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★★★
THE MORE TIME PASSES, THE more nervous I get. Clove and I have been allied for three whole days now. I've lost track of how many days the Games have gone on for.
I don't like the unknown, even something as small as how long we've been in the arena. It makes me afraid, like everything's spinning out of control.
We haven't gotten any more sandwiches lately, from either of our mentors. Clove seems to know what it means. Or maybe there's some other reason for her constant scowling and pacing, which is unlikely.
"What's wrong?" I dare to ask. It's afternoon now and we're in the cave, waiting for the snares I set in the stream to yield results. I'm sitting against the wall, tying knots in my ribbon. Clove has been pacing in tight, angry circles for the past twenty minutes.
"Nothing," she mutters, picking at the wrapping on her wrist. It still hasn't gotten better. If anything, the swelling has gone up. She refuses to say anything about the pain, but I know it hurts. It worries me.
"It doesn't seem like nothing," I venture cautiously. "What's bothering you?"
Clove glares at me and opens her mouth, but nothing comes out. She turns away and takes a deep breath. "I don't know," she says finally. "I... I guess I just feel weird about everything. The alliance. The Careers."
"Oh." I look down at the ground, then back up at her. Her eyes flick from me to the empty space beside me, and I nod almost imperceptibly. She carefully sits down beside me, a polite distance away.
"Were—Are you close with them? The Careers, I mean." I feel like that's a redundant question, given that Clove does not seem to be particularly close with anyone unless she's killing them, but I ask it anyway.
Clove shrugs, staring at the other side of the cave. "I mean... No, not really. Except for Cato. The others were just a way to help me survive. But we were still allies. It feels... wrong, in a way, breaking it off."
"Cato and Marvel are the only Careers left," I say, twisting my ribbon into a spiral. "Do you think they'll be looking for you?"
Clove looks uncomfortable, and I see her struggling to find an answer. She suddenly looks lost and forlorn, another teenager sentenced to her cruel fate in the form of the Hunger Games. I hesitantly inch my hand over to hers to take hold of it, and she tenses up but doesn't move.
"... Maybe they will," she mumbles eventually. "There's just the two of them now. I don't think Cato will want Marvel to stick around."
With a jolt, I realize this is the first time she's called Marvel by his actual name. I wonder about the Career dynamic again, remembering the five gravitating naturally to each other in the Training Center, laughing and talking loudly at lunch. There was always an uneasy layer of tension under their voices, the knowledge that they'd be killing each other one day. In all the past Games, the Careers team up to kill the rest, then turn on each other until one comes out.
But they're always loyal to the end. That was what Dana really meant by calling Clove a traitor, I assume.
We're pretty much silent after that, sitting against the wall like two regular kids, fingers entwined but not looking at each other, staring aimlessly at nothing. I wonder what she's thinking about.
Then she turns to me. "What's life like in Three?" she asks. "You've talked about it before, but not a lot."
I blink at her for a moment, confused. She's demonstrating that uncharacteristic openness again, but something about it seems... forced. This is probably something for the cameras, I think. But why me?
I think of the kiss again and bite my bottom lip, thinking. Huh.
Realizing she's still waiting for an answer, I quickly look over at her. "It's not really much, I guess. I go to school sometimes and work in the factories. My job's to produce music chips."
Clove raises her eyebrows. "Music chips?"
I blink at her. "Yeah, like..." Oh right, the districts don't really have access to those. "Um, they're basically these tiny devices that play music. The Capitol likes them."
"Oh." Clove mulls that over for a second. "Don't really see the point, but okay."
I shrug and smile. I suppose Clove doesn't get many novelty items in her district. Really, though, no one in any of the districts has those. "I also run my mom's workshop. She, um, died when I was thirteen. Factory accident."
Clove is quiet for a moment. "That must have been hard," she says, picking at the tip of her boot with her other hand. I notice a thread of tightly-wound anger under her cold, impassive voice. "It's... It's good you made it through that."
I look over in surprise. Most people usually give me sympathetic eyes and say I'm sorry, even though they have nothing to be sorry for. But no, she is commending me for surviving. I lost a piece of myself when my mother died. My whole family did. But we pulled through.
"Thank you," I say when I've found my voice again.
Clove shrugs. "Nothing to thank me for."
I sneak a glance beside me to see there's a soft smile playing on her lips. It almost seems... genuine.
Then there's a noise from outside. "Parachute," Clove mutters, and she's outside in a flash, coming back with the gift before I can even stand. Number 2. For her again.
She tosses aside the wrapping and pulls out a single cracker. "Hm," she says, unimpressed.
"What is it?" I ask. It looks like one of the Capitol's soup crackers. I notice a diagonal break line, separating it into two triangles.
"It appears we've been demoted to a cracker," she replies drily and breaks it neatly in half. She pops her half in her mouth and holds up the other. Before giving it to me, she fixes me with her dark green eyes and says slowly, "Enobaria says you're smart."
I furrow my eyebrows. "Does she?"
"Yeah." Clove places my half of the cracker in the palm of my hand, fingertips brushing against my skin, lingering before disappearing. I shiver. "Here's your triangle." She just barely enunciates the word triangle.
