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Cato never really thought about death.
It wasn’t happening.
He was a career after all.
But come it will.
When his own end comes, he can see it nearing.
He suspects he’s already dead when he hears the howls around him.
He can feel it when the mutts snap at his heels, yet he runs, because his instinct is telling him to (and maybe his instinct consists of Clove‘s voice yelling at him that he can still win this, even when he tells her that no, he has found he doesn’t even want to)
He knows it when the liars from 12 come into view, but he doesn’t have the time to listen to Clove‘s voice that is now screeching to skewer her and let him die trying to save her.
They follow him to the cornucopia.
The worst thing is that he knows that had the roles been reversed, had Clove been battling for the right to her life, she would’ve taken Everdeen. Not because Loverboy is physically stronger, but because she is a strategist.
And if she takes care of the protector first, not even the diplomat will be able to save them.
She’d slit the twelve-wrench’s throat and toss her to the mutts. She’d make her loverboy watch until all that’s left for the hovercraft are little scraps of what used to be the girl on fire.
She’d be a Victor.
But it isn’t her on that roof, not the girl with the knives, not the cold-blooded creature that resides within her and refuses to let her -them- die.
Because in the end, not only did he fail, but so did the creature.
She
did.
Clove isn’t the one battling for her life on that roof, broken and bloodied, clinging to the idea of glory and victory.
Because she’s dead.
So here he is, stuck, even though it’s not him but loverboy who’s in a headlock, in the knowledge that he’s going to die.
A glorious death, perhaps, but death nonetheless.
And for what?
For wealth? Pride? Honor?
What worth does honor have if he doesn’t have Clove to respect him for it?
So he doesn’t fight.
He embraces the truth.