Chapter Text
Katniss ran for the Cornucopia, her hand wrapped around Peeta’s wrist as he stumbled behind her. The mutts were chasing them, their teeth glistened in the sunlight.
The Cornucopia was hot to the touch. Her boots slid on the curved edge as she scrambled up, helping Peeta up behind her. The mutts snapped at his heels, snarling and growling for blood. Katniss lay panting on the hot metal.
They circled like vultures made of fur and fury, leaping at the Cornucopia, clawing at its surface. She caught sight of one and nearly cried out. It had Rue’s eyes.
Someone gasped. Katniss turned and saw them.
Cato stood at the far edge, one arm locked tightly around Peeta’s neck in a vicious chokehold. He was trembling like a corned animal but his grip was solid. Peeta struggled, clawing at his arm, his face darkening to an ugly shade of red. His lips parted in desperate gasps.
Katniss nocked an arrow and raised her bow. “Let him go.”
Icy blue eyes met hers, blood ran in a thin stream down his temple.
“Go ahead, win the Games. Shoot me and we both go over the edge.”
She couldn’t do that, not when she and Peeta could go home. She had to get him out of this.
The mutts clawed up the Cornucopia’s sides, jaws snapping, salivating, waiting for their next meal.
Peeta’s fingers twitched. He was barely conscious. His arm moved slowly, shakily, and Katniss’ breath hitched as he raised it and crossed an X on the back of Cato’s hand.
Peeta had found the solution. She didn’t think, she aimed and released the arrow.
In the half second it flew, Cato’s shifted, not enough to let Peeta go, just stepping sideways. Katniss watched in horror as the arrow sang through the air, sliced cleanly through the space between them and embedded itself in Peeta’s throat.
She screamed.
His body jerked violently. Blood spurted, painting Cato’s chest. Peeta made a soft gurgling noise and then he fell, slipping from Cato’s grasp and plummeting into the snapping jaws below. The mutts descended on him instantly.
The sound of flesh being ripped apart filled the night, the mutts screeched in delight. A cannon boomed.
Katniss couldn’t breathe. She killed Peeta. She killed Peeta. She killed Peeta.
She nocked another arrow and pointed it at Cato. Her hand was still as she aimed at him, eyes locked on his heart.
And then it happened.
The air between them snapped taut. A force ripped through her spine and into her chest, yanking her forward. She dropped her bow with a choked cry as agony flooded her veins. She dropped her bow.
Some invisible force was dragging them towards the other, like a hook buried in her soul reeling her in. Her vision blurred. Her heart beat furiously against her chest.
She tried to fight it, desperately dragged her boots against the metal roof, lunging for her bow. They were stumbling across the Cornucopia, closer and closer.
Their bodies collided with a force that knocked the breath out of her. His arms locked around her, her hands pressed against his chest.
A dark pulse beat between them, tethering them soul to soul. Her heart slammed in rhythm with his. Their breathing synced. Then the acid burn of rage crashed into her. Not hers, his .
“It can’t be you,” she said once she realized. Panic clawed its way up her throat. He was a Career, he couldn’t be her soulmate.
“I should’ve killed you in that stupid tree,” he said, arms flexing around her.
Katniss shook against him, trying to pull away but unable to make her body work. The bond yanked tight, welding them together. His blood smeared across her cheek.
The voice of Claudius Templesmith rang through the arena, cracked with static but unmistakably triumphant, nearly gleeful. “Ladies and gentlemen, may I present your soulbound victors of the seventy-fourth Hunger Games… Katniss Everdeen and Cato Hadley!”
The first thing Katniss noticed was the noise. Not the rustle of leaves or the snapping twigs she had become so used to, but steady beeping machines, hisses of air as they passed through pumps.
Her eyes fluttered open to blinding white. The ceiling above her was tiled in fluorescent lights. The bed beneath her was thin and everything smelled like antiseptic.
She sat up too fast and nearly vomited. Her body ached, muscles screaming at her, nerves frayed raw. Her hands trembled as she looked down at herself. The clean hospital gown, the bandages on her arms.
A sharp spike of rage lanced through her, hot and corrosive. Cato. His fury was like acid, ripping through every part of her. She clutched the sheets, trying to breathe, trying to separate herself from him, but it was impossible.
His fury, his loathing, seeped into her bones.
Katniss shoved the covers off and stood. The floor was cold under her bare feet, her legs unsteady. She reached for the nightstand when black dots coloured her vision, knocked over a glass of water. It fell, shattering against the ground.
Peeta.
Katniss doubled over. Tears burned in her eyes. He was gone, dead, and she had loosed the arrow that killed him. It was all her fault.
She killed him.
