promises • cato the hunger games

Twenty-One

I wake up freezing yet again. Why does it have to be so cold? Why couldn't the arena be someplace warm and sunny, where it doesn't rain all the time and it doesn't feel like all the blood in your body has frozen?

"Are you okay?" asks Cato. I realise I've been scowling to myself.

"Yeah, just cold."

"Me too, me too," he sighs. We're already clinging to each other, and I've somehow managed to burrow myself in Cato's jacket, but it's still far too cold.

I wish I could climb a tree, it'd be a lot warmer further up from the ground, but I know that the branches probably wouldn't hold Cato's weight.

"D'you want to climb a tree?" asks Cato, reading my thoughts.

"No, I'm fine," I say. It wouldn't really be fair to leave him to freeze, would it? "We can suffer together," I tell him. He laughs.

"But seriously, we won't freeze to death, will we?" I ask.

"Nah, probably not. If it drops another few degrees, maybe."

"Er, that's really not what I want to hear right now, Cato," I say through chattering teeth. "H-how long d'you think it'll keep raining for?"

I feel him shrug. "Dunno. Hopefully not long, it'll be boring now, so they probably stop it and put something worse in."

Great.

He yawns. "Do you want to sleep for a bit?" I ask him.

"Please. But wake me up in an hour, or two."

He wraps his arms around me even tighter, using me as some sort of giant teddy bear, but I don't really mind. He falls asleep fairly quick, leaving me feeling pretty bored.

My mind starts to wonder to back home. Is Rose okay? Probably not.

I need to stop thinking, I can't cry in front of the cameras. I close my eyes tightly, forcing back the tears. I take a deep breath, and open them again.

Think positive. We might actually win. I could go home. I'd get a nice house, and a load of money. I could send Rose to a posh school, not a Career one, and she could get a decent job and...

I start to drift off. I think I fall asleep at one point, but I wake with a start. I can hear a funny noise coming from outside, like bells. Wait, what if it's a mutt or something?

"Cato, get up," I say, shaking him. I feel mean waking him, he looks so peaceful, but I'm not waiting to be attacked by God knows what.

"There's no way that was two hours, Penny," he says grumpily, not bothering to open his eyes. "Wake me up later."

"No, get up. There's something outside."

"What?"

"I don't know, you can go and see."

"Oh, so it can get me instead of you?"

"Yeah."

He sighs and sits up slowly. "Shit, it's cold," he mutters.

"Well, go and see what it is," I ask, starting to get slightly annoyed.

"Patience, grasshopper," he says sleepily.

He finally gets up and rolls back the rock of the cave. We're immediately hit by rain water. I edge as far back as possible, and then give Cato a shove forwards.

"Okay, okay, I'm going," he says, and steps out into the rain. He disappears for a minute or too, and I wonder whether I should go after him, when he reappears, carrying a silver cylinder box. He's soaking wet, but fine apart from that.

"See, worry-guts? It's something from a sponsor, not a mutt."

"Well you never know," I say, starting to feel stupid. Still, there's no way I was going out there by myself.

He rolls back the rock and comes and sits next to me. "Happy Christmas," he says, plonking the box in front of me.

It definitely feels like Christmas, opening this big box, revealing a thick sleeping bag, big enough for both of us, some more water, and some hot soup. Cato grins at me. We pull the sleeping bag out, both get in it, and eat the soup. I know I should eat it slowly, maybe save some for another day, but I'm starving, and there might not be another day anyway. The soup's gone in about five minutes.

I'm already much warmer and there's not a terrible ache in my stomach anymore. With a fuller stomach and the new sleeping bag, I start to drift off.

"No, Penny. It's still my turn to sleep," says Cato, prodding me.

"Fine," I sigh. He zips up the bag and pulls me close to him.

"Make sure you wake me up soon though," he says.

"Oh, don't worry, I will," I tell him.