Chapter Text
Clove is ten years old when her parents take her to the Training Centre for the first time.
They drop her off at the entrance and leave without a word, but Clove is not surprised. Conversations with her parents are often glazed with the bitter resentment of rejection. Of the twenty or so recruits per year who dedicate their lives to Victory, only two are chosen to volunteer. Of those, maybe one in every three Games will win. Her parents had not been a part of either percentage, despite their best efforts.
Clove had learned from a very early age that bitterness made for excellent fuel. She saw it in the way her father would poke and prod at Cal’s back, harping on him for his sword-holding posture and insisting he bend his arm one way, not the other. She felt it in the way her mother’s manicured hands dug into their shoulders as she veered her children away from the town square, conveniently upon making eye contact with Vera Masson, who had won the year their mother turned eighteen.
(Clove remembers, once, seeing a faded photograph of her mother in teenhood, arms linked with a young Vera, wearing matching braids and twin smiles on their faces. It had been buried deep inside a box in their cellar, tinged brown with dust and torn sharply at the edges, as though someone had tried—weakly—to rip it to shreds.)
Clove wishes bitterness would wash over her now, as she looks up at the looming Training Centre with a swirl of foreboding deep in her stomach. Bitterness would mean bravery. Bitterness would mean strength. Instead, she feels impossibly small, surrounded by noise: muffled shouts passing through open windows, the shuffle of people walking around her, the occasional hum of a car’s engine, the even rarer honk of its horn. Overwhelmed, overstimulated, Clove is rooted to the spot.
Cal suddenly appears at the doorway, snapping her from her thoughts as his hazel eyes search the street for her darker ones. The sight of her brother causes immediate, painful relief. Her legs, having finally regained feeling, draw her closer to him. A grin splits his freckled face as he walks outside to pull her into the Centre, his large hand warm against her shoulder. Clove swallows and tries to bring herself up to her full height; her eyes warily take in the crowd of recruits around her.
“Took you long enough,” Cal says teasingly, guiding her through the crowded hallways of the Training Centre.
“Mother insisted on doing my hair,” she explains, tugging irritably at a braided pigtail. She’d sat for hours while her mother poked and prodded painfully at her hair; the soreness invoked by the memory causes a swift surge of that well-craved bitterness, enough to momentarily ease her anxiety. Her brother chuckles, free hand coming up to ruffle the top of her head. She ducks away before he can cause any damage.
“It looks great, Clover.”
“Yeah, whatever,” she grumbles, pouting at the nickname. “I look five years old.”
“It’s cute,” Cal says. “You finally look your age. Less like a bitter old crone.”
Clove scoffs and opens her mouth to retort, when Cal squeezes her shoulder and pushes open a large door. Clove’s mouth shuts swiftly, unspoken words forgotten. The gymnasium is huge, split neatly by mats and mannequins, every section bracketed by shelves upon shelves of gleaming weapons. More recruits than Clove can count are already sparring with their partners, despite the early hour, supervised by a handful of trainers in black and red uniforms who all look large and intimidating.
Clove feels the sliver of fear reappear, uncurling in her stomach.
At the front of the gym, surveying, is a woman dressed in a trainer’s uniform, with the addition of a silver and red armband tied around her bicep. The woman starts when she sees them. Clove feels Cal squeeze her shoulder one last time before he lets go and steps back. Clove holds her head up high and swallows, making deliberate eye contact.
Walking up to them, the woman with the armband tilts her head, taking in Clove’s small, slight figure and heavily-freckled face. “You must be Clove.”
“Yes, I am,” Clove says, keeping her voice steady and clear. She can sense Cal bowing his head in approval behind her. “My parents were—”
“They were excellent recruits,” the trainer interrupts, silencing Clove immediately. “It’s a shame they weren’t chosen as volunteers. Let’s hope you meet the standards where they could not.” Clove catches the woman glance fleetingly at Cal.
“Yes, ma’am.” She makes sure to stand straight and keep her gaze level.
The woman nods once, in sharp but brief approval. “I’m Sur, the head trainer. You will come to me for any requests. I am also the judge of volunteers, so if that’s a dream of yours, you had better work hard for it. I won’t accept anything less than the best.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Sur turns away, calling over another trainer without another word. Cal disappears with an encouraging wink, off to spar with his own partner, a leggy brunette with long brown hair curling over the beauty mark on her right cheek. Clove thinks she looks too pretty to be a killer, but after a beat of watching them discovers that she matches Cal’s attacks with surprising ferocity.
Clove is paired with a small boy named Bredon, whose panicked gray eyes hide behind the thick frame of his glasses. He offers Clove a nervous smile, which she does not return. She walks off to the wrestling mats, Bredon following close behind her.
Ten minutes later, Clove has Bredon pinned to the ground by his shoulders, her eyes on a blond-haired boy on the other side of the gym as he spears a dummy in the chest.
Bredon resigns three months later. Clove is given a new partner almost immediately. Her name is Anya, and she’s too nice for her own good.
Partners are required to eat lunch together, so when the clock chimes at noon, Anya and Clove head off to the cafeteria and find a seat together, the former humming and waving at everyone who passes. Clove tries not to roll her eyes or scowl, but her attempts are weak.
Anya is talking about the newest station—camouflage, or something equally as dull—when Sur enters the gymnasium and calls Cal to her office. Clove sits up straight and stares at the head trainer, fruitlessly searching her blank expression for any clue as to what’s wrong, frowning.
“Clove?” Anya says suddenly, interrupting her train of thought. “I asked you what you wanted to do after lunch?”
“I don’t care,” Clove responds offhandedly, then catches the dismayed look on Anya’s face. She lets out a breath and decides to be civil. “Why don’t you decide?”
