The Story Of Cato And Clove

Chapter 13: Clove

I watch Cato as he slowly but surely scales the tree, paying closer attention at his straining muscles as he hoisted himself up to each gangly tree limb.

Concern twists my gut---- as I found out on the roof before we entered the Games, Cato has a crippling fear of heights.

"Really, Clove?" I start at Marvel's voice in my ear----- his tone is mock scolding, but it's laced with undeniable amusement. "You're choosing now to check out your boyfriend?"

My cheeks flame red, and I hiss at him. "I wasn't---- he's not---- just shut up and watch Lover Girl die."

He chuckles as his gaze focuses again on the scene in front of us---- I don't admit it to him, but I too am holding in a laugh.

Katniss is around another twenty feet in the air when a crack sounds in the forest, sending a swarm of panicked birds away from us.

Horror sears through me and I just manage to hold down a scream. as I see Cato's flailing figure plummet out of the tree, still clutching the branch in his fists.

I'm in the process of rushing over to him--- did hurt himself?---- when he gets to his feet, spewing a string of colourful curses.

My throat stops constricting and I can breathe again, I know I shouldn't care because he has to die anyway, but oh my god I'm so happy his neck isn't bent at a weird angle.

Glimmer takes action next, climbing up the tree as we stand in tense silence beneath her until the wood begins to splinter under her, and she retreats sensibly.

By now Katniss is so high in the tree I can't even look at her for the sun glaring at us behind her small silhouette.

I nudge Glimmer, encouraging her to shoot Katniss with the arrows. She nods at me and aims the bow at her.

She hasn't even shot it yet, and I instantly know she's hopeless with one of these weapons. Her hold on it is weak, and she's pulling the bowstring to far to the left.

I've never used a bow and arrow directly, but it's my brother's preffered weapon, so I like to think I know a thing or two.

The arrow whistles through the air after being released, wobbling on it's path before missing the tree entirely. Two more arrows following after that, only one coming withing three feet of Katniss. It embeds itself above her head, so she reaches up and grabs it, waving it above Glimmer's head, taunting her.

She acts as if teasing Glimmer was the only purpose of retrieving the weapon, but I see the clumsily disguised look of longing in her eyes as she looks from the arrow in her hands, to the bow in Glimmer's. I turn around and look at Lover Boy, wondering why he didn't tell us she was capable of using this weapon.

He's watching the scene in front of him with a face betraying no sign of emotion---- I wonder if he's putting on a mask. He must be, if his little confession of love to her at the interviews was genuine.

Maybe, if we're lucky, the bow is what she used to get that infuriatingly good training score---- that would be more than ideal, since the item is now clutched in Glimmer's greedy little fist.

I clench my fists, resisting the temptation to physically slap myself. Greedy? Get it together, Clove. You don't know that she's actually looking to steal your man.

And it's not like he's your man, anymore, either.

                                ~*~

With a few collective strings of curses thrown in Katniss's direction, we regroup to devise a strategy.
Barely controlled anger crackles in the air between us, tense and thick.

"Twilight's coming, we can't really attack now," hisses Marina.
"We have to," counters Glimmer. "If we don't then we might lose our chance to get her out of the game!"
"Oh please," Marvel says with a wave of his hand. "She's a squirrel, up there in her little tree--- and we're a bear, down here on the ground."
"Do bears even eat squirrels?"
"Are we like, one bear between us, or like, lots of them?"
"It's a metaphor, goddamit!"

As the rest of my pack argue with one another, I stare up at the girl in the tree.
Katniss looks like crap. Her hair is a tangled mess, her skin stained red by sunlight. Worst of all, her calf is covered in a blistering, fleshy crimson, her face contorted in pain. I almost feel bad for her.

"Oh let her stay up there," Peeta says a bit too loudly. "It's not like she's going anywhere. We'll deal with her in the morning."

He's right.

She's not going anywhere.