Cashmere Goldsmith was always close to her brother. So when President Snow offered – no, when he told her that he would sell her body, she went along, because she couldn't allow anything to happen to her brother.
Two months later, in September, she was accompanying an upper class Capitol woman to a party. Afterward, when they went back to the woman's home, her fiancé showed up and demanded to know why she was fooling around with someone else, only to realize who his fiancée was fooling around with. The pair got into a fight, and Cashmere slipped away. She cursed herself for it later. She had made a foolish, foolish mistake. The woman she had been with complained to President Snow, and, on the 1st of July, Cashmere's brother was selected to represent District One in the Sixty-Seventh Hunger Games. Her little brother, Gloss, who was too handsome, too appealing to the Capitol. She was certain that Snow had ordered the Gamemakers to make Gloss that year's victor. There was no doubt in her mind of what the president had planned for him.
Sometimes, their clients even requested to have the both of them on the same night.
That was the turning point for Cashmere. But when Finnick Odair asked her to join the rebels, she refused on behalf of herself and her little brother. She may hate the Capitol for what they'd done to them, but she didn't believe that this 'underground' could win against the Capitol and the districts loyal to the city. They couldn't the first time. Cashmere wouldn't participate in a war only for everything that she held dear to crumble and fall. The world had taken enough from her already.
The metal plate finally lifts her into the arena, and she raises her hand against the blinding light of the sun. Her sight clears and she meets her brother's eyes, yards to her left. Yes, she was right to turn down Finnick's offer. Most of them will die in the arena. All but one, and she doubts it will be Katniss Everdeen. Not against these trained victors, these killers, and certainly not when the president wants her dead. The girl on fire's flame will extinguish in this water-filled arena, and so will the rebels'. Just as Snow planned it. They are all powerless to him.
This is his chessboard. They are mere pawns.