Chapter 6
Back in Two, they would call it a concussion. The feeling is somewhat familiar to me - the splitting headache, the dizziness, the confusion - but it has never been as agonizing and all-consuming as right now. In the rare moments that the pain subsides just enough for me to close my eyes, nightmares of Thresh wake me up gasping for air, as if I can still feel his hands around my neck.
I almost died. I should have died. As the days in the arena get hotter and hotter, I almost wish I had died.
I spend most of my time sitting with my head between my knees, fingers pressed against my temples, willing the pain to go away. Cato leaves my side only to find us food and refill our canteens from the lake. He is keeping me alive, I'm certain of it, and I hate him for it. I hate how weak I feel, how helpless I am. Without him, I know I would not be here.
I know we are being boring because the Gamemakers start fucking with us. The temperature swings from one extreme to the other, and the days and nights are so unpredictable that I start to lose track of how long we have actually been in here. I feel like I'm losing my mind, or at least what's left of it. At some point I catch a glimpse of my reflection in the metal of my water canteen, and it terrifies me. My hair is wild, my skin flushed, my eyes vacant. It's as if my skin has been unzipped to expose all the parts of me I normally keep hidden.
Several days of agony later, I'm sitting alone at our camp when the boom of a cannon reverberates through my head like a bomb. It is torture for my concussion, but I spring to my feet without hesitation. Cato. He went off to look for food at least an hour ago now. I scream his name even more desperately than I did when Thresh had me in his grip, but he doesn't respond. "CATO, WHERE ARE YOU?" I shout into the trees, taking off in the direction that he left. "Cato, please," I am begging him now to appear. I shouldn't be making a scene like this, especially not with the Twelves out there still, but I am desperate for him. He cannot be dead.
"CLOVE!" I hear his voice in the distance, and relief wraps around me like a velvet blanket. I turn around just in time to see him barrelling through the trees toward me, his eyes wild. I meet him halfway, our arms flying out ferociously to wrap each other into a tight embrace. "You're okay, thank God you're okay," he is repeating to himself over and over.
I realize that he is just as scared of losing me as I am of losing him.
He loosens his grip on me enough that I can pull back to look up into his eyes. I don't know what surprises me more - the flutter in my heart or the heat pooling between my legs. He places a hand on my cheek, never breaking eye contact. We haven't kissed since he saved me at the feast, and in the days since it seems like everything has changed. He has forced me to eat even when I was so dizzy and nauseous that I couldn't open my eyes. He has held me in the still of the night when my dreams woke me up in a puddle of tears and screams. He has saved my life a thousand times these past few days, and I have fallen in love with him for it.
The thought that would have once made my blood run cold now fills me with warmth. For the first time in days, I am thinking clearly. I love Cato Hadley.
His lips crash into mine in a kiss that is as desperate and feral as it is tender. I am completely at his will, shaping my body to his as we move. In this moment, I would do anything for him. I would let him have me right here in the arena if he wanted it. His kiss is possessive, like he is claiming me as his own for all the world to see, and I let him. He already has me, whether he knows it or not. From now on, I will always be his. I owe him my life.
When he pulls away from me, breathless, our eyes say what our lips cannot. He loves me, too.
We come to the conclusion that, most logically, the cannon must have belonged to the girl from Five. There is a small chance that it belonged to Peeta, that he finally succumbed to his injuries, but based on the size of their pack at the feast he most likely got all the medicine he needed. The Capitol wants a final showdown between the two sets of star-crossed lovers. Really, it was always going to be our fight, ever since the rule change.
When the sun disappears out of the sky only a few hours after it rose, we know it's time. They are ready to end this, and so are we.
I secure my vest full of knives around my torso, and Cato grabs his sword, though we both know he can do just as much damage with his hands alone. We dress ourselves in the mesh body armor that came in our own pack at the feast. A few days ago we would have been overly confident going into a fight like this, but we know better now than to underestimate the bitch on fire.
