Retrieve - A Hunger Games (Cato) Fan Fiction

One

I stared across the Cornucopia, into the panicked eyes of the girl pointing her silver arrow straight at my head. My grip instinctively tightened around the writhing body of her District partner, my hands clasping his neck. I was stronger than him - one movement from me, I could snap his scrawny little neck.

Katniss Everdeen had been the one thing I hadn't counted on in my plan. Who could have predicted that someone from the outlying districts, let alone a female, would volunteer in her sister's place and win the hearts of the nation? Who could have known that she'd have fallen in love with the other tribute from 12, the bakers son? And who could have known that despite all of this, all the presents and favour she received, that she'd be a decent fighter too?

I certainly hadn't.

My eyes flickered down to the spot a few hundred yards away, where only yesterday, Clove had died. No, been murdered. Just as Selena had been murdered in these Games. And once again, I wasn't there to stop it. The guilt bit at my nerves, usually steel-like, and my hands started to shake. I'd abandoned Clove, foolishly left her alone whilst I went off to search for water after 12 blew up our supplies. I thought she could protect herself.

The exact same mistake I'd made with Selena.

My heart throbbed in my chest as I thought about my beauty - her long curling hair that fell softly in shades of auburn, her doe-like eyes and the most gorgeous pair of lips you could ever imagine. How she only reached my shoulder and yet could make anybody do her bidding with a single glance. How she used words and ideas to win friends and shame enemies, rather than violently fighting in the way she also could. During her time in the Games, she'd used her intellect rather than her physical prowess to survive, catching food and finding water, building a shelter that none of the other tributes ever found. In the end, it was a fatal stab-wound delivered by the beast from 4 and the blizzard the Gamesmakers had sent that finished her life. She couldn't get herself to warmth and safety in time, got stuck in the snow and died there. Alone.

I'd made a pact with Clove that I wouldn't let her die alone, and she wouldn't let me. We knew that one of us wasn't going to make it back to 2, perhaps even the both. I was willing to give my life for her, as I should have done for Selena.

But Clove died alone too.

Katniss' hands remained completely steady as she stared me down. Blood trickled from the various wounds on my head and body, staining my clothes red. I hoped that they at least washed the blood away and gave me some fresh clothes before returning my body to 2.

I wasn't going to survive this. There were 2 of them, 1 of me, and she had a bow. Her weapon of choice. Katniss was better with that bow and arrow than anybody at the Career Academy, better than any tribute I'd seen on the games before. There was no way possible I was going to get out of this alive and back to 2.

But that had been the plan all along. Clove have persuaded me of it when I'd reached rock bottom after Selena's death. "If you want to die," she preached, "make it meaningful. Get your revenge, and hit them as hard as you can when you do it. Don't die in vain, Cat."

What better way to die than by spitting in the Capitol's face?

"Go on" I found my lips saying, egging on the girl from 12. The nation's new sweetheart. "Shoot, then we both go down and you win."

Her hands tightened on the bow and string, and her boyfriend flinched in my grasp.

"Go on," I begged her, tears springing up to my eyes. I didn't try to stop them. "I'm dead anyway. She's dead anyway."

Katniss frowned. "She?"

"My Selena, my beautiful Selena..."

Recognition flickered in her brown eyes. "I knew I recognised you..." she breathed in surprise, "you tried to volunteer last year, for that girl. They wouldn't let you, would they? Why did you try to volunteer?" Her boyfriend gasped and chocked, but I wouldn't loosen my grip. I was going down, but not without a fight. I was a natural killer after all.