WARNING- this chapter had mentions of torture, blood and injuries. If you are sensitive to this type of content, please skip the italicized section.

The next night, he lay awake, remembering the feel of her in his arms. He hadn't seen her tonight. It was raining, they couldn't go on the roof. He had seen her at training, watched as she spoke to Rue. He had put up with Glimmer all day, noticing the way Katniss glared at the girl. He watched Peeta train, tried to figure out how to plan around the boy. But no matter what he had done, his mind always drifted back to Katniss. He watched how she ignored him. She nearly had him convinced she had actually forgotten of his existence until he had seen her glance his way, chancing it for a moment. Their eyes met for only a moment, and they shared a small smile. He knew now that she trusted him, she had accepted him. Yet, every time he closed his eyes, he saw the heartbroken look in her eyes when he told her she would have to kill him. Her anger at Peeta, the look she gave him that he couldn't quite figure out, that singular tear, it all haunted him.

His heart longed for her. His arms nearly ached to hold her. To keep her safe. To keep her where nobody could ever hurt her again. His mind kept replaying the moment two days ago when her body had relaxed, the way her arms had snaked around him. He could still feel her hand gripping his shirt when he fell asleep.

The floor of this room is always cold. Every time they brought him here, he would use the way his body felt against the freezing cold floor to distract him. He knew that his father had just been here. He could still feel the warm blood leaking out of his back and onto the tile, imagined the way the bright red liquid would snake across the flooring and flow into the drain. The bright lights in the room were making his head pound, or maybe it was the concussion.

He wasn't supposed to be here. He was supposed to be at training, training for something. For the Academy? No. For the Hunger Games. He remembered needing to protect someone, trying to plan a way to play the game, not trying to win but trying to die.

The door to the room flew open, hitting the wall behind it with a deafening boom. Cato's back was towards whoever entered. Maybe it was his father, coming to finally kill him. Maybe they had finally realized his resolve was too strong to break. Maybe they would give up on trying to create a ruthless killer, stop trying to make him see the glory in winning a fight to the death against other children, stop trying to turn him into a killer. Maybe they were tired of having to bring him here, beat him senseless, wasting money and time on someone who would never play by their game.

The sound of another body being dropped next to him made him attempt to open his eyes. Everything was blurry, surrounded by blinding white light, his eyes were nearly swollen shut. He could only see a figure lying next to him, long dark hair spilling across the blood-stained tile. The sight of it reminded him of wind blowing across his face, of warm hands tracing the scars that were now busted open across his arms.

The name was on the tip of his tongue, his vision clearing more and more with every passing, excruciating second. But then, the person next to him whimpered. One tiny little noise, and a hundred memories came running back to him. His blood ran as cold as the tile beneath him.

Her big grey eyes, filled with tears, listening to him tell this exact story. The sound of her laugh. The way she scowled and crossed her arms. The confusion in her eyes when they first spoke. The feel of her hand in his. Her caressing his face, wiping his tears away. A tiny hand gripping the back of his shirt, lithe arms wrapped around his body.

"No" he heard himself moan; voice laced with pain as his body jerked. He tried to move, tried to do anything, tried to reach her.

But that was when his vision cleared fully, and he saw her for the first time. Her olive skin littered with cuts, dried blood, deep purple bruises. Her face, just a few hours ago beautiful in the moonlight and pressed into his neck, was now a swollen mess. Anger coursed through him, turning his cold blood into a boiling rage. He felt his hand make contact with the floor, beginning to push himself up off the ground. He heard her voice then, soft and begging.

"Cato."

It was like all the rage had been sucked out of his body, replaced with a deep longing to get to her. He used nearly all of his strength to push himself onto his knees, sliding towards her. He felt the blood pouring out of his back now, he wasn't sure how he hadn't managed to bleed out.

His hand reached out to touch her face as he sat, hunched on his knees over top of her. On her back, with her head tilted towards him, her limps splayed out around her. He could see that at least one of her legs were broken, the matching arm twisted unnaturally. She was barely conscious, fading in and out as her eyes blinked rapidly. Her breathing was shallow, her voice broken as she spoke.

"You're hurt."

Just like Katniss to always be more concerned with others over herself. Nearly dead on the floor and worried about him being hurt.

"Shhh" he hushed her, his voice cracking. He felt the betrayal of tears springing in his eyes, running down his face, mixing with the dried blood that splattered across it. H reached down, scooping her tiny body up, pulling it towards him. She felt frail in his arms, nearly limp, her grey eyes looking up at him. He cradled her to him, begging her to hang on, begging her to stay. The blood red tears dripped from his face and onto her neck, running down across the bruised that wrapped around them.

"How sweet. I am sure mommy would be so proud of her little boy." He heard the familiar sneer of his father's voice.

Whipping his head towards the door, taking in the sight of his father, hair graying, and wrinkled face splattered with blood. Cato felt the bile rise in his throat at the familiar blonde hair, same nose, same chin. The same face he saw in the mirror every day. The same tall, stocky build. The same broad shoulders. His only saving grace was he had his mother's eyes, not the snake green ones of his father.

"She screams more than you, must not be as familiar with this kind of… correction. She will learn, as that is the life of a victor." His father sneered again, motioning towards Katniss.

"Fuck you" Cato spit towards him, gripping the girl in his arms tighter. He was dizzy, starting to fade from the blood loss.

"That's no way to speak to your father, boy." The man in front of him took a step forward, "Perhaps you'd like to see. Maybe if we break her, that will break you."

"Keep your fucking hands off of her." The man's son sneered towards him, moving to hunch his body around Katniss. He felt hands grab his shoulders, fingers digging into the cuts that adorned his body. He jerked in pain, fighting against them as they pulled him back. In his thrashing, Katniss stirred, starting to panic. She started to scream, desperately trying to grasp Cato.

He heard his own voice screaming, his father's laugh echoing throughout the room, Katniss screaming for him. Something hard crashed into the side of his head, and he heard a whip come down against his back. Katniss was ripped from his arms, her eyes wide with desperation, tears streaming down her face. Her voice begging to be saved. But Cato could not help her, he didn't know if the pain was from the lashes being given to him or watching her being ripped from his arms. He felt his hands being tied behind him again as the men around him drug a screaming, thrashing Katniss to the far side of the room, tying her body to a post.

His horror intensified when he saw his father with a whip in hand, walking towards the girl. The sound of his desperate screams echoed across the room as the whip cracked, and Katniss cried out his name.

Everything became blurry again, his consciousness fading, he still found as hard as he could. The last thing he remembered seeing was Katniss's blood splattering across the cold tile floors ahead of him.