Beneath the Scars (Sequel to A Dying Love)

Chapter 2

(Cato's POV)

"Welcome, Cato, Clove! It's an honour to be able to guide you along this tour!" Cianna exclaims, wrapping Clove and I into a big group hug. "Please, please tell me everything! How have you guys been?! Oh my, it's been so long since we've last seen you."

"Awh Cianna, we've missed you too!" Clove smiles , taking a hold of her hand.

"We've been great!" I say cheerfully, Clove smiles in agreement. "We've never been more ready to get married!" I glance at Clove who seems to force a smile. I wonder what's wrong? What if she doesn't want to marry me? What id she no longer loves me? I push these thoughts into the back of my mind for later.

"Perfect! That makes me so happy! Okay, so follow me for your tour of the train. It's quite similar to the train you took for the games."  She gestures her hands towards the joined living room and dining room, "this is the living room and dining room. The bedrooms and restrooms are just through those doors" She smiles as she points to the doors on either side of the fireplace.  The room was quite large, you'd never expect it to be on a train. When you walk through the giant glass doors to board the train, you have the dining room table to your left and the plush red couches to the right, all framing the fire place. 

"Hey you, better not've forgotten about me?" Enobaria says with a wicked smile spreading across her face.

"How could I forget?" Clove sighs, followed by a laugh, "I actually missed you." She chuckles as Enobaria pulls her in for an embrace.

"Come on over, Big Kid." Enobaria says as she waved me over to join the group hug. I join in and for once, I it felt like things were back to normal.

We move over to couches as we prepare our speeches for the engagement tour. We decided that Clove will do most of the talking since I screwed up last time.  I'm not sure how it'll all go down, but I'm hoping it goes well for her sake.

"Okay, perfect. So uh first stop is..." She pauses and looks down in her hands, "twelve. This will definitely be the hardest district especially since Clove killed both of their tributes."

Clove winces, "Okay. Great."

"You sure you don't want me to do the talking for at least this one stop?" The thought of her having to do all the talking, with the state she's been in these past few days isn't a very good idea.  Plus, she always seems to get tense or stressed whenever we talk about the wedding.  It seems like she wouldn't be able to pull it off.

"It's okay, really. Don't worry about it." She smiles, stroking my arms with her callused hands.  How does one know if she truly is fine?  I have a big hunch that she doesn't want me to speak just because of my victor's speech.  All I wanted was for the people of Panem's voice to be heard and it was heard alright.  Almost immediately after my speech peacekeepers swarmed around us, all of their guns were pointing towards our heads.  Clove luckily had kept her knives on her and passed me half a dozen, leaving her the same amount as she gave me.  We managed to throw them all at the peacekeepers and they hit areas that weren't severe areas, such as feet, legs, arms, hands.  Was it extreme? Yes, definitely.   However, it was necessary and we didn't want to kill them, that would just cause way too much chaos.  Ever since we had that showdown, it's been different in two.  Peacekeepers have been acting strangely, almost as if they're slightly intimidated by us.  It was an odd feeling, they'll always look at us wearily as we pass and then they'll whisper something into their walkie talkies.  I have a hunch that they're planning something, the question is what?

"Clove, I know that it's going to be extremely tough on you at this stop,  we're hated by twelve.  We killed-" 

"I killed, Cato. I killed them! I killed the other couple in the games! They got more sponsors then us, everyone loved them, especially the Capitol!  What if the tables turned and they had killed us? Huh?  We shouldn't be here, we should've died.  We deserve to die, we killed so many people, Cato."  She screams as she struggles to hold back the waterfalls welling in her sapphire eyes.  Her lips quiver as she rolls up into a ball on the couch.