Hey guys! I know that there was some mishap with my previous upload and some people could not read it.. so pleaaase let me know if you can read it now okay?

Here we go for you all! Hope you enjoy.

Prim's POV:

I felt so lonely when I woke up and Cato was not laying next to me, my body pressed closely against his. It was a lot colder than when I woke up earlier, and sadness consumed every fibre of my being with him not being here. I could still smell him in the space next to me and on my pillows, so that calmed me a bit. I laid down on his side of the bed and revelled in him.

Cato was so sweet yesterday and this morning, other than his outburst, over nothing if I may say so, but I could honestly say that I enjoyed being with him and for once I felt that we were a normal couple.. If that's what we even are. It sucks that we are doing this under the obvious circumstances, but at least we were somewhat managing it.

I realise that today is another day of surviving training by Effie for the interview, which is only tomorrow. It's early, so she would probably come clacking down the hall with her stupid shoes, screeching for me to get ready, so I got up on my own to prepare, physically and mentally because heaven knows you need a lot of preparation to handle her.

I sat up on the edge of the bed and rubbed the sleep from my face. It became easier every day to wake up and realise that I'm no longer at home in the Seam. I guess things were getting somewhat normal. However, something caught my attention sitting on my bedside table: a note.

Meet me in the same spot tonight. Right before sunset.

Cato

My heart fluttered with glee at the note. He actually enjoyed yesterday and wanted to be with me again. I know it should be obvious now that he likes me, but I find it hard to believe, or too good to be true. It all feels like some foreign dream that wasn't meant for me. It doesn't matter though, I was enjoying this without a doubt.

I did my normal (as normal as it would be) morning routine, showering and all that before dragging my feet to the dining area where everyone was sitting, including Peeta. He was rather annoyingly avoiding making eye contact with me, making me believe that he felt guilty for wanting to train alone. No matter, I wasn't upset about it; it means I can think less about him and more about Cato.

"Morning," I mutter, sitting down at the table. I get similar responses from everyone else, other than Effie, who, of course, rambles on about the beautiful day in the Capitol and the wonders of the world and blah blah blah.

"So, what's the schedule for today?" I ask as an Avox sits down my breakfast in front of me. "Thank you." The Avox girl smiles and nods her head once before silently walking away.

Effie scowls at me for thanking the Avox, but answers my question. "Well, we have one more day of practice for the interview, if you actually are willing to do it after yesterday's encounter Primrose, but that will be all," she explains. I nod in answer and return to my glorious orange juice and food.

"How is your practice going, Peeta?" I ask, knowing that it would make him flustered, or embarrassed, or whatever.

"Fine," he mumbles, his face going red. He continues to avoid eye contact.

I send him daggers with my eyes and return to my food, taking slow bites. After a while of awkward silence, Effie clears her throat and stands.

"Well, when you finish Primrose, you have a couple of hours of rest and then we will get right back into business, so meet me in the same room so that we can finish our interrupted session," Effie says, and scurries out on high heels with butterflies attached to them. And knowing her, they were probably real butterflies.

I nod, wanting to just die since she left me alone with an awkward Peeta and a hungover Haymitch. We all kept our heads hung low, not talking, not giving any contact, and not making any sounds.

It's quite ironic. We are all from the same place and had to suffer the same situations, yet we can barely even look at each other, let alone talk. I hated it, but in a way, I guess it's necessary between me and Peeta. Growing a significant bond may not be so great if we just so happened to be the last two in the arena. I guess that means that hatred is necessary. I don't hate Peeta though, but I guess now he hates me.

Oh well.

As for Haymitch, he is just being Haymitch, the one that we all know and love. Hungover and rude. Today, his comments are kept to a minimum, which I am happy for, and he ignores me most of the time, so I guess that this is not very different.

I push my chair back, the legs screeching against the floor, and stand up. Without taking another glance at the two guys at the table, I walk away, going to my room.

I turn on the television to my favourite channel, herbs. I stare at the screen for the entirety of my short break, trying not to think about anything that would make my brain swim with the billions of fish that I call my thoughts. With all my thoughts, I could feed the entire world.

Anyway, there was a special on how to turn mint leaves into medicinal cream to heal scars. That went into special flowers, and then I just muted the whole channel and named every plant that appeared on the screen. Doing this reminded me of Cato and how I helped him with the simulation on the first day of training. I don't know what came over me, but I was brave enough to actually talk to him, and I thought that I would regret that decision, but now I guess I don't.

