, looked at each other. Most were smiling. They were delighted. Crane's eyes were wide. A smile was spread across his face.

She had been right.

A perfect performance.

"Thank you," she said, with a dip of her head.

It was late in the evening when Clove and Cato sat stiffly side by side on the couch surrounded by their chattering prep teams, stylists, mentors and of course Capitol Escort, all waiting for their training scores to be broadcasted. The whole party had come for this.

Normally their stylists stayed away. They were two women- long, tall, and waif-like with surgically altered cheek bones and tattoos around their eyes. Being from District Two, Cato and Clove had the privilege of having two of the most elite designers in the entire Capitol as their stylists. The only tributes who had an even better pair was District One's, but that was too be expected since there's was the only district aside from the Capitol that cared for something so fickle as fashion.

Right now they were chattering angrily about District Twelve. Clove could smell the odd scent of wine and mothballs coming from her stylist. Her name was Faun.

"-Cinna. I don't even understand where he came from. It was awfully bold, what he did. Maybe a little too bold for a new comer," she was hissing in her deep voice. "Don't get me wrong, they're costumes were nice. But the concept seemed a little silly to me. And now they're calling that one little girl- oh what was her name? Ah, yes Katfish, they're calling her 'The Girl on Fire.' But really, being on fire? To me it just-"

Clove tuned out of that conversation quickly. Pallas stood near the television screen, looking nervous as usual. Why was he always so jittery? Their colorful prep teams were all over the place, jumping at the commands of the stylists, bouncing from corner to corner in the room. They were over whelming to look at.

Their mentors both were mounted behind them. Lyme stood still, her eyes focused on the screen though it was only playing Capitol commercials at the time. Brutus was a bit more animated- making jokes at Pallas, laughing loudly, drinking spirits.

But no one else was seated on the couch besides Cato and Clove. The two didn't look at each other, they didn't speak. They just stared into the television.

Suddenly the emblem of the Capitol came onto the screen. Lyme turned up the volume, though nothing is played throughout the broadcasting besides the anthem. It's the same every year- the anthem plays, a picture of the tribute appears on the screen, alongside their gender and district seal with their score flashing below.

Marvel was first. He received a ten.

Brutus's reaction mirrored Clove's thoughts.

"Fucking shit," he grumbled. Cato's fists clenched. This was bad for them. If Glimmer got the same score, One would have a combined total of twenty.

But this was not the case. To Clove's extreme pleasure when Glimmer's face came onto the screen, beneath it flashed the number eight- a fairly low score for a Career.

Clove held her breath now. They were next.

Brutus clasped his hands onto Cato's shoulders and gave him a little shake as both their eyes locked in on the screen.

Cato received a ten.

Immediately he let out a whoop. Brutus pounded his fist with a dull thud into Cato's chest and shouted "Ah ha!"

Clove felt Lyme's warm hand creep onto her shoulder as her image appeared on the screen.

Ten.

Well it wasn't higher than Cato's and there were already three of them who had received that score now, but still, it was good. She didn't do shame to her district. Maybe it wasn't the single highest score, but it was still the highest. And surely the other tributes wouldn't top a ten- she doubted even District Four's would. They're biggest competition had already passed.

Her flashing ten had silenced Cato and Brutus's cheers.

When she craned her neck to meet the face of her mentor, her score continued to seem like more and more of an accomplishment. Clove nearly twitched when Lyme playfully ruffled her hair- a gesture she would have never expected from the brooding, stoic woman.

"You showed them," she whispered.

Naturally, such a rough touch arroused a tinge of violence in Clove. But she stifled it because it was about to be directed towards Lyme.

She now turned to Cato and was sure to sneer at him. His expression was icy despite the sarcastic smirk he displayed.

"Guess we're even," he said.

"Yeah," said Clove. "Guess so."

The prep teams were all clapping and cheering. Pallas looked like he was breathing. Brutus was demanding avoxs to bring him whiskey.

The District Fours were on the screen now. Fish Head had only received an eight, and Marina had a surprising nine. Still, it didn't beat them.

"Ah," Faun sighed. "This means we have the highest scores this year!"

Clove felt good now. The initial reaction to her score was partially from her overly critical, somewhat cynical nature. A ten was good. Though both she and Cato had received it, it wasn't necessarily a standard score for a District Two tribute. And it showed her worth. She wasn't to be underestimated. She was dangerous. She would be competition. And she had brought honor to her district. Her thoughts trailed vaguely to the academy- her old teachers nodding their heads in approval, pointing to their televisions, telling the younger students to take note.

She had brought pride back to sector seven. Lyme was right. She had showed them. She had showed them all.

Clove was so wrapped up in herself, she almost missed it. If it hadn't been for Brutus shouts or his fists shaking the couch with enough force to send her flying off it, she might have. But there it was, right on the screen.

The seal of District Twelve. The girl with a stone face and olive skin. And the eleven flashing beneath her name.

"WHAT?" Clove shrieked. She shot up off the couch like a bullet.

An eleven? The girl from District Twelve – the poorest, filthiest, most pathetic district in all of Panem, got a score higher than her?

The wooden coffee table was suddenly screeching across the floor, flipped on its side. It contents shattered into sharp shards. Cato was snarling.

"That little fucking bitch!"

Were the god damn Game Makers blind? Was this a joke?

Clove had not trained for over half her life to be upstaged by a dirty little provincial who belonged back where she came from- living in a shack and rolling around in shit.

Her district, her honor, everything suddenly went up in flames. Rage swelled in her body. It was a living breathing thing that consumed her from time to time. It was an entity, a monster, an old friend. And it was everywhere now. In her throbbing veins, in her trembling lips, in her shaking hands, in her rigid legs.

Unlike Cato who now had his fist through a wall, it didn't possess her. Rather it simmered and burned as she kept it all inside.

That girl was going to die.

Not in just any way though. No. She deserved something special.

Once Clove had skinned a pig back home. It was alive as she did it. The beast cried and squealed as it desperately tried to kick its way out from her grip. Its bulging brown eyes pleaded with her in a language that needed no translation. But she continued to tear away the slimy layers of its yellow flesh, each new layer of skin more red than the last.

What would that be like on the girl from Twelve? What would her screams sound like? What would her olive skin look like as it peeled away from her face? Would it be yellow like the pig? Maybe greenish? When would she begin to bleed? It took a long time for the pig. Not until she had reached the pulsing, veiny, pink of its muscle tissue did trickles of blood seep from pockets of white fat…

The room had erupted into chaos. Cato seemed to break something new each time a fresh wave of anger rolled over him. Brutus was bellowing at nothing. Pallas was agonizing over the hole in the wall. The stylists and prep teams were standing off to the sides, trying not to get into anyone's way. Then Lyme was marching over to Cato and restraining him.

Clove took a moment to assess the damage. The table whose scratches now made crude lines across the floor. The jagged, black hole that gapped at them like a mouth in the wall.

After staring into the black void of the hole, the rest of the night was lost to her. People were speaking to her, walking past her. At some point she had ended up in her bed. But her mind had become an impenetrable wall that blocked out absolutely everything around her so within its confines only one name could fuel the smoldering fire.

Katniss. Katniss. Katniss.

Awwwwwww SNAP. Nothing like a pissed off Clove to ruin your day! Once again tell me what you guys thought. Notice Clove's inability to hate Lyme? Or the increasing fricition between the Careers (though with Katniss's score that might change!)? The games are coming up soon... which means the only thing left are the interviews… which should be interesting, no? Tehehehehehehehehe ;)