Beetee Latier, District 3
"Morning's come, you watch the red sun rise.
The LED still flickers in your eyes."
Vampire Weekend, Obvious Bicycle
Rule #18: Treat Sean's cacti collection with the proper respect.
Every victor has a talent. Sean Aspen's is gardening. It's a little cliché given that he's from Seven but he's proud of his district and all its greenery.
He likes cacti the most of all. They're what kept him alive in his arena. He brings a small collection of potted cacti to the Control Centre every year for luck. His first cacti is named Enrique, after a fallen ally. Every year, he adds another, one for each dead tribute.
It helps him deal with the guilt.
This year, he has five cacti, including Enrique. He's careful too lay them all out on his work station, somewhere they won't accidentally get knocked over. He shouldn't have bothered. His tribute launches next to the boy from One, who snarls at the smaller boy. The Career boy can't step off his plate but Sean's tribute is so shocked, he stumbles backwards onto the mines and dies before the games even begin.
The other mentors shoot him looks of sympathy as he starts to put his cacti back into their box. Some mentors like to stick around until the end of the Games Season but not Sean. He gets homesick and he misses his wife, Acacia. He knows that Norah can manage without him. After all, she'd mentored alongside Nate for six years. Sean knows that his mentor wasn't a bad person. Nate had just found it so hard to support himself during the games that it had been almost impossible for him to support someone else as well.
Sean leaves the Control Centre after saying a quick farewell to Norah. Next year, he'll come back with six cacti.
Rule #22: Do not call Liza a damsel in distress. There are plenty of other victors who are more qualified as a damsel in distress than her. For example [name redacted] and [name redacted].
Liza Flouria is the new kid on the block, still younger than a good portion of the tributes. The Careers decide to give her the proper welcome.
Careers don't take kindly to losing to an outlier. They make sure to target the tributes from the winning district the next year, just to show the outliers that lightning never strikes twice. The boy from Nine is smart enough to run away. But Liza's girl isn't.
One moment she's alive. The next, she's got a spear sticking out of her back.
Liza would need to watch a replay to know who'd killed her first tribute. All the Careers are so strong this year. Most of them had scored tens. The boy from One had scored an eleven. Any one of them could've thrown that spear.
Liza can't be bothered to find it out. She's too tired to be angry. She'd wanted a victor, someone to prove she was a mentor to be taken seriously, but she'd also accepted that her girl was probably doomed. She'd learned during her games the danger of getting too attached to people.
The other victors think that she looks angry as she leaves. But that's just her normal face.
Rule #20: Act like Turbin is invisible.
Turbin Bloodhawk doesn't react as the knife lodges itself in his boy's throat.
He'd been a victor for three years and his fame was already beginning to fade. He's grateful for Tacitus, for being the handsome Career to his odd-looking outlier. The Capitol had lost interest in Tubin the moment Tacitus had killed his final opponent. Now Turbin spends eleven months a year in his house full of books, enjoying his own company.
The other month, he is the boatman who ferries kids to the other side. He likes mentoring in its quiet moments. There's a certain pall that hangs over a tribute, a change in the air that signals that death is looming over them. While they're in Turbin's care, they straddle the gap between life and death, just like him. They see beyond the veil. He tries to help them find meaning in their final days. Or a lack of meaning. Whatever suits them.
Turbin never blames himself for their deaths. Death is part of his job. It's a shame that he can't retire, though. He hates the cameras and the attention.
He leaves without a sound. Only Sotope watches him go. He doesn't mind. She has no curious, searching look like a reporter's camera in her eyes. Only triumph. She's just checking to see that her tribute has outlasted his.
Nobody else notices.
Rule #2: Brock reserves the right to be a world-weary alcoholic. Don't question his life choices.
Brock Eska downs his glass as the Careers shoot his boy full of arrows. At this point, he'd normally be staggering off to the nearest bar to drown his sorrows. But now he stays.
He stays for the girl. He stays for Seeder.
Brock isn't sure why he cares so much about Seeder. He'd spent years watching other mentors befriend their first victors. First there'd been Surf and Mags, then Luka and Sotope and then Emerald and Mink. Brock had never had any feelings whatsoever for Courgette. In fact it had taken him a few months to even realise that he'd mentored a victor.
Brock hadn't even mentored Seeder and he's well aware that all the other victors were terrified of her - even her own mentor, Courgette. But he also knows what it's like to have no family left. He's determined not to let Seeder go through what he'd gone through, three decades of alcohol and indifference.
