Needing the Impossible (A Clato Fanfic)

Chapter 25

Chapter 25

Clove's POV

A loud stream of profanity fills the air as Cato hits the hard earth. It doesn't stop until he's on his feet and resigned to glaring up at Katniss, who has stopped her climb to observe us. I watch Cato carefully, expecting him to explode. He's not used to failure. “Clove,” he mutters under his breath, surprisingly calm. I nod. He knows I want her just as bad as he does. And if he can't get to her, he'll let me have a go.

“I've got this,” Glimmer says smugly, stepping forward.

“Hell no,” I growl, shoving her back.

“Watch it!” she shrieks back.

“Glimmer,” Marvel warns. Smart boy. I'm about to slit his District partner's throat.

“No!” she shouts back. “They take all the glory for themselves. This one's mine.” I begin to lunge for her, but Cato holds me back.

“She has a bow,” he whispers. What does that matter? She can barely use the thing! “Just kill her when she gets back.” He has a point. It would give me a good excuse to kill the brat. But I don't want her to steal my kill, and we're running out of daylight. If she doesn't succeed – and I'm hoping she doesn't – we won't have time for another attack tonight.

Before I have anymore time to think about it though, Glimmer's already in the tree. Fine. Maybe she'll break her neck and die. I look up and see Katniss shimmying up the tree again. Is this part of what she showed the Gamemakers? She's incredibly good at this. I didn't know they had that many trees in District 12. I'd always pictured it as run-down and kind of black and white. Like our District, only poorer. Glimmer's pretty good with trees too, though, and so she's beginning to gain on Katniss, who is having to be more particular about which limbs she uses.

Everything is going frustratingly well until the branches beneath Glimmer's feet begin to crack. I feel the corners of my lips curl into a satisfied smirk, my mind filling with images of her falling to her death. She's a good forty feet up in the air.

I have no such luck. She finds a stable branch and begins to launch arrows up at Katniss. She fails disastrously. Her third arrow lands in the tree within Katniss's reach, and she pulls it out of the wood. It wasn't lodged in particularly deep. Go figure. I'm wondering what she's doing when she begins to wave it around in the air – taunting us. I see Cato stiffen beside me, and I let out a hiss of frustration.

“Just hit her, damn it!” Marvel yells, annoyed with his incompetent District partner.

“You try shooting from a tree!” she screeches back at him, sounding equally frustrated. Whatever. Glimmer can't hit a stationary target, much less a live one that's forty feet above her. Tree or no tree. Why did she even bother?

She begins to make her way back down the tree and I shoot Cato a look of disdain. “If you had let me tr-”

“You would have missed. And that would have been embarrassing,” he says abruptly, cutting me off. I search his eyes for some sign of a joke, but he looks completely serious. My mouth falls open in disbelief. I don't miss. He rolls his eyes at me and I immediately shut my mouth, feeling like an idiot. I shoot him another glare and begin to argue with him, but Glimmer hops out of the tree at just that moment. The desire to slit her throat has completely left me. I'm too mad at Cato. I don't miss!

“Let's burn her out,” Marvel suggests, already looking around for usable fuel.

“And start another forest fire?” I snap, agitated by the lack of intelligence everyone around me is showing. Peeta is the only one so far who hasn't said something completely moronic on this trip. He's on the road to becoming my new favorite, in spite of his reluctance to kill anything larger than a small dog. “I think not.”