I Needed You

Chapter 5

Cato's POV

I catch myself several times staring at Clove throwing her knives, I shake it off the few times but again and again, my eyes wander to her. I throw down my sword and go to the obstacle course where Marvel already is. 
"Just come over from the sword station?" he asks, starting the conversation. 
"Yeah, when did you come here?"
"Maybe twenty minutes ago? I was in the spear station before." The person in front of him falls. After laughing, he starts the first part of the course, dangling circular monkey bars. Marvel completes it in 3 minutes and 2 seconds. I go next. I skip every other monkey bar, since I'm 6'2, my arms are pretty long. Then it's tilted platforms that are 5 feet apart from each other. A rope climbing exercise, which takes me the longest since climbing isn't my thing, some moving up and down platforms, a rope bridge and finally some small platforms that gradually get taller and taller until it reaches 10 feet, then you jump down onto a giant air bag. The supervisor of the course tells me my time was 2 minutes and 28 seconds. The best of the day. 

Clove's POV

I hear some cheering from the left of me and I turn to see what it is. There stands Marvel and Cato cheering and pointing to a leaderboard. Cato's name is at the top. Above the names says Obstacle Course Scoring: Difficulty: 8/10. I throw down my knives in rage and shove everybody out of the way as I make my way to the front of the line. The timer looks bored, and gives me a thumbs up signaling me to go. Immediately, I back up a little and run full speed towards the monkey bars, skipping the first two, I start using my momentum built up from the speed I've gathered from running to propel myself forward skipping every other hoop and catching the next. The tilted platforms give me a little trouble since I'm pretty small compared to some of the other tributes, but I finish it soon enough. I glance at Cato to see he's talking to Glimmer, my eyebrows furrow, but I keep going, scaling the rope in a matter of seconds. The rope bridge tilted heavily when I stepped on it, but I save myself. I reach the last platform and I crash down onto the airbag. I glance at the score. 2 minutes and 34 seconds. I stomp off furious and go back to throwing knives. 

"Clove!" Marvel calls. It's lunch time, so I sit down next to him while Glimmer and Cato sit across from us. Cato smirks at me, his eyes shining, I growl at him. Glimmer gives a scoff in disgust and touches Cato's biceps. I grab a piece of bread thats sitting in a basket in the middle of the table, I overhear the 12 wannabes talking about what types of bread are from what District. Dirtbags. I crunch down on the hard outside of the bread, making it to the soft inside. Marvel hands me butter. I nod at him in thanks. 
"Cato! Clove! The carts are here!" Delia says, as some avoxes bring in carts of food and arrange them around the room. We all get up and start visiting each cart and grabbing what we want. I stop at the sandwich cart. 

Avocado BLT

Club Sandwich

Classic Turkey

Loaded Italian 

I don't understand half of the words, what the hell is a BLT? Club? I just end up grabbing half of a  avocado BLT and half of a loaded italian, whatever those mean. I see a tray that has mashed potatoes and peas on it, and I walk over, Glimmer watches me load up on mashed potatoes, gravy and biscuits in disgust.
"You know, being from District 2 I thought you'd have more dignity than that mashed shit, gravy and dry bread." 
"Shut the hell up, Glimmer, at least I don't require my meat to be as rare as your stupidity." Her nostrils flare.
"Aw got some cute nose hairs, dontcha?" She immediately covers her nose with her hands, and stomps away, she forgets her tray, though and comes back to get it as soon as she realizes she forgot it. Scoffs, and walks away again. 

After I grab all my food I walk over to our Career table, Glimmer already sits there, trying to make Cato feed her. He, of course, looks like he'd rather die than be in his position. Marvel places his tray down as soon as I start eating. I bite into my sandwich, the one I think is supposed to be the Avacado BLT. The first flavor that comes to mind is some sort of meat, bacon? Then some crispy, crunchy lettuce and some tomato. The bread tastes a little sour, but its light and fluffy in the middle. Marvel calls it sour dough bread. He said he had some on the train to the Capitol. Theres something else in the sandwich, something creamy and green. I can't describe how it tastes, all I know is that I like it. 
"Thats the avocado, idiot." Glimmer tells me. I ignore her. I finish off the sandwich and go for the mashed potatoes. 

Again, I hit every target in the simulator. This is getting old. I tell myself. I'm about to hit the "Restart Advanced Mode" for the 4th time today, but I see Glimmer, Cato and Marvel standing off to the side spying the other tributes, so instead I join them. I stand in the back, along with Marvel, although from other's tributes perspectives I'm standing next to Cato, and Glimmer's the one standing next to Marvel. Cato is the first one to leave. Going towards the knife section, strangely, Glimmer stays for a few minutes. Until she too, leaves. 
"I'm gonna go throw some spears. Bye, Clove" he tells me. I wave at him and again, go to the knife section. 

"Hey, wheres my knife? Huh?" I hear a gruff voice yell. I turn around, a red light in my peripheral vision lights up and I throw the knife behind my back with no hesitation or doubt that it makes it to its target. 
"Simulation, completed," The score is 100%, I already know it. "during your simulation, you hit each target with 100% accuracy and a rate of one target per 4 seconds. Your time was 2 minutes and 36 seconds." I walk out of the simulation to find Cato and the boy from 6 arguing.
"I didn't touch your knife!" 
"I put my knife-" Cato begins, starting to shove him roughly
"Don't touch me! I didn't take anything!" 
"Yes you took my knife!" Cato says, more aggressively. 
"I didn't touch anything!" a couple of trainers come quickly to separate them, to stop Cato, starting to get rougher by the minute from killing this poor District 6 boy.
"I didn't touch your knife!" 
"You little punk, you took my knife!" Cato insists.
"Take it easy, get off me! I'm just sitting here!" The boy replies, getting angry. 
"You liar! You liar!" Cato repeats over and over. Finally, the trainers are able to separate them. 
"Everybody back in line." one trainer yells. 
"Actually, better yet! I'll wait for the arena, you better watch out, you'll be the first one I get."