First chapter since the movie! Let me know what you though. Clearly, I wanted more Clato! Well anyway thanks to all who read and review, I love you all! I hope you enjoy this chapter.
"Gotcha." I whisper and tap Cato on the shoulder, pointing straight ahead. There in a small cave is the District 10 boy, the one with a limp. Thank god we finally have the chance to finish him off. He's been alive too long as it is. I for one, feel embarrassed that we weren't able to kill him sooner.
It was Cato's idea to go hunting tonight. We need a kill, neither of us have got one since the bloodbath, we need to step up our game. After Marvel and the District 3 boy had fallen asleep we grabbed our night-vision glasses, weapons, and went into the woods. We also want to show the other tributes that we're back and ready to get the games going at a faster pace. That and we don't want the gamemakers to decide we are disposable and set muttations on us. Ok, so maybe we had also left camp to be alone and hook-up a few times, but we were first and foremost on a hunt.
"I'll rock, paper, scissors you for the honors." I tell Cato.
"Why don't we take care of him together?" Cato offers. I accept and we sneak closer to the cave. He takes the right and I get the left. Cato gives the signal and we rush the cave at the same time. The boy wakes up with a start and I watch with glee as his initial panic turns to dread. He knows he's done for and he probably suspects that his end will not be quick. No, no. There will be no quick slitting of the throat. Cato and I like to play with our food before we eat it and we haven't had a chance to do so yet in the games. I pounce on him, pinning his shoulders down with my knees. I doubt he has any weapons, but now he would be unable to reach for them if he did.
"Hello there." I smile down at him. To his credit he doesn't respond, instead he looks me right in the eye. Oh, he's one of those tributes. I always laughed at them when watching the games on tv. The tributes who don't have any way to defend themselves so they try to be brave in the face of death. Well, that never lasts long. The fun part is seeing how long it takes to break them.
"Cato, would you like to start the show?" I ask, grinning manically down at the boy.
"No, you can go ahead, ladies first." I reach into my jacket and grab a nice, straight, long knife. I decide to start with his ear. I lift my weapon high above him and stab it straight through the cartilage. He remains silent. Please, like that was anything. All I did was give him a nice ear-piercing hole. I hear Cato move behind me and turn to see him slice off the boy's toes on his limp leg. Yes, Cato has a nice touch when it comes to these things. We continue taking turns. I get his torso and Cato the lower half. I turn to Cato in a triumphant smile as I am the one who finally breaks the boy. He had let out a scream when I stuck my knife clear through his cheek and into his mouth. The boy has given up completely, there is no light left in his eyes as Cato and I keep going. It is almost 30 minutes until we decide to give the final blow.
"On the count of 3." I say and we both raise our weapons up.
"1...2...3." I plunge my knife into his neck at the same time as Cato's sword punctures his heart. The canon fires instantaneously. We leave the cave so that the hovercraft can retrieve his body and head to a nearby stream to clean up. It had not been pretty and Cato and I both were covered in his blood. I wonder if I would ever get rid of it all. My hands were so covered that his blood would most likely remain under my finger nails until the day I die, which will be soon anyway. I wash the blood out of my hair and my clothes as if it is just laundry day back home. Cato is just standing in the stream, completely still. When he's in the zone, I'm sure Cato could torture and kill his own parents, but when the adrenaline of the kill is gone, he's shattered. I don't think the killing affected him, but rather the way we did it. Savoring the moment, betting on who could make him scream, who would perform a better show. I know Cato's a better person then I am. I don't feel the least bit sorry. We're in the games, it had to be done. I wash Cato off as he remains still as a statue, eyes focused off in the distance. Yes, Cato should be the one who wins this. There is no doubt in my mind. He at least has some good left in him. Who knows if I ever had any in me.
As Cato continues to stare at nothing, I remind myself again of why I need to die. First of all, I don't know what I would do without him. When I picture life without him, it's all dark, no light is left. I imagine myself alone in a house at Victor's Village. No friends, parents in another district. I would be miserable. But no, I wouldn't be alone. Which brings me to my second reason. If I were to live and have the baby it would be a disaster. Raising a child alone is no small task for a normal girl, but there is no way I could do it. I would be an awful mother, I'm far too sadistic. Earlier today Cato and I had a heart to heart and now I was washing blood off of us from our latest kill. I never even batted an eye. Yes, I would most certainly be the world's worst mother. Cato probably wouldn't make a bad father, though. When he wins the games, he won't have to kill anymore. He will be free to be the sweet (somewhat cocky) guy he is around me. I can see him now, living in Victor's Village in District 2, with a gorgeous wife and kids. He won't have any trouble finding a wife when he returns. I'm sure he'll be sad about me for a while, but once he's ready, girls will pile up in line. Even before the games many girls would attempt to flirt with him. There will be a line all the way to District 12 when he returns as victor.
Cato has snapped out of his trance. I don't think he even noticed that he had been staring off for some time.
"So that's one more we can cross off of our list." He says and gets out Odessaly's notebook to record our kill. Odessaly had left her token at camp, so after she died Cato claimed it as his own. It has come in handy. Whenever Cato and I want to discuss Marvel or the District 3 boy, we write notes back and forth in the notebook to ensure the other boys can't hear. For example, that's how we planned our little hunting excursion. Obviously they will know we left now, since the canon has most likely woken them up. But we got a kill, so they should just congratulate us on getting one step closer to the end. In fact, Cato and I had just narrowed it down to nine- one away from the final eight.