Anya lights up instantly. “Could we work on medicinal plants?” she asks eagerly.
“Sure,” Clove says, fighting, and failing, to keep the disdain out of her voice. Three months at the Training Centre and she still hasn’t understood the necessity for stations like the study of plants. Why waste time learning about them when endless supplies are so easily accessible in the Cornucopia? She glances longingly at the gleaming racks of weapons and sighs.
Anya squeals, and the moment the bell rings to signal the end of lunch, she skips off to the gymnasium, a disgruntled Clove trailing several steps behind her.
Her day passes like an aching funeral march, and at five o’clock sharp she heads straight for her locker without so much as a wave or a smile goodbye for her training partner. She stuffs her training jacket into her locker haphazardly and slams its door shut, spinning around and—
Bam , she slams into something sturdy.
Muttering a bevy of curses under her breath, Clove looks up slowly. Cato Spatha, one of the star recruits of the Training Centre, grins wolfishly back down at her. The boy with the spear. She stares into his startlingly blue eyes for a moment before she steps back, pivoting towards the exit.
“Hey,” he calls, walking up beside her and matching her step for step. She lifts her eyes to the ceiling and continues walking. “Where’s the apology, kid?”
“Don’t call me that,” she hisses, picking up speed. His legs, frustratingly, are long and lean, and he matches her pace without missing a beat.
“Okay, fine then. Give me a name I can call you instead.”
She huffs and rolls her eyes, not breaking her stride. She’s not normally this difficult, but it’s been a long day of listening to Anya’s ramblings and being ignored by the very intelligent, very boring instructor for medicinal plants, and Clove just wants to go home.
Cato grabs her arm, stopping them both. “I asked for your name, kid.”
“And I’m not giving it to you,” Clove says angrily, shaking her arm out of his steady grip. “You know, just because you’re Sur’s favorite doesn’t mean you’re allowed to be an asshole.”
Cato pauses, looking shocked and a little angry. Clove takes the opportunity to turn away, walking as quickly as she can to the exit, where Cal is waiting for her. She smiles tightly at him and lets the door slam shut behind her.
“Bad day?” he asks as they start their walk home, the spring breeze cooling their warm skin. Clove shakes her head at her brother’s uncanny ability to read her.
“Bad partner,” she responds, by way of explanation, and her brother hums. He’s heard her complaints about Anya from the first day. “Also, you star recruits can be so arrogant.”
This piques Cal’s interest. “Who are you talking about? Pan, the skinny guy with the red curls? Or is it Alala? The really tall girl a year above me, with the crazy pimples?”
“Neither. It’s stupid Cato Spatha. He’s a couple years below you, and he’s awful. Called me a kid and wouldn’t leave me alone.”
Cal goes quiet for a moment. “Wouldn’t leave you alone, how? Do you need me to talk to him?”
Clove scoffs and says, “Don’t worry about it, Mr. Best-Swordsman,”—he’d won the award a few weeks ago, and the reminder brings a humble pink flush to his cheeks—“I can take care of myself.”
“Yeah,” Cal says fondly, “I know you can. It runs in our blood. But,”—his tone turns sharp, a gateway into the vicious, feared Trainee he is—“if he ever bothers you again, just let me know. I’d beat him up for you, I promise.”
Clove hums and they walk silently, walking down the sunny, cobbled street. Cal has never broken a promise. He’d always been the noble sort, even when he was five years old and snotty.
She passes a glance at her older brother, who has again adopted a peaceful expression. Cal, who is turning fifteen at the end of June, is more than a foot taller than Clove, who has always been small for her age. Their parents, a retired peacekeeper and a woman of Capitol descent, blame her stunted growth on the district air. Cal used to tell her it’s because she was a goblin in her past life.
“You’re definitely annoying enough,” he would say, laughing away from her furious fists.
They’re a few streets away from her house when Clove recalls something. “Hey, why did Sur call you into her office earlier?”
Cal’s face immediately darkens. “It’s nothing. She just wants me to start preparing for volunteer training. Seriously, I mean.”
Clove gapes at him. She knows her parents would want nothing more than for their children to be the Victors they never were, but she can’t quite imagine her skinny, teasing brother in the arena; she still cannot coincide his brutal, merciless recruit persona with the joking boy she grew up with. Seeing him in the gymnasium, slashing mercilessly at mannequins with his sword to the amazement of their fellow recruits, never fails to surprise her.
“That’s great,” she says, because she thinks she has to, and the look of apprehension on her brother’s face does nothing to ease the growing anxiety in her stomach.
Cal shrugs. “The parents will be happy, at least.”
Clove knows they will be, but the thought does the opposite of what it probably should: instead of relief, she only feels the anxiety sink deeper into the pit of her stomach.
They walk the rest of the way home in silence.
Sur pits Clove against Cato in a wrestling match some months later. Anya is long gone, possibly deemed incapable of Victory, Clove doesn’t know nor care. All she knows is that she badly needs a new, competent training partner. When Cato’s name is called after Clove’s for the match, she’s surprised but refuses to let it show. He is a little over a year older than her, and much bigger. She is destined to lose this match and everyone knows it—it is clear in the indifferent dip of Sur’s eyebrow, the immediate disinterest from the crowd of trainees around them, the easy smirk on Cato’s face.
Clove lets out a breath and takes her place on the mat.
They eye each other from their positions across the wrestling mat. His fists are clenched; her knees bent. She watches as a drop of sweat drips down his neck.
