futile || cato's story ✔️

turning point

Author's Note: get ready for the clato content in this one... also warning apparently the chapters are just gonna keep getting longer

"This is driving me crazy," I spit, my tired body resting against the golden cornucopia. Exhausted from the stings and the burn of smoke still lingering in my lungs. Haven't had a successful kill in days and now two of our team are gone as well. Plus Peeta. Whatever Peeta is. And Katniss, Katniss now a threat.

"We'll come back from this stronger. We're still three against one. We've got all the supplies. We'll bring Katniss down, easy." That word again. Easy.

Clove and I are observing as Chase digs up mines and Marvel piles supplies.

"Not easy," I mutter with a shrug that makes my shoulders ache. "Look at us."

"Not invincible anymore?" Clove jests.

"It's not a joke. And no. I'm not threatened by her. I'm just..."

"Yeah. Yeah, I know what you mean. I always thought it would be easier for us..." She pauses, standing in preparation to put her time in with the laboring others. "We're the most powerful district, you and I the strongest of the strongest. This was supposed to be handed to us. There's not supposed to be a clever fucking sponsored girl from Twelve of all places. It was supposed to be ours."

"It still will be."

Clove shrugs. "I better help them. Hopefully this stupid plan does something for us. You okay?"

"Fine."

But I'm agonizingly, disgustingly not. My whole body aches from the poison, each sting pulsing. My lungs ache as if I've run for fifty miles. But mostly I'm in agony at my own failure. My whole body quivers in a desperate need to move and run and hunt and kill but I can't now and I haven't much yet. I spent yesterday asleep and today incapacitated.

Marvel and Clove are slightly better off from the antidote but the stings still hurt like harsh stab wounds. We tried applying the medicine from after the fire but evidently it only helps burns and did little to soothe the poisoned lumps. There was little else to help in all of our supplies.

I glance at Chase, carefully setting all of the mines together in the field. At least there's a win in his actually being able to reprogram them. He demonstrated with one, burying it a way's off in the field and tossing an apple onto the spot to cause an instant explosion. And I must allow, it excited me to think of an unsuspecting thief rocketing sky-high. Maybe we'll get a proxy kill today or tomorrow, maybe even Katniss if she's dumb enough to come around. I'm still worried about the supplies being damaged but Chase tediously demonstrated how the mines will be placed in a way that will kill the thief but not harm the supplies. Especially after the losses at the Tracker Jacker attack I'm hesitant and it's taken a lot of convincing from Clove to let him go through with it, but such a kill would be sweet. A tribute still obliterated while I have to sit here recovering.

I watch Clove, stacking the last few supplies alongside Marvel. She wipes the sweat from her brow on her bare wrist and sets her hands on her hips, observing their work. With a grunt, I stand up and amble over to them, nudging her with a bottle of water while looking over the pile.

"Thanks," she says softly.

"You sure this will work?" I ask lowly.

"It'll work," Chase assures, coming up behind me with his arms full of mines, which he unceremoniously drops to the ground.

"Fuck's sake," Marvel sputters.

"They're not active yet. Go and get the rest and we'll start burying."