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Gloss wonders if something is going to change, ever, or if everything is just going to continue to get more miserable forever. He won the Hunger Games, it was true, but since then, the only person he'd dated had been murdered, his sister had a disease that was likely caused by the career training academy, he'd been forced into prostitution with dozens of Capitolites, and he was certain to die early from liver failure from the amount of wine he drank to cope with it all.
So when he sees the Girl on Fire in the Tribute Parade of the 74th Games, he almost chokes. He was never taught to think, he was taught to act, to survive, to kill if he had to, in order to win. He was taught to dominate the other districts, in order to win the Capitol's favor. But even he can see the symbol for what it is. District 12 mines coal, they send it to the Capitol to power their electrical grid, and maybe some goes to 1 for the factories, or to 3 for the tech that the Capitol demands, but the coal isn't for District 12 to use itself. Katniss Everdeen in flames is consumption, it is selfishness, it is flames of revolution. He wonders if she'll survive the bloodbath, even.
Gloss goes with Enobaria to Antioch on the first night of the Games, while Cash and Brutus are in the Mentor's booth. She looks pensive, pushing her wine glass around but not sipping it. "Cato is strong, and he's not rash," she says. "He'll be our best bet."
She was thinking of the girl from 12 as well, he realizes. "You think District 1 should-"
She nods. "Your tributes, I saw their scores and their interviews. They don't have what it takes. He's the only one with a chance."
Gloss meets her eyes, and wonders, for a moment, if it would be so bad to let Katniss Everdeen win. He knows they both see it, both saw it from the start: the chaos her win would be, the political upheaval it would cause. He's not even sure Haymitch Abernathy realizes it at the moment. "You want me to abandon my tributes," he says, needing her to say it.
She nods. "I need to know we did everything we could. The 12 girl needs to die in the arena. If she wins… it will be much worse for her, and for all of us."
It's fortunate, in a way, that his girl tribute dies so abruptly, with the tracker jackers, so that he doesn't look like a neglectful mentor by not giving her a gift to prevent her death. But on the other hand, he's distracted as Johanna Mason is at the 4 booth, sending first one Avox, and then a second to get Finnick Odair to try to save the 4 girl. His guilt builds as Finnick doesn't arrive, so she is on the phone, trying to send gifts to warn the 4 girl about the tracker jackers, then send her the antidote, and doing everything she can to save this girl who isn't even from her district.
Meanwhile, he sits in his booth and does the opposite, saving his money to give to the 2 boy, pretending he doesn't see the danger, pretending there's nothing he can do. He's lost every tribute in every Games he's Mentored, except for Cashmere and Augustus, so it should hurt less, over time, but somehow, it doesn't.
Johanna leaves after Finnick's girl dies, and he finds that his ire towards her has faded somewhat. He can't even determine why, exactly, but perhaps it's just that she came through, in the end, to help Cashmere. What really surprises him is the anger that fills him when Finnick finally returns to the Mentor's lounge. Gloss was still in the booth, he still had a second tribute, after all, so he couldn't totally tune out Finnick laying into Haymitch right outside the door - some sort of quarrel about who got to sleep with Johanna. Something Gloss found completely absurd because as far as he knew, Finnick had another lover back in 4, a lover he got through the Hunger Games and he kept from coming back as a Mentor.
And that was it. Annie Cresta was away from everything, safe, while Augustus was dead, full of regret and fucked over by the Capitol. And meanwhile Finnick was upset that he can't have even more, mad that he couldn't have Johanna, too. Gloss can feel his rage building and realizes he can't listen to it anymore. He decides to take a break and leaves the room, shoving past Finnick, hard, as he goes.
Now that he's been told, Gloss can see that Cashmere is ill. In the mornings especially, she is off-balance, and her vision has changed, she'll often put things down in the wrong spot, her depth perception poor. She's excellent at hiding this, and he wonders how long she was suffering alone. He also wonders why he's fine. They're twins. They did everything the same. They entered the academy at the same time. They got the same injections. They both went through the Hunger Games. Why only her?