When Sur blows the whistle, he lunges, swinging his arms forward to grab her leg. Clove steps to the side, anticipating the move, and outstretches her leg beneath him, hooking it around his knee and pulling as hard as she can. In one swift movement, she has him pinned to the ground on his side, her thin but strong legs holding him down as her arms scramble for his shoulders.
Cato curls outward, muscles flexing as he breaks her grip on him, pushing off the floor and throwing Clove off him, onto her back. She rolls before her shoulders touch the floor and pushes herself back up.
They’re circling now, eyeing each other carefully, waiting for the other to make a move. Cato snarls.
Clove counts in her head: one, two— now , ducking as Cato launches towards her, surprising him yet again. She slides between his legs and jumps on his back. She’s small for her age, but well-fed and strong, and the momentum forces Cato to his knees. She scrambles away before he can fall back and pin her by the shoulders, and Cato is back on his feet in front of her immediately.
His entire forehead is glistening with sweat now, his brilliant blue eyes slanted in focus. She’s seen him like this before, always after a long day of training, and it sends a shiver of excitement down her spine. She’s doing well enough to hold him off.
They circle one another until Sur whistles, signaling the end of the first period. Clove risks a glance at the scoreboard: Cato is leading, but not by much. She looks back at him and takes another deep breath. The second period starts, and Clove quickly channels all her energy into movement. She darts around him, aiming for ankle sweeps that leave him on the defense. The second period ends, and Clove can see Cato start to tire.
The start of the third period brings an unexpected lunge from Cato—she had thought him tired out, but she’s forgotten that Cato is an ox. Not one to tire so quickly. She just barely wriggles her way out of his grip, but by then the match is over, and Cato has won.
Clove wipes at the sweat on her forehead and retreats to the cooldown station, where fresh water and towels wait. She only has a few moments of peace, however; she hears him before she sees him, but she says nothing, sipping water silently. He reaches around her to grab his own cup, his breathing heavy and worn out. They sit in silence for a few moments.
“You know, you’re not half bad, kid.”
Clove continues sipping her water; she thinks, privately, that Cato must really love the sound of his own voice. After a beat, she says, “You know my name now. Why do you insist on calling me a kid?”
Cato shrugs. “Because you are one.”
Clove narrows her eyes. Cato’s thirteenth birthday was barely a few weeks ago, at the end of May. He’s not much older than she is, when her twelfth is days away.
“Anyway, kid,” Cato continues, ignoring the gritting of Clove’s teeth, “sparring with you was fun. We should try it again sometime.”
Clove raises her eyebrow. He is the star recruit of his year, careening towards a future as a Volunteer Tribute. She’s small for her age, with no special talents of her own beyond being quick and witty. She isn’t even allowed to step foot on any of the weapons’ stations yet. “Yeah, sure,” she says sarcastically, not missing the way Cato smirks in satisfaction.
She rolls her eyes and thinks nothing of it.
The next day, they’re paired together.
Clove is immediately granted access to the weapons’ stations, and her fingers itch to test them out. She’s drawn to the swords, Cal’s weapon of choice, but Cato holds her back with a laugh.
“Hang on, kid, those are the big boy toys. You’re not allowed to mess with those yet.”
Clove almost ignores him, but a trainer notices her approaching and slants his eyes down at her menacingly, enough to make her back away. She ignores the look of amusement on Cato’s face.
“Where am I allowed to go, then?”
He guides her to the spears and the staffs. Clove casts one final longing look to the sharper weapons but concedes.
“Okay then, partner,” she grumbles. Cato looks disturbingly gleeful at the nickname. “Teach me how to fight.”
It turns out that Clove is less than skilled with the staff, and she’s not quite strong enough to throw the spears very far. Cato is surprisingly patient with her as they cycle through the available weapons, but they don’t make any real progress until the throwing stars.
With a flick of her wrist, Clove is able to fling the star across the space and hit her target decidedly close to the center. She and Cato turn to each other with twin expressions of surprise, and Clove picks up another star from the pile. Before long, every target has a throwing star somewhere near its center. No bulls-eyes, but she comes pretty damn close.
Cato whistles as the next star to fly from her hand hits the target, less than an inch away from its perfect center. “Damn, kid, who knew you had such wicked aim in that tiny little body of yours?”
Clove cannot think of a comeback, and the annoyance at Cato’s pet name for her does nothing to dent the warmth that has begun to grow in her chest. “I don’t know. I never thought I could do anything like this.”
Cato squints his eyes at her, and there is something behind his brilliantly-hued eyes that causes her stomach to drop. She looks away, busying herself with her grip on the next star. It’s a while before Cato speaks again. “Yeah, I’m looking forward to this partnership.”
Clove looks up at him and is surprised to find that the feeling is mutual.
They spend every waking moment together: training, eating, doing schoolwork. Before long, nearly a year has passed, and they know each other better than they know themselves.
One warm Friday a few weeks before the annual Games, the Training Centre is visited by a handful of past victors—not all of them, but a significant pool of volunteers who have come to talk to the recruits for the afternoon. Cato and Clove find seats on the floor close to the front, right behind Cal. Clove taps his shoulder and is smiling hello when the Victors file up on stage.
Clove is immediately in awe. She recognizes all seven of the Victors present, although she wasn’t alive to see all of their Games—there’s Gorgo, the stone-faced Victor who won by smashing her opponents’ faces with boulders taken from a landslide; Enobaria, grinning wide with freshly-sharpened fangs and her brutal nature plain on her face; Charon, who was as smart as he was vicious, creating elaborate traps for each of his victims, including his fellow Volunteers, before he stabbed viciously at their hearts. There’s an air of superiority about them which almost blinds her. They are the best of the best, and they know it.