Because he sees more of himself in the thin, quiet woman sitting next to him than he's ever seen in one of his own tributes.
Brock Eska will never admit this to anyone but Seeder is like a daughter to him.
Rule #7: Don't dismiss any of Woof's theories unless you have a better theory.
Woof Casino writes down the deaths of both his tributes. The boy is stabbed by the girl from One. The girl has her throat slit by the boy from Four.
Woof isn't sad. He's not sure he wants a victor, not after Lachesis. He's happy enough knowing how his tributes died. Over the years, he's been documenting every death over the course of every single Hunger Games. Maybe a pattern would emerge that would fill in the one blank.
The empty space where his brother used to be.
Woof goes around the Control Centre, writing down who's been killed so far and and how. There are eleven in total. The girl from Three. The boy from Five. The boy from Six. The boy from Seven. Both of Woof's tributes. The girl from Nine. The girl from Ten. The boy from Eleven. Both from Twelve.
Almost instantly, he sees that there's a pattern. Not a single outlying district has both tributes remaining and every kill was caused by a Career. It has to be some kind of record for the most dangerous pack ever. But whether those patterns blend or clash with those presented in other games is still a mystery to Woof.
Once he's collected his notes, Woof joins Gajin at his station. Once, there was a time that Woof had been able to spend the entire Games Season in the Capitol with Gajin and Luka - his fellow urban men. But then Luka had become a husband and a father and his attention had begun to shift from his friends in the Capitol to his wife and kids in District 5. He'd retired after mentoring his second victor.
Woof and Gajin, meanwhile, have no hope of retiring any time soon. Gajin had never mentored a victor. Woof had mentored one - a girl so psychopathic that the whole district had voted for her to die and hadn't rested until she was dead. The likelihood is that they'll keep meeting in the Capitol every year until one of them dies.
Woof admires that kind of loyalty.
"How's your tribute?" He asks.
"He's alive and unhurt," Gajin doesn't look away from the screen.
"How long d'you think he'll last?"
"He has potential," Gajin says, cryptically.
"What? Potential to win?" Woof asks, shocked. If the odds are so far out of District 3's favour that tall, handsome Joules Chau hadn't won two years ago, what chance does the scrawny kid with the glasses, Beetee Latier, have?
"Every tribute has potential," Gajin says.
"Yeah, potential to be a serial killer," Woof mutters.
Gajin laughed, quietly, still not looking away from his screen.
Rule #14: Assume that Sotope hates you until proven otherwise.
Sotope Baymark has to wrestle with a very difficult question as she watches the Careers carve up her tribute on the first night.
Should I break something or should I celebrate for beating Turbin?
The Careers cheer for a little too long so she proceeds to throw her chair halfway across the room. She closes her eyes and pretends it's Mink. He's always the loudest.
It's less that her tribute is dead and more that she's lost the competition to mentor a victor. Again. Sotope's an athlete. She lives and breathes competition.
Athletes also let other people retrieve the things they've thrown. Not bothering to drag the chair back to her station, she stalks out of the room. She's got a date with Caesar Flickerman.
She doesn't see Mink on a date with Caesar Flickerman.
Rule #12: Always be respectful and kind.
Norah Blossom had hoped that her tribute would win.
She hopes every year. She feels like she has a duty to hope for her tributes. No matter how much Nate and Sean warn her not to get too attached, she can't help but make friends with her tribute every year.
Then she has to watch her new friend die.
Even with all her friends back in District 7, she worries that her dead friends will outnumber her living friends. Sometimes she finds herself talking to the furniture because it's so lonely having so many dead friends. Her parents had died seven years ago, when she'd politely refused to President Snow's demands. Recently, she'd been sick, as well. She'd been diagnosed with breast cancer during the Thirty-Second Hunger Games. The doctors had caught it early but she's still shaken that death had grown so easily inside her.
Norah wishes that there's something she can do to escape all the death in her life.
She wishes that there's something her tribute can do to escape the Careers circling her camp.
Norah cries when her tribute's cannon fires. She dries her tears quickly, knowing that there's nobody here who can comfort her. Sean had left during the bloodbath and Sotope, one of her closest friends among the mentors, had left on the first night. There's Taia, who Norah sometimes has a friendly conversation with, but she isn't comfortable with giving or receiving hugs.
Right now, Norah needs a hug. She leaves quickly, hoping to catch the next train home.
Rule #11: Do not infect Taia with your germs.
Taia Warden's boy dies in the bloodbath. Her girl might as well have. She got wounded and the wound got infected.
