Cato is only four years old when they send him off to the training center for the first time; his toddler fingers can barely grasp the lightest of swords, his stature is much too small for his combat to be any good, and his lack of focus makes it impossible for him to learn strategy. But the trainers keep him nonetheless: force weapons into his tiny hands, punch and kick him until he screams and cries, ingrain into his young and impressionable mind to be violent and watch out for nobody but himself.

And, after a few months, it's all fine with Cato. He starts to get good, really good, to the point where he can throw a small knife into a bullseye from ten feet away and pin even the most talented seven-year olds to the ground. It's an adrenaline rush, really; a huge adrenaline rush that sends sparks through all his veins and makes his skin burn with excitement. His parents are proud of him, his trainers adore him, his classmates all envy him; everything is good, and he is soon known as Little Cato, the five-year old prodigy.

But it doesn't take long for him to become Big Cato, turn ten feet into twenty feet, go from seven-year olds to twelve-year olds. When he turns eight, he leaves his family behind and begins boarding at the center, learning new skills 24/7 and dropping out of normal school completely. His family doesn't miss him at all—hell, they're glad he's gone, glad he's decided to devote his life to such an honorable path as the Games, glad they don't have to pay for him anymore. Not that Cato minds. He doesn't give one damn about whether his family cares he's gone. Cato doesn't give one damn about most things anymore.

And by the time he's turned thirteen, Cato is completely numb. He doesn't know exactly when or how it happened, but he's stopped feeling anything; he's never sad, never happy, never sympathetic, never remorseful, even when he unintentionally breaks classmates' limbs during combat practice. Sometimes he gets angry, especially when he loses a fight, but that's about it. His emotional range is a scale from neutral to pissed off.

So when he first meets Clove Overwhill, he doesn't feel anything special, beyond thinking that she's kind of super hot. They've both just been transferred into the teenage group, and word on the street is that they're the top two contenders in their age category, so naturally the trainers partner them up for one-on-one combat on the first day.

For a few seconds, they stand on the blue foam mat, motionless and a yard or two part, Cato flashing the same confident smirk he always uses to intimidate opponents; Clove staring blankly back, studying him with bright blue-green eyes. Cato is just starting to say hi when suddenly he's on the ground, his arms pinned by each side of his head and Clove's face less than an inch away from his, close enough that he can see flecks of brown in those blue-green irises. Finally, Clove is smirking back at him, her expression taunting him, begging him to prove that he's better than she is.

Cato accepts the challenge.

Within a matter of moments, everything around them has become a blur of kicks and punches and fists and blood and dodging and lunging and grasping and gasping; the only colors are red and orange and the pale pink of Clove's skin and the blue-green-brown irises of her eyes. They become one entity, moving and fighting and breathing together, and it's the most exhilarating thing Cato's ever done, because when he jumps up, Clove ducks down; when he darts to the left, Clove is already there; when he takes a swing, Clove is fully prepared and out of his strike zone within milliseconds. All together, the whole thing lasts about thirty seconds, but it seems so much longer that when it's over and he's flat on the ground with Clove's knees in his back, he's too disoriented to respond when she says, "That was boring."

Cato comes to the conclusion that those words were probably a lie, because every day afterward, Clove continues to pair up with him even when she can choose somebody else.

Each of their fights is just as intense as the last, each with an equal amount of pushing and pulling and giving and taking. There is no consistent, obvious victor; Cato wins some, Clove wins some, sometimes they battle until one of the trainers has to pry them apart. Cato finds himself going to bed with more and more bruises and scratches and scars every night, but he also finds himself unconcerned; the wounds will heal fast enough, and he's only getting stronger anyway.

His and Clove's fighting is not only physical however; every training session also consists of the two of them flinging insults at each other, trying to outwit each other with sarcastic comments. Clove always wins in this area; she's far more clever and funny than he is. But what Cato lacks in intelligence, he makes up for in oblivious self-confidence, and Clove's remarks bounce easily off him; Clove, however, will sometimes refuse to speak to Cato for days on end when one of his insults cuts a little too deep, is just a little too personal.

Cato tries not to do that, tries to avoid making comments about her appearance or about her failure to attract any attention from boys their age; these are the ones that seem to hit her hardest. But sometimes he can't help it, gets too caught up in the moment, and besides, since when did he even have to care about her feelings?

