Cato
He's here. He is actually here. The boy in my dreams. The boy that I could not get myself to stop thinking about even if I tried my hardest not to think about him. My eyes followed him the entire time that we stood with our carriages. Every so often, he would glance at me and smirk or laugh while my cheeks burned at his eyes looking deep into my soul.
Peeta turned to me. "Are you okay Prim? You look a little pale." He asks.
I nod. "Um, yeah I think that I am okay. I just need to use the restroom." I explained. He nodded and I turned to walk towards the restroom.
I walked in and went to the sink, turning on the faucet and sprinkled my face, not splashed since I didn't want to mess up the makeup, with some water to cool myself down. I cannot believe that he is actually here and that we are in the same room with one another. I just need to calm down.
Calm down Prim. He's just a boy that will never, ever be into you.
I listen to the little voice in the back of my head, and it's right. He will never like me. And I don't like him. I don't.
I let out a huge breath and fan my face. I stare at myself in the mirror for a moment.
"Okay," I breathe out, "I can do this."
I take one more look at myself before I turn to walk out of the door. When I take a step out, I bump into a large, muscular figure, and I instantly know who it is before I even look up.
There was a slight chuckle. "Watch where you're going kitten." A deep, booming voice says from above.
I take the opportunity to glance up at him standing over me. Cato's dark glare burns into my eyes for a quick second before I look back down.
"Sorry." I mumble to his chest, since he must be at least 6 inches taller than me. It is a good view though. He is really toned.
Snap out of it! The voice tells me, and I mentally slap myself for letting myself think in that way.
"Speak up. I can't hear you." Cato says.
"I said sorry." I say a little louder before gulping. My eyes never leave looking at the cement floor.
Suddenly, my chin is forced up, and my eyes meet Cato's.
"You're a pretty little one, aren't you kitten?" he asks.
I scowl at the nickname. I've always hated pet names. The only name that I like being called is Prim.
"Don't call me kitten." I state before I shut my mouth and widen my eyes. I did not just say that to him, a boy, man, that could snap me at any second and not even care about it. Oh no, he's going to kill me before the Games are even close to starting.
Way to go, Prim. Now look at what you've done.
Cato's face turns red and he pins me up against the wall, using his hips to keep my in place.
"What did you say?" he whispers in a low, ragged voice.
"Nothing." I barely say.
Cato moves his face so that it is in the crook of my neck. I can feel his hot breath tingling my ear as he spoke.
"Are you angry, huh little kitten? It doesn't seem like it." he says, while running his fingers down the side of my hip. I feel my face burning up at his light touch.
Cato pulls back, smirking at my reaction. "Seems like someone likes it when I touch her there." he says, inching his face closer to mine. I bite my lip and try to avoid his gaze.
"Look at me when I'm talking to you." He says softly.
I turn my eyes and look into his. His face is so close to mine, and his plump lips are only centimeters away from my small ones. My faces heats up once again as he bites his lip and stares down at my lips.
"Prim! Where are you? The show is about to begin!" I hear Peeta yelling. His voice seems to get closer and closer with every word that he makes.
"Looks like we have to finish this some other time Kitten. See ya around." Cato says before he pushes himself off of me and turns around to walk away. Just then, I see Peeta walking down the corridor towards me, and Cato shoves him a little before he continues to walk away.
Peeta looks back at Cato and scowls before he turns to me.
"Are you alright? He didn't do anything to hurt you did he?" he asks me. I shake my head.
"You sure? You look really flustered." He says eyeing me warily.
I nod my head. "I'm, uh, just a little nervous about going out there with all those people. Especially with what Cinna has planned with us going out in flames!" I lie.
Well, it's not a complete lie. I was extremely nervous. I've never been presented in front of so many people, not even at the reaping. There was thousands of people sitting out there, waiting for us to go out there so that they can decide who they're going to help and who they are going to let die.
"Well yeah. I understand. But we'll be okay." He rubs my arm and I nod up to him. "Well, let's get going, it's about to start."
"Okay."
We turn and start walking down the corridor, back to where our horses were waiting for us. Once we got there, we stepped inside, and I strained to look up in the front as I heard music playing. The horses started moving to go into positions, and I spotted Cato smirking at me, winking. I blushed and looked to the ground before I felt Peeta grab my hand.
