PART SIX: LIMITED VISITATION

(POV - Clove)

Yes, it's the next day. That went by fast.

It's why, when the next morning arrives and it's time to organize the list of savages who ride the hovercraft to Peeta's facility, the black-haired clipboard woman who approaches me is noticeably hesitant. Her teeth are clenching extra firmly with every syllable she says of my name. Her eyes are a staggering blue, hidden by a frayed order of obsidian bangs. "Cl-ove... Helli-ot."

I cross my arms and feel the texture of my cotton shirt, moving my thumb and index finger over the grey material and running my tongue quickly over my teeth. Glimmer hears me smack my lips, and I watch from my periphery as she rolls her shimmering eyes. I tap my toes in quick succession over the ground, mashing the rubber into the cement, the hovercraft propellers roaring over the sound of my voice. This chick is irritating, so I tell her, "Can you just hand me the clipboard? I'll do the spelling."

"Yeah, no," she drones. Her pink lips squeeze together with an irritable pinch, and her cheeks glisten an ever brighter sheen of peach beneath the sun's pounding weight. Her dark hair flutters and whistles about the edges of her face in the outdoor wind. Birds are nowhere to be heard, though morning has fallen. This woman named Jacksonn will never cease to look like she should be wearing pajama slippers with bright yellow stars on them, no matter how serious she looks as she peruses the board in front of her. "So it's H-e-l-l..."

"Yeah, like Hell," I interject.

"i-o-t-t. I had to write you onto the list. I was told to have you removed... yesterday." The skin around her eyes crinkles in millions of tiny little spots, the flesh darkening and turning thick around her bright sapphire eyes. The sun plays with the color of her gaze, fluttering between brown and blue as I judge her nervous appearance. Her voice is aimed at me, but she speaks to her clipboard. "Around nine in the morning, a call was placed to the CF Office accusing you of violence."

She speaks like she has bigger issues than this tiny gap in her work day. I allow my feet to guide my body side to side, jumping from left to right in a manner of restlessness. It comes to me as no real surprise that I was removed from the left, but Glimmer seems irritated by this entire thing, breathing a puff of anxious air from between overly-painted lips. Her arm brushes mine. She steps into the hovercraft with a punch of strength behind her steps. Her district partner must be somewhere in there, too - it's something I can observe in the way her mouth moves to form the letters of a familiar name as if reporting the arrival of a problem that doesn't concern her.

I awkwardly track the sight of Glimmer. Mrs. Jacksonn studies my face with luminous eyes, judging what actions should be taken next. I feel like, on the side of dealing with her motherly instincts, she's calling up chapters from some 'Shit to Make Pres. Snow Pleased With You' handbook. Poor little Clove, being given the cold shoulder by Glimmer for the fiftieth time of a thousand. In reality, I can't force my mind to find a single reason why dawdling on lost acquaintances can possibly be healthy for me. My mind is swarmed with tragedy - my eyes are constantly on the verge of being wet, my face red with the burden of thought.

I know. I know what I did - I know why it's wrong. I know why Marvel looked so freaking frightful with my hands leading towards his throat, his fingers clenching over the bruising flesh of my wrist. The first step to acceptance is admitting it aloud, right? A deep breath charges its way down my stinging wind pipes.

"I know, I hurt someone - I get it, can you just -" My eyes scour the scape of blue skies behind Mrs. Jacksonn's glittering hair, my feet skipping over the concrete ground anxiously. "Can you just lemme in? Please." I utter the final word forcefully and try to keep my eyes from glaring at her. "Please."

"No, I —"

"Jacksonn, let my tribute into the aircraft," breathes a female voice ripe with authority; tinged with truth. Enobaria's brown hair floats over her head, shaved close to the root and spinning on its tiny rivulets of curls among the wind's influence. Her fangs glint in the sun. I try to keep from backing away upon hearing the edge her voice contains in it. Looking at her now, especially with the haircut, she looks ten times more threatening. No soft waves of hair to frame the sharpness of her face. Her cheekbones are like blades. Dark skin, colored caramel beneath the light, carries the shadows of her frustration.