We're trying to decide where the Twelves are most likely hiding out when the forest grows eerily silent. The birds, the crickets, the bugs all halt their choruses at once, and Cato catches my eye in the moonlight. Did the Twelves find us first, that quickly? I half expect to see an arrow come flying out of the trees at us. When it doesn't, I realize we are facing a much bigger threat than the bitch on fire and her lovestruck sidekick.
A hungry growl comes from deep within the forest, and our feet propel us forward before the words even reach our lips. "Run!" we shout to each other at the same time.
We're headed in the direction of the Cornucopia, dodging stocky tree roots and thorn bushes as we go. The singular growl is soon joined by several others, much closer now. Whatever it is that's chasing us, it brought friends. I glance over my shoulder, curiosity getting the best of me, and instantly regret it. I would have recognized Glimmer's sparkling green eyes anywhere, but the wolf's blonde fur and collar engraved with a "1" confirm my suspicions. They turned the dead tributes into mutts.
Cato and I run for what has to be at least a mile before we finally break through the trees into the clearing where the Cornucopia sits. My eyes are peeled for any sign of our opponents, knowing they surely have a pack of dead tribute mutts at their own heels leading them here as well for the final showdown. As we reach the area that served as our base camp for the first half of the Games, I feel Cato's hands wrap around my hips, effortlessly lifting me up onto the steel edge of the Cornucopia before he climbs up to meet me.
We are both completely out of breath as we stand there hunched over, our chests rising and falling dramatically, hearts pounding so hard we can hardly hear. I don't know if it's the overdose of adrenaline after days of boredom or what, but my headache has subsided to nothing but a dull pressure now. I still need to protect my head above all else during this final fight - another blow before the concussion has completely healed could very likely be fatal.
There is a commotion on the opposite side of the Cornucopia, and I leap to my feet, knife already in hand ready to fly.
"Here we go, baby," Cato says with a sadistic smile.
"Last two kills," I respond with a smirk.
Almost as if on cue, the two tributes standing between us and victory hoist themselves up onto the Cornucopia, their backs turned to us, blissfully unaware of our presence behind them. Cato takes the opportunity to grab Loverboy and slam him to the ground towards me. I hurl a knife at Katniss, aiming for her face, but she ducks out of the way at the last second. I aim at Peeta next, who is back up off the ground and going after Cato, and my knife lodges itself in his left shoulder. Cato quickly yanks the knife out of Peeta's back and presses it to his throat. We are improvising here - two versus two was not exactly a scenario they heavily prepared us for at the Academy.
Katniss draws back an arrow, aimed directly at Cato, and I almost scream.
"I wouldn't do that if I were you," I warn her, hoping she doesn't notice the sheer desperation in my voice. I have a knife ready to lodge itself in her neck if she dares to let that arrow go.
We all realize at about the same time that we are at a stalemate.
If Cato slits Peeta's throat, Katniss will send an arrow flying into his head. With a training score of eleven, we both know she won't miss.
If Katniss shoots him, I will send a knife flying into her neck. And we both know I won't miss either.
It dawns on me that I am the only one without a weapon pointed at me. I could win it right here if I wanted to, by myself. Enobaria is probably yelling at me to do exactly that, wherever she is. But I can't. The thought of going back to Two without Cato is unfathomable at this point. If we don't win together, I don't want to win at all.
The four of us stand deadlocked and silent for so long that I half expect the Capitol to send a mutt up there to finish the job for us. And then, before anyone can figure out a way to make a kill without sacrificing a partner, Claudius Templesmith's voice is bellowing throughout the arena: "Attention tributes, there has been a slight rule change. The previous revision allowing for two victors from the same district has been revoked. Only one victor may be crowned. Good luck."
I draw in a sharp breath as the realization of what those words mean crashes into me. I notice all the blood drain from bitch on fire's face and watch as Peeta's eyes dart frantically between myself and the girl he loves.
I know what I'm supposed to do here - locking eyes with Cato only confirms it. "Throw the knife at her," his crazed eyes are screaming at me. "She can kill me and I'll kill Peeta so that you can go home."