But Cato can't help but notice that Clove eats lunch alone every day, avoids befriending any of the other girls (or boys). Cato doesn't get that, doesn't understand her avoidance of any sort of social interaction. Maybe she's worried that she'll become too vulnerable, too attached, but Cato is friends with at least twenty of his classmates and would still kill each of them within ten seconds if circumstances called for it.

Maybe, Cato decides, some people just prefer to be alone.

It's two months before he turns fifteen that Cato gets his first official girlfriend, a cute little redhead named Idrena. She isn't as pretty as Clove, but she's sweeter and bubblier and all his friends like her, so it makes sense. And it's not as though Clove has ever showed any interest in him anyway. Not that he'd want her to, of course.

So because of how much teenagers gossip about each other, the news of Cato's new relationship has reached every pair of ears in the school within thirty minutes. Except Clove's, Cato figures. Clove doesn't talk to anybody, so Cato plans to tell her the next day.

But he never gets the chance, because that night, not long before their scheduled bedtime, there is a furious knocking on his door, and when he opens it, in comes a furious Clove.

Before he can say anything, or even react properly, Clove has pushed him against the wall, grabbed the back of his neck, and smashed their faces together.

It takes several moments for Cato to realize that she is kissing him.

All at once, at least a thousand different emotions fill him; he is hot and then he is cold, he is on fire and then he is drowning in ice water, he is floating and then he is falling.

And he is just about to grab her, kiss her back, when she releases him, shoves him hard in to the wall. His head bumps against the cool wood and he falls to the ground; he still can't talk, isn't sure what he'd even say.

He looks up into her blue-green-brown eyes, trying to figure out what exactly is going through her head right now. Although her expression is as cold and unmoving as stone, her eyes are bright, twinkling with passion. It makes him smile a little.

"That was boring" is the last thing she says before leaving his room, slamming the door behind her.

Their relationship doesn't change too much after that—there is no cuddling, no sappy exchange of compliments, no dramatic declaration of love. Just Cato and Clove, the same as they always are, fighting each other day after day and night after night, learning each other, moving as one, doing what they've been doing for two years.

But it's not as though things are the exact same. Because Cato broke things off with Idrena that same night that Clove visited him, there is now a mutual understanding that they have drifted away from simply being combat partners or friends to something much more, something much different, something that neither of them really wants to talk about, think about, deal with.

They begin to spend more time together, outside of class, arguing over who's the best trainer, talking combat strategies, laughing at their less-gifted classmates. Cato learns more and more about Clove: who her family is, what kind of music she likes, the people she finds obnoxious (quite a large group), the things that make her angry—a bunch of things that Cato frankly wouldn't give a damn about if they were in regard to anybody besides Clove. And Cato tells Clove all the same things as they apply to himself, and he finds that they are alike in more ways than just being good at combat, and if Cato hadn't already been convinced that love is an unhealthy and unrealistic thing, he might even think that they're soulmates or something, two halves to one whole.

For the most part, no intimate physical contact occurs, beyond what takes place during their fistfights. Cato tries to make it occur, of course, but whenever he takes Clove's hand or puts his arm around her, Clove will have none of it. However, on rare occasions—on the few nights when Clove misses her family, or worries that she won't be good enough to make it through the Games, or cries because she doesn't think she's pretty—Clove will allow Cato to hold her, so long as she is the one to initiate it.

There are no more kisses beyond that very first one, and this at first annoys and perplexes Cato and his fifteen-year old hormones, but eventually Cato comes to the realization that the only reason Clove even kissed him once is that she needed to get a message across to him that at the time could not simply be spoken.

Cato is truly content with all of this, all of the time he spends with this quirky girl named Clove Overwhill. After a while, he starts to think that maybe, maybe he isn't quite as numb as before, and maybe he is starting to feel a little happiness.

The first time that Cato and Clove become completely and truly intimate with each other is rough and painful and Cato is completely unprepared, doesn't know how they go from not even kissing to doing this.

They had stayed late at the center that night, opting to continue practice instead of going back to their dorms. Cato wasn't sure how or why—maybe it was because they were both creeping closer to adulthood, maybe it was because they were starting to finally realize how little time was left for them to live before the Games started (less than a year now), Cato didn't know for sure—but somehow they had ended up in Clove's room, unclothed and just wanting each other.