Cato grabs her leg, and she turns to him, surprised. There is a hunger on his face which immediately shakes her. “That’s going to be me one day,” he says intensely, his blue eyes darkening. “I’m going to be a Victor.”
Clove doesn’t doubt it. If there’s one thing she knows about Cato by now, it’s that his drive to win is enough to match the strongest of Tributes. The life of a Victor is not one she wants to pursue herself—Cal is there to take it for her—but she knows she’ll support Cato in any way she can when his time comes to win. In the meanwhile, she can help him train, and build up her own skills enough to make her parents, and even the indifferent Sur, proud.
As the victors regale them with the honeyed tales of their wins, she watches Cato’s fingers jump subconsciously against her leg, only half listening; he still hasn’t moved his hand. Maybe he’s forgotten it’s there. The warmth of his palm seems to spread through her entire body, and Clove vows to herself that she will do whatever it takes to make Cato the Victor he deserves to be.
With summer break from school comes the 71st Hunger Games and a rare reprieve from training time. “Don’t let it get to your head,” Sur warns them all, the night before the Reaping. “I expect every single one of you to return to your full training schedules in one month’s time.”
Cato insists on daily training sessions anyway. They’re not the only ones to stay behind—Cal and his partner Pauline, too, take advantage of the newly-open spaces in the gymnasium—but they aren’t the majority. There are maybe twelve recruits who consistently train even when it is not strictly mandatory, and Clove allows herself a smile at Sur’s proud nod as the head trainer makes her occasional rounds.
Sundays, their off days—the one day a week when the Training Centre is closed, sorry for the inconvenience —Cato and Clove wander town square, making faces at the stone-faced Peacekeepers stationed at every storefront and talking about all the things they would buy with a Victor’s earnings.
On one such day, they’re tucked away in an alley between the local butcher’s and a flower shop, surrounded by the vague smell of piss and dirt. Past the alley, Clove can see the looming mountains bracketing the district and briefly imagines a life away from this: the Games, the training, the ever-present feeling of death that seems to stink up the month of July, despite the district’s celebrations—but the thought feels traitorous, somehow, when her eyes pass over Cato, who is throwing light punches at an invisible opponent. Always training, even now.
“Tell me something no one else knows about you,” she says, and he stops pretending to spar with the wall to give her a bemused look.
“You know plenty that no one else knows, kid,” he says, shaking his head and resuming his starting stance.
Clove thinks about it. Yes, she knows that he refuses to eat his peas when they appear in their lunch, and she knows about the way his eyebrows will dip when someone mentions his late mother—but somehow, it doesn’t feel like enough.
“What are you most afraid of?” she lands on, finally, and Cato groans. Shaking himself out of his position and plopping himself on the dirty ground, she blinks as he gestures in front of him with an impatient wave.
“If we’re gonna do a sharing circle,” he says, staring pointedly at her questioning expression, “we might as well get comfortable.”
Surprised, Clove drops down in front of him and waits patiently.
Cato’s face distorts in something like disgust, and he pushes his large, warm, somewhat-grubby hand over her eyes. “Don’t look at me like that, kid. You’re like a puppy or something.”
Throwing his hand off of her face, she rolls her eyes. “Seriously, stop changing the subject, you wuss.”
Cato smirks, then leans forward, inspecting her face. His blue eyes shift, shining despite the dust floating in the alley, and Clove feels her stomach turn. “My biggest fear…” He cracks his neck, golden fingers jumping against each other. Clove is immediately aware of the thick, nervous air between them.
His eyes slant, then dart to hers. “You can’t make fun of me.”
Clove gives him an exasperated look. “You know I will anyway. Come on, just spill.”
“Fine! Fine. My biggest fear,” Cato starts seriously, blue eyes glinting in the dusty alley, and Clove leans forward in anticipation. He swallows, and Clove can detect the tiniest shift in the angle of his jaw. “My biggest fear is…”
A breath. Clove watches him intently.
“…puppies.”
Clove groans and shoves him, grinning despite herself upon hearing his laughter. She loves the way Cato laughs—it’s huge, just like every other part of him, bursting from his chest. Unapologetic, boisterous, infectious. There’s a warmth and sincerity in his laughter that feels reserved just for her.
“You are so full of it.”
“What about you, kid?” He’s wiping away tears, and Clove wants to roll her eyes again, but smiles instead. It really wasn’t that funny of a joke, but Cato tends to laugh harder at himself than anyone else does. “What’s your biggest fear?”
The Hunger Games . The answer is immediate and surprising, and as it bursts to the forefront of her mind the anxiety bubbles in her stomach, like she’s eaten rotten fruit. The feeling is too sour to pick apart now, and she knows that if she can barely understand it, then the Victory-happy Cato would definitely not, so she frowns and searches for something else to say.
Suddenly, she thinks of the stories, the whispers she hears circulating around school. She’s twelve now, and the only things the girls around her seem to squeal about are boys. Well… a boy , singular. She glances at him briefly, the boy who is so charming and impressive. Cato Spatha, they say, will be a Victor. There is no doubt about it. He’s garnered the attention of the girls at school, even the ones who would never otherwise step foot in the Training Centre.
The thought of the whispers immediately makes her nose wrinkle. “Kissing,” she decides eventually, and the boisterous laugh that follows makes the admission seem worth it.
“What’s so wrong with kissing?” he asks, annoyingly. Cato puckers up his lips, and the movement makes him look more fish-like than charming.
“It’s just—gross. I can’t imagine being that close to someone—and the thing with the tongues—it’s just, eugh.” She makes a face, and Cato laughs again. His nonchalance makes her wonder: “Have you ever kissed anyone?”
“Nah,” Cato says dismissively. “Too busy training.”
