She's not sure how much is fear and how much is actual want; they'd never been particularly close, never thought of each other past the barest acknowledgement of each other's existence (before the reaping, before the Games).
Something tells her Cato's not quite right. It's his mouth maybe, always looking as if he's bighting back a snarl, or it's his outbursts over every little thing, so loud and violent it's comical (makes her smile behind her palm). She doesn't like him, but he's home in this place so foreign and when the foreshadowing of death looming over her every time she closes her eyes.
Cato blows up after they reveal the scores and that 12 girl gets an eleven. He throws plates and rips at his hair and kicks over chairs, nearly knocking over the wide-eyed avox who scrambles to clean the mess as he makes it.
When they're alone in the hallway she smiles and asks why he's so hung up over that girl—"Is it because you like her or what?" she asks, the nail of her index finger wedging in the crack between two teeth—and before she can take another breath he's slammed her up against the wall, knocking her hip against the sharp corner of a table, his hand at her throat like he really might strangle her. She grabs the side of his face, nails digging under his eye but not scratching, not yet.
"Don't you fucking say that," he grinds out past his clenched teeth and she can feel his breath hot on her face.
"Or what?" she breathes back, and maybe she's not quite right either, because really, who gets excited when a boy is getting dangerously close to strangling you?
She's not sure who bridges the difference, but the next thing she knows they're kissing, hard and angry, and he's banging her head against the wall and she's scratching him up, deep angry marks across his face and collar, and she's not sure why, but it makes her feel better. Just a little.
--
Clove knows alliances make the most sense, but she hates them all the same. She hates Peeta especially. She's not sure if it's the madly-in-love angle he pulled so flawlessly or if it's just the holier-than-thou attitude he reeks from his homely smiles and the expression in his eyes (of condemnation, like he's better than them, better than her). She wants to kill him right off, but Cato says no. Says if they keep them around than maybe they can find the girl quicker. Another insult bubbles up her throat; she bites down on the sharp end of one of her knives and keeps quiet.
--
Maybe it's awful, but she's happy when the last one's dead. The food is gone and the one who did it isn't dead (and she knows, somehow, it was that stupid girl), but Cato snaps the boy's neck and the knot in her chest eases just enough to make her smile.
"The fuck is wrong with you?" Cato yells, kicking a scorched pot a clean ten feet. "What the fuck has got you smiling?"
"Nothing," she replies. "It's just hilarious watching you lose your shit over that District 12 girl again. Always about her, isn't it?"
She's goading him and she knows it.
When he punches her it feels like a victory and when he kisses her she doesn't give a shit about all of Panem, how they're all watching, or her family or whatever girl Cato's got at home, most likely crying her eyes out in front of her television, because if this is it than she's going to enjoy it, enjoy his mouth against her own and his hand pulling at her hair, making tears spring to her eyes.
--
"Did you hear that?" she asks, sort of breathless.
It's night at it's near-pitch black and she can hardly breathe because Cato's hand, rough and calloused, is down her pants and pressed against her and his mouth is sucking her shoulder, breaking the skin.
"What?" he mutters against her skin and she feels the question rather than hears it.
"We can win," she says. "We can go home." Maybe. But this feels like such a blessing, she doesn't care that she hasn't gotten any gifts, doesn't care that they still have four people left to kill, doesn't care that this sudden rule change isn't for her and Cato's benefit, because this is the first good night she's had since the Games started, and she never wants it to stop.
--
Clove won't admit that she hates Katniss Everdeen till the end.
She convinces Cato it's smarter that she retrieves the bag. "I'm quicker than you," she claims, only parts a lie. "Don't worry. I'll give them a show for you." His grasp on her arm is too tight, like a promise, before he relents.
It's not until her thighs are clenched tight about Katniss' waist, one hand wrenching her head back and the other tracing her pretty mouth with a knife, that she lets herself think about how much she hates the girl from District 12. It's an abstract sort of hate, mostly projecting (because she can't help but think how much the girl looks like a girl from back home; Cato's girl, compact and pretty in a way Clove has never been able to achieve), but it's there all the same, raw and palpable, and it seems that killing her is the only way to make it go away.
Clove hates her, but as soon as she is dead it will be okay, because then it will just be her and Cato to win with the new rule, to go home and to maybe have sex again (because, really, that was pretty nice) and then—
—and then everything is strange and blurry and she isn't really thinking straight because there are so many colors and they are so distracting and she's not sure but she thinks Cato is holding her, telling her something, but she can't make out the words because there's a buzzing in her ears that doesn't go away and she's not sure what's happening, but it's nice, Cato holding her, because no one's ever held her before besides her mother which doesn't actually count and she doesn't want him to let her go, not till she's asleep, which is happening soon she thinks because the colors are dimming to black, first at the edges and then engulfing everything, and the buzzing has stopped and Cato's voice, soft and indistinct, has faded, and there is nothing but blackness, comforting in its finality, sequestering her in its infinite expanse and putting her to rest.
--