Scars of Kings • Cato Hadley

snuffing a flame.

╔═══*.·:·.☽✧ ✦ ✧☾.·:·.*═══╗

snuffing a flame.

volume two; murder

╚═══*.·:·.☽✧ ✦ ✧☾.·:·.*═══╝

Cato awoke to a world of chaos and panic. Searing pain erupted from his shoulder and he could barely recognise the insects that flew around him as Glimmers screams filled the air. His feet were carrying him from the swarm faster than his mind could catch up. He was vaguely aware of another's footsteps crashing behind him in their desperation to escape the pain. Clove was ahead of him by a few paces, always the faster of the two. 

The screams echoed in his ears as they grew into a strangled cry for help, but the beauty from district one was long gone now. Cato had no doubt that her face would be plastered in the sky tonight. His body felt like it was on fire. He could almost feel the venom coursing through his veins, tainting his blood and filling him with an indescribable rage. Cato Hadley was not known to be gentle, to be kind, but he had never known anger like this.

The logical side of his brain tried to reason with him. Immense anger was a symptom of tracker jacker venom, designed to make tributes ready to spill the blood of their peers. He tried to remember that Elora was watching but all thoughts of her were left behind as the anger consumed him. All he could think about was how he let his guard down and that district twelve scum had taken advantage of it. How she had, essentially, beaten him in the fight for glory. He wasn't sure whether it was the anger of his shame that motivated him to return to the scene of the crime. 

If she was still there, he would take the killing shot.

He found Glimmer before he found Katniss. Once a beautiful girl, her body was now so grotesquely mutilated she barely looked human. The lumps protruded from every inch of her skin, blotches of pale purples and greens coating her body. He can see the fear in her eyes, the panic, forever sealed within her. Her dead eyes look right past him as he slides her eyelids shut and Cato cannot suppress the shiver that runs down his spine at the feeling of her dead skin on his. 

It is only when steps back with the intent to hunt down the girl who had done this, does he realise what is right in front of him. Or more accurately, a lack thereof. The bow and arrow was gone, pried from Glimmers dead hands. Upon further inspection he realises that Katniss had to break her fingers to free the bow from the dead girls grip. He can feel the bile rise up his throat but he pushes it down. With a small body and a few tracker jacker stings, Katniss couldn't possible have made it too far. The venom would have affected her far more than him, and if she was so disorientated that she couldn't shoot a bow this would be easy for him. 

Cato furrows his eyebrows in confusion and turns his head a few times. The pain in his chest grows and he can feel fear that is not his own seep into his soul. The danger had passed, hadn't it? The tracker jackers were gone and he was still alive. He brings a palm to rub at his chest, wanting to alleviate the discomfort that he knows is not his. His other hand grips his sword tighter, and his body takes a fighting stance, ready to battle whatever danger Elora is so worried about. 

The crunch of a leaf under foot alerts him to Peeta's presence. Cato whips his body around to face the boy just as Peeta brings the knife down, aiming for his heart. Cato is quick to response and brings his sword up just in time for the incoming blade to meet it. He advances now, knowing that Peeta has lost the advantage of surprise.