They fuck just like they fight: it's raw and fiery and passionate, fueled by something almost animalistic, and God damn it hurts, and there's excessive amounts of biting and kicking and hitting, and the same pushing and pulling and giving and taking that they always do with each other.

By the time it's over, and Cato is more bruised and scratched and scarred than he's ever been before, not much has changed. They are still Cato and Clove, stumbling and falling and fighting and hurting and learning each other, moving as one, doing what they've been doing for four years.

And the only thing Clove says afterward is "That was boring," and Cato wishes that he didn't find her so perfect and amazing in every way, because it's starting to make him feel things that he can't feel if he wants to survive, wants to win the Games.

If he wants to win the Games, he has to be willing to kill this girl, this girl named Clove Overwhill.

Cato tries not to think about that right now.

It's three weeks before the reaping when Cato's older brother Niko dies and Cato has a reason to visit his family for the first time in almost ten years.

Everything in his old home is exactly the way he left it: same waxed marble floors in the entryway, same thousand-dollar portraits adorning the walls, same oversized gas fireplace heating the living room, same parents with disinterested expressions and poor attempts to act like they care about his life beyond how his preparation for the Games is going.

And the conversation about his preparation for the Games is brief, ten minutes at maximum, giving Cato just enough time to tell them about all training-related topics—how many kids are in his class, who his trainers are, what he's good at, what he's great at. He doesn't tell them about his favorite foods, his favorite books, his friends, his life beyond violence and fighting. Doesn't tell them about his closest friend, doesn't tell them about Clove.

And they don't ask, so Cato moves on with his life. And everything at home is the exact same.

At Niko's memorial service the next day, there's lots of flowers and a big casket and people in black sobbing and a middle-aged resider with a moustache bigger than his face trying to calm everything down. Cato, his parents, and his fourteen-year old sister Enaya have the best seats in the building, right up front next to Niko's dead body, and Cato wishes that things would get going faster, because the perfume they sprayed Niko with is starting to stink and Cato wants to get out of there before it develops into a full-on stench.

Maybe he's being insensitive, but that's what he's been conditioned to do anyway, been conditioned not to care about anyone's death, whether it be a stranger or a brother. And his parents, sporting those same bored expressions, seem less torn up than Cato about this, are only concerned with whether the most important guests showed up.

Cato can tell by his sister's scrunched up face, however, that it's taking everything she has not to fall apart and burst into tears right there. This doesn't surprise Cato; Enaya has always had a soft, sensitive heart. He remembers playing outside when they were much younger, maybe three and five years old, and Enaya would always go out of her way to avoid stepping on ants, would always comfort distraught young neighbors who had scraped their knees or scuffed their elbows, would always refuse to play any game that seemed remotely violent.

It's a good thing for Enaya that their parents selected him as the child to send into training for the Games, Cato thinks. Somebody like Enaya wouldn't have lasted two days.

Once the service is over, and most attendants have finished giving their condolences, and people are finally shuffling out the front door, Cato escapes into the empty back kitchen, sick and tired of hearing people tell him how sorry they are for his loss, when Cato doesn't understand what that means, doesn't feel like he's lost anything.

But he hasn't had thirty seconds to himself when Enaya lets herself into his safe haven, obviously having followed him back here. She grins sadly at him, comes over and leans against his side, tells him that she's missed him all these years.

Cato shrugs her away, uncomfortable with the loving gesture. She seems unfazed by this, but when he never replies to her, never says that he's missed her too, she starts to seem a little confused, a little upset.

But Cato has no intentions of saying that he's missed her too, because he hasn't, something he's just now realizing. At some point within his training, probably in the first few years, Cato was taught to depend on nobody, not even family, and obviously he's taken that lesson to heart.

He truly hasn't missed Enaya, and that's how it is.

To fill the growing silence, Enaya says to him that Niko's death is awful, isn't it?

Cato shrugs and says that he guesses so.

But if he was to be completely honest, he would say that no, it isn't awful, and she needs to get over it.

Enaya looks slightly taken aback by his response and says that you guess so? How can you say that? Cato, our brother is dead. Dead.

Cato says that he knows that, he just doesn't really care.

Finally, now he's being honest.

