Clato: The Cost of a Broken Heart

Chapter 22

2 Weeks to the Victory Tour

CLOVE

Papers papers and more papers. My eyes blur just looking at them. But I don't want to sleep. Sleep means my nightmares, and they have gotten even worse.

It starts with a canon blast. The most terrible sound I've ever heard. The herald of death. I open my eyes and see I am back at my old house, the one where Favian raised me. For a few seconds I panic and wonder who is dead. Then I see Old Ella hanging from the great sycamore tree. Her limp body sways in the breeze like a rag doll. I try to scream but can't.

Another canon fires. Air won't enter my lungs. I am back in the arena, but instead of the cornucopia, my old house still stands. I watch from the porch as Marvel pelts towards me. He thrusts out a hand just as the mutts reach him. I could save him, pull him over the rail to safety. But I don't.

In these nightmares, I don't have any control of my body. No matter how hard I fight or scream or panic, my body won't obey. Every night I watch Marvel die and my hand refuses to save him. It's this lack of control in my nightmares that makes me slowly hate the drugs. I am afraid of what I am capable of doing when I don't know myself.

Marvel's body is dragged away by the mutts. Soon, Cato appears. I want to run to him and make sure he's okay but I physically can't. Cato reaches the porch and climbs up beside me, grinning. His blonde hair is all over the place and his blue eyes are bright. He turns to me and moves closer.

"Hey Clover," he whispers with a smile. Cato puts his arms around me and leans in to kiss me. My heart picks up the pace. Every part of me wants to kiss him. Just as Cato's lips reach mine, I stab him through the heart. Cato draws back, choking on blood. He collapses to the floor and writhes as his body goes into shock. My chest burns and my stomach twists but my body won't move.

"I always. . .knew," Cato chokes out, "you were. . .a monster. . .Clove." He gives me a look that is half fear, half disgust and dies. I am screaming for him to get up, to live, that I am sorry, but no sound ever comes out in my dreams.

Just as the blood stops flowing from Cato's dead body, the door swings open. Favian comes out and wraps his arms around my waist. We stand there for a second, staring at the blue lake in the distance where I woke up after the tracker jackers attacked. I gag but my limbs are lead.

Favian leads me into the house and holds me against the wall. At this point I am usually screaming so loudly that Marian or Brutus wakes me. On the days I lay petrified in my sleep, I relive memories I never wanted to have.

Each time I wake up I retch for a while. Nothing ever comes up because I don't really eat anything. I count by 12's until my breathing calms down. Count the spaces in between panic attacks. The first two are usually less than 900 seconds apart. The last one comes with the sun as I realize I will have to live yesterday again today, live my nightmares again this coming night. It lasts nearly 1200 seconds and I'm usually sedated before I can calm down myself.

As I sort through papers from every file my parents ever had, I'm not really doing it for them. At this point, I'm delaying sleep. The room grows murky and I jerk awake after 5 seconds. Marian looks over at me with her disapproving hazel eyes.

"Clove, it's time for you to go to bed."

"I don't want to," I murmur so she won't hear the pleading in my voice. The thought of going to sleep in any way makes me want to claw out my eyes.

It takes Marian 6 seconds to come over with the syringe. She injects my arm before I can fight back. It's a slightly different medicine, one just for knocking me out to sleep, not to control emotions as well. It makes me loopy. It takes 10 seconds for the medicine to take effect. I am swept under again into a sleep where my dreams are empty white boxes and I feel as though I can never escape. At least, not until Marian hands me the key.

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The next morning, Marian informs me she's put the sleeping supplement on my list of medications. I'm going to have to take it every night. "I hear you screaming in your nightmares, Clove, whatever you dream isn't healthy if it's causing six panic attacks a night." I fight her about it. The screaming match lasts an hour before I slip away from myself and start dementedly smashing plates. Marian sedates me and I wake up in time to feel another needle go in, knocking me out for the night.

I spend approximately 17 seconds contemplating mutinously leaving the house so Marian can't sedate me the next morning. I give up and pull out the boxes of papers. There's still a few stacks out from when I was trying to avoid sleeping the night before last. I'm pretty sure I looked at them but something makes me check again.

I'm rifling through bills when I find it. A birth certificate. "Marian, can you go get my birth certificate?" Her heels click up the stairs. When Marian comes back down I rip the certificate from her manicured hands. Marian looks over my shoulder as I compare.

One is for me. Clove Evelin Fuhman, born April 6, nearly 18 years ago. My parents names are listed below.

The other is for an Ireland Jaz Fuhman, born July 29, 27 and a half years ago. Nine years before me. There could be any explanation for this, Fuhman isn't an uncommon name. But the thing that gets me are the names listed below hers. They are my parents'.

I have an older sister.

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