I almost do it. One flick of the wrist and it could all be over. I could go home, raise our baby, work at the Academy for the rest of my life, have the life as a victor that I always dreamed of.
But nobody moves. Not me, not Cato, not the Twelves. Nobody wants to make the first move. Nobody wants to go home alone, not after they allowed us to envision what it would be like to win together. Nobody wants to win.
Nobody wants to win.
Blame it on my concussion, or dehydration, or lack of sleep, but my next decision is probably the stupidest I'll ever make. Wordlessly, I lower my knife.
I can nearly hear my parents, my mentors, even my trainers back at the Academy screaming at me. And I can actually hear Cato screaming at me. "What the hell do you think you're doing?"
"I'm not going home without you."
"Yes, you goddamn are."
It is with those words that he glides his knife across Peeta's throat, which causes Katniss to sink her arrow into the space between his eyes, which causes me to raise my knife once again and hurl it at her neck.
The three of them collapse one by one into the bloodstained steel of the Cornucopia, like dominoes tumbling in a perfectly fucked up line. A noise comes from the back of my throat that sounds less human and more like the mutts that chased us up here. My legs fail me as I sink to my knees, into the pool of crimson spilling across the cold ground beneath me, unable to truly process what has just happened.
I don't want to win like this. I don't want to win at all. I don't want to give birth to a baby whose very presence will remind me of him, of this moment, every day for the rest of my life. I don't want to be alive, not without Cato. He was so willing to die for me as soon as they reversed the rule change - aren't I allowed to feel the same?
There is a moment of clarity as I realize that I haven't heard any cannons yet.
I am not thinking clearly, not really thinking at all, when I reach into my vest for one more knife. The blade is cold on my fingers as I trace the serrated edge. I don't feel anything when, in one quick swipe, I use it to slice through the skin and fascia and muscle and arteries of my own neck.
Let them decide who wins, who to save. I cannot.
I open my eyes to fluorescent lights and white walls and the unmistakeable pinch of a needle in my arm.
I blink a few times in an effort to see the world around me more clearly. I am in a hospital bed, a flimsy old gown covering my dirty, bloodstained skin. There is a high-pitched, rhythmic beeping coming from some machine next to me, indicating what I can only assume is the sound of my own heartbeat. So I guess I am alive.
They saved me? Surely Cato would have been easier to save. His skull is so damn thick there's no way that arrow made it all the way to his brain.
The realization that if I am alive then Cato must be dead slaps me square across the face. That's not a fact that I'm prepared to cope with right now, so I choose to ignore it. There will be a time for me to lose my shit over that, but now is not it. I need to figure out where I am and what the hell is going on.
Of note, I am not in any physical pain. I toy with the needle in my median cubital vein that is surely delivering the sweet concoction of drugs responsible for my placidity at the moment. I'm surprised they are giving me pain meds - I half expected them to make me suffer as my penance for that little stunt I pulled at the end there.
My throat is dry, and when I try to swallow, the skin over my neck feels tight. My right hand hesitantly makes its way to the same place it sliced open with a knife just hours (days?) (maybe even weeks?) earlier, searching for stitches or some kind of physical indication of its treason, but the skin is smooth to the touch. These Capitol doctors work quickly.
"Hello?" I finally call out, my voice hoarse.
Enobaria appears in my doorway a moment later, and I let out a breath I didn't realize I'd been holding. My relief is short-lived as I notice the look of obvious distress on her face. She steps into the room, shutting the door behind her. There's something off about her. She looks...nervous?
"We need to talk," she says seriously. She is jittery, glancing back at the door every so often. I've never seen her like this before.
"Not even a congratulations?" I joke, trying to lighten the mood.
"We don't have much time, so you need to keep the snarky commentary to a minimum," she warns.
"What's going on?" I ask, growing worried.
"It's Snow. He's...not happy, to say the least. This entire situation is completely unprecedented and the optics of it are not good at all for the Capitol. The baby, that was one thing, but that final battle was something even he couldn't have predicted. That kind of blatant unity between the districts, not to mention against the Capitol, is not something he takes lightly."
I interrupt her. "Unity?"
