Tributes Of District 2- Cato and Clove

Reaping Souls

Chapter 4

Ten Years Later...

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Clove's POV 

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Sweat pours down my face. I ignore it, like always. My grip on the knife is so tight my knuckles are blue. I sprint through the trees, not a leaf crunching under my feet, unlike my pursuers, who tramp through the leaves heavily, indicating their exact positions. I'm not worried that they will catch me.

I slow to a walk and, despite sprinting for over seven miles, my heart beats calmly, as if I'd decided to sleep in.

I take the one knife I have and examine it quickly. This exercise has been, thus far, a pain. We were each given a weapon of our choice, which had surprised me then, but then it had hit me: only one. Being myself, I had selected a throwing knife, which, with seven deadly and armed killers trying to maim me, isn't really convenient.

So my current plan is to lure them away from the group, one by one. I take shelter under a large bush as the footsteps draw closer. The group bursts into the clearing, arms at the ready. It takes them a moment to realize I am not there, and in that moment, I see opportunity and silently drift over to the last one and, without throwing it, sink the knife in his back, where the protective gear covers his heart. As I expected, he doesn't cry out, but the point is made clearer when, with a flick of my wrist, I slash the gear open. He twitches at this, so I quickly dive back into the shrub. This makes a noise, and alerts the group. I swear mentally. They look around, and one of them notices his friend has a slash in the back of his gear. "Tank," he says, "did you grab a used vest?"

"What?" Tank turns to face his friend. "No! Lay off, Sherman, if you're playing a prank, I swear I'll-"

"No," another one turns around. "It's that girl, what's her name, Eddie?"

Eddie, clearly the leader, seeing as all three of them square their shoulders as he bounds up to them, says "Some bitch named Clover, I think."

"We've been running for about an hour and a half, changing direction every ten damn minutes," the first one spits.

Eddie shoots him a look of steel. "Suck it up, Mark. You're just lucky Cato was busy today and couldn't be here, too." He frowns as he examines Tank's jacket. "She's here."

They all draw their weapons and stand back to back. I grit my teeth and swear violently in my head. Looks like I'd be doing this Enobaria's favorite way: tooth and nail. Literally.

I emerge from the shadows, my knife drawn at my side. Eddie's attention snaps to me and he smirks at me, "Clover, is it?"

"Clove Ashworth," I correct coldly.

He grins. "No... Surely you're not her."

I stare at him right in the eyes, noting the chocolaty brown. "The one and only."

"Ed, you know this chick?" Tank demands from next to Eddie. I shot him a mocking look. "Feeling cold? Your jacket looks a bit drafty." He swore. I smirked.

"Doesn't matter," Eddie said. "You, little psychopath, are trapped."

I look around to see the rest of the loons had surrounded me. With a grin, Eddie steps closer to me, and I brandish the knife wildly. He smirks. "I've got you now, honey. No hard feelings?"

He takes another step closer to me, but I remain perfectly still. Another step, and he's all but on top of me. In that instant, I sink the knife into the thick protective layer covering his heart, hitting the target dead-on. Eddie's face turns from smug to shock in a second. "No hard feelings," I smile slowly, then kick him where the sun don't shine so hard, I might actually bruise. Eddie dropped like a rock, and then there was an onslaught of six sixteen-year-olds, all taller and heavier than me, not to mention armed to the teeth.