I furrowed my brows and looked up at him. His cheeks were red as well. "They'll love it." He says and I nod. I look back up to Cato and his face is red and he looks extremely angry.
What's he angry for? It's not like he's into me at all.. Is he?
I shook the thought out of my head as the carriages started to move toward the opening of the corridor, and one by one, each district is hit with bright lights before Peeta and I get out there.
When the lights hit us, the crowd goes silent for a moment. I raise my eyebrows and look at Peeta before I look at the screen and see the flames blazing behind us. We looked absolutely amazing. The colors of the flames danced on our all black costumes, emphasizing their beauty.
Suddenly, the crowd is roaring and I jump slightly at the surprise of the loud booming. My eyes avert to Peeta and he is smiling down at me before he pulls our connects hands up into the air, causing the crowd to roar even louder than before.
I start smiling. I didn't expect a positive reaction from them, so I guess they actually like us. That's good, right? The more people that like us means that we will have more sponsors, and that means that I probably won't die on the first day. Yippee for me.
Yeah right.
After the carriages stop in their positions, President Snow makes a speech that I try hard to listen to, but I can't because I'm too busy staring at the back of Cato's head, registering what had just happened at the bathroom just moments ago. I know that it's impossible for him to like me even a little bit, but I could swear he was going to kiss me before Peeta interrupted. I wonder if I would have kissed back? Even more, I wonder if I would even like it..?
No. I can't think about something like that. Especially with the Games coming up. I need to focus on trying to stay alive, at least for the first day, instead of mesmerizing about a boy, an incredibly hot boy that I know almost kissed me. Wait, no!
He is not cute. He is EVIL. He will do nothing but hurt you, maybe even kill you. Literally.
I nod in agreement at the voice in my head and shake the thoughts of Cato out of my head.
I only hear the last of President Snow's speech before we are being taken out of the stadium and away from the yelling of the humongous crowd. I'm just glad that I was so preoccupied that I didn't even puke.
Once we step down from the horses Effie brings us into a hug.
"That was so amazing! Incredible! Marvelous!" she squeals, and I hold myself back from covering my ears.
"Who had the idea of holding hands? It was brilliant."Cinna says, and I point to Peeta. He smiled and waves his hand dismissively.
"It wasn't too bad kids. Nice job." Haymitch says to us. I smile at the first nice comment that he has ever made to any one of us since the moment that we got onto the train.
"Thanks." Peeta and I both answer.
"Well, do what you must, but meet us all on our floor so that we can go over arrangements for tomorrow! It's the beginning of training day!" Effie says.
Effie claps her hands, and I stand there awkwardly before I decide that I am just going to go up to my room and take a nice, refreshing shower. I definitely need one with everything that has happened today.
My mind could not get off of Cato, so hopefully I would be able to 'scrub' my thoughts of him off of my entire body to help. I could literally smell him on me after the encounter at the restroom.
"Hey Peeta, are you going up?" I ask him. He shakes his head.
"I want to take a moment to feed the horses. This is the first time that I've ever seen them in person so I want to know more." He says. I nod. "Are you going up?" He asks me.
I nod again. "I'm extremely tired, and I need a long bath." I say and laugh.
"Well, I'll see you when I get up there, alright?" He asks, and kisses my forehead. I nod and walk away, by myself, to the area where the elevators were located.
I pressed the button that said "up" and started chipping the pretty nail polish that I had on while waiting for the elevator to finally make it down. Everyone had either already gone up, or they were standing around chatting or playing around with the horses. I saw the girl that was about the same age as me near her horse giving it sugar cubes, but I was too tired to go and talk to her so I continued to wait.
I started humming a song that Katniss would sing to me when I couldn't sleep at night, until finally the elevator made a 'ding' sound and the doors slid open. I was about to take a step inside when someone covered my mouth.
I struggled under their grip as they shoved me into the elevator and I heard the doors shut close.
"You've got a pretty voice, kitten." I roll my eyes at the pet name, and then I realize who the person is. He lets go of me and I turn around to see Cato standing above me, his lips set in a grin, and a twinkle in both his eyes.