"Clove, you lowered your weapon," she explains as if I was not there, as if someone else had control of my body entirely.
"I know. That had nothing to do with uniting with Twelve and everything to do with Cato. Was that not abundantly fucking clear by me slitting my own throat after he went down?"
She is shaking her head. "They cut the footage almost immediately when you put that knife to your throat. Airlifted you all out by hovercraft and sent you off to separate operating rooms with separate surgeons who had instructions to do whatever they possibly could to save their dying tributes. They were so worried that they wouldn't even have a single victor that they accidentally ended up with four."
"I'm sorry, what?" My mind is spinning. Four victors?
My elation at realizing Cato must be alive is almost immediately overshadowed by the thought of sharing a crown with the Twelves. That has to be a fucking joke.
"You heard me all right," she reiterates. "All four of you survived your surgeries. The doctors here are a little too good at their jobs evidently. To tell you the truth I was a little bit shocked they didn't just kill three of you after the fact to keep with tradition."
"I need to see him," I say instinctively.
"As soon as he gets word that you're awake, I'm sure he'll be here. He's been driving everyone up a wall worrying so much about you the past few days."
I place a hand over my belly, which is flatter than ever. If I hadn't seen the two lines myself, I wouldn't possibly believe there was something growing in there. "Is everything okay...with the...?"
"The baby?" Enobaria nods. "The doctors said you're nine weeks today."
"I swear to you I had no idea about this," I say, suddenly feeling the need to explain myself to her. "I hadn't even missed a period by the Reaping. I would have never volunteered, never risked embarrassing Two like this, if I had known."
"I know, Clove," she says, softening her tone. "I fought like hell not to send you that pregnancy test, but Seneca insisted. The Capitol people ate the whole thing up. Evidently they can stomach the slaughter of twenty-three kids every year just fine, but a pregnant tribute is where they draw the line."
Of course Seneca Crane was behind it. He had been amping up the dramatics ever since he was promoted to Head Gamemaker a few years back. As if good old-fashioned murder was not entertaining enough for the people of the Capitol anymore.
My eyes are suddenly very heavy, no doubt a result of the pain meds being pumped into my veins. I want to get up and go find Cato, but just holding my eyelids open is a feat I am hardly capable of at the moment. I succumb to sleep quickly, my body far too tired to fight it, and I silently thank Enobaria for letting me.
"Are you out of your fucking mind?"
These are the first words I hear out of Cato Hadley's mouth after I essentially saved his life. I'd expect nothing less.
"You slit your throat?" he continues, his words laced with a mixture of disbelief and exasperation as he paces back and forth at the foot of my hospital bed. "You slit your goddamn throat. I took an arrow to the face to save your life, not to mention our kid's life, and then you slit your fucking throat."
"That's a funny way of thanking me for getting us both out of there alive," I retort.
He gets that same paranoid look on his face that Enobaria had earlier and lowers his voice. "Would you keep it down? Do you have any idea the implications of what you're saying?" I open my mouth to respond, but he cuts me off. "This is serious, Clove. I've been hearing mumblings about uprisings in the outer districts."
"Who told you that?" I question him. I don't believe it for a second. Why would the outer districts be rebelling if two of their tributes just won? They should be happy.
"I was eavesdropping. They haven't told me shit," he huffs.
"Well you obviously overheard wrong," I state bluntly, but I can tell by his face he's not convinced.
"Something's off, I'm telling you," he insists, sitting on the edge of my bed worriedly. I inch over just slightly to make room for him.
"There's four fucking victors, Cato, that's what's off. Can we talk about that for a second?" I say, getting annoyed all over again at the thought of sharing the glory of winning with Katniss Everdeen, Peeta Mellark, and District Twelve.
"Do you think it would be horribly frowned upon if we killed them now, anyway?" he asks with a laugh.
I smirk at the thought. "Honestly, we'd be doing Snow a favor."