Taia has to spend three days watching her tribute sicken and die. There's so much blood and oozing pus. She imagines that the smell is awful.
By the end, Taia feels sick. She vomits into a bucket and screams until Woof comes over to help her clean up. Normally she'd object to her coming within two metres of her but she doesn't have the strength to look at her bucket of vomit.
The moment she can stand up without the world spinning, she's out of the room and into the nearest shower.
Rule #19: Don't ask Seeder if you can "hang out" with her. It wasn't funny the first time.
The Careers remind Seeder Howell of herself. They're terrifying. Together, they're unassailable, unbeatable. One of the six will surely win.
As for the four remaining outliers, it's just a matter of who the weakest link is. Seeder knows that it's her girl.
Brock had been scouting around the Control Centre. He'd come back with the news that the boys from Nine and Ten were both strong and fairly well-fed. The boy from Three - a dark horse, given that the arena is natural - was doing some weird thing with cameras and wires and winning a handful of sponsors with his efforts.
A feast is called on the sixth day. The Careers arrive first and guard the supplies. Seeder begs her tribute not to go, even though she knows all the stupid things that starving kids will do for food. Seeder's girl becomes the feast's only casualty, as the three outlier boys decide not to show up.
Brock squeezes Seeder's shoulder as they leave. She's grateful. He reminds her of her father when he does comforting things like that.
She can't love him like she loved her father, though. She can't ever love someone like she doesn't know that they'll die. She'd lost too many people.
But Seeder can't stop parents from loving their children. It's only natural to assume that one will die before one's offspring. When Seeder makes it home, she'll prepare a feast of her own for the mourners.
Unlike the gamemakers' feast, everyone will walk away from Seeder's feast alive.
Rule #16: Don't make fun of Nickel for what he did when the Careers cornered him.
When the Careers surround Nickel Baker's tribute, Nickel begs the boy to do something embarrassing. Anything to take away a small portion of his own shame.
Last games had not been good for Nickel. While he had managed to escape the Control Centre for a year, since Saloven Field had insisted on mentoring his own son, Liza winning and Houghton coming second had just turned everyone's attention to District 9. Suddenly, the Capitol had remembered the laughable events of his games.
It'd grown even worse after Houghton's death. The way he'd died... Nickel knows that it was stupid of Houghton to charge into a fight like that but part of him was jealous of the kid. Knowing what it was like to live in infamy for his cowardice, he wished that he'd taken the chance to die like a hero.
As Nickel watches the Careers close in on his unarmed tribute, he begs the boy to do something terrible. No such luck. The boy just puts up his fists and asks, casually, if any of the Careers want a piece of him.
Nickel grimaces and leaves before the cannon even fires.
Rule #6: Don't challenge Stallie to a drinking contest. She will put you under the table.
Two weeks in. Eight tributes left - two outliers and six Careers. Three days since the last death.
Stallie Burton is no mathematician but she can tell that those numbers don't add up to anything good. Especially not for District 10. She wonders, dully, what mutts they'll send and whether they'll kill her tribute before or after the boy from Three.
In the end, it's a pack of dogs the size of horses. Stallie is about to leave, like she usually does when her tribute is torn to shreds by mutts, but something makes her stop.
Could the last outlier left really be... the boy from District 3?
It's rare that urban kids last so long in natural areas. Curiosity drives Stallie over to Gajin's station, to see what the boy's secret is. What she sees makes her gasp.
The boy from District 3 is climbing a tree.
He doesn't look like he's enjoying it. His eyes are full of an intense focus, not pleasure. But at the same time, he isn't trembling or second-guessing himself, like Stallie had imagined a city-slicker doing when faced with a simple oak. He moves with confidence and determination.
In his hand is a wire. Stallie watches as he ties it around a branch and retreats towards the trunk. He appears to be weaving some sort of net but Stallie has no idea how a net would help him win the games against six Careers.
"Want to stick around?" Woof asks, politely.
Stallie had never liked Woof. Tartare, the boy she'd mentored for the Quell, had beaten the odds and made it to second place only to be tortured to death by Lachesis Dumont in such a brutal manner that his parents had both killed themselves. Stallie had partly blamed Woof, even though she'd known that he wasn't responsible for the girl's victory in any way. In fact, he'd abandoned the Control Centre and spent the entire games partying with Luka Starkwain.
Now, with Woof being so kind, Stallie feels bad about her old prejudices. She doesn't want to leave him and Gajin alone with all the Careers.
"Let's see these games through," she whispers as she takes a seat.