If Jacksonn's eyes can physically stammer, that's what they're doing now. Hell that's what I'm compelled to do right now. I loathe the expression that I'm 3000% sure I'm giving Cato's mentor. I'm sure it broadcasts something along the lines of 'Where the fuck did you come from?'

Enobaria's posture radiates a hint of something broken. Her eyes flitter down to me from her side, peering over at my eyes from the edge of her shoulder. Something about the memory of Cato gives me the urge to ask her questions - bombard her with queries, the answers of some she will never, ever, be capable of providing. 'Tell me about the training score. Tell me about what he thought. What'd he think... about this? There was a sponsor gift we once received in the middle of the arena. I remember it floating from the skies, accompanied with a tiny square of paper that drew angry lines into his face when his eyes read over it. 'What was on that goddamned note?'

Mrs. Jackson drops her clipboard down to her side, pressing the stupid gel pen back behind her ear. I feel my face scrunch at the weakling apology she gives. Enobaria's huff of annoyance should be more than a clue - my name was never supposed to have been removed. Everyone gets pissed off at Marvel once in a while; why was I going to be punished for this? Kind of a stupid question because yeah - I killed Cato. Sure.

The helicarrier is a cold compartment full of stagnant, chilly air and virtually no circulation when one takes a breath - especially not when I I breath deep, lung-filling sighs of air to purposefully catch Glimmer's attention. Really, these actions only serve to garner her gelid stare, the emerald colors within her gaze twinkling with something angry and judgmental. This wasn't exactly what I had been expecting from her, if I am to be a frank narrator. Honestly, I had trusted one of Glimmer's breed to produce a warm knitted blanket from the depths of some dark corner and come with her arms extended and a pout in her mouth, her nose in a sympathetic crinkle as she rushes in her Capitol-provided shoes to my aid. Outside, she's seem to be that type.

It saddens me a bit, how instead, she sits by the side of Marvel almost in as much anticipation as burns inside be. It's as if she expects more than snarked remarks from her district partner. Or - and this is only to cover all possible aspects of imagination - the depth dark mauve bruises beneath his eyes and the lines streaking his face are hinting to something that isn't arrogance at all. He isn't the same: that's a thing that, while screaming into his face so loudly my own eardrums trembled in fear, I reluctantly forced myself to conclude. Katniss really had whittled away at who he was. The smirk, though it is present, has faded. His eyes are darker with a depth only achieved by actual contemplation, which unfortunately hints to the inclusion of a brain inside that sparkly District One skull of his - something that also makes me want to break into a jaw-bending frown.

My knees bounce beneath all ten of my tightly clenched finger, and I bite my nails into the too-stylish-for-combat-but-totally-chique-by-Capitol-standards pants. I wanna to jump from this giant hunk of metal, but I just end up casting my eyes to the bright shards of yellow light that sink in through the window, illuminating the clouds that shoot past the glass in golden streaks. I wanna leave this chilly compartment and slink beneath the chastising gaze of Glimmer. Really, that's the only thing I want. So I cover my eyes with my fingers and imagine the doors opening, my foggy image grabbing Brutus by the arm, dragging him into Peeta's chamber so he can just stand in the corner and watch - stand guard while I extract my joy from the sound of Peeta's screams.

I realize that I might have said that last part aloud when Brutus snorts a harsh-sounding noise, concern drowning the crease in his eyebrows as if water were dripping into his hear. "You just want..." He begins, and his lips squirm after he's already said the words. I'm glaring at him when he breaks into a sigh. He fucking knows not to say Cato's name around me but perhaps by this point I can accept somebody of Brutus' standing uttering whatever he wants. "You know, I know if Cato were here, you would feel a little more secure about this entire thing. You don't need him - I know that," he says, seeming to pause to chew on the inside of his cheek, "but every stressful thing is easier to do with the inclusion of a friend. It's a given. Even for those who've done what you and I have. Killed."