We are mostly joking, but I know neither of us would have any real qualms about killing those two, in or out of the Games. It's embarrassing, truthfully, to be in this situation with Twelve of all districts. My parents will definitely never let me hear the end of it. I can practically hear my mother hissing that I'm not a real Victor. One look into Cato's eyes confirms he feels the same. We were willing to share the crown with each other, and each other only. This situation doesn't feel like a victory for us at all, although it certainly beats the alternative.
"You know what they say..." I hear a curt voice coming from the hospital hallway. "Speak of the devil, and he shall appear."
The unmistakeable scent of blood fills the room, and I look up to see none other than President Snow himself standing in the doorway. His crinkled skin is ashen, the corners of his mouth turned down tensely. His presence is intimidating, unsettling. I feel Cato tense up next to me.
"Let me be the first to congratulate you on the baby," he continues, emotionless, as he steps into the room and closes the door behind him.
"Thank you," I try to respond, but it ends up coming out more like a question than a statement. Why is he really here? We both know there are no congratulations in order over the kid. Seneca may like the drama, but Snow clearly does not.
"Perhaps it will be our first ever tribute to enter the arena twice. Once as a fetus, and then again as a tribute," he says, his pale lips curling into a smile.
Of course, he's here to threaten us, to let us know that we will have to pay for this someday.
Cato is immediately defensive. "In that case, it'll be the first ever tribute to survive the arena twice, too."
"Perhaps," Snow responds, "if it's earned."
Instinctually, I press the button for more morphine. That's a dig at us if I've ever heard one, and we just have to take it. What exactly can we do about it? We're not going to fight with the President our first time ever meeting him face to face.
"Do you two feel like you've earned your place here, as victors?" he asks bluntly.
Cato sighs. "It's obviously an unprecedented situation."
"That's not an answer to my question," Snow snaps.
"No," I say simply. Whether I believe it or not, it's clearly the answer he is looking for.
"Believe it or not, that's a sentiment shared by many victors, even those who win on their own. I always tell them the same thing I'll tell you both - you have the rest of your lives to earn it."
It is with those words that he turns around and walks out of the room, the smell of blood lingering, leaving us wondering what exactly he means by that.
"Am I supposed to pretend like I don't still want to kill her?" I groan as my stylist team puts the finishing touches on my hair and makeup before the final interview. We are finally back in the District Two suite after a week-long stay at the hospital. Cato and I are both good as new, and unfortunately so are our co-victors from Twelve.
They have me in a sleek red gown with lipstick to match. My black hair is cascading in loose curls down my back. I know just by glancing in the mirror that I have never looked this good before in my life.
"Play nice," Enobaria demands, and I roll my eyes. "The Games are over. Whether you like it or not, you two are going to be tied to them for the rest of your lives."
It is Cato who groans this time, from his spot in a plush chair across the room. He is dressed in an all-black satin suit and tie and hasn't taken his eyes off me for the past thirty minutes at least. If it were up to us, we would skip the final interview entirely and go straight to the crowning. We both already know that this night is going to end with our clothes in a pile on the ground somewhere while we fuck with nothing on but our crowns.
"Based on my conversations with Abernathy, his two aren't exactly thrilled to be buddying up with you two either," Brutus comments.
I scoff. "What do they have against us?"
Enobaria laughs. "Well for starters, you tried to cut off the girl's face, and the boy nearly lost his leg thanks to Cato."
"Since when do you have conversations with Abernathy?" Cato asks incredulously.
"When I'm at the bar, mostly," Brutus responds with a chuckle.
My stylist interrupts to exclaim "My dear, I think we're done here!" as she steps back to admire her work.
Rhiannon has Cato and I pose together for a couple behind the scenes pictures, and it's obvious that we look incredible together, based on the cooing noises coming from both of our stylist teams.
"Are you ready for this?" Cato whispers to me as they usher us into the elevator. To anyone else it would sound like he meant it in an excited way, but it's easy for me to detect the traces of worry behind his words.
Truthfully, I'm not. Not a night has gone by since Thresh nearly killed me that I didn't relive it over and over again in my dreams. Cato knows this because he has been the one calming me down when I wake up sweating or crying or screaming (or all of the above). The thought of having to watch that back for the first time in front of an entire audience of people is less than appealing to me.
