promises • cato the hunger games

Nineteen

Penny's POV

I force myself out of another nightmare, to wake up to something which might be worse. I'm paralyzed fully by now, and I can tell Cato's not beside me. I'm completely alone. What the fuck? Where is he? He can't have left me, he wouldn't. Would he? Wait, what if he's...

No. I can't think that. He's probably fine, probably just gone to get some water.

Probably.

As I come into more consciousness I start to feel the pain circulating. Everywhere hurts, so much. Places I didn't even know could hurt, hurt. Worse still, there's an eminent pain in the left side of my chest. I'm not stupid, I know it's the poison attacking my heart. I know I've not got long left. A day, two at the most.

I'm in too weak even to cry. I let myself be pulled into darkness again.

Cato's POV

I'm standing behind the tree closest to the Cornucopia. It's not fully light yet, so it's still firmly shut. My plan is to wait until it opens, sprint as fast as I can, grab the bag, kill anyone who thinks they can stop me, and run back to Penny, give her the medicine, and make her better.

Then kill the rest of them, and go back home. Penny can get her sister back, and we can both have a nice house and enough money to last us the rest of our lives. Safe from everyone and everything. Sounds simple enough. Not.

How many of us are left though? Me, Penny, both the tributes from Twelve, the ginger from Five, and Thresh, from Eleven. Is that it? Yeah. That must be it. Only four left to kill, if they don't save me the trouble and kill each other.

It gets lighter and lighter until eventually the Cornucopia starts to open, revealing a table with four bags on it, labelled with 2, 5, 11, and 12. Ours is one of the smallest, so I'm guessing it's a needle.

I'm about to run for it, when I suddenly see the ginger fly out of the Cornucopia, and grab her bag. Crafty.

There won't be time to kill her, so just I run towards the bags. No one else appears, so I grab it. I stand there for a moment, wondering if it would be worth taking the other two bags. I figure it would be pretty sensible. I grab both of them and spin round, only to nearly have my eye poked out.

The girl from Twelve, Katniss, is standing right in front of me, her bow pointing right at my head. "Hand it over," she says bluntly. Why isn't he just killing me straight out? What's the matter with her? I draw my sword and hold it to her neck.

"Stab me and I'll shoot you. We'll both go down together."

I lower my sword. I can't do anything stupid, I need the medicine, but I don't fancy giving in to a girl, from District Twelve of all places.

"Hand it over," she repeats.

"Put your bow down first," I say.

"No. Give me my bag," she persists.

I hand it over reluctantly. She snatches it, lowers her bow, and runs.

I'll kill her later. At least I've still got the bag that was meant for Thresh. I run in the opposite direction to Katniss all the way back to the cave.

The heat radiating from Penny hits me as soon as I roll away the rock. That means she still alive, if she's still warm, though. I kneel down beside her and rip open the small bag. Inside I find two needles, one which I'm hoping is an antidote, and the other I'm guessing is painkiller.

"Penny?" I say, shaking her, but she doesn't wake up. I'm not sure if she's supposed to be awake or not for this, but it looks like I don't have much of a choice.

I take a deep breathe and jab the needles into her skin, one after another. She shudders but doesn't wake up. Has it worked? I'm not sure. I guess I'll just have to wait and see.