This, Clove knows, is entirely true. Cato looks at his weapons with the same reverence a man should reserve for his wife. Still, she says cheekily, “Or maybe you’ve never met anyone who wants to even look at your lips.”
Cato fixes her with a pointed stare that makes his knowledge of the whispers entirely evident. Of course he’d know, the arrogant prick. “I’ve got plenty of options, kid, and you know it. I’m less likely to be Reaped than I am to go without a kiss.”
The harsh reminder hits her like a wave of ice-cold water. “Right. You’re old enough to be Reaped now.” They both are. Sometimes, with the intensely-controlled nature of the Training Centre, Clove forgets just how much of the Games is left to odds. You can never really control whether or not you’re in that arena, just as much as you can’t control your odds of returning home.
Cato does not appear to be falling to the same conclusion. He only grins, raises his eyebrow. “So?”
“So… what if you do? What’ll happen then?”
Cato looks at her again, seemingly understanding her desire for a serious conversation. He sighs and passes a hand through his blond hair, making a mess of the waves. “I’d fucking win, obviously. And if not, then I’m not going without bringing pride to the district. To the training centre. To—you.”
A hush falls between them, and it lasts entirely too long to be comfortable.
“Hear me out, kid,” Cato begins eventually, breaking the silence, and something about the way he won’t look at her makes Clove hold her breath in anticipation, despite herself. “After I win my games, I’ll help you get over your fear. If no one else has by then.”
Clove raises an eyebrow, certain that the serious conversation has officially grinded to a halt. “Okay, sure. And I’ll take you to the pound and let the dogs lick you until you love them. How’s that sound?”
“Deal.”
And in the alley, on a humid summer day, they shake hands and swear it.
The next summer, Cal is Reaped.
He’s seventeen, and not set to volunteer for another year, but the boy who’s supposed to volunteer hesitates for a beat too long and it’s too late. Cal becomes District 2’s 72nd male tribute. (The failed volunteer is reprimanded later, but not heavily. Fate has spoken, and chosen Callan Martellus, Golden Boy of the Training Centre. If he doesn’t win, who will?)
Clove walks in to say goodbye, last—after their parents, who are teary-eyed with pride, and Pauline, who nods once at Clove before leaving the Justice Building. Her green eyes look more sad than Clove would have expected, but the doors are open and Clove is being guided into the room before she can decipher the look.
The anxiety in Clove’s stomach has returned full force, nearly taking her breath away with the strength of it. She’s thirteen, and smart enough to know that being trained beforehand does not guarantee a win—there are, after all, two trainees from the Centre who go into the games every year, and at least one will return home in a coffin. Somehow, despite everything, the odds seem stacked against him.
They say nothing at first; Cal opens his arms, and Clove collapses into them, burying her face into her brother’s chest as he wraps his warm, strong arms around her. He’s filled out in the last few years, tall and strong and looking so much like a Victor in everything but his eyes.
Cal’s eyes, a few shades lighter than her own but the same shape, are soft and sad as they look at her. “Do you remember,” he begins softly, his voice shaking, “when I first went to the Training Centre, and you showed up at the end of the day with a loaf of bread and a huge grin on your little face?”
Clove nods, biting her lip. She hadn’t really understood what was going on, given her age—she hadn’t even started school yet—but her parents’ excitement had been contagious and she’d waited for her brother eagerly, bouncing on the balls of her feet and clutching the freshly-baked bakery bread like her life depended on it.
Cal grins and punches her arm. “Bring that smile back, Clover. It’s good luck, just like you.”
It can’t be said that she doesn’t try. She tugs her shaking lips into an upward curve, mimicking a happy expression the best she can with her chin jittering as violently as it is. Cal smiles, again; sadder this time. “I’ll miss you in there, you know.”
Clove can’t handle it, looking away and throwing her arms around her brother once again. “Don’t die, okay?”
“Okay,” he whispers, and Clove blinks back tears, immediately hating herself for them. He can win , and she knows it. She’s looked up to him her whole life; he’s trained for this for just as long. He pulls away from her and smiles. “I promise you.”
Immediately, the anxiety lessens; a tentative smile crosses her face. Cal has never, ever broken a promise.
He’s going to come home.
“My dad used to tell me that if you made an ugly face, it would get stuck like that,” Cato announces as he drops his lunch tray next to hers, sitting much too close for comfort—but Clove says nothing, only takes another bite of dry bread and frowns. There’s a tight edge to his voice; he’s been tiptoeing around the subject of Cal and the Games for days, ever since the Reaping, saying nonsensical things to either cheer her up or distract her. Clove is grateful. She decides to play along, at least this once.
“Are you calling me ugly?”
“If the shoe fits,” Cato says cheerfully, shoveling a spoonful of grits into his mouth. Clove groans. “I just mean, maybe you should relax a little. You look like a goblin with your nose all scrunched up like that.”
Goblin . Clove thinks she might be sick.
“Can we go somewhere after training today?” she says, swiftly changing the subject. If Cato is surprised, he doesn’t show it; he only shrugs and swallows another spoonful.
“Where are you thinking?”
Clove pauses, hesitating to voice her thoughts. “Don’t tell me I’m weird.”
“That’s a given, kid,” Cato says with a grin, licking his spoon. “You’re a weirdo. Nothing I can do about it.”
“Right.” Clove rolls her eyes. “How about I tell you where after training?”
Cato peers at her curiously. “Okay…”
They’re focusing on hand-to-hand combat today, sparring with dull knives, and Cato continues to give her odd looks until she takes advantage of his distraction and straddles him harshly into the mat, the dull blade of her knife an inch from his eye.