He asked the old doctor this once, when he accompanied her to an appointment. "Twins of different genders don't share identical DNA," he begins. "Additionally, epigenetics states that your environment can play a factor in which conditions occur later in life. Things like stress or trauma can be different…"
Had she been more stressed? Surely she worked more, but she hadn't been hiding a rebel. Her lover hadn't been murdered. Did she have other secrets? He's afraid to ask. She told him the pregnancy was from a Captolite client, but he wonders if it was someone she knew, someone she liked.
They're 28, which feels impossible. To have been Mentors for over 10 years. As they're driving back to the Training Center, he explains Enobaria's proposal to Cashmere. He had allowed her to send gifts to Marvel to avoid suspicion, but now he knows they need to commit to the plan, to decide once and for all if they are going to support their own tribute or Enobaria's.
"Enobaria is worried about the girl from 12," he says. Calpurnia is in the front, so he's not worried about speaking freely.
Cashmere gives him a curious look. "For the Games?" she asks.
He shakes his head. He catches Calpurnia's eye for a moment, as she glances at them in the rearview mirror, but he glances away. Then he wonders if he misjudged her. She had always helped him, but he didn't really know her.
"Let me guess," Cashmere says. "Enobaria thinks we should give our sponsor money to her tribute?"
"That's basically it, yes," he says.
"The girl?"
"No, the boy."
Cashmere laughs. "What a mess. Brutus told me the same thing, but with the girl. They don't even have their story straight."
Gloss didn't think Enobaria was working together with Brutus, in fact, he would bet on it, but this does give him less faith in 2's ability to effectively stop 12. And after he had already not aided one of his tributes, too. He feels ridiculous.
"Did you see the story about the tributes from 12?" Calpurnia asks. "They're in love." She smiles blithely, a look foreign on Calpurnia's normally practical face, as if the idea is pleasing to her.
"That's a load of shit," Cashmere laughs.
"People will like that, though," Gloss says, nodding towards Calpurnia.
"I'm a new divorcee, can you blame me?" she asks.
"Regardless, we need to decide if we're helping 2 or not," Gloss says.
Cashmere bites her lip. "I agree, we can't let 12 win. But I think we need to help Marvel first. If that fails, then we can talk to 2 and they can have our leftover money… with stipulations."
Gloss finds himself at the table with Enobaria before long, when Katniss Everdeen shoots his last tribute through the neck. Once again, Cashmere and Brutus are in the Mentor booth, but now he knows what he wants.
Still, Enobaria looks different than last time, like some of the spirit has left her. "Listen, I talked to Brutus," she starts. "He likes the girl, sees himself in her, but he agrees, in the end, Cato is the one with the chance."
"Why him?"
She sighs. "The girl sees this as personal glory. Despite his age, I think he understands the stakes. That if 12 wins, the entire world will change. That a lot of people will die. Still…"
She sighs, and this time, she does drink. They're in his apartment this time, so they can speak without risk of being overheard. They're alone. "What is it?" he asks.
"I don't think it will be enough. For one thing, Haymitch is whispering in Johanna's ear, and she's whispering in the Head Gamemaker's ear. For another… it just feels like they're going to win. Like the stars are aligned or something."
Gloss raises his eyebrows. "You don't really seem the superstitious type."
She quirks a smile at him, despite the serious conversation. "I'm not. But I've learned to trust my gut, and it says things aren't looking good." She pours them both another glass. "You know I was once approached by Plutarch Heavensbee, to help the rebels?"
"What? You?"
She laughs. "I know. It was in the 70th Games. He told me they needed 5 more cycles for the rebels to act. Maybe it's happening a little early."
"Let's just go shakedown Mason. Her tributes are dead, no one will notice her missing."
Enobaria shakes her head. "Maybe it's just the time, I don't know."
"Right, I forgot you have a soft spot for her."
She smiles at him, putting a finger to her lips. But then the smile fades. "This will be bad for 2, no matter what. A civil war situation, I think. My family is already divided."
Gloss knows what she means. The outer districts have a lot more to gain and a lot less to lose in a rebellion than they do. "It's not a sure thing. I'll send the money, and we'll see if Cato can't do his job."
The 74th Hunger Games go on for what feels like forever, and although there's others in play, to Gloss it is always Katniss or Cato. 12 or 2. Coal or stone. Flame or military might. Rebels or Capitol. The duality plays in his head constantly, until the 18th fucking day, when the muttations finally get to Cato. Even then, he thinks the boy will pull through, will still strangle Katniss, will snuff out the light of 12's hope, until that final moment when he asks for mercy.
