hope that i’m still breathing

Cato’s eleven. There’s not much to do here: father is in the mines and mother’s asleep. He has no brothers or sisters because his parents don’t want to endanger another child, waste food on another mouth. Food is wasted on him already.

He walks around the mountains, bare feet getting soiled by the rocks and dirt. He doesn’t mind it much at all, even though mother and father and any of the school children would give him dirty looks for it. Cato would give himself dirty looks for it, too; but he enjoys the brutality of nature, digging hard into his feet.

It’s empty, or at least it should be. Career training is only during school hours, and sometimes after school on the weekends for those who think they’re too weak. Cato’s not too weak. He’s the strongest in his class.

He walks around a bend, and stops because he sees a girl. A small girl with dark hair. Dark freckles, if he looks closely. He freezes, because the only girls he’s seen are in his class and they usually stay away from the boys before they turn twelve and show their Career skills. Cato has a few months left.

The girl doesn’t notice him, so Cato watches as she squats with the rocks, examines them. The rocks she picks are especially sharp, but she looks and them and throws them away as if unsatisfied. Then she picks up one, almost like a dagger, and Cato wonders what she’s going to do with it.

It’s flying at him suddenly. Cato throws himself out of the way instinctively, even though he feels a faint scratch at his eye. He’s bleeding.

The girl walks over to him and looks down at him.

“I—” says Cato, and hesitates because he’s never talked to a girl like this before.

The girl crosses her arms. Puts her foot on Cato’s chest. Even though Cato is bigger than her, surely older than her.

“What do you want?” she says.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” Cato says, and then, “You’re fast.”

“You’re fast for getting out of the way in time.” She bends down and wipes the blood off Cato’s face.

“I,” says Cato. “I’m Cato.”

The girl looks at him for a moment, like she’d been looking at the rocks. Like she’s looking to see if Cato is sharp enough.

She smiles and helps him up.

“I’m Clove,” she says.

*

He learns that she’s eight years old and has started Career training. Her Career training is with the ten year olds.

“I’m still better than you,” he says, on one of their walks around the mountain.

Clove laughs, like little pebbles rocking in waves. “By only a year,” she says. “And you’re three years older than me, so I’m better than you.”

“D’you think you’ll be in one of the Games?” he asks.

“I hope so,” says Clove. “I fucking want to kill someone—I don’t want to practice all this for the Games and end up using it just to kill for food.” She rolls her eyes.

Cato’s only heard a few boys in his class cuss before, and no girls. Clove bends down to look at the rocks, occasionally, but Cato thinks that she might be more interested in talking to him.

“I’m eligible next year,” says Cato.

Clove looks at him. Sends him a grin.

“Wait for me,” she says.

*

Cato doesn’t think he’ll ever tell Clove, much less anyone in his class, that his parents need to save up for food, need to put his name in for the tessarae. It’s not something that he needs to tell anyone, anyways. And Cato does want to be in the Games.

When he turns twelve, his name is in the draw only once.

“I’m thinking of volunteering for the Games sometime,” he tells Clove.

Clove snorts. “Yeah, right. You’re only twelve; you think you’re gonna beat the eighteen year olds from District One?”

“We’ll team up,” says Cato defensively, because One, Two and Four always do.

“Yeah, and then what? Once you’ve killed everyone else, you’re gonna need to kill each other,” says Clove. “Wait till you’re eighteen. I’ll wait till then too.”

“Then what?” says Cato.

Clove grins. “We can enter the Games together.”

Cato hopes that they won’t need as much tessarae in the coming years, so he and Clove can enter the games together.

*

At thirteen, Cato’s appetite spikes and his name is in the draw five times. At fourteen, it’s in eleven times.

He starts looking at girls. They’re all curvy, big-breasted and soft skin. From the good eating, Cato supposes. He likes looking at them, especially when he’s alone at night or in the shower.

“Jesus,” snorts Clove when she’s at Cato’s home, while Cato inhales five pieces of bread in a minute. “You eat like a fucking wolf.”

“More soup, Clove?” says Cato’s mother, coming over.

Clove smiles at her sweetly. “Yes please,” she says, giving her her bowl. “And some of that corn, too.”

(Cato still won’t ever tell her that they put his name in for the tessarae.)

Cato looks at Clove sometimes, too. Clove is still small, a bit flat-chested but he can see that she’s growing. He’s always been taller than her but she’s developing a figure, becoming nimble.

“You’re staring,” says Clove, when Cato’s mouth is half-open with a piece of bread still in his hand.

