promises • cato the hunger games

Twenty-Seven

When I open my eyes, I'm not in the same place. I'm sitting on top of the Cornucopia.

Cato's standing with Peeta in a headlock, and Katniss is standing about seven meters away, pointing her bow at him.

I can hear the mutts growling below us, trying to leap on the Cornucopia. There's way more of them now, and they're hungry. Anyone who falls over the edge won't stand a chance.

Cato looks destroyed. His face is covered in blood, and he looks angry. Very angry. I've never seen him this mad before.

"Go on, shoot," he says. "Then we both go down and you win."

There's so much venom in his voice, so much hatred.

Katniss freezes. I don't think she'll let her district partner go down too. She can't shoot Cato.

"Go on," he urges. "You may as well. I'm dead anyway. She's gone." He pauses. "You killed her."

Katniss flinches, and lowers her bow. Only slightly though.

"No," he says, gripping Peeta's neck more tightly. "You have to pay for taking her away from me."

She raises her bow again.

"I can still do this, I can still do this," he whispers, to himself more than anyone else, I think. "For Penny. One more kill."

I start to feel uneasy. I'd forced Cato to promise that he'd stay alive and get back to Rose for me. But looking at him now, maybe that wasn't the fair thing to have done.

By the looks of it, he's having a mental breakdown. Maybe it would be more cruel to wish he would keep fighting, when I can tell he probably doesn't want to. I think he's had enough. He just wants it to be over.

He stops for a moment, as if he's thinking about something. "It's the only thing I know how to do. Killing. Bringing pride to my district. Not that it matters."

He's told me this before. I think he realizes that the Capitol just use everyone, even the careers are just tricked into the games. No one's free.

Then I notice Peeta, who's now purple from suffocation, drawing something on Cato's hand. He's drawing a cross, in blood.

Before I've even got time to yell something useless, Katniss has shot an arrow right in Cato's hand. He instantly let's go, giving Peeta the opportunity to shove him over the side of the Cornucopia. I don't even have time to scream.

He lands with a thud, and I watch helplessly as the mutts rip him apart. He doesn't give up though, he keeps fighting and fighting.

This goes on for hours. I'm screaming, begging him to stop, but he doesn't. Of course he doesn't, he can't hear me. All he's thinking of is the promise I forced him to keep.

I'm so stupid, so selfish.

Cato's now almost unidentifiable. The bloody, chewed up piece of meat that was once Cato is still trying to fight. Why can't he stop? I can't take seeing him in this agony, it's making me wish I dead, only I'm already dead.

I'm being forced to watch Cato's torture, and I can't escape. Even if I closed my eyes, I wouldn't be able to stop Cato's screaming, and the sickening noise of the mutts ripping his flesh.

It lasts so long. I cry and scream until I want to throw up all my insides.

Eventually, Cato seems to stop fighting them. I think it's nearly over for him, but it's going to be so painful.

In desperation, I kneel in front of Katniss, who's trying to keep Peeta conscious, and start begging her to shoot him. I know she can't hear me, but I think I'm going crazy too. I scream at her, I even try shaking her.

She doesn't sense me, but eventually I think she can't cope with it anymore, and gets up and loads her bow.

"Please," Cato whispers, and out of pity, not vengeance, I think, she lets fly.

I jump off the side of the Cornucopia, and run to his side. The arrow hits him right in the head, and then a cannon goes off. It's over. They've beaten us.

I start to cry. No, cry's not the right word. I start bawling. I try to put my arms on what's left of Cato, but they just go right through him.

The same light that was there when I died appears, and I have to close my eyes tight to stop them burning.

When I open them, there's no Cornucopia. No Katniss and Peeta. No dead Cato.

The forest is different. It seems bigger, and the trees are more spaced out. The grass seems more green, and the air feels more relaxed, less dense. It's not cloudy and light anymore either, it looks normal. Is this it? Is this the end of it?

Someone taps me on the back, and asks in a sweetly familiar voice-

"Penny?"

I smile.