My breath is shaky as I respond, "Ready as I can be."
He grabs my hand and squeezes it reassuringly.
"What about you?" I ask. He has his own near-death trauma to relive, although I doubt they will show that moment in the recap, or ever again for that matter. There's probably a team working to eradicate all footage of it as we speak. I don't know how they'll explain having four victors in the history books, but it certainly won't mention a stalemate or attempted suicide.
Cato simply shrugs in response. I don't press him for an answer, but I wish I knew how he was actually feeling about all of this. We have hardly had a moment alone since I woke up in the hospital, and there's so much we need to say that neither one of us really knows where to start.
When the elevator arrives on the ground floor, the Twelves are already waiting there for us with their mentor and escort. I groan internally, and it's obvious when I lock eyes with the bitch on fire that she is doing the same.
There is an awkward silence as we reluctantly head in their direction, nothing but the clacking sound of my heels echoing through the room. Peeta flashes a smile in our direction, and I nearly let out a laugh. He just looks happy to be alive. It is the outlandish, pink-haired District Twelve escort that finally breaks the silence with a, "How lovely, our four victors reunited!"
Katniss rolls her eyes at this, and I almost smirk. At least we are on the same page about something, even if that is wishing the other was dead.
The Twelve mentor is laughing manically to himself, and I can smell the booze on his breath from several yards away. I recognize him as Haymitch Abernathy, victor of the second Quarter Quell. I would normally judge him for being such a mess, but at the moment all I feel is intense jealousy that he gets to be drunk for all of this. I can barely even get a pain pill when I need one now that I'm out of the hospital - the doctors have been especially stingy with them thanks to the child growing inside of me.
Rhiannon and their escort - she introduces herself as Effie - exchange niceties and attempt to break the ice between us with no success. I fold my arms across my chest and stare at Katniss and Peeta expectantly. I'm not sure what our mentors expect us to do from here. Shake hands? Congratulate each other? I find myself increasingly annoyed at their presence, even though it is ultimately my fault that we are even in this situation.
As we stand backstage waiting for the Interview to begin, I notice Katniss' eyes flicking down to my stomach every so often, like she's trying to decide for herself whether or not I am actually pregnant. I would cut her eyes out for their disrespect if we were still in the arena.
Caesar Flickerman is obviously a master at his craft because the group Interview is nowhere near as awkward as our initial encounter with the Twelves. It's awful in many other ways, but the conversation flows comfortably and we manage to get through it without any physical altercations, so that's good.
Cato holds my hand throughout the entirety of the recap, squeezing reassuringly whenever something particularly unnerving is replayed. When they show Katniss dropping the Tracker Jacker next on my alliance, I shoot a nasty glance in her direction, which she returns when, shortly after, I appear on screen with a knife to her face. My hands start sweating, knowing what's coming next. I want to squeeze my eyes shut as they show Thresh charging at me from behind, nothing but pure rage and adrenaline. Cato is tense as the screen splits to show him lurking in the trees on the complete opposite side of the Cornucopia, ignorant to the nightmare that is about to unfold.
I keep my face void of all emotion as I watch Thresh lift me up with ease and slam me twice against the Cornucopia, not wanting the Capitol people to know how weak I really feel watching this back. All the things I felt in that moment - the terror, the regret, the pain - come flooding over me as strongly as I felt them that day, but my expression remains stoic. The only indication of the turmoil brewing inside my brain is the crescent shaped indentations my fingernails leave on the palm of Cato's hand.
The anxiety claws at my skin from within, desperately trying to escape, but I keep it together. I fake a laugh when, later on, Caesar jokes that there were actually five victors this year, and I plaster a smile on my face when Snow places a crown of gold atop my head in what can only be described as the most anticlimactic moment of my life. I go through the motions the way I know I have to, hoping that if I ignore the tightness in my chest and the tingling in my limbs that it will go away.
It isn't until we have boarded the train and are headed back to District Two the next morning that I allow myself to break down.