But there was always someone else, wasn't there? For some reason, no one had bothered to kill the 12 boy, and so it is 2 on 1 at the end, and then it's just the 2 from 12. Gloss sits with Cash and Enobaria at Antioch watching the two from 12 trying to figure out how to end the Games. "Just fucking shoot him in the head," Cashmere scoffs. "You're not even actually in love with him."
Gloss realizes that this was how her Games ended, with just her and her district partner, and she had taken the stabbing for her trouble, but come out the Victor in the end. But he has to agree with her. Peeta obviously wasn't going to kill Katniss, but Katniss had proved she could kill, if necessary.
"She could kill herself," Enobaria suggests. Gloss sees the merits of this suggestion. It would be an unsatisfying conclusion by Capitol standards, but they would get their Victor, and it wouldn't be the Girl on Fire.
What they don't expect is the poison berries. Cashmere's eyes light up in amusement. "Oh, this is interesting. No Victors?"
They are lean in, watching. It's almost dawn, they're exhausted, but this is the end, they can sleep soon enough. "There's no way they'll let the Games end with no Victors," Gloss asserts.
Enobaria has her knuckle in her mouth, and Gloss can see a small bead of blood growing where one of her sharpened teeth is digging in. She seems unaware, her eyes fixed on the screen, as are the eyes of nearly everyone else in the club.
"She's gotta be tricking him into taking them, right?" Cashmere says, as Katniss and Peeta prepare to eat the poison.
And then, almost in an instant, the Games are declared over, like the lights coming on in a dark room. The rapidity of it is jarring, a reminder that the Games are not something inevitable, just something put on based on the whim of the Capitol, and it this, moreso than the declaration of two winners, that gives Gloss whiplash. The Games weren't put on because they had to be. Nothing would break if there was no more Hunger Games. They could be stopped at any time, by the right person pressing the right button. He feels ill.
He goes back to District 1 like always, and at first, everything feels normal. It feels the same, except that the posters he eventually sees for the upcoming Victory Tour are for Katniss and Peeta. He realizes, belatedly, that Haymitch Abernathy is coming on the Victory Tour, a concept so foreign to him he doesn't know what to make of it. Haymitch coming on a Victory Tour didn't happen, because District 12 never won.
He and Cashmere are expected to attend, of course, make a nice show of the Victors of their district playing nice with the newest Victors, but it feels strange. Enobaria had made it sound like the world would break, but the factories in 1 were still running, cranking out the products the Capitol demanded, the trains running daily to ship all the new junk to the buyers. He saw the trains passing through from further north, from 7, filled with lumber and paper, so it was likely nothing crazy had happened there, either.
He calls Enobaria, just before the Victory Tour, hoping maybe she can tell him how to feel. "I… can't talk right now," she says. "I'll call you at a better time."
When he sees the pair from 12 on the Victory Tour, they look like kids. They're 16, the age he was once told is the most common age of Victors, the age he and Enobaria won at, but they look even younger, somehow. He's just turned 29, so they're almost half his age. He looks into Katniss's eyes as she makes her silly speech about her Victory, and wonders if he ever looked so young. And if so, if people in the Capitol really saw that, and still wanted to get him drunk, still wanted to sleep with him, still wanted to wake up with him in the morning and tell him about their own shitty lives, and in turn hear in gory detail about how he'd murdered other children.
He looks at Peeta, still a little chubby, despite his time training and in the arena, and sees a little of himself. He would never be lean and perfect in the way the Capitol wanted. It feels dirty, to identify with this boy from 12, in the same way he still loved Augustus even after finding out he was a rebel. Gloss stands tall, proud, on camera during the ceremony, but then after he catches Haymitch's eye, and he can't make out the expression, exactly, but he feels like he didn't hide something well enough.
The 75th Games is a Quarter Quell, so Gloss's work increases at the academy. Last Quarter Quell, they took twice as many tributes, and though he doubts the Capitol would play the same hand twice, there's still a concern that they might try something similar: take three times as many tributes, or only boys or only certain districts, something strange. The academy trainers are wracking their brains trying to come up with possible conceits, and when he goes home in the evenings, he does the same. He knows the Capitol, knows someone will have to pay for 2 Tributes winning the Games.