I miss my family, or what I mean is that I miss Katniss. Yes, I miss my mother, but she wasn't as much of a mother as Katniss was. She taught me a lot, mostly about herbs and such, but that was all she taught me. Katniss was strong. She taught me to try and be strong even though I couldn't be. And Gale, he was like the father that I never had. I really did miss them.

Well, looks like my attempt to not think about all of those things failed miserably. It seems as though all my thoughts as of lately have been about something complicated.

After my two hours were up, I walked in the direction of the meeting room to begin the remainder of training with the ever-so gracious Effie Trinket.

When I get there, I'm immediately instructed to put on a long yellow dress that Effie claimed to be 'only the hottest in Capitol fashion for young people'. in my opinion, I look like the sun. Or a lemon.

Once I have the dress on, I sit in the position that Effie taught me yesterday, to which she praises me for. I know that her words were completely misguided and wrong, but I did give her a hard time, so the least I could do today was comply. I'm still, somewhat, the girl that I used to be: polite. I just have a little bit more anger generated.

"First thing's first," Effie starts, "I would like to apologise to you for the words that I said to you. I know that they must have been hurtful, and I do not know the life that you had to endure. So, I truly am sorry," she says. My jaw drops to the floor. Effie.. is... apologising?! Where is a camera when I need one?

"Thank you," I say. "And I'm sorry, too." I apologise even though I do not actually mean it, not entirely at least.

"Great. So let's get down to business."

Effie spends the next six hours coaching me in the ways of proper speaking, behaviour, and etiquette. She said that the six hours makes up for the hours that I missed yesterday. It was long, boring, and pointless, seeing as I probably won't even speak while I'm up there anyway. The dress made my skin itch and I had to fight the urge to rip it off and stand naked in front of Effie without caring. But, I had to be compliant.

Even though Effie was a pain in my bottom, I knew that I would have to take her advice because she was the one that would help me at least appear to be up to standards for what the Capitol sponsors wanted, since we have already established multiple times that I clearly did not meet their requirements. Being gentle and ladylike is what Effie says the Capitol wants, but deep down, we all know that as soon as we make it into the arena, they couldn't care less about how ladylike and gentle we were.

So what's the point of all this stupid training? Sponsors! Because when we don't have a piece of bread, they can send it.

"Alright. I believe that I have coached you enough to my standards. You may leave," Effie says, looking and feeling much better than she did yesterday.

"Thank you," I mumble, standing and walking to the changing room so that I could rip this awful dress off of me. I changed into more comfortable clothing and hurried out of the room. However, I was rushing mostly because the sun was already setting and I didn't want to be late to meeting Cato.

I rushed back into my room to change into something a little more.. not like I just woke up out of bed. Although it was pretty cold yesterday, so I should at least put on something warmer. Oh who am I kidding? Since when do I care about what I look like for anyone? Especially now with the Games..

I pull out a random pair of yoga pants and a jacket with a hood and throw them on quickly. I slip on a pair of shoes and comb out my hair before rushing to the staircase to meet Cato. The sun was already beginning to set.

I pushed the door of the roof open and ran around the greenhouse, looking for Cato. I probably looked extremely flustered, but I guess it didn't matter. It was getting darker anyway. I turned a corner and bumped into a hard figure, causing me to fall backwards. I looked up only to see that Cato had also fallen down on the ground in front of me.

"Hey," he breathed, sounding breathless, "I was just looking for you. Sorry that I'm late," he said, holding his hand out and pulling me up with him.

"I was just looking for you! I was also late," I said as he pulled me toward the same spot on the edge of the building from yesterday.

"What were you late for?"

"Effie. She thought that it would be best to make up the hours I missed of her praising the Capitol yesterday. What about you?" I ask, keeping a small amount of distance between us.

"Same here. Jeffrey had to coach me on not being so violent and rude so that people at least find me 'charming'." Cato answers with a smirk, causing me to laugh. We both know that it would take a large amount of work to get Cato to refrain from saying or doing anything even remotely.. um.. basically, it seems to be pretty hard to make Cato.. not Cato, if that makes any sense at all. No..? Okay.

