We stand, hand in hand, waiting for the hovercraft to come and pick up the victors just like they do every year in every other Hunger Games. But it doesn't come.
Instead we are greeted by the sharp voice of Claudius Templesmith booming down to us in the arena, "Greetings to the final two contestants in the seventy-fourth Hunger Games. The earlier revision allowing two victors from the same district has been," he pauses, "Revoked. Closer examination of the rulebook has disclosed that only one winner may be allowed. Good luck, and may the odds be ever in your favor." He finishes and I have never heard I silence that quiet but that loud.
Cato and I just look at each other. Stunned. Both of us silent, not daring to say a word.
"I can't believe this." Cato is the first to break the silence.
"I can. I should have known it was a trick. I knew it was too good to be true." I saw back, a tear trickling down my cheek.
"Clove, I love you," Cato starts but pauses to kiss me again, "I can't kill you. I love you more than life itself." He finishes.
"You love me more than life?" I ask cautiously, desperately searching to find a loophole.
"Yes I really do." Cato says, smiling, looking at me with loving eyes.
I smile at him softly, trying to take in his beautiful face, all of it. I need to remember him just like this. My soft smile was abruptly greeted by my sharp, deathly smirk, "Good." Is all I say as I stab the arrow I used to kill Katniss Everdeen into his stomach. He looks at me like I am a monster. I feel like a monster.
I gently lay him down on the ground, placing his head in my lap. I stroke his hair as I look into his eyes. "For what it's worth," I start, "I love you too. And I am so sorry. But I have to win, Cato, I have to." I finish and lean my head down and I kiss him in his last moments of consciousness.
My lips are still gently rested on his as the canon fires and the hovercraft flies over me and a rope ladder drops down. I grab the rope and I climb into the safety of the hovercraft and out of the hell that is the seventy-fourth Hunger Games arena.