Chapter 63: Gloss St. Cloud
The cameras are staying unusually fascinated with Marvel's body, zooming in on the arrow piercing his gut and how the poor kid's tongue is now lolling out of his mouth and swelling up. It's a grotesque sight, even for a seasoned mentor, and Gloss finds himself shaking with rage all the more at how the Capitol can't seem to look away from his tribute's death. The fact that they're still running the instant replays of Katniss Everdeen dodging the spear that came so close to bringing her down before letting one fly right into Marvel's stomach makes the loss fester inside Gloss all the more.
Marvel's spying on the District 12 girl and Eleven's shrimp had been exemplary. The plan to draw Rue into a trap and lure the Girl on Fire there, even more so. And now it was all for nothing, the girl from 12 had made the Final Eight and then some, it is now the Top Six actually with Everdeen's little boyfriend still not dead, and Jesus H. Christ, District 12 might actually win the Hunger Games.
Gloss finally lets out his anger by roaring for all of Control Central to hear, "Ok, I'm sorry, but where the FUCK did this chick come from?" His enraged eyes naturally swivel all the way down the row to Abernathy for an explanation, but the drunk just knocks one back while smirking like a little boy.
"Welcome to the Games, Gloss. We're running a real fight to the death here – would you like to join us? Oh, wait, you can't, because your boy's now dead. Nice to see someone else learn how it feels, huh?"
It's that arrogant smirk of his that does it. "I'm gonna GET YOU for this, you son-of-a-bitch!" and Gloss lunges at Haymitch in a rage. Almost instantly, he feels weight slam into him from all sides and muscle him down to the floor. Shouts go up from Brutus and Polonius, Poseidon and Finnick and Hero.
"Down! Down! Hold him down! Keep him down!" Brutus is bawling out orders. Gloss struggles. He isn't the first mentor to handle the loss of a tribute this way, by taking out his grief on the mentor of the tribute who killed his kid, and he's sure he won't be the last. But as he tries to rise off the floor like a pinned bear even while Brutus and Polonius and Hero and Augustus all practically sit on him, Gloss vows he will be the first to land a hit on the bout-winning mentor. Goddamn Katniss Everdeen is still alive, Snow knows why, and Marvel is dead and the slick willie, drunken sailing motherfucker is laughing at him.
Hero is now murmuring in his ear that they won't get off of him until he calms the fuck down, and gnashing his teeth, he finally nods assent to his former mentor. He still tries to make a break for Abernathy once he gets up off the floor though, and only a fist-flying punch from Augustus halts him from wrapping his fingers around the alcoholic's neck and squeezing.
"Take a walk, St. Cloud. Come on – let's take a walk." Brutus has his arms under Gloss's armpits, dragging him out of Control Central while Cashmere dithers after them, stroking her brother's arm and crooning to him, trying to calm him down.
"Walk it off, brovey, just walk that one off…." She uses the pet name she gave to him when they were still babies and it's like a balm on his tortured soul.
Brutus leads them out into a small community garden on the ground floor, just outside the doors to the building, and only then does he finally let Gloss go. He rounds on the man from 2 and his sister like a caged animal, fuming.
"I swear, if I ever see that walking bar again, I'm gonna…"
"Gloss…. Let it go," Brutus rumbles. "This isn't like you. Where's your sportsmanship?"
"FUCK…..!"
"Enough," Cashmere suddenly darts forward and frames his face with her hands, eyes pleading with him. "Cato and Clove are still out there; they'll avenge Marvel and get Haymitch's brats, you'll see."
Gloss looks over her shoulder to take in Brutus, who just nods grimly. "You swear?"
"I can't convey to Cato direct orders, not from the outside, you know that. The tributes have to play the Game largely on their own, without cheat codes. But I won't have to tell Cato anything anyway – he's already out for her blood, and has been since the end of Training."
"Yeah, but can he do it? Kill Everdeen?"
Brutus's eyes twinkle bloodthirstily. "Well, you know us Careers - we make an art out of staying alive."
Gloss nods finally, heavily. He supposes he can live with that. As long as District 12, and especially not Katniss Everdeen, never gets another cannon closer to the Crown.
Gloss is still stewing over District 12's cheating asses and their double win a year later, when he and Cashmere are weaving hammocks at the snare-tying station and Katniss sodding Everdeen walks up and almost meekly asks if she can join them. She must be shyer in real life than she was with her boyfriend and the little Rue girl on TV last summer, and it surprises Gloss. But they let her join them and even help her make a hammock of her own. Gloss smirks when it falls apart upon Fire Girl's first attempt to lie down in it, and sharing a look with Cashmere, she just sends him a knowing wink. She has her own resentment towards the archery queen from Twelve, for dropping a nest of tracker jackers on Glimmer, but you wouldn't know it from the way Cashmere tries to engage Katniss in girly-girly stuff, like nail polish and boys. When his sister asks Katniss how many rounds Mellark can go in one night, the socially awkward teenager turns bright pink and mumbles something unintelligible. To Gloss, it sounds like, "We haven't slept together yet. We… wanna take it slow."
Poor Peeta. He somehow manages to smuggle his own hide out of the Hunger Games on the coattails of the girl of his dream and she's holding out on him in bed. What a stuck-up, uptight little bitch.
When Katniss finally moves on and starts chatting up Finnick Odair, Cashmere hisses to him, "You could have at least pretended to be a little nicer to her, you know, instead of acting all sore-loser and aloof."
"What's the Snowdamn point?" he mumbles back coolly. "We'll be going to war in a few days anyway." He sees two pixel renderings materializing in front of them, and he and his twin share a look. Moving as one, they take their throwing knives and give war yells while cutting the virtual threats down into little pixels.
Lifting his head, Gloss barely hides a smirk when he sees Katniss notice, her face cool and expressionless.
Later, he surmises that perhaps he was a little rude to the Fire Girl, and that therefore, he had it coming.
He just hadn't expected his death to be so fast and violent with an arrow to his chest.