The sob burst out of her throat before she could stop it. She covered her mouth with her hands and crumpled to the floor, shards of glass scraped her legs, sitting in the puddle. The tears came hard and fast, hot with guilt and shame and rage.
Anger that wasn’t hers surged through her again, snapping her spine straight.
“Stop it,” she growled aloud, shaking her head. “You’re not here. Get out of me!”
The anger didn’t leave. It burned a hole straight through her.
A knock sounded at the door, soft and cautious. It creaked open. Haymitch stepped in, still in his rumpled clothes, eyes bloodshot but alert.
“You’re awake,” he said, voice scratchy.
Katniss lifted her head slowly. She didn’t say anything.
He approached with slow steps, crouching down next to her. His knees creaked as he rested his forearms on them.
“You’re bleeding,” he said quietly, gesturing to the small cuts on her shins.
“I don’t care,” Katniss rasped.
Haymitch didn’t argue. He sat on the floor beside her with a soft grunt, letting the silence settle around them like a blanket.
“I killed him,” she said, barely audible.
Haymitch exhaled through his nose, his eyes fixed somewhere on the wall. “I know, sweetheart.”
Another wave of fury ripped through her. Katniss flinched like she'd been slapped. “Tell him to stop!” she snapped, curling her hands into fists. “Tell him to get the hell out of my head!”
“You think I can control that lunatic?” Haymitch asked dryly. “I can’t even get Effie to shut up about napkin folding.”
She glared at him, but her breath hitched again, and her voice cracked. “Why did it have to be him? I could’ve dealt with anyone else, but he was trying to kill me. He hates me.”
Tears welled up in her eyes again, but Katniss blinked them back. Her hands clenched the papery fabric of her hospital gown. He’s so mad. It burned every time he felt something, scraping her raw with every breath.
“I hate him,” she spat, standing, pacing. “I hate this. I don’t want him in my head. I don’t want his rage or whatever twisted thing he feels!”
She reached for the tray on the bedside table and hurled it across the room. It hit the wall with a crash, food and metal clattering to the floor.
“I want it out of me!” she screamed.
Haymitch didn’t move. He just watched her, a flicker of pain behind his eyes. “It won’t go. So you have two choices. You learn to live with it… or it breaks you.”
She stared at him, breathing hard. Her knees wobbled and she dropped to the edge of the bed, head in her hands. She shook all over.
“I can’t do this,” she whispered.
“Yes, you can,” Haymitch said. “You already did the hard part. You survived. Now you keep surviving.”
Behind her ribs, that dark thread tugged again. Rage. Fury. Restlessness. Somewhere in this hospital he was pacing like a caged animal.
“Where is he?” she asked hoarsely.
Haymitch hesitated. “Secure wing. He’s not allowed near you. Not yet, they want your reunion on live television.”
Katniss swallowed hard. Her body ached from the distance. Her soul screamed out.
She hated this, hated him, but the bond didn’t care.
The pain of being apart from him never stopped. It dulled when Katniss forced herself not to think. Seven days of separation, her skin felt like it had been turned inside out. Every breath scraped against raw nerves.
He was like a lion in a cage. His rage flared at random moments, searing through her bloodstream. His hunger was sharp and sudden and made her nauseous. They hadn't spoken, hadn't seen each other. But there was no silence, she knew his every feeling.
Her body ached for him, an agony that wouldn’t dissipate.
Now she stood in front of the elevator, heart pounding. Not from nerves, from the bond. He was close. She could feel him in her teeth.
Haymitch stood beside her, arms crossed, watching her like a man waiting for a grenade to go off. He had prepared her for the interview. They wanted to see soulmates and enemies, she could do that. No need to fake the hatred.
Her red dress swished around her legs as they walked backstage, avoiding managers and interns running with coffee. She missed Cinna, he would never have dressed her in something so loud. The slits nearly went up to her waist.
Haymitch herded her into the wing, giving her shoulder a little squeeze. Caesar Flickerman was warming up the crowd, jokes falling easily from his lips.
She was introduced. Cato was introduced.
Katniss froze when he stepped into the light. His blond hair was slicked back, lips twisted in a smirk, his eyes burned.
A dam broke. The tether between them snapped, yanked, reeled her forward with a desperation that made her knees buckle. She didn’t remember crossing the stage. One moment, she was standing. The next, she was in his lap.
Everything in her melted. His roaming hands were like a balm for her soul.
One cradled the back of her skull, gripping her hair too tightly. The other pressed to the small of her back, dragging her flush against his chest. Her thighs slid over his. Their bodies fused together, and her entire body sighed in relief. Finally.
Cato inhaled like he hadn’t breathed in days.
“Finally,” he whisptered against her temple.
