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[ two victors. Cato may not want to share the crown, not when he's earned it, but he'll take this -- he's always been willing to kill for his district, cut down twenty-three other kids without feeling anything at all (it's there, the sense of pleasure, but it's not lasting enough to live up to expectations, brief and perhaps disappointing) but dying for it was never part of any plan. because who, what is he if he loses the Games? not until he stared into Clove's wide, dead eyes did it truly occur to him, become disgustingly real, that he could end up just another corpse. he hates that knowledge, and when the mutts crash through the treeline and one goes for his throat, slashes the side of his face into a bloodied mess, he knows fear and hates that, too.
it was supposed to be his Games, kill after kill until only he remained, simple and easy, but ever since the parade all eyes have been on the Girl on Fire, a girl from Twelve who stares back at the adoring audience with confusion and surprise, twirling and smiling in her glittery dress and trying to win the Capitol's hearts and their support through a need for it. she and her loverboy. but the Capitol doesn't want that, the Capitol wants shining steel and blood and death, wants murder and carnage and the grass slick with red.
Cato gives them red.
i'll make a corpse out of you, he'd thought during training, when she gained her eleven points, again when she dropped the tracker jackers on them, blew up the supplies, but she's still alive and he can see now that she's his ticket out of here. he sees it when she and Peeta climb up to join him on the Cornucopia, when his fingers close around her throat, when he's pulled off of her and thrown down onto it, because he can't take both of them, but he doesn't have to. only twenty-two have to be dead for him to win this. he thinks he might be able to tell when the realization sinks in for Katniss, a flash of something in her eyes when she trains her arrow on him, but it's already too late as his arms lock, one beneath Peeta's jaw, the other at the back of his neck, palm pressed to his skull. one last kill.
it doesn't really matter that Panem is watching, holding their breaths, because the much more important audience is right here, right in front of him. he'd thought about it, the way the only person to really, truly see him win would be the last tribute to die at his hands, but that's not how it happens -- he's holding Katniss' gaze, and it's as though it's her neck that breaks with the sickening snap, louder than his own breathing and heartbeat and the growls and snarls of the mutts. Peeta may be the only one who goes limp in his grip, heavy and gone, but Cato knows that he's still won it all. ]
it was supposed to be his Games, kill after kill until only he remained, simple and easy, but ever since the parade all eyes have been on the Girl on Fire, a girl from Twelve who stares back at the adoring audience with confusion and surprise, twirling and smiling in her glittery dress and trying to win the Capitol's hearts and their support through a need for it. she and her loverboy. but the Capitol doesn't want that, the Capitol wants shining steel and blood and death, wants murder and carnage and the grass slick with red.
Cato gives them red.
i'll make a corpse out of you, he'd thought during training, when she gained her eleven points, again when she dropped the tracker jackers on them, blew up the supplies, but she's still alive and he can see now that she's his ticket out of here. he sees it when she and Peeta climb up to join him on the Cornucopia, when his fingers close around her throat, when he's pulled off of her and thrown down onto it, because he can't take both of them, but he doesn't have to. only twenty-two have to be dead for him to win this. he thinks he might be able to tell when the realization sinks in for Katniss, a flash of something in her eyes when she trains her arrow on him, but it's already too late as his arms lock, one beneath Peeta's jaw, the other at the back of his neck, palm pressed to his skull. one last kill.
it doesn't really matter that Panem is watching, holding their breaths, because the much more important audience is right here, right in front of him. he'd thought about it, the way the only person to really, truly see him win would be the last tribute to die at his hands, but that's not how it happens -- he's holding Katniss' gaze, and it's as though it's her neck that breaks with the sickening snap, louder than his own breathing and heartbeat and the growls and snarls of the mutts. Peeta may be the only one who goes limp in his grip, heavy and gone, but Cato knows that he's still won it all. ]