"Well, at least we're here.. together," I say, blushing at my bravery. I kept staring at the distance between us, wondering why Cato hadn't made a move to close the distance the moment we made it to that spot. He has a record of making sure that our bodies were moulded together the moment we were alone.

Cato basically has telepathic powers, because he sensed my thoughts and pulled me to him, closing the distance between us. "Yeah," he starts, "about that. I have something to tell you."

I pull my face away from his chest and look up at him, sensing some sort of bad news. Maybe he was going to say that he never wanted to see me again. I would definitely be devastated if he said that, even though it would make sense to just stop this before anything drastic happened between the two of us. We obviously could not stay together because one of us, or both of us, was going to die in at least 3 days. It would still hurt though. We had some sort of weird connection that I was not ready to give up just yet. Sometimes I wished that we could freeze the moments that we have together and never unfreeze them.

But, that can't happen. We have to separate sooner or later, so I guess it would be best to just let it happen now and let the heartbreak run its course.

"What is it?" I ask him shakily, hoping it isn't the news that I do not want to hear.

"Well," Cato starts, frowning. He takes my right hand and holds it up, staring at it as he laces his fingers through mine. "I realised that it was wrong of me not to at least tell you something about me, so how about this.. every time we have at least a few seconds of alone time, I'll tell you one thing about me?" he asks.

My face breaks into a huge grin, one of relief and happiness. He actually trusts me enough to tell me about his life, even if we only have five seconds alone.

"Okay," I say.

"So, since you asked me about my mother, she is the first thing I will tell you about."

Cato let go of me and sat on the ground, and before he said anything, I immediately sat on his lap. Cato smiled and wrapped his arms around my front, lacing his fingers into mine again. His head rested on my shoulder, and after a few minutes, he finally started talking.

"My mother is probably the sweetest woman that I have ever known. I look very much like her, but her features are much kinder than mine. You'd probably love her if you met her. She loves girls that are sweet, polite. She was my saviour," he explains. I turn and see he has such a goofy grin on his face. his eyes were closed and his arms tightened around me. Cato looked so beautiful as he was mesmerised by his mother, his face plastered with so much love that I don't know how much more to explain it.

"I would remember how after I would have a bad day at school, or when something would happen with my father, she would hold me so close and wouldn't let me go until I stopped crying. She'd make me fudge, wipe my tears away and say 'no matter what happens, remember that I love you, forever and always'. She did that with me up until now, even when I tried to push her away. She'd just squeeze me tighter," he continues. I squeeze his hands, causing him to smile, but he doesn't open his eyes.

"I remember the last time I saw her the day of the reaping. She was crying because I volunteered for the Games, but it was my priority. I was chosen by the District. She didn't say anything for a long time, just held me like all those times before. One thing I will admit, and you will not repeat, is that when she said 'no matter what happens, remember that I love you, forever and always' I cried, for the first time in a long time," Cato admits, causing my heart to break for him. He opens his eyes and for the second time, I see tears pooling in his eyes.

"I miss her more than anything." Tears started to race down his cheeks, and he didn't stop them. He let them go. So I stopped them. "And I won't ever see her again."

He's crying. Again. In front of me. And he's not trying to hide it.

"Don't cry," I told him, stopping the tear race with my thumbs. "You're going to see your mom again."

"No, no I won't."

"Yes, you will," I push, forcing him look at me. "You are strong, Cato. You can fight, you definitely can kill, and you can make it out alive. Trust me."

"No," he retorted.

"What are you talking about?" I ask. "You can win, so I don't know what's wrong with you."

"You don't fucking understand!" he growled, his tears finally stopping. It looks like he's getting angry, but I don't even get why. Cato, out of all the tributes here, knows that he can win, and he isn't so subtle with hiding his god-given potential, so what's the problem now?

"What don't I understand?" I ask him. "You and I both know that you can win."

"I know that I can win," he scoffs, "but that's not what I mean. I just don't want to talk about this shit Kitten. I just want to be here with you right now."

"Why don't you ever want to talk to me?!" I yell, getting frustrated.

"Because you're so fucking irritating with all the questions! Just shut the hell up for one moment, please!" he yells back, taking me by surprise. He's already being rude and swearing at me, again! What do I even see in him sometimes? It's like constant back and forth, and no matter how hard I try to comply and no matter how much I tell him, he does not show me much respect.

