GAMES
"Do you know what the reason for these games even is?"
"Of course I do. To punish us for the Dark Days. The war."
"Exactly. And do you know what that means?"
"What?"
"No one wins when it comes to the Games. Twenty-three tributes lose their liv...
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***
The rest of the night had passed like torture, slowly drawing out the agony that Shay felt to her core. Killing Leif had not been a catalyst. It was the result. There was no more innocence left in the District 10 girl, as it had been forcibly ripped from her the moment the light left her district partner's eyes.
His last words echoed in her mind. "It's okay." But, as she told Cato, it was not okay. It never would be. Not while the Hunger Games continued and Snow was president. Not while the districts continued to exist under the thumb of the Capitol and innocents continued to die.
Shay was numb, yet at the same time, she wasn't. She had no more tears left to cry, but that did not mean that emotion was absent from her being. She mourned the young boy from home. She mourned a lot of things. Korra and Glimmer had been the catalyst, the beginning of the end for the girl formerly known as Shaylin Herba. Leif had been the grand finale. She was different now. She had to be if she was going to survive.
Cato's eyes barely left her since the moment he returned to camp and saw her in her crumbling state. He had held her until her final tear fell and it was safe for her to face the wolves once again. She didn't understand why he cared enough to comfort her. He owed her nothing and she should've been nothing to him, but somehow she wasn't.
For every attempt she made to push him away, he came back. He protected her through lies, ensuring her survival to the final four if she helped them with Katniss. He protected her with solitude when her emotions had begun to boil over. He didn't have to, but he did. He could kill her, but he didn't.
It puzzled the blonde girl, and as she prepared for the day with the rest of the Careers, she supposed she was thinking about it more than she should. She glanced to her left as she nibbled on her breakfast of crackers and dried fruits. The hulking blonde remained within arm's reach of her all morning. When the group planned their hunting groups, Cato immediately claimed Shay as his partner for the day before Clove or Marvel could speak a word. This time, there were no objections.
Clove merely smirked at the implications. Shay figured that her act of loyalty the day before was enough to convince Clove that she could be trusted to help them find Katniss. If she had been willing to kill her district partner, then surely she could kill some random girl with whom she held barely a modicum of friendship.
Putting her trash in a bin the group had set aside; Shay strapped her knife belt to her waist and waited for Cato quietly. His eyes met hers as she stood beside him, silent questions asked within them. She nodded at him as a way of easing his inquisitive gaze.
Clove and Marvel took off east of camp while Cato and Shay went west. However, it only took a few minutes into their trek for Cato to get sick of the silence. "How are you feeling today?"