Gaping at him, Enaya stumbles back a little. How can he say that, she asks him.

Cato gives a snort in reply, saying that what did she expect? He adds that he's been training to kill people for the last fifteen years; death just doesn't bother him anymore.

Enaya looks near tears now, says that she knew all that, but hoped he would never become like this.

All Cato gives as a response is oh well, not everything will turn out how she wants it to.

Staring at him with watery eyes, with complete disbelief, Enaya shakes her head and turns around, storms out the door, taking her blonde hair and expensive funeral dress with her. And, as he watches her leave, Cato finds that he cannot bring himself to feel sorry.

When he arrives back at the training center a few days later, Clove does not ask him how things went with his family, probably doesn't even give a damn. Cato realizes for the first time that he loves this about her, loves how self-involved she can be, loves that she isn't asking him a bunch of prodding questions that he doesn't want to answer.

Things go back to exactly how they were before Cato went to his family; he trains and he fights and he fucks Clove and he does all he needs to in preparation for the Seventy-fourth Hunger Games.

Except now he knows just how numb he has truly become.

Early in the morning on the day of the District 2 reaping, all of the seventeen-year old students are gathered in the training center. Today, they will find out who's been selected to volunteer.

Cato has no doubts that the volunteers this year will be he and Clove; he is proven correct, and soon he is being shoved into an expensive black suit, combed and bathed and made up, fussed over and bossed around by several of his female trainers.

When they are finally content with his appearance, convinced he looks as perfect as possible, Cato is sent off into the town square, ushered into the area where every child throughout the whole of District 2 has been gathered, despite how everyone knows that the tributes for this year have already been decided.

After everyone has settled down and the Peacemakers have taken their places throughout the plaza, Lusie, the District 2 escort with purple hair, purple eyes, and a purple dress, steps into the center of the expansive stage that stretches all the way across the square. She gives the same little speech about district honor that she gives every year, shows the same little video about the Games' purpose that she shows every year, draws a female name out of the same little bowl that she draws names from every year.

And before the girl with the selected name has even stepped forward, Clove has appeared out of the crowd, has volunteered, has confidently strode up to the stage looking more beautiful than Cato has ever seen her. Her dress is absolutely stunning, and Cato wonders how difficult it was for the trainers to get her into it. Clove is usually not the kind of girl to wear dresses, and she is also very strong-willed.

Then Lusie draws a male name from the bowl, somebody that Cato doesn't recognize, and Cato steps forward out of the crowd, volunteers, and joins Clove up on the stage.

As Lusie commends them for their bravery and patriotism, and the crowd bursts into deafening cheers, he and Clove look at each other and smile.

Because this, this applause and praise and glory, is what they've been working so hard for all these years. Everything they've ever wanted, almost.

The next couple of days consist of going on a long train ride to the Capitol, eating a lot of nice food, and smiling and waving at all the crowds he passes by, making sure that all of Panem adores him. Cato likes this, likes all the cameras and reporters and attention.

He also meets District 2's mentors, Brutus and Enobaria. Brutus seems to be a bit of a dumbass—okay, he's a huge dumbass-but he has a vast amount of knowledge when it comes to sword-fighting, combat, and anything involving violence and brutality. Enobaria is smarter, knows a lot more about survival skills and actual strategy, though she's just as vicious as Brutus, and she seems so much like an older version of Clove that Cato can't help but like her.

Whenever they can, he and Clove spend time alone together, talking about how they plan to stay alive in the arena, laughing at the stupid things that Brutus says, whispering late at night about what they expect from the other tributes. They insult each other and push each other around and joke with each other just like they always did back in District 2, and their relationship has not changed, except Clove seems happier and is smiling a lot more, and Cato is also smiling a lot more because he's smiling back.

Brutus and Enobaria reiterate several times that they've heard only fantastic things from the trainers and are absolutely positive that Clove and Cato were be the last two contenders this year. This pleases Cato, and he doesn't let himself think about how it also means that, in a matter of weeks, he may have to kill the girl he has come to like so much, the girl named Clove Overwhill.

