Chapter 6

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After being at Clove's old house I felt like I needed to take her somewhere special to me. I took her hand as soon as we were out of the house and ran with her to my old house. We hadn't always lived in the peacekeepers mansion. And my old house had my memories of terrible, happy, tragic, life changing events. One of which was sitting in front of the TV watching my sister fight to stay alive in the arena. She was 18 when she went in, and she won. It was quite interesting when she came home because my father had to walk her out from the train and it was obvious that behind his mask that he was beaming with pride. His oldest child had volunteered and won. Something that he wanted all of the kids to do. But when my brother went in it changed. My father was so let down at first. And this is the house where I got upset and began training my butt off.
"Clove, come with me." I told her and pulled her back to the main road. I walked hand-in-hand with her until I turned down the road to where the house is, or was. All that's left of it was a shell of a building that looked like it had been burned.
"Cato?"
"It's all gone. All of the things my brother and I left here. We couldn't take everything with us. And now it's all gone." I look at her and see the sad look in her eyes. She could already tell how much it meant to me to share this place with her and now I couldn't. It wouldn't surprise me if my father had burned it down though. This was the house that he raised his perfect son in. When we moved to the new house he took the name plate off of Liam's door and put it on the door of the empty room in the new house. But maybe my father had actually taken everything but not told me. It wouldn't be new, as a Peacekeeper he can be very sneaky.
"Cato, look at me." Clove said and reached up to me and turned me to face her, "you couldn't control what happened here ok? You couldn't control what happened to your brother either, understood? You didn't kill him. You couldn't have volunteered for him either, he wouldn't have wanted you to. At least he got to spend his final minutes happy, with the love of his life and talking about you. I understand that as soon as you saw him get what you knew was a lethal blow. If it were my sister I would have. But when he was dying he was telling her that he wanted you to know how much he loved you. He was telling her a story about how crazy you were about him and her getting married because they were adorable. I remember that and so does my sister. You might not but I do. And I know that your brother would be so proud of you." Clove told me softly. She wiped away a tear that I didn't know was there and hugged me. Even though I was taller and bigger in every way I could tell that she was comforting me and that she was far too wise for her age. As a 10 year old girl she had seen both her parents die, her sister become a murder, watches as her sister became numb to the world and saw people she cared about get killed by the heartless Peacekeepers. I used to think I wanted to be one but now that I know what they can do I don't want to. I don't want Clove to look at me and see the capability of killing someone with a weapon just because the Capitol and the President told me to. I want to be able to make my own choices and to do what I want and not what other people want me to do. If I let people boss me around my whole life I wouldn't truly be living, I would just be what is expected of District 2 citizens, perfect law abiding and the Capitols mindless slaves, but what if I wanted things to be different. I know what the other districts are like, children starving, having to take tesserae so they can have more food but it comes at a high cost, another entry in the reaping with your name scribbled on it. I'm thankful that I never have had to but people in the poorer districts must. I remember the final note I got from my brother while he was training.
Cato,
I wish that I was with you right now and didn't have to look at all of the starving kids here. You and I have always been able to eat daily and have full stomachs, but I was talking to a girl from district 12, she said that the only time that she had ever actually been full was when she ran out into the woods and collected berries with her father and practically tripped over a rabbit and snapped it's neck. I want you to know that if I don't make it out alive I want you to make a change in this horrible system. The only time that most of these kids have eaten well was while they were being prepared for slaughter. We both know that this is wrong. And you are strong enough to fight this and make a change. I'll always love you my little bro.
Love,
Liam
The only reason that I want to go into the games is so that I can win the safety that my brother never had. So that I can come back alive and start the rebellion. A rebellion had to happen, even though I would be going against my father directly, it was what Liam wanted, and I wanted to please my brother. Even if he is dead.
"Cato, look at me." Clove demanded again. I slowly turned back to her and she wrapped her arms around me and pushed my head down so my ear was right next to her mouth, "I know that you want a better life, and I do too. But be careful, this world can be awfully dangerous, and we can't do anything if we are killed." She stated firmly and then hugged me tighter. I knew then that she was ready to fight for what we wanted and for a better Panem, one free of The Hunger Games.
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This chapter was exactly 1111 words without this authors note. I know that it was short but I feel like elaborating more is unnecessary, and this realization is the perfect way to end a chapter. Anyways, merry Christmas and I will probably post a new chapter in the New Year, so watch out 2016, I'm ready for ya. As always, thank you, please tell me your thoughts and love y'all :)

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