Cato's POV
The rest of the day is a blur. My dad visits me in the Justice Building, but we don't have much to say to each other. We're not that type of people. Though I could tell he was not taking it well. This is the first time I realize that if I die, he'll be completely without family.
The train is indescribable. Daphne talks about it like the velvet and food makes up for the whole brutally killing each other part. Capitol people.
That night, I try not to think about Cassia or the Games or District Two. I can focus on that tomorrow. Tonight I want to think about something happy. About Clove. About the moment she and I became inseparable.
We were still young. We were still naïve. We had never even been entered in a Reaping. She was nine and had only been in the academy for a few months and she was already excelling. Top of her class, even. I was eleven, my first Reaping in the upcoming June. I guess we didn't quite understand the Games then, but our ignorance cemented our friendship. I remember our exact, oblivious promise to each other.
"And you promise that, if we're picked, we'll win together?" the dark-haired nine-year-old asked me.
"Of course. Together or not at all, right?" I told her.
"Yeah, together or not at all," she smiled.
Clove's POV
It takes me ten minutes to figure out how to work the overcomplicated Capitol shower on the train. Eventually though, I do get to step in to the luxuriously hot water. The shampoo and conditioner smell like herbal mint, and the soap like cucumbers.
Anything to distract me from the Games for one more day. I will start tomorrow, not today. Today I'm still me. Today my life isn't going to be about the Games, not quite yet. I wish today could last forever. I wish it contained more than four more hours.
After the Reaping this morning, I got to say goodbye to my folks. They cried and I just tried to comfort them, but I couldn't really say anything to make them feel better. There's nothing left to say but "goodbye" and "I'm sorry" and "I hope I see you again". Afterwards we loaded the train and slowly headed to the Capitol. We travel no more than thirty miles per hour–though the trains can go two hundred–since District Two is so close to the Capitol and they want all the tributes to arrive at the same time tomorrow morning.