“Okay, okay!” he concedes, throwing her off with all the care of a stampeding elephant and cracking his neck. “Taking things seriously now.”
She grins gratefully; the rest of training is far more evenly matched, and by the end of the day they’re both sweating buckets, huffing and puffing their way to the locker room.
“Good workout,” Cato says, holding out his fist.
“Agreed.” Clove bumps the sides of their fists together. “Shower quick—it’s almost sunset. I’ll need to go home soon.”
Cato salutes her as they separate, then again when they reconvene outside the Training Centre half an hour later. “Lead the way, oh charming navigator,” he says dramatically, bowing and sweeping his arm towards the open air. Clove shakes her head, failing to disguise her laughter.
“Keep an open mind, okay?”
Cato follows close behind her, humming tunelessly to himself but allowing her a few minutes of quiet otherwise. He’s learned to differentiate her focused silence from the thrumming, dark hush she goes into when she’s sick of talking, and more so he’s learned when she wants him to fill the quiet with his useless commentary or simply be there while she stews in the noiselessness.
When they reach their destination, Cato grips her wrist and tugs, trying to continue along their path. His eyes turn to hers desperately when he realizes, yes, Cato, this is where I want to spend my afternoon .
“The cemetery ?”
Clove shrugs. It’s morbid, maybe, but… “I’ve never really been,” she says, by way of explanation. “I’ve been lucky, to not know loss until…”
She can't bring herself to continue, and her unspoken words hang briefly in the air like a too-sweet cloud of sharp perfume.
That’s when she realizes her grave error, because while she has been fortunate enough to be spared real, personal grief, Cato cannot say the same. His mother is dead. Buried in the cemetery, the entrance of which is a mere two feet away. Her hands fly up in immediate apology. “Cato, I’m so sorry—we can go somewhere else. Maybe to the city center. I wasn’t thinking.”
Cato’s jaw is working like mad. Clove swallows. “No,” he sighs, resigned. His voice has taken an odd edge to it, something Clove can’t quite pinpoint. “No, this is where you wanted to be today. Let’s go in.”
Clove lets Cato lead the way this time. He guides her to the very center of the huge cemetery, past rows and rows of long-dead people and their forgotten stories, where a huge tree is winding up, branches overgrown and furling out over several rows of gravestones in each direction. They both pause, looking up at the tree; Clove’s eyes trace the centuries-old pattern on its black bark. To her right, Cato sighs.
“When I was younger,” he says, squinting up at the tree’s branches, “I’d always thought it was crazy that this tree grew on the tears of the people who were left behind.”
Clove turns to him, eyebrows knitted. He glances back at her, his lips twisted in an ironic smile.
“I don’t know how true that is anymore,” he says. “But I’ve always thought about how much worse it is to live in mourning than to die in glory.”
“Is that why you want to volunteer?” Clove asks. “To… take control of the narrative?”
Cato looks at her again, eyes slanted in thought. “Yeah, that’s a good way to put it. No way in hell are they taking me unprepared. I’m going in there and winning myself a life of fame and riches, or I’m dying a death that isn’t just— fuck , getting blown up in some district that isn’t home or getting married to some empty-headed girl and watching her die giving birth to my babies or something. I think that would kill me.”
Clove hums. Normalcy—that really would destroy him, eat him up alive from the inside out. Cato, who has never shied away from a fight. He’s always thrown himself into everything he does. With him, it’s all or nothing. Anything else is… unimaginable.
“I don’t know if I’ll ever get married.” The admission is quick, leaving her lips before she can even acknowledge that she’s thought it, but Cato is looking at her curiously, urging an elaboration, so Clove fishes for her meaning. “I mean, I don’t know. We’ve talked about kissing before. That intimacy, it’s…” Terrifying . “I don’t ever want to love someone enough to be afraid of losing them. I think of Cal and I’m so afraid for him that I can’t breathe sometimes. I can’t handle the thought of losing someone I love with all my heart, someone I’m sharing my life with, someone like—”
You .
Inexplicably, impossibly—the effect is immediate. Her stomach seems to turn over, her heartbeat pulsing wild and out of control. Her throat is immeasurably dry, and the tears spring up in her eyes without her permission. The breath has been knocked from her lungs.
“I don’t think I could subject myself to that,” she whispers. “So I don’t think I’m ever getting married. Not in this lifetime.”
Cato doesn’t say anything for a long while, but Clove can feel him watching her, quiet. She’s too afraid to look at him.
“I’ve never thought about it like that,” he says eventually. “I guess I—I’ve never really let myself think beyond the Games.” Clove feels much the same way. Is there any life beyond the Reapings?
She clears her throat. “The sun is setting,” she says, instead of responding. “My parents will be angry if I’m not home soon.”
“I’ll walk you.”
They’re quiet as they head towards Clove’s house; a different, darker silence to the one they’d come with. Clove mulls over the day’s realizations, good and bad, and can’t bring herself to make eye contact with Cato when they reach her front door.
“Thanks,” she says, and without waiting for a response she rushes inside.
That night, she struggles to let sleep take her; all she can think of is Cal and the fear he must be feeling as he waits for death, be it his own or of those around him. When the thought of her brother dying makes her physically ill, her thoughts change shape, shifting to Cato, and his stupid smile, and the way his hand had flexed when he agreed to go to the cemetery all because she’d asked, and—well. She crushes her pillow to her chest to try and slow her heartrate, squeezing her eyes shut and begging for sleep.
That night, she dreams of strikingly blue eyes and the gleam of a white smile, which transforms into the gleam of a knife handle as it buries itself in her brother’s face.
The Games begin.