Cato shoves the rest of his bread in his mouth and says through it, “I’m not.” Clove crinkles her nose and Cato thinks that he might like looking at that.

*

The next years are brutal because his Career training gets even harsher as he’s getting older. His name is also in the drawing more and more, but that’s nothing to worry about. Most of the times, the eighteen-year olds volunteer before names need to be drawn, anyway.

He spends less time with Clove, and watches from afar as she grows up, gets more friends. Girlfriends, Cato supposes. He’s never seen her with anyone outside of their meetings and occasional visits to each other’s houses. But then again, everyone in District Two is minding their own business and no one’s seen them together before, either.

He only sees her because he looks for her.

*

Cato is eighteen and the strongest in his class. His classmates (the boys who envy him, the girls who coo at him and touch his muscles) have selected him as their winning candidate for the Games.

Before the District Two escort can even say that they’re drawing names, he pushes himself forward and shouts without thinking, “I’ll go!”

He walks forward and people stare, although his classmates’ eyes are shining with admiration. (His parents’ are filled with fear.) The escort stares at him for a moment.

“All right then, we have our male tribute!” he says. “And your name, sir?”

“Cato,” he replies, panting a little from senseless exhilaration.

“Cato, everyone!” the escort shouts, holding Cato’s right hand up in the air. This time everyone in District Two cheers, and Cato can see Clove’s eyes gleaming at him.

“And the girls?” says the escort. “Any volunteers?” He’s not joking, Cato knows.

A hand shoots up. “I’ll go,” says a voice, and then Clove’s walking up on stage. She’s grinning at him.

*

“Good to see you again,” she says when they’re on the train to the Capitol.

“Can’t wait for you to kill me,” he says, and from the corner of his eye, he sees her smirk.

*

They live and sleep on the same level. Cato pretends that he’s used to this. He’s not all that impressed by it, to be honest.

When they stand next to each other in their Roman god outfits, Cato feels her small hand brush against his and thinks of the way her hand wraps around a knife. How it might wrap around his.

At the training center, he and Clove send each other secret glances without saying anything: they don’t want the other tributes to know that they’re close. His chest is warm when he sees that they’ve both gotten tens on their private session.

“Show them your knife throwing?” he asks her.

“Show them your badassery?” she says back.

“Since when did you think I was a badass?” he asks, teasing.

She snorts and rolls off the couch. “I don’t. I think you’re a pussy,” she says, but then leans over and kisses him on the cheek. She disappears to her room a second later.

Cato sits there, presses a hand to his cheek. Her lips had felt like blades of metal, sliding against his skin.

*

One night, he takes her and fucks her afterward.

It feels like red and silver and heat.

They don’t speak of it after. Ever. Cato thinks she might want to kill him even more now.

He wants it.

*

The Games start, and Cato’s head is full of win, win, must win. He kills four tributes at the bloodbath, and meet up with the other Careers by the forest.

“I got one. But that little District Twelve girl got away,” Clove snarls to him as they linger at the lead of the pack, and Cato is determined to get her, the District Twelve girl.

The District One girl, Glimmer, comes up to him later and they talk. Mostly about strategy and how they’re going to get rid of the other tributes.

“We can draw numbers,” Glimmer suggests. “And in the order that we pick them, we kill them.”

Cato grins at her. “I like the way you think,” he says.

Glimmer is sexy and light, but Cato thinks that he might prefer something darker. He remembers the heat from a few nights ago and thinks, win, win, must win again.

They run into the District Twelve boy, and Cato’s hands are around his neck within moments ready to snap when the boy chokes out, “I-I can get you to Katniss.” The District Twelve girl. Clove tugs at his sleeve and whispers, “Cato,” and Cato lets him go, says, “You better, or else you’re useless to us.”

The boy stumbles along with them and Clove looks like she wants to start talking to Cato, again; but then Glimmer is by his side and saying, “We can kill them together. It’ll be so romantic.” A grin dances on her face.

Cato grins back. “The perfect lovers,” he says, and Glimmer giggles and touches his arm.

*

Win, win, must win.

*

Win, win, must win.

Cato looks for tributes to kill, cracks his finger knuckles in anxiety. Sometimes he gets the urge to tell the others not to kill anyone, because he wants to do it. It’s what he’s made to do.

Life isn’t anything precious, and people die all the time. That’s what they’re made to do.

Glimmer has the same mentality, he finds, as they continue to trek through the forest that day. Clove is all bloodlust and heartless murder; but Glimmer understands, that if we don’t kill them first, then they’ll kill us.