He bent down, his lips brushing her cheekbone, her jaw, the side of her neck. He was shaking, just slightly, but his grip was ironclad. Her fingers fisted in the front of his shirt, and she hated how good it felt.
His warmth seeped into her skin. His breath calmed her own. The ever-present ache in her chest, the rage and nausea and noise, all quieted.
Katniss wanted to scream. She liked this. Not him. Just the relief flooding through both of them, wiping away anything else.
“I hate you,” she said, burying her face in his chest.
“I hate you, too.”
His hand slid down her spine, dipping under the slit of her dress and grabbing her ass. Calloused fingers splayed across her skin like he needed to brand her. She gasped, and he grunted like it pained him.
Someone coughed.
That was when she remembered they were being broadcast to the nation. Katniss blushed furiously and tried to push herself away from his chest, only for the agony to come back tenfold. She collapsed back into him, peeking through her hair to look around the room.
The audience was gaping at their display.
“Cato,” she whispered into his chest.
Cato growled low in his throat but he didn’t move. His hand stayed where it was, gripping Katniss like he owned her. His grip wasn’t gentle. It was firm, greedy, like he was afraid she might vanish again if he let go for even a second.
Katniss didn’t stop him.
She should’ve. Her mind screamed with embarrassment, her whole body hot with shame under the stares. But the moment he shifted, just slightly, and his palm lifted even a fraction from her skin, the pain slammed back into her like a punch to the gut. She whimpered involuntarily, her body curling tighter against his in a desperate recoil. His hand settled again, possessive and comforting and wrong in every way.
He shifted again beneath her, his hips rolling just slightly like he was trying to get comfortable. It didn’t help that she was straddling him, her thighs bracketing his hips. Her body responded before her brain could catch up. She grinded against him, feeling something hard poke her. Her breath hitched. His arm around her waist clenched, dragging her closer, their chests pressed tight.
Not consciously, not intentionally, they started rocking against each other. The bond screaming closer , more , now . Their bodies moved like dancers with no music, grinding together in desperate synchronicity. His thigh pressed up between hers. Her hands gripped his shoulders like she might claw him open if it meant more relief. The smallest friction sent warmth spiralling down her spine, curling deep in her gut.
It was like being caught in a current, pulled under by her need. The corrosive kind. The kind that didn’t soothe, it scorched.
Cato’s head dropped to her shoulder, and he let out a guttural sound that sent shivers down her back. “You feel so—fuck.”
“Shut up,” she hissed, but her voice wavered.
She hated him. She hated him. So why did this feel like being alive for the first time in days? Why was there heat pooling in her core?
The room was silent except for their breathing and the shuffle of their clothes against each other.
Cato’s grip on her ass faltered, just a flicker. Just enough for pain to spike back through both of them, white-hot. Katniss let out a choked cry, and her fingers scrabbled for his skin again, clawing open his shirt.
“No—no, don’t stop.” Her voice cracked, desperate and breathless. Every part of her screamed for his touch. She pushed back into his hand, breathed in the scent of him.
Cato reacted instantly, his grip tightening, the other hand sliding up to the back of her neck. His hands were so big, he could crush her windpipe with one of them if he wanted to. Instead, he pressed his lips against her temple again and again, almost apologetic. “Okay, okay, okay.”
Katniss trembled in Cato’s arms, not speaking. Not thinking. Not able to move. All she could feel was him. The bond. The heat. The relief that came with his hands on her.
Katniss barely registered the blur of black uniforms before she was ripped backward. The moment Cato’s hands left her body, it was like being flayed alive. She screamed, the bond snapping tight, jagged, like barbed wire around her throat. Cato roared, lunging forward, his arms straining against the guards that restrained him.
“Don’t touch her!” he bellowed, teeth bared, spitting like a rabid animal. “Get your fucking hands off her!”
Katniss thrashed against the pain, sobbing and kicking and writhing in someone’s grip. She didn’t know who. Her vision blurred. Her knees buckled. But through the ringing in her ears and the pounding in her chest, she heard Haymitch’s voice bark, “Let them go! Just get them to the goddamn penthouse NOW!”
The elevator ride was hell.
Haymitch had one arm locked around Katniss’s waist to keep her upright, his jaw clenched like a stone statue. Cato was crouched in the corner of the elevator like a wounded beast, eyes wild, chest heaving. Blood from his bitten lip dribbled down his chin. His fists were clenched like he was one wrong look away from attacking everyone. His mentors stood stoically in the corner.
The doors dinged open, and Brutus grabbed Cato by the scruff of the neck, hauling him into the suite.
“You’ve got five seconds to act like a man and not a feral dog before I put you down, boy,” Brutus growled.