Clove watches the chariot rides and the interview go by, drinking up every second of Cal that she can. He wears simple gray armor for the former and charms the audience in a gold suit for the latter. Her father boasts to his friends; her mother hosts parties every weekend. Clove smiles and acts accordingly, but the anxiety continues to grow. She tries to push it down, but she can’t help but think— what if, what if, what if?
Clove throws herself into her training as a distraction. If Cato is surprised, he doesn’t show it, matching her fervor without so much as a complaint. By the time the Games begin, she’s gained three pounds in pure muscle; she can hit her targets with her eyes closed.
When the Training Centre officially closes for the Hunger Games season, Cato announces that he wants cake. Clove is itching to continue training, but Cato puts his foot down. “Damn you, woman! Taking breaks is necessary to living a well-balanced, sustainable life.”
Clove grunts. “Fuck off, where did you hear that bull? They only say that garbage in the Capitol.”
“Who’s to say I’m not just wise beyond my years?” Cato grins, then winces as she pins a glare on him. “Fine. The TV in Sur’s office connects to a Capitol advertisement channel. It’s all useless, boring shit—I’m sure they have more entertaining stuff in the actual Capitol, but sometimes I tune in when I’m stuck cleaning her office on a weekend. Now stop changing the subject! I’m sick of the shit they call food in the cafeteria—I want something sweet and I want it now .”
Cato drags her to her feet, and Clove can’t even protest as he drags her out into the sunshine. Resigned, she shakes his warm grip from her arm and stuffs her hands into her pant pockets as she follows him, grumbling underneath her breath.
’Cake’ is a generous term for the offerings they have in the district’s only bakery—it’s more plain bread sweetened by a sugary, white syrup, but Cato conjures a couple coins from his pocket anyway, slamming it down onto the counter and caressing the two slices they give him in exchange like they are his children. Clove jumps when he hands her one, then bites down on his own as though nothing has happened.
“Oh, I don’t need this,” she tries to say, but Cato waves her off and Clove allows herself a small bite. The sweetness bursts immediately on her tongue, almost too much to handle, and she squints her eyes from the rush.
“That hits the fucking spot ,” Cato says, moaning grotesquely as he takes a bite, big enough to consume half his slice.
“Glad you liked it,” Clove says, amused, when a screen catches her attention from the corner of her eye. There are a few of these screens displayed throughout town square, all playing miscellaneous videos from the Capitol, but naturally, at this time of year, they’re all displaying some form of Hunger Games content. At this moment, the camera is panned onto an animated Caesar Flickerman, with the photographs of a gorgeous girl with dark curls flashing behind him. Beneath her are the words DISTRICT ONE in harsh, white lettering.
Clove stops without even thinking, her eyes trained on the screen. The order changes occasionally, depending on the event, but if she remembers correctly right next should be the boy from their district, who is—
Cal appears behind Flickerman in a still shot from the chariot rides, looking regal in his silver suit of armour. His dark hair had been cropped shorter at some point between when she’d last seen him in person and when he’d emerged onto Capitol streets, and Clove frowns. Somehow, the harsh lines of his haircut and the fierce expression on his face are at odds with the brother she knows. Clove cannot hear what the hosts are saying, and though Flickerman’s beam points to good things, she feels something harsh rolling around deep in her belly.
Cato, finally having noticed that she was no longer following, walks back up to her. His eyes, focused on the same screen, are hooded.
He grabs her wrist with his sticky fingers and sighs. “Come on, kid. Watching this will be a lot better on your couch.”
“I don’t want to…” To what? To see her parents? To watch her brother fight for his life? To be around Cato when she feels so fragile? She’s not really sure how to finish the sentence, so she just swallows. “I don’t know. I think it would be better if you went home and I locked myself in my room for a little bit.”
“Are you sure?” His eyes, so fucking blue, are worried.
Clove sighs. “Yes. I’ll see you tomorrow, though. You can come over to watch the first day with us—I know your dad doesn’t love watching the Games.”
Cato hums, though his eyes are still searching hers. “Okay. Want me to walk you home?”
“Nah.” Then, an afterthought: she gives Cato the remnants of her cake, a slice with a single bite taken out of it. Already the sweet syrup has turned bitter in her mouth. “Thanks for the cake. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
He nods at her, and she feels his stare on her back long after she turns the corner out of his sight. When they meet again the next day, she’s eternally grateful that he makes no mention of the puffy skin around her eyes.
Cal leads the Career Pack of the 72nd Hunger Games, to no one’s surprise. They hunt, fight, kill, right up until there are eight tributes left and five of them are Volunteers. Clove has never felt prouder of her brother, even if she cannot associate the monster on screen with the loving, joking boy that she knows.
And then everything goes wrong.
They are hunting the forest when the girl from District 5—a meek little thing, who looked like she could get blown away by a strong gust of wind—jumps out from atop a tree and stabs at two Volunteers with her knife before another takes her down.
A cannon booms, but not for the girl—she’s still breathing, but barely, blood gushing from the wound on her collarbone, inflicted by the spear thrown from District 1’s girl. Clove stares at the blood matting on the girl’s long orange braid with a strange sense of foreboding.
There’s momentary mayhem as the tributes try to discover who has died, when the camera zooms in on a terrifyingly familiar face.
His eyes are open but unseeing, face white and frozen forever in an expression of amusement; he had been laughing at a joke made by one of his fellow Volunteers when he was attacked. Clove thinks, momentarily, haltingly, that of course Cal would die with a smile on his face. Anything else would be illogical.
She gasps feebly as she takes in the blood seeping through his shirt, thick and heavy at the spot where his heart is. It’s he who took the worst of the knife attack, while the boy from Four simply tears a strip from his shirt to bandage the shallow wound on his arm.
