Behind Those Violet Eyes ▸ Hunger Games

Chapter Twenty-One: Alia Fletson

Chapter Twenty-One:

Alia's POV 

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BOOM!

“Cato!” I hissed, alarmed by the sudden explosion. “What was that?!”

When he didn’t respond, I figured his mind was elsewhere. He had a strange look on his face, as if he was in some sort of daze.

“Cato!” I repeated, snapping him out of it.

“Huh?” he asked, clearly unaware of the situation.

“Did you not hear that?!?!”

“What? That noise? Probably just a cannon, Alia.”

I shook my head fiercely. “No. That’s different. This was an explosion, Cato, not a cannon firing. And… think about it… what do we know of that could possibly explode…?”

When I saw the look of sheer rage come to Cato’s face as he clenched his fists, I knew he figured it out.

The explosion was the minefield… and, if it worked properly, it would’ve blown the tribute to pieces… But, by the sound, I knew it hadn’t just blown up a tribute..... but our entire campsite and stash of supplies.

Without any thought whatsoever, we darted off to our camp to find that Glomer’s minefield had worked all too well.

“Cato…” I trailed off, as I could see the anger boiling up inside of him.

Before I knew it, Cato had entered a full-fledged fit of rage.

He kicked the blackened Cornucopia, swearing and screaming and beating the ground with his fists.

Since I figured it would be pointless to try to reason with Cato in this state of insanity, I made my way around the vacant campsite, scrounging for anything that might have survived the explosion.

Nothing.

It had all been destroyed. The only supplies we had left were in our backpacks.

I sighed heavily and kicked the ground with my heavy, combat boots while Cato continued his rampage.

Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed that we weren’t alone.

One of the male tributes from District Ten.... His mouth hung wide open at the sight of the charred ground and Cornucopia in pure shock.

When he began to make his way over to us, I shook my head.

Don’t do it, kid. You wanna live to see tomorrow? Go back to your camp before Cato sees you, I thought.

Normally, I would go after the District Ten boy, as he was another tribute, but I was actually trying to save him this time… because I knew death at the hand of Cato was not a good one.

“Whoa,” the boy said, ignoring my warning, “What happened here?”

When Cato whipped around, I knew it was all over for the District Ten boy.

At first, Cato did absolutely nothing, which was the most terrifying part of all. He just stood there, laughing insanely as he thought of how to slaughter the boy; the blood and dirt on his face only making him look more savage.

The District Ten boy began to back away slowly in some attempt to escape from the ruthless killing machine known as my boyfriend.

Before I could even blink, Cato had his left hand clenched around the boy’s neck, but also had a machete in his left, a twisted look upon his face as his put the blade of the machete to the boy’s neck.