Rule #8: If Constantine's tribute dies and he looks sad, give him a hug. Unless your tribute killed his. Then give him some space.
Most mentors will later claim that they never saw the scrawny little nerd from District 3 coming. Constantine Cacace does.
Too late to save his tribute.
The tribute doesn't really count as his. He's officially Tacitus' tribute. But, even though Constantine is only the backup mentor, he cares a lot about the boy.
Constantine has always been fascinated by electricity, due to a volunteer from the power district being his childhood hero. So when the Elites gather under the tree where the last outlier is hiding, ready to skewer him with their spears and arrows, he's the mentor who spots the wires on the trunk of the tree and the filaments hanging from the branches.
The hairs on the back of his neck stick up,
"Tacitus..." He whispers. "Do you see those wires?"
Rule #21: Do not disturb Tacitus while he is sleeping.
The moment Tacitus Pernice realises what the boy from Three is doing, he panics.
"C'mon, c'mon, c'mon, c'mon!" He mutters as he scrolls through the list of sponsor items. This is his second tribute. His first had died suddenly to poison, without even being able to put up a fight. He's not letting it happen again. He sends in as many items as he can afford, hoping that his tribute will get the hint and leave the danger zone.
It's too late. The parachutes are just beginning to drift down when the boy flips a switch. Suddenly, a metal net springs up around, ensnaring Tacitus' tribute and his five allies. The six of them thrash about, cursing loudly, until the boy from Three connects two wires together and the net floods with electricity.
As six cannons fire in quick succession, Tacitus feels goosebumps rise on his arms. He doesn't believe in the supernatural but he can imagine the boy from District 3 in his games haunting him. Joules Chau, the expert trapper with the infant son and the sick girlfriend. Knowing what it was like being a single parent, Tacitus had begged Romulus to let him send money to Joules' girlfriend. Romulus had refused and the poor girl had died before Tacitus' victory tour.
Tacitus is relieved that, despite the boy from Three's skill with traps, he's clearly not a relative of Joules Chau. He dreads to think of what might happen if Joules' son were to be reaped.
He pities anyone who'll ever be forced into the arena with a Chau.
Rule #15: Don't ask Mink how his journey was. He hates travelling.
Mink Ultramarine punches the table and swears as his tribute dies. The boy had once been the favourite to win - a killing machine. Now it means nothing,
"Language!" Gajin calls from two stations away.
"Sneak!" Mink snaps. "Your entire district is full of sneaks."
"Mink," Constantine says, evenly. "You didn't exactly win the games in the most honourable of ways. Maybe have a bit more respect for District 3. After all, they don't have volunteers like we do. It's every tribute for themselves in there."
"Didn't you kill that deaf kid?" Mink counters. That's all he can remember about Constantine's games. They were dull.
"I'm not proud of it," Constantine turns away, leaving Mink to his anger.
It's at times like this that Mink wishes that his mentor could be around. Emerald would definitely take his side. One of Mink's favourite things about winning the Hunger Games is that he'd managed to make the legendary first ever volunteer grateful. Emerald had practically worshipped him after his victory. Mink tries not to be offended by the fact that, every year, Emerald gets more clients than him, despite almost being fifty.
Mink knows that he's the greatest victor of all time. He'd been told it so many times by Emerald. He wants to be the greatest mentor of all time.
Rule #9: Do NOT, under any circumstances, flirt with Amber.
Amber LeClerc wants to retire.
She's also relieved that her girl dies quickly in that net.
She can't bring herself to go to Emerald's academy anymore. There are so many young hopefuls there, blissfully unaware of what it's really like in the arena. Or what it's like after the arena. They're all so beautiful, like works of art. Amber had asked Emerald about it, once, and he'd told her that it was because more attractive volunteers were more likely to win useful sponsors. Then she'd asked him what it would mean for them if they won and he'd said it was better to be used than to be killed.
Amber isn't sure she agrees.
Part of her wishes that she'd died quickly in her arena. But she'd been too proud, too stubborn. Now she pays the price every night.
Part of her is relieved that she didn't die. Part of her is relieved she still has some glory.
Rule #13: If Vitellia has food on her face, please tell her. She doesn't like looking in mirrors.
Vitellia Tonioli is silent, a little stunned.
Six Elites had died in seconds. That little boy from Three has six kills.
Instead of yelling at the screen like Mink or Tacitus, Vitellia makes a plan in her head to send her tributes after the Threes in the bloodbath. Over the last few years, she'd seen enough from the tech district to know that they're a serious threat. Their best killers are ruthless and intelligent. As cold as the blade of a sword.