All cleaned up, Cato and I head back to our base camp hand in hand (that is until we get close to the cornucopia) then we are back to the whole "friends" act. God, I wish we could just kill Marvel and District 3- then we could stop pretending at camp. I suggest this to Cato but he says it's still too soon, we should wait until there are only two other tributes besides us four before we kill them. Personally, I just want to finish them now before they get around to slitting our throats while we sleep. But then again, with each kill we get closer to the end. Closer to splitting up. I get closer to my death. Suddenly, I find myself wishing that we had not killed the district 10 boy, that Glimmer and Odessaly were still alive. I just want more time to spend with Cato.
I've only just sat down at camp, next to Cato for a rest, when he's pointing back to the woods.
"A fire!" He shouts. I stand back up and grab my pack and all my knives. Marvel and Cato arm themselves as well.
"Should we bring District 3?" I ask Cato.
"Yes. He has no reason to stay at camp."
"But the supplies." Marvel says. Is he always trying to argue with us?
"God Marvel, just listen to Cato, he's coming!"
"But..." Marvel is interrupted by Cato.
"He's coming. We need him in the woods, and his job's done here anyway. No one can touch those supplies."
"What about Lover Boy?" Marvel questions.
"I keep telling you, forget about him. I know where I cut him. It's a miracle he hasn't bled to death yet. At any rate, he's in no shape to raid us." Why hasn't Peeta died yet? It's been a few days. I'm wondering if Cato had maybe been hallucinating at the time. Perhaps he had thought he wounded him worse then he really did.
"Come on." Cato says. He thrusts one of Marvel's spears into the hands of District 3 and we head off in the direction of the fire. As we enter the woods Cato says,
"When we find her, I kill her in my own way, and no one interferes." Yes, Cato was back in his killing zone. He has developed an unusual hatred for the District 12 girl. He must have had really bad nightmares because of the tracker jacker nest she dropped on us. I hope we find her, it will hopefully make Cato less stressed out and on edge constantly. We jog for an hour before we reach the fire, but there is no tribute there. Marvel spots smoke from a second fire and we head off.
"Do you think it's a trap?" I ask Cato.
"Yes." He says, but continues jogging on.
"So what, we're just going to walk into it?"
"That's the plan." He says. I lower my voice,
"At least make Marvel walk in front." We slow down and Cato tells Marvel to take the lead, which he naively does. A seconds later the earth below us shakes. I fall to my hands and knees as a deafening boom echos throughout the arena. Cato is the only one still on his feet.
"The fuck?" He shouts, and then I see it. A huge fire back at our camp. Someone had set off the mines. I turn to the District 3 boy, my ears ringing.
"Was that just one mine?" He gulps and doesn't respond. Yes, I'm fairly certain our entire pyramid of supplies was just blown to shards.
"Come on!" Cato yells and we sprint back to our camp. Was all our food gone? What about the sleeping bags and tents? Hopefully those at least were far enough away that they are still intact. I try to think of how much food I have in our tent. Do we even have any medical supplies left? Cato doesn't seem to want to believe that everything is gone. He runs ahead of the rest of us, looking determined. I try to remember if I heard a canon- surely whoever set the mines off was blown sky-high. Maybe the trap was just faulty. Cato seems to only pick up speed as he races back to camp. Trailing behind him, I watch as he barrels onto the plain and lays eyes on the ruins of our camp. All the supplies are charred, still smoking on the ground. Our tents, at least are unharmed, but I fear that nothing will be salvageable from the wreckage. To my side, Cato is having a full on temper tantrum. I'm too afraid to attempt to calm him down as he tears out his hair and beats the ground with his fists, yelling. He has really got to get himself under control. Before we approach the wreckage, District 3 throws stones at the ground surrounding what used to be the supplies.
"They all went off, it's safe to head over." He says shakily. Cato runs over and kicks over various containers, not bothering to see if there is anything worth saving. I have to be the sensible one and start combing through the debris, but find nothing salvageable.
"This is all your fault!" I turn to see Cato closing in on District 3.
"I thought you knew what you were doing, you useless piece of shit. Now we don't have anything left." The boy attempts to run away, but Cato catches him in a headlock. With one quick jerk of his hands, the boy from 3 falls to the ground, instantly dead. A canon fires, but Cato is still a wreck. I figure it has been long enough and attempt to calm him down. He grabs my hand and tries to drag me back into the woods to kill whoever did this, but in his rage, he isn't thinking straight.
"Cato, they're dead! Did you not see the explosion. We wouldn't have been able to hear a canon." I point to the sky, "Wait until tonight to go hunting. After we see who's dead in the anthem." Cato listens to me (thank God, I am way to exhausted to take off running again) and he, Marvel and I tensely wait in silence for the next few hours waiting for the anthem music to start blaring. District 3's picture is shown, then the boy from 10 Cato and I had killed early this morning. I hold my breath. Please let District 12 be dead. No. The seal reappears.
"Let's go." Cato growls. "It's that girl." He says and I'm not sure how he came to that conclusion, but somehow I know it was her too. Who had been lighting the fires, though? She must have an ally. Was it Lover Boy? Cato tosses me a pair of night-vision glasses and Marvel lights a torch out of a branch, seeing as his flashlight had been destroyed. Tonight we find that girl and kill her and her ally too. Determined, we stride back into the woods to hunt.
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