the girl who played with knives || clato ✔️

2

Clove

A gasp escapes my lips. It's Clove Cray. It's me. I will be going to the Capitol to be raised up like a pig for slaughter. I try to remain emotionless. I try to pull it together.

It's too much. It's all too much. I hear someone sobbing behind me and assume it's my mother. The crowd parts so I can walk more easily up to the stage. How nice to look out for my well-being.

"Come on up, dear!" Chirps Madeleine Maggot far too enthusiastically. I do. My feet drag haphazardly across the ground, as if my body is willing me to stay in the crowd. A delicate breeze blows my hair across my face. One of the yellow flowers Cato weaved into it wriggles its way out and falls to the ground at my feet. My breath catches in my throat and I have to stop walking for a moment.

The lag is almost unnoticeable. Just long enough for me to avert my eyes from the flower, lift my chin, thrust my shoulders back and put on a little smirk. I glance up at the large screens filled with close-ups of my face and feel relief at the way I appear to be almost boastful about being chosen. Here in District 2 it is most often known as an honor. We train ourselves as best we can, then volunteer when we deem ourselves ready. Winning means fame and riches, which is of course what we aim for, but losing means certain death. It's a dangerous game that's for sure.

Once I've strutted up to the stage and jogged up the stairs, I take my place at Madeline Maggot's right hand.

"Congratulations, dear!" She says with a beaming smile. I maintain my smirk as I nod in her direction. "Any volunteers?!" Surprisingly, no one speaks up. Any sympathy from my cousins, who are my closest friends besides Cato, fades away. We are not that close. I can't help but scowl, hurt leaking through the cracks of my painted pride. Even in a place where people pull knives on each other in order to secure their place in the Games, no one will volunteer for me.

"Wonderful!" Madeline Maggot says after probably a minute. "And now we'll pick the boy!"

I stare out at the crowd, trying not to make eye contact with anyone, especially Cato or my mother, who I can still faintly hear crying. Madeline Maggot picks the boy's name and walks back to the microphone.

Don't be Cato. Don't be Cato. Don't be Cato. I know this is wishful thinking. Cato's name is in that damn bowl 168 times.

"Brooks Titan!"

I physically crumple with relief. Maybe I can get home and we'll all live happily ever after, but that wouldn't work if Cato was with me.

A tan boy with chocolate brown hair steps out of the crowd. He looks like he's twenty-five and is built like an ox. I cannot imagine competing against him. Especially after he gives me a toothy smirk, and I swallow involuntarily, then proceed to smirk back half-heartedly. Once he's at his place onstage, Madeline Maggot asks for volunteers.

Cato

It happens too fast. I don't have enough time to react. Clove slips from the crowd and away from me indefinitely. She walks to the stage. No one volunteers. She puts on a smirk and keeps calm. She has always been a better actor than me.

I soon get over the general shock and see a brutish boy probably stronger than me standing onstage with her and I almost faint. There is no way she could beat him. Even with her knives. Even if she never misses. He could probably take several direct hits and still keep fighting. Maybe I'm exaggerating, but he seems to be made entirely of muscle. He could probably snap Clove in two.

"Any volunteers?!" The Maggot asks of the crowd, which bustles and mutters but remains generally quiet for a few moments, until suddenly, without thinking, I blurt out "I volunteer!"