Once they've arrived at the Capitol and settled into their rooms on the second floor of the tribute housing center, Cato is sent off to his prep team, a group consisting of three girly girls who Clove would absolutely abhor and a guy who seems really gay. They spend several hours scrubbing and polishing and beautifying Cato, and by the time they're done, Cato is convinced that he'll be the best-looking guy in the tribute parade tonight, and when he sees Clove, he's convinced that she'll be the best-looking girl.

Unfortunately, the District 12 tributes, who come out wearing costumes that are literally on fire, attract the most attention, and Cato and Clove are quickly forgotten. This annoys Cato, but he calms himself down with the thought that they can steal back the spotlight with their interviews tomorrow.

At the training sessions with the other tributes, it becomes very clear that Cato and Clove truly are the only relatively skilled kids here, with the exception of the Distrct 1 tributes and various others, but even these exceptions are not as talented as he and Clove are.

Following the advice of Brutus and Enobaria, Cato befriends Glimmer and Marvel, the tributes from District 1, who are exceptionally talented with arrows and spears, respectively. Cato decides that they'll be useful allies and gets onto good terms with them. Clove, however, keeps her distance from everybody, and Cato is not surprised by this; by now, he understands that Clove is the kind of person who prefers to be alone.

With his sword-fighting and combat skills, Cato wows the gamemakers, earns himself a ten in lethality. The girl from District 12 gets an even higher score, however—an eleven, and this irks him to a great extent. But he doesn't let it get to him; he knows he's going to end up beating her anyway.

The night of the interviews, Cato's prep team has him wearing a blue suit, has his blonde hair slicked back, has him so made up that he's literally glowing, and he thinks he looks pretty damn good, unlike Marvel, who's wearing a ridiculous suit that can only be described as clown-like. As he and the other tributes wait in line for Caesar Flickerman to start calling them onto stage one by one, Cato chats with Glimmer, who looks just as ridiculous as Marvel in a dress that shows far more skin than should be allowed.

When the interviews have started, and Glimmer is on stage showing her bare legs to the whole of Panem, Clove sighs and says that Glimmer is really beautiful.

Cato just laughs dryly and says that Glimmer doesn't look beautiful, she looks like a whore.

Clove ignores him, says that she wishes she was that pretty.

Cato turns back to Clove, not sure what she's talking about. Clove, with her dark brown hair and red dress and freckles, is the prettiest girl here, in Cato's opinion, and he tells her so.

But Clove shakes her head, says that he doesn't have to lie to her.

Obviously his message is not getting across, so he grabs her shoulders, yanks her toward him, stares down into her blue-green-brown eyes. He demands that she stop saying those things, stop calling herself ugly, stop feeling sorry for herself. He tells her that she's beautiful and that she needs to start seeing that, and that if anybody ever tries to tell her otherwise, they are dead wrong.

And then he goes onto stage, nails his interview, and later that night, for the first time in almost five years, Clove really kisses him, no fucking or fighting or animalistic passion involved. She just kisses him, softly and with a gentleness Cato was unaware she was capable of having.

And Cato hates himself for liking it, hates himself for liking her, hates himself for liking somebody so much while knowing that he may very well end up having to kill that somebody.

It's the morning of the Games, and Cato, Clove, Lusia, and the mentors are sitting at the huge stainless steel table in their apartment, eating a large and nutrient-rich breakfast, when Brutus turns to Cato and says that he's talked to the District 1 mentors, and they think it would be a great idea for Cato and Glimmer to, well, hook up during the Games.

Cato chokes a little on his food.

Enobaria says it's because the people at the Capitol seem to love a star-crossed lovers act, and she and Brutus want to do everything they can to help Cato get sponsors.

Clove, obviously irritated, asks why she can't be the one playing Cato's star-crossed lover.

Cato wants to ask the same thing.

Enobaria shrugs, says that it's because District 12 has already done it with a boy and a girl from the same district, so they want to mix it up. But the way she looks at Clove says something else, says that it's because Clove just isn't as likeable as Glimmer and Cato are.

Clove excuses herself from breakfast, and Cato wants to follow her back to her room, make sure she's all right, but Brutus launches into some speech about how he won his Games thirty years ago, and Cato has no way to escape.

His first day in the Games reminds Cato of why he's spent his whole life trying to get here, because he hits people and stabs people and hurts people and kills people, and it's just about the most fun he's ever had, and it makes him feel really fucking good, and by the end of the day his veins are pumping with more adrenaline than they ever have before. He doesn't get a chance to murder the girl from District 12 who scored an eleven, which is disappointing, but there's always tomorrow.