I don't notice that Gloss took spot on the aircraft until his voice emits from a corner of darkness on Glimmer and Marvel's side. And when he talks, his lips move beneath the glow of a blue light, the screen of his electronic device casting a hue over him. "People in the Games - especially those who've trained for them - are born with a sort of cold blood. A gene in them that lets them stab away the guilt so that, afterward, they don't have to suffer the effect of their actions." He speaks this words off-handedly, directing them to his tablet, it would seem at first. There's something of a stutter in his next words, and though he maintains a complete lack of eye contact, his eyes seem to deepen in their sockets. "Marvel started that way. I know it for a fact; so does every person on this aircraft. People change."

Nobody seems to want to acknowledge the mentor from the Luxury District. Enobaria's cheekbones seem to shift an inch deeper; Marvel's eyebrow peaks, his mouth and lips turned outward in a scowl; Glimmer pretends not to notice.

Gloss' musing continues even past these silent gestures. "Sometimes the Games transform people even in places they never expected their lives to be altered. Tribute can enter the games as a caterpillar and leave a hideous moth hiding in its own shroud of pain. They leave the arena hating themselves because the prayers of killers are never answered. Sometimes, like in the case of Marvel, the guilt strikes you in the flesh and probes into your should before you even have the time to finish the job you came for. And you change too damn early." Gloss sounds on the verge of shouting, his voice straining to remain at an even volume. "But in this case, I suppose he's glad he didn't change too late."

That's what he leaves on. Suddenly, a rapid beeping floods the room with sound and as the large metal door creaks open, not a person moves an inch. The light of day drags along with it a somber wind.

Gloss' lips turn upward in a chuckle that makes my spine jerk. "It started as a plan. Pretend to love the timid rodent from District Twelve; the Capitol will fall to their knees and bend at the waist." His blue eyes smooth their way to Marvel's frame, and the anger in both boys flips to an echo of respect and disgust - two emotions that are so staggeringly different. Gloss' eyes are infected with a saddening restraint. It's hard not to imagine Cashmere's lacquered fingers grazing over his leg as he gutturally remarks, "Lots of things go wrong at lost of different wrong times, Marvel."

I think that I'm the only one who notices that, as people begin to file from the hovercraft in twos, Marvel has retreated to a corner of the plane where his face is blanketed in darkness, his eyes peeling themselves wide in a signal of denial. His face is creased with a wacky smile and his teeth glitter in the dark beneath a sheen of saliva as, through them, he counts a line of numbers. His eyes are squeezed shut. At this point, a thunder of footsteps exits the hovercraft and I notice that the body count is rapidly decreasing while Marvel sticks behind. I've been confronted with a choice that I should never have to decide over:

A.) Stick with Marvel and roughly hand him a shredded cloth on which he can wipe that insane grin from his mouth. Pretend that nothing happened before sprinting from the hovercraft inconspicuously.

B.) Follow behind Gloss, whose figure is rapidly retreating. Inwardly mock the way Brutus stands loyally at his side, both of them speaking words of friendship and whatever-the-fuck-else. Continue to speculate that Gloss is gay, but just to keep myself distracted from the fact that Marvel's completely lost his fucking shit.

I choose choice 'B' - yeah, sure I feel bad, but Glimmer takes the place I would have taken if I had decided in favor of choice 'A'.

My feet stamp against the concrete, a sprinkle of dust shimmering in the air about me, following my movements like magnets. The inside of the building echoes with the stomping noises that Enobaria, Brutus, and Gloss are making. Glimmer has shrunken back behind me, brushing our shoulders on her way to grab a hold of Marvel and awkwardly walk alongside him instead. Sure, it brings somewhat of n empty, hollow knock to the happiness that floods into me, but my thoughts are cut short by a distant wave of screams from behind a rickety door, far behind a maze of hallways and loops.

My head beats with a rocket of pain, but I stick it out - tell myself it'll all be worth the drama; the momentary hurt. My mind keeps flipping back a few pages to the image of Marvel's solemn expression, and about ten minutes in, a stench sinks into the path we've all been taking. Enobaria's nose scrunches far up ahead of me. I'm keeping back, sticking to myself. Their voices murmur hushed conversation.

