Cato's POV:
I let go of Clove and looked at her eyes. They seemed to shine in the dim light. I wanted to stay longer, but that would probably seem weird and I didn't want to ruin this new friendship or whatever this is. I turned around and walked away and I could hear her talking to someone. The voice sounded familiar, but I probably just recognised her from school.
Her house was kind of small and rundown, but I had always lived in the richer side of District 2, so it might be normal. I walked until I reached a large white brick house that looked more like a mansion. It was home. I went inside and saw that the house was empty.
"Mum!" I called. "Mimi!" I called. Mimi is our housekeeper and I usually talk to her when I get home if mum's not home. This was strange. I plopped down on the couch and I then heard some footsteps. I turned to see who it was and saw that it was my dad.
Like I told Clove, I don't see him much and when I do I'm usually in trouble. "Your mother has taken Mimi to go shopping." He states as he looks at me. "Where've you been?" He asks as he walks in front of me. "Apparently, you left training early. Yet you came back at the normal time. Where have you been?" He continues when I don't respond.
"I've been out." I say vaguely.
"Where and with who?" He asks as he sits down on the couch in front of me.
"Ice cream shop with a girl from training." I say. There's no use in lying to him since he's going to find out one way or another.
"Cato, you can't spend so much time with girls. You need to focus on your training and those girls are just a distraction. Next time you get to leave training early, you come straight home and train in the basement. We didn't get all of that equipment for nothing." He said strictly as he got up and walked away.
He has always been obsessed with me winning the games. It's probably because he wants me to win like he did. He really is the walking definition of a victor though, he is heartless and obsessed with me winning. My mum, on the other hand, is completely different. She's probably one of the sweetest and kindest people you will ever meet and has always been quite rich. She's never had to worry about the games and always tells me to take a rest when she thinks I've been training too much, but of course my dad always stops her when she tells me this.
I sigh and walk to my room. It's quite large and is pretty empty. The only pieces of furniture that's in the room is my bed, a wardrobe, my desk, a chair, a small lounge and a tv that's never used. The room is painted dark grey and most of the furniture is white. My room also has a bathroom connected to it like every other room in the house. Suddenly, my door flies open and a little girl with blonde hair rushes through the door and towards me. It's my sister, Cassandra. She's 6 years old and has absolutely nothing to do at home. Our dad always gets her to train at home, so I don't usually see her when I get home. I bend down and hug her small body.
"You smell different today." She says as she sniffs me.
"No I don't." I say as I look at her. Her long blonde hair is tied up in a high ponytail that looks kind of messy and her face looks slightly red. She must've just escaped from training with dad.
"You smell kind of girly." She said as she sniffs me one last time.
"Girly?" I say, confused. Then I remember that I hugged Clove. I must smell like her now. "Oh." I say as I realise this.
"What?" She asks as she sits on my bed.
"Nothing." I say as I make my way over to her.
"Have you been hanging out with girls again?" She asks.
"Only one." I say casually.
"Is she your girlfriend?" She says with an adorable little smirk.
"No." I say quickly.
"Dad said that I'm going to the training centre tomorrow. He said that I need to go with you." She said as she started swinging her legs.
"Okay, we'll go after school." I say. In that moment, my phone started ringing. I picked it up and saw that it was Fabian. What could he possibly want? "Hello?" I say as I picked up the phone.
"Hi Cato. Tomorrow you will need to come to training by 8:00 am again." Fabian said.
"Okay." I said. I was kind of glad that we had training, I really don't want to go to school.
"See you tomorrow." He said and hung up.
"Sorry, Cass, I can't take you to training tomorrow." I say as I sit back down next to her.
"Why not?" She asked curiously.
"I got early training tomorrow, so I won't have any time to help you."
"Okay, I'll go tell dad." She said as she sadly headed out of the room. After about a minute, dad and Cass come into my room.
"Cato, you need to take your sister tomorrow." My dad said.
"Why does it have to be tomorrow?"
"Because I already asked the academy if she can come tomorrow. They are already being extremely kind so you are taking her tomorrow." He said firmly. "Am I clear?" He asked.
"Yes, but I have early training tomorrow. Do I bring her in the morning?"
"Do whatever, but she better be at the academy tomorrow." He said before turning and leaving.
"Cass, you need to wake up at 7:00 am tomorrow. I'm sorry, I just don't have the time to come get you later." I said.
"Okay. I'm just happy that I get to go." She said with a large smile. I smiled back at her and she hugged my legs again.
