Yours [Prim/Cato]

Chapter 22 - Day Six #2

"So, how are we going to look for the girl from Five?" I asked Cato as we exited the cave. I had no clue where we were going. He took my free hand in his and ropes it together in his. I can't help but blush. It was the first time we had publicly held hands.

"We don't," he answers quickly.

I frown. "Then.. how is this supposed to work?"

Cato looks back at me with his deadly smirk. "I know all the tributes and their moves. Five is sneaky. She follows tributes around so well that you don't even notice. And, when you slip up, even just for a second, she takes something from you. It's funny, though, because she hasn't killed anyone yet," he explains.

I nod, processing all the information. If he knows all the tributes and their moves, does that mean he knew all mine? It was amazing that he knows this girl's strategy when I assumed he never even talked to her, let alone glanced at her for more than a second. It proves just how prepared he was for the Games. It takes a lot of skill to be able to observe and anticipate movements and actions of others while still keeping himself alive.

"Okay," I say slowly, "so how do we catch her?"

"We don't," Cato says again. Now he's really confusing me. If we don't catch her, then we are still one more person away from going home.

I stopped walking and stared up at him. He realized I wasn't holding his hand and turned back to me. "What?" he asked. Cato walked back to me and reattached our hands, pulling me to continue walking.

"You're confusing me," I tell him. "First, where are we going? And second, how are we going to handle Five?" I ask him.

Cato laughs at my confusion but continues walking. "Okay, to answer your first question, we're looking for a specific bush. Remember when you helped me out during training and I learned all that stuff about plants?" I nod my head, recalling the first time I actually started conversation with him. The thought makes me smile. "Well, I spotted one of the poisonous berries, a whole bush of them, actually. This one will be in honor of you, Kitten," Cato says, looking back at me with an amazing smile.

"You're welcome," I tease. "So what does that have to do with anything?"

"We're going to accidentally drop them while running, so when she steals and eats them, she's gone," he explains. His plan was pretty smart, and I wouldn't have to feel as guilty for physically killing her. I personally didn't know the girl, and I'm not even sure if I've seen her more than once. Well, I may have seen her, but my mind was probably so occupied that I actually wasn't seeing her.

"That's a good plan," I told him. "It's sneaky, but easy nonetheless."

"Exactly."

"But what if someone else gets in the way?" I question. This arena wasn't exactly huge, so it's possible that we may run into a different tribute while plotting after Five.

"Then it's just killing two birds with one stone," Cato says with a shrug.

We stop talking and just walk for a while. Cato was very attentive of our surroundings. His shoulders were squared, and he was watching for even the slightest movement that could potentially hurt either one of us. Cato was like a watchdog. Ready to attack in the blink of an eye.

"So-"

"Hey," Cato interrupted, "no more questions. It's story time anyway," he says, stopping at a bush filled with Abadia, a very poisonous berry that takes five minutes or less to take its effect. It gets broken down in the acid of the stomach, and once it's almost completely degraded, poison is activated by the stomach acid. The acid crawls its way into the walls of the stomach, which causes the stomach to actually explode. It's a very complicated fruit, but creates such a spontaneous aftereffect.