Chapter 2: My Promise Ring

                                    

                                          
CLOVE'S POV:
                          
Cato pulls away and looks me directly in the eye. "Listen to me Clove: if you want to volunteer, you do that. I don't care about it anymore."
                          
"Cato, I..." I pull on his wrists. "I'm rethinking volunteering."
                          
"No! Clove, listen to me." He looks at me hard and I lock my dark brown eyes on his grey ones. "You can't decide not to volunteer because of me."
                          
"Well..." I pause cautiously. "If I don't win"--
                          
"Clove, you'll win!" He pleads with me. "Don't let me get in the way of what you want!"
                          
"If I'm not going to live much longer, I don't want to start a relationship right now," I admit honestly. I watch his face fall.
                          
"Please, Clove." Cato seizes my hand. "Don't worry about the future like that. We'll be together as long as we can. Do you hear me, Clove?"
                          
I nod slowly. "Thanks, Cato." Without warning, my phone starts buzzing in my pocket. Probably my mom wondering where I am. "I'd... better go."
                          
He stays where he's standing while I turn to leave. "See ya, Clove."
                          
"See ya," I mumble.
                          

                          
"Are you hungry at all, Clove?" My mother sets down her fork and stares across the table at me. "Fresh cow tongue shipped all the way from District 10. I say it's a rare treat," she comments as she lifts the slippery meat into her mouth.
                          
But it's not the cow's tongue I'm nervous about. It's me and Cato. We don't have a chance; not with this horrible prospect of Games hanging over us. What am I supposed to do about it? My mom trained hard and won the Games herself when she was seventeen. Everyone still knows her as Enobaria Kentwell, victor. My family has high expectations for me. I'm supposed to volunteer and make my mom proud. Of course my mom, whose teeth are filed into fangs from her first Games, has deadly hopes for me. I must have inherited my lethal knife skills from her.
                          
I push my plate away. "I'm not very hungry."
                          
"Got love in your heart, kid?" my dad teases.
                          
"Trad!" my mother rebukes him. My dad's jokes usually make me laugh. But his joke is too close to the actual truth for me to find it funny. Without another word, I excuse myself and head upstairs to my room.
                          

                          
CATO'S POV:
                          
The door of my bedroom slams behind me. I can still hear my brother's dog howling downstairs after me, but I'm barely thinking about it. To think I almost had Clove within my grasp. But before anything can click, the issue of the Games rises up between us and neither of us can deny we both want to be in them. 
                          
I let her. I told her she had first choice to volunteer this year and that I'd leave her alone. But I can still see how conflicted she is. She wants to volunteer so badly, but she doesn't want to risk the loss. The loss of me. That's also true. Neither of us can deny that we like each other.
                          
I plunk down on the floor, frustrated, and kick a stack of books over. Ugh, suddenly I hate the thought of being in the Games. True, I've trained my whole life for the chance to volunteer and hopefully win, and it's always excited me, but now I hate the thought of how our district operates. Train for the Games, then either win or die. No time for relationships or love. Only think of deadliness and ruthlessness.
                          
And I'm not saying that's now how you win the Games. If you want to win, you've got to be really good with your weapon of choice. And not afraid to fight and shed blood. But do these people even have feelings?