Cashmere stays in the Capitol for most of the break: her doctors are there. But she returned for the Victory Tour, and she returns for the reaping. He can tell it's taxing, that even the couple weeks without the infusions weaken her, throw her off-balance. If she wasn't so proud, he'd tell her to use a cane like Mags, but even the idea is absurd.
So when the Quarter Quell is announced: a Hunger Games consisting only of past Victors, and she stumbles to her knees, it looks like an emotional outburst rather than what it really is, shock causing her symptoms to flare up. Somehow he knows, right from the start, who is going to be called: all the old favorites.
Snow is tired of the old guard, all the Mentors who go to the Capitol year after year. Regardless of allegiance, he needs to clean house. Chrome wasn't going to get picked, or Georgiana or Jackson or Timon. It is going to be himself and Cashmere, Brutus and Enobaria, Finnick and Mags, Johanna and Blight, and so on. He's right on most counts, with Annie Cresta being reaped, and Mags volunteering for her, and Timon being reaped, with Brutus volunteering for him. Interestingly, it is Haymitch reaped, with Peeta volunteering for him.
He thinks District 2 and 4 choices are intentional: Brutus would always volunteer, and Mags would always protect Finnick. This helps make the selections look more random. But Gloss would bet anything that Snow meant to put Haymitch back in the arena. Peeta volunteering was not in the plan.
When they go back to the Capitol, it's as Tributes. Gloss feels ill. He punches the wall of the train carriage, and Oracle looks shocked, but neither she nor Cashmere nor Chrome, traveling as their Mentor, stops him.
"We fucking won!" he says, repeating the same thing he's said since they found out, the same thing he's sure the Tributes in every other district were saying as well. "We already won, how can they make us do this again?"
No one says anything, but he knows they're thinking what he's thinking now. After last year, with two winners, it's clear that there's no rules. The Hunger Games can follow any rules they want, and they will go along with them, like lambs to the slaughter.
So when Finnick approaches him before the official proceedings begin, he has half an idea what it's about, and he doesn't dismiss him immediately. "We're forming an alliance," Finnick says, his voice hushed. They're tucked into some back corner of the training rooms, where someone coming upon them might reasonably think they were getting changed for a workout, if they weren't hunched together in an obviously conspiratorial stance.
"Who?"
Finnick bites his lip. "As many as we can get. The idea," he says, pausing, "Is to delay the killing, to irritate the Gamemakers."
Gloss can see the strategy. To make a boring Games, to throw their Quarter Quell back in their face. "But can't they just… you know… kill us themselves? With mutts or an avalanche or whatever?"
Finnick nods, conceding this. "We want to upset the Capitolites. We're they're favorite toys. If they're forced to kill us, it'll be like Snow taking something they liked away."
Gloss sees the vision, but he shakes his head. "It's different in there, and you know it. Promises are nice, but when it comes down to it, you want to go back to your family, and I have things I want to protect, too." He stands to leave, but Finnick stops him, standing between Gloss and the door. Finnick is shorter than him, by a few inches, and at least twenty pounds lighter. But his expression is determined.
"Don't you see? This is bigger than us now. It's not just about what we want anymore." He gets the feeling there's something else, something Finnick isn't telling him.
Gloss sighs. "Listen. I'll tell Cash what you said, but I can't make any promises."
Finnick concedes that the conversation is over, and lets him go.
"Heavensbee is the Head Gamemaker?"
Enobaria is at their apartment, nearly choking on her wine. Their training scores were calculated that day, and they saw his face - the former Hunger Games media director, sitting and observing them. "He looked right at me, he knows I know he's a rebel. He's going to murder me in that arena."
Brutus had been invited to join them, as they decided to make an alliance between 1 and 2 and wanted to plan it, but interestingly, he was absent. Cashmere is smoking at the table, all pretense of propriety lost. "This Games is run by a rebel?" She looks puzzled, and Gloss is as well. It doesn't make sense. He tries to recount his conversation with Finnick, to make heads or tails of it.
But before long, there's a knock at the door, and Brutus joins them. "4's a bust for a Career alliance," he leads with, joining them at the table. Cashmere stands and gets him a glass and a bottle of amber liquor, and Gloss wonders if they are closer than he thought.