That evening, as he sleeps, he holds Glimmer, per the mentors' request that they behave as though they're star-crossed lovers, as though they're absolutely infatuated with each other. Cato has a hard time not wishing it was Clove lying next to him, but he knows that even if the mentors hadn't commanded that he start something with Glimmer, Clove wouldn't want to snuggle with him anyway. She's more comfortable just sleeping alone with nothing but her collection of knives, and, for whatever reason, Cato finds that endearing.

And he starts to wonder if maybe Glimmer doesn't want this either, because through the entire first night, he can feel Marvel watching, can feel Marvel's eyes burning holes into him. And now that he thinks about it, sometimes Marvel and Glimmer look at each other in a way that people who were just allies or just friends would not. He starts to think that maybe Glimmer isn't quite the slutwhore he thought she was, and maybe she has a star-crossed lover of her own.

But he never really finds out Glimmer's story, because the next morning she gets killed when that annoying girl from District 12 sends a hoard of Tracker Jackers into their camp. Cato finds himself barely perturbed; if anything, he's glad—one less person standing between him and victory.

Victory. He almost shudders a little, because victory means killing Clove, and he doesn't want to think about that right now.

The next few days are simply a huge blur, filled with adrenaline rushes and violence and killings and fights and Clove. Getting water is easy; finding food is a barely difficult task. Marvel gets himself killed in a face-off with District 12 girl; the redhead girl from District 5 steals a bunch of their supplies; the boy from District 3 sets up a system of landmines to protect Cato's camp but it fails and Cato kills him for it. It's all action and exhilaration and Cato loves every minute of it, except for the moments when he is reminded that he can't keep Clove alive forever.

But on the fourth or fifth night, everything changes.

Cato and Clove are in camp when it happens. Clove is busy sharpening some weapon and Cato is tossing rocks at the fire when a voice comes into the loudspeaker, tells the entire arena that there's a rule change: two tributes can win, so long as they're from the same district.

Cato slowly turns to look at Clove, who slowly turns to look at him, and their eyes meet, hazel and blue-green-brown. There is no running into each other's arms, no kissing and caressing, no dramatic confessions of love. But Clove smiles at him a little, and it tells him everything that he needs to know.

They're going to win this, it tells him. They're going to win this together and get out of here together and go on with their lives together.

It tells him that she loves him, probably has loved him for a long time, and Cato smiles back, tells her the same thing.

Their relationship doesn't change. They are still just Cato and Clove, fighting and hitting and pulling and pushing and giving and taking and killing and loving, and it's exactly how they've been since that every first day in the training center, when Clove pinned Cato down before he could even say hello.

Cato thinks about how most of their communication has never been spoken but rather done through expressions, through actions.

It's almost like, this entire time, they've each been holding up cue cards that let the other person know exactly how they're feeling, except there were no cue cards involved.

And that night, Cato is the least numb he's ever been in his whole life, despite that he's spent the last week killing and murdering. Because tonight, he is happy and he is in love and he can allow himself to be in love, because he knows that he won't have to kill this girl, won't have to kill Clove Overwhill.

But only a few days later, somebody else kills her for him.

He's in the forest, looking for food, when he first hears Clove calling his name. At first, he assumes that she's found something good and wants to show it to him, so he makes his way to her without any sort of hurry. But when he hears her calling again, he realizes that she isn't as calm as he thought she was. No, she isn't calm at all—she's desperate and panicked and very clearly scared—something Clove never is—and so he starts running, shoves his way through the trees and bushes, trips over branches but never stops.

By the time he arrives at the outskirts of the center of the arena, near the cornucopia, the tall boy from District 9 (or District 11, Cato can't remember and doesn't really care) is pounding a rock into Clove's head, and Cato's world is falling apart. Before Cato can reach him, the boy runs off, and Clove's body falls to the ground, looking pathetic and lifeless.

Cato runs over and kneels beside her, but it's obvious from her vacant expression that she's gone, beyond any hope of saving. Cato grabs her anyway, shakes her and shakes her and shakes her and begs her to stay with him.

Because Cato needs Clove, because Clove is his second half.