Enobaria yanked Katniss away from Haymitch, half-dragging her across the penthouse. “You two just gave the Capitol a front-row seat to a goddamn porno.”
Katniss trembled violently, still gasping for air, barely able to think. Her dress was wrinkled, twisted around her hips. Cato’s shirt hung off his shoulders, torn where she’d clawed at him. And the heat—that horrible, aching, needy heat—was still there. Distantly soothed, but not gone.
Brutus shoved Cato toward the velvet couch. “Sit.”
Cato didn’t just sit. He collapsed. The moment he hit the cushions, his eyes locked on Katniss like she was oxygen.
“Come here,” he rasped.
“No,” Enobaria snapped before Katniss could even twitch.
Cato growled low in his throat, rising off the couch again, but Brutus slammed a hand down on his shoulder. “Don’t. You’ve done enough.”
Enobaria grabbed her by the chin, forcing her head up. “You are not a toy. You do not let him use you like one. You are a victor. Don’t let the bond make you a puppet.”
“I didn’t let him do anything,” Katniss snapped, swatting her hand away. “If you hadn’t kept us apart for a week , maybe that wouldn't have happened!”
“Maybe you would’ve mounted him in the elevator instead,” Haymitch bit out.
Katniss felt bile in her throat. “Fuck you.”
Brutus loomed over Cato, who was shaking with rage and shame that made his eyes glassy. “Do you realize what you’ve done?” he asked. “You humiliated her. You disgraced yourself. You brought shame to your district.”
Cato didn’t argue. He just whispered, “I couldn’t stop.”
“You had your hand up her dress,” Enobaria barked. “You groped her like she was a whore. Do you even know what that looked like?”
“I couldn’t stop!” Cato shouted, lurching to his feet. His voice cracked. “It hurt so bad. She needed me. I needed her. I didn’t care about the cameras—I just—she made me stop hurting.”
Katniss turned away, hot tears spilling down her cheeks. Her fists clenched so tight her nails bit into her palms. She hated him. She hated how right it had felt. How good. She hated that she wanted to sit in his lap again.
A quiet click made everyone freeze. The viewscreen lowered from the ceiling.
The footage played. Katniss, breathless and squirming, grinding into Cato’s lap. His hand gripping her ass. Her whisper— No, don’t stop —echoed in the silent room like a gunshot.
Her mother, Gale, all of District Twelve. Prim. They would've been watching, seeing her grind against someone she barely knew, his hand up her skirt. The boy who had tried so hard to kill her.
The hosts were eating it up, calling it pure animal magnetism.
Enobaria swore viciously. Brutus punched the wall hard enough to crack it. Haymitch downed the rest of his flask.
Katniss wanted to curl up and die.
She stood frozen, each breath a jagged scrape in her throat. The footage replayed again and again. She couldn’t look. Couldn’t move. Couldn’t think past the roaring in her ears and the shame burning her from the inside out.
Cato was still sitting on the couch, shaking, breathing hard like he’d just crawled out of hell. His eyes weren’t wild anymore. They were worse. Empty. Hollow. Watching her like he couldn’t survive another second without her.
And she hated it.
Hated that her legs moved before her mind did. Hated that every step toward him made her feel less like a person and more like a puppet, strings yanked by something cruel and ancient. Hated the relief that crawled up her spine as she got closer. Her knees hit the edge of the couch.
She didn’t speak. Just climbed into his lap like it was the most natural thing in the world.
His arms snapped around her the moment she settled. Tight. Like he was trying to fuse them together so nothing like this could happen again. His face pressed into her shoulder, breath hot and erratic.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Haymitch shouted, staggering to his feet.
Katniss flinched. Cato growled low in warning.
“I should’ve killed you,” she whispered into Cato’s neck.
“I tried,” he murmured back, lips brushing her collarbone. “Didn’t work. You're too hard to kill.”
Her fingers dug into the fabric of his ruined shirt, and she hated the way his heartbeat calmed under her palm. Hated the way her own steadied to match his. They were still burning, still wrecked, but the fire was duller now. Muted. Bearable. Together.
Brutus stalked across the room and yanked the viewscreen cord from the wall with a vicious rip. Sparks spit, and the screen went black.
“I don’t care that you’re soulmates,” he said, his voice low and furious. “Control yourselves.”
“You think we aren't trying?” Katniss spat. “You think this is fun for us?”
“You looked like you were enjoying yourself plenty,” Enobaria said.
Cato’s arms tightened dangerously around her. “Say that again.”
Silence stretched.
Katniss closed her eyes. Tried not to imagine Prim’s face. Or Gale’s. Or her mother’s silence.
And still, she didn’t move from his lap.