“Are you fucking in love with Glimmer or something?” Clove says at dawn, after the first evening. It feels like it’s been a week already.

They’re walking through the forest in the dark. The District Twelve boy had just gone back to finish off the District Eight girl, whom Cato had nearly killed with his stored. Clove and Cato are at the front of the Careers pack, while the rest fall tired behind them.

Cato glares at her, can almost see her dark eyes glaring back. “What the hell are you talking about?” he says.

“You’ve been spending a crazy amount of time with that District One girl,” Clove spits.

“Yeah? And?”

“You’re fucking her or something?” says Clove.

Cato rolls his eyes. “What gives you that idea?”

“Well, I don’t know,” says Clove sardonically. “Maybe the way you guys keep making moony faces at each other and are like, ‘let’s go kill that guy together!’ ‘Yeah, and that guy!’ ‘And then after that we can ride off into the sunset and have sex!'”

“What—” Cato splutters. “Clove, this is a Hunger Game.”

“Yeah, and you’re getting a little too friendly with a tribute,” says Clove. “Remember, you’re gonna have to kill her at some point.”

“And I’m gonna have to kill you,” says Cato.

Clove’s face goes hard then, and she shoulders her bag. “We’ll see,” she says, and her voice is cold.

She pushes her way past him and doesn’t speak to him for the rest of the morning.

*

They find the District Twelve girl, who, unluckily, is hiding in a tree. The District Twelve girl is even more of a problem when she drops a trackerjacker hive on them during the night, and Cato gets horrible welts on his knee.

“I’m going to fucking kill her the next time I see her,” he growls.

Clove is tending to his knee. Cato thinks that she might look a bit too happy, considering Glimmer had died because of the trackerjacker attack. Clove still hasn’t talked to him yet, but she’s smiling.

Cato doesn’t know why.

“Fucking—Katniss Everpeach or whatever her name was,” says Cato, and Clove throws her head back and laughs, falls onto the grass.

“Okay, okay, she’s your kill,” she says while the rest of them give them wary looks.

*

Win, win, must win. 

Cato and the Careers put their supplies back at the cornucopia. Cato thinks it’s a sure-fire way for them to have an advantage over the others.

Win, win, must win.

But, of course, that District Twelve girl has to interfere with everything and fuck it all up.

Win, win, must win.

“This is what we’re gonna do—” growls Cato as the District Three boy’s body falls out of his hands.

Clove puts a hand on his shoulder before he can speak further. “Cato, use your common sense,” she says. Her voice is oddly soft. “If someone destroyed our supplies, then they must’ve died.”

“Yeah,” says Marvel. “We’ll wait till night, when they show who’s died.”

Cato growls, almost wants to kill Marvel, too. Just for Marvel’s sheer stupidity, and the desire to have someone to kill. He refrains, though.

“Okay,” he says, and then the wait.

At night, no tribute’s name is shown.

“Fuck,” Clove whispers next to him in the dark.

Win, win, must win, Cato thinks.

*

Marvel dies, which is one less weight for him and Clove. Cato wonders when he’ll start thinking of Clove as a weight.

The Gamemakers announce a Feast sometime later, after Cato and Clove have spent days and nights adjusting to each other again. They fuck once or twice, and it feels the same. Cato doesn’t want to forget the feeling after the Game. He wonders if he’ll forget Clove after the Game.

“Do we need anything?” says Clove, and Cato says, “It’s better to be prepared, isn’t it?”

Clove snorts. “Yeah, with you around, I think I’m always prepared.”

“Should I be flattered?” says Cato.

Clove laughs. “You shouldn’t be flattered by anything I say,” she says, but there’s a twinkle in her eye.

They decide that Clove will go to the Feast, and Cato will scope out for more tributes, killing anyone who’ll be in the way. Cato cracks his fingers and knuckles, aching to kill. He understands how Clove feels, now.

*

Cato!

Clove!

*

He hears her too late. He gets to the cornucopia too late.

“Stay with me,” he begs. “Don’t—Clove—stay with me—”

He can only see a body and blood. But he can’t see her. Clove isn’t supposed to die. People are made to die. But Clove isn’t.

“Fuck,” says Cato, over and over again. “Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.”

He doesn’t know why he’s angry. Why he’s saying this. Why he’s doing this.

Win, win, must win, says his mind.

“Clove,” he says to her body.

*

Before he dies, the last thing he sees are eyes.

The eyes from one of the muttations, sharp and dark. Small and quick.

He falls into painlessness. He knows that those eyes were hers.