Where Cato is loud and obnoxious, Clove is quiet and calculating. Where Cato is brutal and a bit thick at times, Clove is witty and sarcastic and cunning. Where Cato is confident and self-absorbed, Clove is insecure and self-loathing. But they like the same music and like the same food and like the same trainers and like the same movies and like the same colors.

And when they are together, they become one entity, fighting and fucking and giving and taking and pushing and pulling and holding and kissing and feeling and loving.

Without Clove, Cato is nothing, and for the first time since he was five years old, Cato begins to question the point of the Hunger Games, why all these people, beautiful people like Clove, have to die.

Sobs start coming, and Cato grabs her and holds her tight against him, knows that she's left him by now. As he cries, he can almost hear her whispering what he knows would be her last words:

"That was boring."

In less than twenty-four hours, Cato has searched through that entire fucking field of tall grass, has found the boy who killed Clove, has hit him hard enough in the head to make him collapse but not hard enough to kill him. Cato intends to make this boy's death a much longer, much more painful process.

Cato pounds his head into the ground, hits him again and again again. Hits him once for Clove's blue-green-brown eyes. Hits him once for her freckles and her hair. Hits him once for her teeny little smile and how it would light up her whole face.

Hits him once for her dry sense of humor. Hits him once for the way her mouth fit onto Cato's. Hits him once for the way her fingers would tangle into Cato's hair and never let go. Hits him five times for everything that she and Cato will never be able to do: win the Games together, live somewhere besides the training center, get married, have children, never send those children into the Hunger Games. Because the Hunger Games is hell, Cato has decided.

By the time Cato is finished, the boy's face is bloody and misshapen and doesn't even look like the same person it was five minutes ago. And the boy is very clearly dead. Just like Clove.

A few days later, those bitchy gamemakers decide to send a pack of freakish mutant dogs into the arena, and Cato has to run his ass off to save himself, to get to the cornucopia. Unfortunately, once he's safely on top of the structure, away from the dogs, the District 12 tributes copy him and follow him up.

Soon, he is fighting the District 12 boy, trying to get him off the cornucopia so Cato can finally just win and this can all be over. He's almost pushed the smaller boy off when, suddenly, he notices the eyes of one of the dogs, the small one with dark brown fur.

The irises are a bright blue-green-brown color, and Cato knows exactly whose eyes they are.

Distracted, he stumbles backward, releases the District 12 boy for just a little too long. When he finally regains his composure, he grabs the boy, puts him in a headlock, but now it's too late: Cato is too close to the edge, can't move, and the District 12 girl has had time to grab an arrow and string it.

Cato laughs a little, unsure of what else to do, because he's completely fucked now.

Go on, he says to the girl, shoot me and we both go down and you win.

When the girl doesn't reply, he says it again, tells her to go on and shoot him because he's dead anyway.

And as he's saying these things, he realizes that he's always been dead. The second he was placed into that training center at five years old, he was dead, sentenced into this stupid death trap called the Hunger Games, and there was nothing he could do about it now.

He turns to the cameras, yells to his parents, asks them if this is what they've wanted all along. Wanted him to play in these Games, wanted him to raise their family status, wanted him to do what the district considered to be honorable, wanted him to die here, for the sake of his country.

Cato realizes that he's spent almost his entire life being a murder machine, completely numb to the all the death and pain he was causing. Clove almost changed him, almost made him into a human being, somebody with emotions, but she didn't do it soon enough. All he knows how to do, really, is kill.

He realizes all of this on top of the cornucopia as he prepares for his own death. When the District 12 girl's arrow hits his hand, he releases the District 12 boy, falls backward, tumbles toward the ground, is thrown into a pile of vicious dogs who tear at his skin and his flesh and his bones. This is what he gets, he decides, for all the pain and suffering he himself caused, for all the people he killed.

He doesn't die as quickly as he expects he would, and it doesn't take long for the pain to become unbearable. He realizes that the body armor he's wearing is preventing him from just fucking dying already, so he looks up to the District 12 girl, calls out please, hopes she grants his dying wish which, ironically, is to just die.

She does, and the arrow hits his neck, and he's dead in two seconds.

Cato doesn't believe in heaven or God or anything like that, but he believes in one thing—he believes in Clove, and he hopes that his eternity will consist of forever lying in her arms.