Dirty cement floors, walls with leakage, lightbulbs swinging from open electric sockets and casting airy light into the hallway. A guard removes a ring of keys from his belt and clicks away at a large metal door. Marvel and Glimmer come up slowly behind. I notice they've separated, and I grin to myself. I guess that whole thing didn't last long.

The guard has breath that stinks like bird crap, and it's all I can do to not lift the hem of my shirt over my mouth when he speaks. "It has been requested that Helliot enters last. Just a precaution," he grunts.

Brutus attempts to smooth his hand over my shoulder, but I shrug from the touch and pass through the doorway, sitting on a metal bench and gazing through a window that leads to another torture room. Johanna Mason shies away from a rising pool of water. I watch her twitch for minutes on end, my eyes glittering with interest as the life is plucked out of hers. Her throat bobs painfully down and up and her nails claw at the white tile floor. Her shrieks pound themselves into the window, and though I view her so blithely, her gaze is blind to my frame.

Sweat crawls hotly over my flesh.

Thirty minutes.

Peeta's voice isn't screaming when his torture chamber comes open, but a rancid odor follows the tributes that leave the room. "Peeta got what came to him," Glimmer murmurs, the only hint of optimism in her voice being the generic preppy sound that I've grown accustomed to blondes having. Glimmer's jawbone and angles have been racketed to appear much more sharp. There's a sting in her eyes that wasn't there before. Even as I lift myself from the bench and saunter towards her frame, she pretends to be engaged with Gloss' disappointed expression - a popular tactic for pretending that people you hate have ceased to exist.

"I'll bet those torturers are having fun," I tell her, stretching to speak also to the chamfer's open door. Marvel emerges from the doorway as I shout, "Right, Lover Boy?!" Marvel's figure slumps to the ground as he follows behind Glimmer. His eyes linger on Peeta's supposedly sunken figure. and his bones are shrouded in depressed shadows as the door closes in his wake. I try to peek past him, but my legs aren't long enough to lift me to see. The lines in Marvel's face have been chiseled deeper. It's quite depressing, really. Excitement fills me to the core, and he can't afford to take a little enjoyment from his privileges.

As I had expected, Marvel has nothing to say to my actions, and Glimmer treats my words like bombs. She plucks around my messages like a timid bluejay, her blonde eyebrows lifting. "Clove, just..." she sighs. "Clove, later. Later, we need to talk - really. Alright?" I remember who she used to be when she smiled. When she awkwardly hugged me upon finding that I had woken up for the first time. She once was happy with me; I once would have called her my friend. Something tells me now, as I look at her with skepticism painting my face and my arms crossed gently, that our friendship is a thing she's grown tired of avoiding.

So I pout my lips. I don't say anything. I can't say anything. So I just shuffle past her a little, my shoulder brushing against her arm, trying to clear my mind of the fact that that ever happened.

Brutus says, "Now, here you go - it's your chance. It isn't like the Games, okay, he's chained. He's chained. he can't hurt you. If he tries it, he'll die. Okay?"

I bring myself to smile a bit, the dried skin on my lips crackling like glass. The door shifts open again, greeting me with a pungent, ripe odor of Peeta's rat-ness and wiping away the smirk that had sprouted in my expression. Suddenly, my excitement turns into a heat; the brightness in my eyes narrows into a glare, my feet shifting. I pull my fingers through dark tendrils of hair and pull back the greasy strands with a rubber band. "I get it, Baldie. You think I'm scared?" My feet take me into the chamber, and with the movement, Peeta's frame fades slowly into view. The door eases shut behind me.

Brutus' last words of encouragement: "You weren't scared in the Games, Rocky. What possibly could have changed you?"

I think to myself, Peeta's scared blue eyes darting towards me, peeking through lice-infested blonde hair at me, with fear rocketing through every rivulet of his body like a hurricane, and his whimper of fear reaches me. It touches me. Hurts me.

When was the last time I felt any pain?