Clove shuts her eyes, turning her head away from the television screen and thinking of her brother’s arms around her. Her parents are gone: her mother had left the room in a bout of sobs, and her father had followed her with wet cheeks. They will comfort each other, she knows.
No one is left to comfort her.
“You weren’t supposed to die,” she mutters, then says again, louder, angrier. The tears are rushing down her cheeks, hot and angry, and she lets out a deep, guttural scream. “ You said you wouldn’t! ”
Don’t die, okay?
Okay. I promise you.
Her brother has never, ever broken a promise. Not until today.
In a week, his body will be delivered in a wooden box—cold, pale, dead —and she’ll really have to say goodbye. The dread sinks to the bottom of her stomach, and she thinks that maybe it will live there for the rest of her life.
It’s well after closing hours at the Training Centre, but Clove’s snuck inside. Cal taught her a secret way in, once, that he had discovered in his first year of training. “I used it to sneak the weapons I wasn’t allowed to use yet,” he’d admitted with his signature grin. “I nearly cut my arm off with the sword I used, but it turned out okay. I told Mother I fell out of a tree, and I wasn’t punished too heavily.”
Clove can imagine it now—Cal, small and thin, with a mess of curls and a wide grin splitting his freckled face, holding a sword that was far too big for him and nearly stabbing himself with its weight. Her eyes flutter shut and she bites back the sob threatening to burst from her throat.
She’s still not allowed to use the serious weaponry, but she feels like her chest is going to explode and she needs to find an outlet. Clove starts walking over to the throwing star station when the silver handle of a knife glints from across the room.
Perfect.
She’s throwing knives angrily, one after another, watching them embed into the targets with little care for their destination—when all of a sudden someone puts a hand on her shoulder. She whirls around, pressing the knife in her hand into the person’s neck, applying enough pressure to hurt.
“Woah, kid.” Cato holds his hands up in surrender, eyebrows knitted together. “It’s just me. I was staying late, cleaning out Sur’s office, when I saw that the lights in the gym were on.”
Clove grunts and steps back, pivoting her body and letting the blade fly. She watches as it lands in the dummy’s eye, the force of her swing embedding the knife up to its hilt.
Cato says nothing, just hands her a knife and watches in silence as she throws it furiously. Her frustration has begun to mount, causing her hands to shake, but her aim remains true. She does not miss a single shot. She scowls at him when he hands her the next blade but does not push him away.
It cannot be said how long they stand there: she, throwing knives until her targets were full; he, handing her the blades. Eventually, she stops accepting them, just stands, staring at the used dummies with glassy, unfocused eyes.
“Clove?” he mumbles. He’s quiet, for once, empty of words. She wasn’t wrong all those years ago, when she assumed he was in love with the sound of his own voice.
It’s the gentleness in Cato’s voice that breaks her, and the sobs escape before she can help herself. She collapses onto her knees, feeling every bit the child she pretends she isn’t. Her fourteenth birthday is quickly approaching, but she feels a decade younger, sobbing on the floor of the Training Centre with her black dress scrunched around her legs and her hands curled into shaking fists on her laps.
She’s aware of Cato awkwardly lowering himself down in front of her, but she’s still surprised when his warm, strong arms wrap around her. Immediately, without meaning to, she leans in, burrowing her head into his chest. Later, she might regret this rare display of vulnerability, but she sets that aside. For now, she only tucks her small head beneath his chin and sobs.
He bows his head, resting his cheek on her hair, and they stay curled together long after Clove’s sobs have reduced to sniffles.
“I’m sorry,” she says eventually, already putting on a mask of indifference as she stands up, straightening her skirt. “The funeral was—I’m fine now. Sorry.”
Cato looks up at her, blue eyes clouded and confused. “Don’t be sorry. I—I wanted to cry too, you know. It was a really emotional day.”
Clove looks away, praying that the pain on her face is not as obvious as it feels. Cato’s immediate, stabbing look of pity tells her otherwise.
“I’m fine now,” she says again, not sure anymore who she’s trying to convince. “I am.”
Cato shrugs. “Okay, fine. Let’s put this behind us. Help me clean up the knives, and then I’ll take you home. We’ll never talk about this again.”
Clove nods appreciatively, and together they erase any evidence that she was ever there that night. He walks her home in silence, and Clove turns occasionally to watch him, staring up into the moonlight and trying not to look at her too pitifully.
The evening is never brought up again. Cato never tells her, but after a while he begins to wonder if it ever happened at all.
Clove is not the same. There is a fire in her now that wasn’t present before, and she throws herself into training harder than ever. She feels immovable, completing laps in half the time it used to take and falling from heights that should be improbable. Sur watches with hard, unreadable eyes. Cato watches with mounting fear and pride.
The next year flies by with little improvement in her fury. If anything, the following Games make her rabid, an animal in training, and even Cato is not sure it’s a good thing. Sur pulls her aside more than once to warn her that she needs to ease up, but the instruction falls on deaf ears.
Clove gains a newfound obsession with the Hunger Games. She purchases a small, black journal in the weeks leading up to the 73rd Games, and she spends the next months marking down every tribute’s strengths, weaknesses, and ways to use each to her advantage. The day the winner is announced—a beady-eyed boy named Ash, who Clove had seen training viciously throughout the Centre in the years since she’d begun—she spends their outing in town with her nose in the journal. Cato’s attempts to drag her out of her thoughts are met with furious glares and more scribbling. Even he does not know the contents of the journal.
Later, beneath the canopy of an evening forest, he will shake his head and berate himself for not reading the signs correctly.
Maybe if he had, they both could have lived.