Wiress wasn't the first to discover her in an armchair in the common area the next day, eating a large plate of chocolate cookies completely alone and in silence, but she was the first to acknowledge her. The bags under Nova's eyes were dark from lack of sleep, with little red dots from burst capillaries scattered around her eyes and nose. Her scleras were bloodshot in a glassy way that clearly hadn't worn off overnight.
Wiress began to reach for the TV remote.
"Don't," Nova said stoically. "They're broadcasting our recap again."
"You don't like watching Cato hurt you," Wiress concluded, sitting down near her.
"I don't like watching anyone hurt anyone," she corrected her.
Nova took a bite into another cookie. By this point, she'd lost count of how many she'd eaten, but no one would complain. She was so underweight anyway, with her prep team never failing to make frequent comments about it, so any bonus fat rolls and curves surely wouldn't go unappreciated.
"Everyone's convinced themselves that my love for Cato is real and my fear of Cato is fabricated, and not the other way around," she said.
"You should say," Wiress suggested.
Nova scoffed. "Oh, he knows. That's why he got back at me last night. Not that anyone cares."
"He knows you avoid him," Wiress agreed, "fear him, at times loathe him, but he doesn't know why. He has a temper–"
"That's not my problem," she responded bluntly.
"Confusion leads to fear, and fear creates anger. His anger takes many forms." Wiress rose to her feet again and confiscated the rest of the cookies from her. "Rumour has it that Snow is broadcasting the recaps double this year. Your fight is with him."
Her mentor switched the TV back on as she left. The screen flashed with the scene of Cato tossing Nova into the river after she'd lobbed a fish at him in his sleep. She recalled the moment being tense, heart-racing, an uneasy sense of danger, but only now she could tell that he wouldn't have killed her over it. She could see it in his eyes. That wasn't murder.
She reached for the control and turned it off, plunging the room into silence and darkness once again.
She crept out of her apartment during the early hours of the morning. Any hallways and corridors were darkened, with only the emergency stairwell lit up in dim shades of green to keep people from slipping on the precariously steep stairs.
She stopped in front of the District 2 apartment, with a softly glowing red 2 sign beside the door, unlike the honey yellow 3 upstairs. She tried the door herself, mildly surprised to find that it opened without any security-related issues. She quietly closed the door behind her. The lights had been left on but changed to their dimmest settings possible. There was no indication that anyone was awake.
Her gaze flickered from one side of the narrow hallway of bedrooms to the other. She wasn't sure which door was which, only aware of the layout of her apartment upstairs. She approached one of the rooms at the far end, which would be Chase's if they were on her floor. After a few seconds of hesitation, she quietly knocked.
It was perfectly possible that just about everyone except her was asleep. The sun would rise on a new day in approximately 4 hours. After a minute or so, the door opened. Cato took one look at her, sighed, and moved aside to allow her through.
"I'll buy you a clock if telling the time is so difficult for you," he said as he closed the door again.
His room was virtually identical to hers, only the vibrant red hues of her room had been replaced by deep slate greys. Most of the lights were off except those beside his bed, and the bedcovers remained untouched. Clearly he hadn't been able to sleep yet.
She perched on the edge of the bed. Cato looked at her expectantly, his arms folded over his chest. In the faint light, she could see the purple-ish bruise on the side of his face.
"Well?" he prompted.
"I don't know," Nova said, eyes trained on the polished floor. "I mean, I thought I knew, but I don't . . ."
"Are you just gonna sit here and talk yourself in circles all night?" he remarked.
"I think . . . I can never tell whether what I feel around you is love or fear," she said.
His tone was bordering amusement. "Seriously?"
"I just want to set the records straight," Nova continued. "I'm done with people telling me how I'm supposed to feel. I was always terrified of you specifically. You were the most fearsome element of the games. You fantasised about killing me in the most grim, bloody way possible. The love was an act. The fear was real."
Cato hadn't moved yet. "And now?"
She rubbed her humid palms against her legs. "I don't know," she said honestly. "I haven't decided. I mean, have you?"
"Have I decided whether I still want to kill you or not?" he questioned. "Yeah, I came to a decision on that."
She ignored his comment. "It's like . . . I can't even look at you for longer than 10 seconds before feeling scared. And it's pathetic."
"I wouldn't call it pathetic," he countered. "If anything, I'm flattered."
Nova rolled her eyes and stood up. "Forget it–"
"No, no, no."
Cato blocked the door by stepping in front of her. Her breath felt trapped in her lungs, like her body would start choking itself within the next few minutes.
"Get out of my way, Cato," she demanded.
He raised an eyebrow. "Or what?"
That was the wrong thing to say. When she next muttered his name, it was a low uneasy warning, from the voice of someone who was barely holding the fragments of their irrevocably shattered emotions together. He stepped aside. She opened the door.
Except she didn't. It was stuck. She tried putting more force into the metal handle, but it simply wouldn't budge. The door didn't even so much as wobble as she pulled insistently against the handle.
Nova stepped aside to allow Cato an attempt, but once again his efforts were fruitless. "Did you lock the door?" he accused her.
"I didn't think these doors could be locked!" she insisted. "How would I lock it?"
He stopped trying after about 20 more seconds of firm tugging. She slid down the sleek panelled wall behind her until she hit the floor. If they couldn't find a way out themselves — which realistically, they wouldn't be able to — they'd be waiting until the morning for someone to reach them. This was not at all what she wanted. That sense of claustrophobia was starting to envelop her once again, a deep dark feeling of dread and entrapment.
Cato returned to the bedroom a moment later with a cold glass of water. She took a few grateful sips, but the violent shaking in her arms made it difficult to swallow much more than that.
He sat down facing her, leaving a few feet of space between them as he leaned back against the side of his bed. She lowered her glass before it could risk shattering between her hands.
"I only wanted to kill you because you were a challenge," Cato explained. She eyed the door, as if staring at it by some magic would enable it to open again. "You don't get District 3s with weapon skills and charm, just like you don't get District 12s who survive past the bloodbath. If you would've gone in claiming to be District 1, I wouldn't have doubted it."
"What were the other reasons?" she asked.
He looked up at her, furrowing his brows bemusedly.
"I asked you why you didn't kill me during the finale," she said, "and you said you would've died if I hadn't helped you with your back, and other reasons."
His sigh was heavy, long-suffering. "If I had to die — which by that point, my fate was decided — I wanted the winner to be you, not one of the 12s. You deserved to go home." He didn't give her long to process his answer. "And in future, give me some warning before turning yourself into an antisocial recluse."
"Oh, fuck you," Nova muttered.
The tone of Cato's reply was teasing. "You wish."
". . . Yeah."
He laughed harder.
⊱ ────── {.⋅ ✯ ⋅.} ────── ⊰
Author's note: This chapter is laughably short (less than half the length I'd usually write) because I have succumbed to the plague (I caught the flu). I may not make it through the night (I have a tickly cough) but I'm being such a brave little soldier about it (I wrapped myself in a blanket and ate an entire pack of cookies). Send healing thoughts (I'll be fine in a day or two).