Clato : Till forever falls apart

Chapter 19 - annocement

Cato and I look at each other in disbelief
We can both go home
I launch myself into his arms knocking him backwards and he just pulls me in further till I'm on top of him laughing so loud we don't care if anybody hears even though we should. We should care so much. If the people in the capitol see us like this our image will crack and we won't get sponsors. No sponsors means no food. Yet we stay incased in each others arms, knowing the consequences too well. We both fall asleep like this nobody staying on watch. His arms make me feel safe enough.

When I wake up I see Cato his packed the bags and stomped out the fire, he smiles when he sees me walk over to him. I smile back. How could I not?

"We're vulnerable here now" he says "we know katniss can shoot, and she'll be finding lover boy, we're completely open to attack here"

I agree and pick up my pack slinging it over my shoulder.

"So where too then?" I ask

"Thresh is still in the long grass I think, I don't know where the ginger one is, I don't think she'll be a problem though. And katniss must be near the fire we saw last night in the forest" he looks around thoughtfully "we head to the forest" he says

"Yeah good plan, we might even find her... it's hot today" I say

The sun was beating down on us, definitely the hottest day since we had entered the arena. I can see waves of heat in the distance, contorting the forest in front of me. I tie my jacket hood onto my backpack straps and Cato does the same, his muscles have shrunk there less defined now. It makes me sad seeing it. He deserves so much more to be hurting in this way.

"We better find something to eat, your wasting away" I laugh trying to hide any concern I have.

Although I know that his stature has shrunk his still more muscly than half the tributes that had been in this arena. nevertheless it's off putting seeing him shrink.

He raises an eyebrow and looks down at his biceps. "I'll gain them back when we get some real food again" he says

I sling the backpack off my shoulder remembering we had some meat left. I give it to Cato. I decide I'll save mine. I can hold off food for a longer time than him. He tells me to have something to eat as well but I tell him I can survive. His persistent, but so am I. I eventually convince him it will be better to save it. After his finished eating with set off into the woods. We run across the flat plain in case anybody happens to watching. The speed will make it harder for people to register we're moving, and they won't have time to load weapons or catch up.

The forest is well built but it's a lot harder to find a good defensive place when there's only two people, it makes me feel horribly vulnerable to any on coming attack. I can't help but wish our allies where still here. It was so much easier with them as well, but they had to die so we could live. And now we can live not just one of us. The thought of us both home again carries my feet through the woods. We must've been searching for about an hour when we come across a small ditch sort of thing, there's a stepped out fire just before the dip and bones from the leg of birds sourriunding the fire, this has been someone else's camp before ours. They didn't do a good job at hiding it either

"What if they come back?" Cato asks obviously thinking along the same lines I had.

"Nobody's coming back here, there's no stuff left besides this fire hasn't been lit for a few days" I respond

The ditch is covered by a blanket of leaves hanging from a tree, if it was man made it's a very good job at camouflaging. I jump down into it, all that's in there is some pulled out tracker jacker stingers and chewed leaves, I think somebody must've been real hungry eating the leaves and all, but then I think the only other people who got stung were district 12.

"Hey Cato look" I point to the pulled out stingers on the floor "this was where one of them from District 12 was. There's no blood so it must've been the girl."

He jumps down and looks into the ditch and mumbles something to himself before climbing back out.

Cato collects twigs and puts them all around our camp, it's the best we can do seeing as nether of us learnt to make traps, the crunching of the twigs should alert us if anybody's near. Marvel would've known how to make a good trap, we didn't even know he had that sort of skill. Yet it felt like I knew him so well. After we're satisfied the whole area is lined we jump into our ditch. It's not that big. It goes up high length wise because it's surrounded by tree and shrubbery, however Cato can only just fit when he lays down, his shoulders reaching etheir side. We sit on etheir side of the ditch it must be little over 6ft across so we're still going to be close no matter what we do. I'm ok with that it gives us an excuse to be near each other

"I wonder why the changed the rules? Must've been somthing to do with lover boy, they're the only other pair left" I say

Cato rolls his eyes impersonating Cesor "the star crossed lovers from district 12"

"Katniss will be tracking down Peeta right now and then she'll be easy. Peeta's hurt. defending both of them without hardley any supplies will be hard" I say

"Yeah haha two isn't better than one in this suitation, maybe he loves her, but there's no way she loves him. She would've warned him before dropping them tracker jackers on his head"

"Yeah, and if she loved him, she would've looked for him earlier. They would be Allies from the start like us."

I can't help but think we're only saying all of this stuff to make the the kill easier on ourselves . I don't really care much if the capitol don't want us disproving there love story for all of panem to watch. Since Marvel died I realised none of us should be here. None of us deserve to die. We're just kids, we did nothing to the captiol, and the more I think about it they've not done a lot for us, they live their life's and need for nothing. We became reliant on the capitol, they control us. And I don't know if I'll ever be a good person because of them. They made me into a killer, they made me think my only purpose in life was to bring glory to my district. The only way to surrive these games from here would be to kill, and I don't want to take another life. If these games taught me anything is that I'm just a pice in their games. So is Cato. But his so much more to me. I want to say this all to him tell him everything but I can't. I do what I can, which is to be exactly who they want me to be. Because his just Brutal Bloody Cato and I'm just the girl with the knives to them.

"Hey Cato" I talk in almost a whisper "just in case we don't live forever, in different life I would make my home with you. We'd find each other and we'd be right where we are meant to be. No games, no tributes to kill to please our districts and no capitol and also if we don't live I want you to know I'd still be the lost little girl on the hill without you" the words come out sputtery and weak, but I believe every word I say. I imagine the other life. But the images are hazy and hard to grab. There will never be another life.

Cato listens intently . Pulling every word from my vocal cords stringing me around his fingers
"Together or not at all."

The answers simple but it's all I need. He understands what I mean. He understands Me.

"Cato we can do it we can really do it be together. We can win the games"