"You were with Finnick?" Enobaria asks.
"Told me about an alliance, and I was curious, since he was a Career and all. But it sounds like a rebel plot," he says, taking a big swig of the liquor. Brutus is about ten years their senior, but he looks fit, ready to get back into the arena, determined to survive.
"What do you mean?" Cashmere says. She's already heard Gloss's side of the story, but it can't hurt to hear what Brutus knows.
"Told me that they got interest from 3, 7, 6, 11. What am I going to do with that? 3 and 7 are known rebels, and 11 are highly suspicious."
No one mentions that Elin was often gossiped about as a former rebel, or that 6 was being predicted to be killed in the bloodbath as both Elin and the 6 male were addicted to morphling, since everyone knew Brutus had a soft spot for her. "We are thinking 1 and 2 will have to go it alone, just the 4 of us," Cashmere says instead.
Brutus nods. "There's more of them, but not a lot of them that did great in training scores, except the two from 12, and those are probably inflated by the Gamemakers, and Odair and Mason."
"We need to stop Finnick from getting a stupid trident," Enobaria says.
"Killing Finnick early will be best. Johanna loves him, so killing him will take the wind out of her sails," Cashmere says.
"But it doesn't work in reverse?" Brutus asks.
"He still has Annie."
Gloss tries to meet Enobaria's eyes, but it's like she's purposely refusing to look at him. They listen to Cashmere and Brutus continue to plot, but Gloss doesn't have much to say. He's almost 30, about to go into a life or death battle for the second time, after living a civilized life for years. It feels… less surreal than it should.
Last year, they put their faith in Cato to stop Panem from breaking. This year, they have a chance to do it themselves. He lays awake longer than he should, since he has to enter the arena in 2 days. He keeps picturing Finnick blocking the door, telling him that the rebellion was bigger than him. He understands why Haymitch wants a rebellion. Or Johanna. Even Augustus, he understood. But Finnick? Was he really so selfless he was willing to give up his family, his woman, his relatively well-off district to change Panem? Did he hate his life as a Victor that much? Should Gloss?
At the interviews, Katniss and Peeta make a big show of saying they're to be married, which is obviously bullshit, but the Capitol loves it. Then, Peeta announces that Katniss is pregnant, and the entire audience is enraptured, considering the life of an unborn baby in the arena.
He feels Cashmere shift behind him, grabbing onto his arm, squeezing painfully tight, and he knows the two from 12 mean nothing by it - they are trying to survive just like everyone else, but their pretend pregnancy is upsetting Cashmere, so he hates them for it.
He'd be labeled a baby-killer in the arena if he hurt Katniss now, that's the beauty of their plan. But the thing is: he doesn't plan to survive. That's the conclusion he's come to.
Laying in bed awake he's realized that he doesn't have the solution: he can't act with the rebels, can't be the cause of thousands of deaths and poverty in District 1. But he understands why they fight - the misery of the Hunger Games is written on his body, and for the outer Districts, he is sure they have nothing to lose. But his loyalty is with 1 and 2, and so if they make it far in the Games, he'll try to get Cashmere to Victory. It's stupid, really. Her edge will fade the longer the Games go on - the longer she's without her medication, but as long as the Games are fast, she can do a lot of damage.
With this settled, he feels fine entering the arena, strangely. Tranquil, as he completes his interview. He will not leave the arena. He is finished. There will be no more Mentoring, no more watching children die. There will be no more sex with anyone he doesn't want to have sex with. There is only the Hunger Games, and what, if anything, comes after death.
Cashmere's interview is interesting, at least. She implores the Capitolites to put a stop to the Hunger Games. The Quarter Quell is taking the Victors they've come to know and love. Brutus's show will stop. Finnick will stop attending events. All the faces they love seeing and drinking with at the clubs won't be there anymore. It seems to work, a little too well, perhaps, as Caesar finishes up her interview faster than the rest.
But despite it all: the wedding announcement, the fake pregnancy, Cashmere's appeal, Gloss finds himself being lowered into the arena sooner than he thought possible, his last sleep in the Training Center behind him, his last glimpse at the outside world gone. He wants to vomit, but he swallows it down.