star crossed lovers ➸ cato hadley

xviii. the darkness

She had two simple tasks, but killing certainly wasn't on her agenda. She vowed to protect Peeta against the sin that would haunt him. She wanted him to come out of the games without any guilt eating away at him. She had to do it. She had to kill the boy, so Peeta wouldn't have to.

"I'm sorry." Natalie whispered to nobody before throwing the knife into the dirt mound nearest to the pyramid. The mine only took a second to activate before exploding into a cloud of flame and dirt, the supplies from the pyramid crushing the poor boy before he even had a chance to understand what was happening. The flame left no remains as it destroyed everything in it's path. If the impact didn't kill the boy, then the flames certainly did.

The female immediately ran from the scene of death, the boy's canon sounding distant in her ears as the explosion rung in her ears. Natalie could barely feel her legs when she met her twin in their hiding spot. She collapsed against the tree, sweat and guilt dripping down her back. She had just killed another innocent child. Another soul whose only goal was to return home safely to their family. Now that was taken away from him. His family would be lucky if they had received anything but the skeleton she had left behind.

The darkness had certainly arrive and it had no plans in leaving.

➳

"Natalie!"

Jolting awake to her brother's scream, Natalie only had a second to respond when she felt a hand cover her mouth, the tip of a knife pressing against her neck. Instead of waking up to her brother, she had woken to bright blue eyes peering down at her and a sinister smirk in the distance.

Natalie had only fallen asleep for one moment and she had gotten herself and Peeta in danger. She cursed herself for letting her guard down just for a second. This was the hunger games, she had to remind herself that she wasn't home.

     Cato brought his finger to his lips, not wanting to alarm the female. He wanted Natalie to trust him, and even if she didn't, he would spend every last minute he had left proving her otherwise.

Clove pushed Peeta forward, causing the male to stumble over fallen tree branches. "Here's what's going to happen. I was thinking about saving the pair of you until the end but after the little stunt you pulled, I've decided afterwards."

The district two female ran her finger along the sharp blade of her knife, her gaze never leaving Natalie's like she was the problem that needed to be solved. "We can do this the easy way, or the hard way. You can either surrender now and I'll consider letting lover boy live until the end or you can continue with whatever act you're trying to achieve and die a slow painful death. Either way, you're going to die."

Cato removed his hand from her face and stood up to stand beside Clove like the loyal tribute he was pretending to portray. "At least make it fair fight."

Reluctantly Clove gave Natalie her own knife back, waiting for the older twin to accept her fate. Both Peeta and Cato knew that this fight was never going to fair. Whilst Clove easily had the upper hand, Natalie was full of surprises. They were completely two different females; Clove had the luck of the Academy on her side, whereas Natalie didn't. But the district 12 female wasn't cocky. She knew that she wasn't going to win and that was her advantage. Clove's arrogance was her weakness.

Natalie barely had a chance to move as Clove tried to attack her. "Is that all you got?" Natalie taunted.

Clove glared and struck again, her aim striking tree as she cut Natalie's arm. A wave of pain coursed through Natalie's body but she tried to ignore it. This time round, Natalie attacked.

Both tributes were both bloody and bruised as their fight continued on. Natalie panted as she couldn't see Clove anywhere in sight. But as she heard rustling of the leaves and saw a flash of black hair, she threw her knife at the target.

However, the target wasn't Clove. It was the district 11 tribute, Rue. The cannon boomed, the confirmation of what had happened sounding in her ears.

Natalie didn't care about the fight with Clove in that moment, she raced towards the twelve year old with tears running down her face. She crashed to the ground, desperately trying to find for a pulse.

She didn't know Rue but she never forgotten what she had done. And now she would never be able to repay her. Instead, she repaid Rue with her death.

"No!" She screamed as Cato gently tried to pull her away. "I need to save her!"

Peeta wrapped his arms around his sister, as Cato held her hand, both of them kneeling on the ground beside Natalie. "She's dead, Nat." Cato said softly. It broke their hearts to see Natalie so helpless. They know knew that she had killed, but they knew saw her this distraught. They wanted to help her but deep down, Natalie knew there was no coming back from this.

She had to make Clove pay.

➳

sorry for this shitty chapter, i struggled with writing it, especially the ending but hopefully you'll like the new chapter.