"You don't get to swear and yell at me, do you understand?! I don't even get what I see in being so infatuated with you in the first place," I retort with the same amount of anger that he gave me. "You claim that you care so much about me, yet you can't even respect me!"

"I do respect you," Cato says, calmer than before.

"Then what is it?!"

"Nothing. Just forget it," he says, releasing me from his comfortable grip. He's much calmer, and it calms my attitude as well. His mood swings seem to be rubbing off on me. I turn my body to face him fully, the scowl on my face pretty evident. It seems as if every conversation we have ends in an argument.

"Tell me."

"I've already told you enough."

"Please, Cato? I'm trying to be understanding but you're making it hard," I push.

Cato huffs and puts his arms back around me. "I don't want to win," he admits, avoiding eye contact.

"Why?"

"Because," he sighs again, pulling the roots of his hair with his hand before he replaces it on my hips, "that means that you will die. And.. I don't want that to happen."

My face brightens again at him admiring that he cares enough for him to sacrifice his life just for me to live. I'm in awe.

"But.. why?"

"I hate the fact that you have to be here because of the Games. It's like they're corrupting you or something. You don't deserve to be here. You're innocent, sweet, and you definitely should not have to die because of a mistake one District made 74 years ago," Cato says.

"Really?"

Cato nods smugly. "I wish that I could have you to myself forever, but I can't. And that hurts. I want to punish the Capitol, and I've never felt that way before now. But trust me, I'm going to take care of it, and you," he says, holding me tighter.

"What do you mean, you're going to take care of it? What are you gonna do?" I question his implication. It kind of worried me because he sounded kind of vindictive, and I couldn't help but feel that he would somehow end up getting hurt.

"Nothing. Just know that I'm taking care of it," Cato answers, dismissing my question entirely.

"Are you going to get hurt if you do whatever this is?"

Cato doesn't answer me, just looks away, staring over the balcony of the building.

"I don't want you to get hurt because of me," I plead, trying to get him to look at me. He doesn't.

Cato just shrugs. "It's really none of your business," he says.

"It is, if you're doing this for my sake," I fire back, starting to get angry once again.

"Just forget about it, okay? You'll know that it's happening when it does. And when it does, look for me," he says, finally staring me in the eyes intently. Cato was scaring me. He was risking himself over me being pushed into the Games. However, I could feel that there was more than just me. No one would try to do something that I was assuming to be drastic for a person tha they've known for only one and a half weeks. Something was up.

"Okay. But why are you doing this for me?"

"Why do you keep questioning me?" he snaps, rolling his eyes at me. I specifically remember him telling me not to do that. "Can't you just be content for once?"

I scoff and back away just a little bit, not too far to not be able to feel his comforting warmth. "I am content. I just really want to know why?"

"Because," Cato sighs, "I keep telling you that I care about you more than anything right now. It kills me, and I don't know why I even feel this way about you, but I want to do whatever it takes to save you. I try to get you out of my head Kitten, but I just can't. It's so difficult to think about what might happen to you. If I have the chance to try and get us both out of here alive, I'm going to try, and if that doesn't work, I'm going to get you out. I need you, and if I lose you, I don't know what I'd do."

In about a millisecond, my lips are moulded into his with as much passion as I can probably muster. Cato responds with the same amount of passion.

Cato cares about me so much that he doesn't even want to leave the Games alive. Even though he misses his mother, and any siblings that he could possibly have. I don't know how to even respond, so I kissed him. This would be the second time that I actually take control of the situation, and Cato does not seem to mind. Neither do I, for that matter. His large hands roam up and down my hips, and his arms wrap around me and pull me tighter to him.

We would only separated for breath. Any time that we would try to break away, he would take one look into my eyes and our lips would reconnect. It was breathtaking, soul lifting, whatever you want to call it. All I know is that I love it.

"Well, well, well. What do we have here?"

A/N

Another mystery person appears in the greenhouse, but this time, it's not Cato, soo.. who do you think it is? I don't think that anyone will guess, but try!

This chapter has been long awaited, and I'm sorry for taking so long to get this wonderful chapter to you beautiful people. I had to write chapters for my other books, so it took a while.

Urr, as always, you guys know that I love you more than I love to write, or breathe, or whatever you guys can imagine.

Vote, comment, share, follow and thank you so much for reading! Ilysmmmm!

Cheers 😘

Myesha xx