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I woke at 6:30 am. I got out of bed and went straight to the bathroom. After my usual shower, I threw my training clothes on and fixed my messy hair. I got a white shirt and some jeans and put it in my bag before heading out of my room and towards Cass's room. When I entered I saw that she was putting some clothes in a bag. "Breakfast now." I said as she finished packing her bag. She picked it up and we went to the living room. As we entered, Mimi walked into the room with two plates of pancakes. We ate quickly and it was 7:30 am. "Bye Mimi." I called as we left.
We walked to the training centre and as we arrived, I saw a girl with dark hair enter. We went in and I headed to the boy's change room while Cass went to the girl's change room. When I exited, I saw that Cass was looking at Clove train. I stared at Clove as she did tricks with her knives. She was actually quite good.
"Cato!" Cass called and gestured for me to come over. Clove turned around and faced us with a small smirk on her face.
"She's probably even better than you." Cass said happily. Clove's smirk grew.
"She is not." I said as I crossed my arms.
"She's definitely better at knives." Cass said.
"Come on Cass, I'll show you the bow and arrows." I said as I pushed Cass away from Clove and towards the bow and arrow station.
"Was she the girl that you were spending time with yesterday?" She asked as we arrived.
"Why would you think that?" I ask as I get two bows.
"You smelled like her yesterday." As soon as she said that, I turned to face her.
"What do you mean?" I asked. "Yesterday, when I hugged you, you smelt like her." She explained.
"Did you sniff her?" I ask worriedly.
"I could smell her when I hugged her." She stated.
Before I could answer, Fabian walked into the room. "Good your both here." He said before looking at Cassandra.
"You must be Cassandra. I'm Fabian, the head trainer. Your father has requested that I show you around and tell you how things work, so you wait here and I'll get these two stared." He said somewhat nicely. The tone he used is the nicest tone I've ever heard him use. "You two. Practice knives first." He said sternly as he walked out with Cassandra.
I walked over to Clove, who was at the knife station. "Your sister is sweet." She said somewhat harshly.
"Thanks?" I say, confused. "Did you really let her hug you? I would've thought that no one but me was allowed to hug you." I say flirtatiously.
"She came up to me and hugged my legs. I don't think that's considered letting her hug me." She says angrily. Why does this girl always sound angry?
"Let's just start." She says as she picks up a knife. "Copy me." She instructs. She stands with the knife in her right hand and lets it fly through the air and right into the heart of the dummy. I try to stand how she stood but I knew that it wasn't quite right.
"Stop." She said as she came towards me and fixed my stance. As soon as she stepped away from me, I threw the knife and watched as it sliced through the air. It landed on the outer ring of the target. I sighed when I realise that I'm never going to get this.
"Can we stop with knives? I'm never going to get this." I say frustratedly.
"No." She says firmly. "Fabian said to start on knives and that's what we are going to do." She said as she threw another knife. How does she always throw them so perfectly? She doesn't even take the time to aim. I ran my hand through my hair and tugged at it slightly. I walked back up to the knives and picked another one. Clove seemed slightly surprised by this, but she tried not to look it. As I got into position, I could see that she was staring at me.
"I know that I'm handsome and all, but you don't need to stare." I say with a smirk.
"Fine, I won't help you." She said as she moved to the furthest dummy. I threw the knife and it embedded itself into the wall instead of the dummy. Looks like I do need Clove's help.
"Clove. Can you please come help me?" I say desperately.
"No way, Hadley." She spat. I sighed and approached her from the back, so she wouldn't see me coming.
"Please." I said as I wrapped my arms around her waist. She stiffened up at this action, but didn't move. I leaned down so that my chin was resting on her shoulder, but I had to bend down quite a lot since she was so short.
"I told you no." She said as she tried to pry my arms off of her waist.
"I'll let go if you help me." I say with a smirk.
"I'll help you if you never touch me again." She said.
"Can't promise that." I say simply.
"Then I won't help you." She said as she tried to loosen my grip again.
"Then I won't let go." I said as I hugged her tighter.
I lifted my head and rested it on top of her's. I could feel her struggling to get me off of her and couldn't help but smile. That's when I felt something hard collide with my stomach. Instinctively, I loosened my grip on her and she slipped out.
"Don't do that ever again." She said with a disgusted look on her face.
The rest of training was quiet and uneventful. It was now 6:00 pm and we were packing up. (A/N they train in a private room. Sorry for not making it clear.) Cass was in the girl's change room with Clove changing and I waited in the hallway for her to meet me. When she came out, Clove followed behind her.
"Can we go out for a snack? I'm hungry." Cass complained.
"Sure, but I'll have to tell dad or he'll kill me." I say as I get my phone out.
"Clove, can you come as well?" She said as Clove was about to leave.
"Sorry, I have to get home." Clove said as she opened the doors.
"Please." Cass said as she ran up to Clove and hugged her legs.
"Fine." Clove said boredly. I don't know why that was so effective, but it seemed like they have some sort of relationship that I don't know about.
"Hey dad."
"What, son?" He said harshly.
"Cassandra wants to go out to eat something, is that okay?" I ask.
"Only if you train for another two hours after you come home."
"Fine." I sigh as he hung up.
"Let's go." I say as I walk towards them. Cassandra usually hold my hand when we walk, but this time she grabbed Clove's and pulled her down the street.
Soon, we arrived at the best diner in District 2. "We're here." Cass said excitedly as she opened the door and pulled Clove inside. She pushed me ahead of her and made me sit down next to Clove. She sat down opposite of us. I was about to move to sit next to Cassandra, but she quickly got up and pushed me back down.
"No. You sit here." Cass said to me firmly.
"Okay." I laughed. I think that I heard Clove laugh slightly but I'm not sure.
"So, Cass what would you like?"
"Macaroni and cheese." She said with a large smile.
I put my arm up and a waitress with red hair and freckles came up to us.
"What can I get you?" She asked nicely.
"One macaroni and cheese and one hamburger." I said as I put the menu down.
"Clove what would you like?" I asked politely.
"Hamburger." She said as she placed her menu on top of the others.
As the waitress left, Cass said, "I'm going bathroom." She quickly got up and ran to the bathroom, leaving Clove and I to sit alone. Together.
"So, how are you?" I asked awkwardly.
"I was with you the whole day, how do you think my day was?" She said as she raised and eyebrow at me.
"Amazing then." I said with a smirk. She rolled her eyes and folded her arms.
"I thought that we were good now." I said as I turned my body towards her.
"I never said that." She said without looking at me.
"Why not?!" I kind of yelled angrily.
"Because you're annoying and you flirt too much and..." She kind of stopped at the end.
"You don't want to be friends with me because I flirt too much?" I questioned.
"I just don't want to be friends with you." She said as she finally looked at me.
"Give me a chance." I said frustratedly.
"You don't know anything about me so don't assume what I'm like! If anyone shouldn't like the other it should be me! I don't even know why I'm still trying!" I practically yelled. She looked at me and glared.
"Then stop." She said strangely calmly.
"Clove, you're really frustrating sometimes. Did you know that?" I said with a small laugh.
"I thought that you were going to stop trying." She said as she leaned back in her chair.
"Changed my mind." I shrugged. I looked at her and the first thing I saw were her eyes.
Her eyes shined in this lighting and well I guess it always shined. I then looked at her adorable freckles. For some reason, I haven't seen many girls with freckles, but I've always found it cute.
"Stop staring at me like that." She said irritatedly.
"Like what?" I ask.
"Like... that." She said as she moved her chair away from mine.
"I wonder why Cassandra hasn't come back yet." I said.
"Clove, would you mind checking on her? I'm getting a bit worried."
After about 30 seconds, she said, "Fine." I watched her as she stood up and walked to the bathroom.
Clove's POV:
I speed walked to the bathroom, feeling slightly worried about what happened to Cassandra. "Cassandra!" I called as I entered the bathroom.
"Hey Clove." She said casually as she washed her hands.
"Why did you take so long?" I ask.
"I was giving you and my brother time to talk." She said simply.
"Why would you do that? You worried both of us." I said kind of frustratedly.
"I'm sorry. I just thought that you two would want to talk." She said innocently.
"Well we don't, so let's go eat." I say as we both head out of the bathroom. I took my seat next to Cato and moved my chair to the edge of the table. We all ate in silence before Cato payed the waitress.
"I can pay for my own meal." I stated.
"It's fine. I already payed for it." He said as he put his wallet back. I pulled out my wallet and took out $15.
"Take it." I said firmly as I placed it in front of him.
"No." He said as he pushed it back.
"Take it." I persisted.
"We aren't friends or anything, so you shouldn't be paying for my meal." I continued as I shoved it in his jeans pocket. Before he could do anything, I stood up and said, "See you tomorrow." With that I left the restaurant.
Why does he want to be friends with me? I thought as I walked home. Why can't he just give up, like every other guy in our school? Every guy in our school is either scared of me or is too lazy to try to get to know me. I've always known this and I've been fine with it, but now Cato is trying to be friends with me and it's strange. He's never payed any attention to me in the past because he was alway preoccupied with the school sluts. Why can't he just leave me alone?
A/N Hey everyone, this is a long and boring chapter so I'm sorry. I've got plenty of better ideas for this book so please keep reading. Sorry for all the mistakes I've probably made. If you see any, feel free to point it out. Please comment and vote if you enjoyed this. Thanks everyone.