They remind Vitellia a little of herself, of what she's become.
She'll make sure that District 3 will never be a threat again.
Rule #4: Call Mags by the right name. Please.
Mags Flanagan is only here because Saorise Current had gone into labour a few hours before the reaping. Mags isn't a mother. She probably never will be. But she knows enough about childbirth to think that any woman who's just pushed an infant child out of her own body deserves a year off.
Mags doesn't do much to mourn her tribute. It's the same story as pretty much every girl before Saorise. Girl trains. Girl volunteers. Girl dies. Mags just gives a quick bow to the screen, where her tribute's body is still twitching in the net.
Thank you for your sacrifice. I'm grateful for a tribute that I couldn't care less about.
Then she waits for Surf and Kraken to say goodbye to their friends. She could go to the station and wait for them to catch her up but she prefers the idea of them all walking there together.
Rule #10: If Kraken starts singing to himself, please don't tell him to stop.
Kraken McAulay hums a lullaby, fighting to hold back tears.
He knows that he shouldn't be mourning. His tribute's a trained volunteer, who'd known exactly what he'd been getting into. But ever since his wife had given birth to their son, Kraken had grown more and more appreciative of life.
Kraken had never been a full-on Elite. He hadn't trained or volunteered like Saorise had. But he could see the heroism in someone volunteering in the place of an innocent child. It could be his own son's life on the line in twelve years.
If last year's games had taught him anything, it's that victors' children aren't safe.
Nobody's children are safe.
Twenty-three children had died in that arena. They'd all been somebody's son or somebody's daughter. The very thought of it makes Kraken's tears begin to fall.
Rule #17: Don't ask Trajia any personal questions.
Trajia Romeo is just relieved that the new victor is ugly.
She studies him carefully . Over the last few years, she'd been searching for the patterns, the thing that all the victors who'd been forced into prostitution had that all the others didn't. So many of the chosen victors are tall, athletic and gorgeous, so different to the scrawny, pasty boy on the screen.
Her tribute would've definitely been chosen. There are only two things that good-looking tributes could do to escape. The first is to get a sweetheart before the games, to tug on the heartstrings like Sean Aspen had. The second is to pick up scars in the arena. Trajia never sees one-eyed Saorise Current or seven-fingered Liza Flouria rushing back to the Control Centre, rumpled bruised and shaken.
She envies them. She remembers breaking down after Saorise's games - her first year mentoring - at the thought of coming out of the arena looking like that. But then the poor, scarred, ugly girl from Four had found a husband. Then she'd been able to have a baby. She'd become happy.
The longer Trajia is a victor, the more she realises that life isn't about looking good, it's about being happy. She can't be happy as she is, bound by a contract that forbids her from publicly having a boyfriend in District 2. She longs to go out for the night, meet a nice man, take a piece of the magic she'd been wishing for since she was young. But she can't.
She belongs to the Capitol. If she gives herself to anyone else, they'll suffer for it.
She envies the boy who's lifted out of that arena. He's going to get all the glory from being a victor with none of the strings attached.
Rule #1: Do not claim to have had sexual relations with Surf's mother or insult his parents in any way.
Surf Depthell, the oldest victor still working as a mentor, is in awe.
"Wow, Gajin," he says. "Your boy's really something else!"
Gajin smiled. The pair of them had kept up an odd friendship ever since Gajin had killed Surf's third tribute, Plankton, during the finale of his games. Given the boy's dreadful attitude, Surf had been a little relieved. There's no way Snow would've let him keep his academy if Plankton had won.
Now a boy from Three had stolen the victory from one of his tributes for the second time, all Surf can think of is how spectacular Beetee Latier's final kill had been. It more than made up for the loss of both tributes from his district. District 4 had produced many victors. By the way things look, it's bound to produce more.
But something like this, an outlier killing six fully-trained Elites, only happened once in a lifetime. The record had been four, shared between a small handful of outliers that had included victors like Sotope Baymark and Liza Flouria. Even though Surf believed in Elite might, he also had a lot of respect for any outlier strong enough - or smart enough - to kill in such an impressive manner.
"Six at once..." Gajin whispers, incredulous. "I have a feeling that none of my tributes will survive the bloodbath for the next few decades."
"You have to give the other districts a chance," Surf says. "That kid's finishing what Joules Chau started and making everyone terrified of District 3."
"I suppose that Eight's reign of terror is over." Woof jokes.
Surf feels a shiver of excitement. It certainly feels like the end of an era. Maybe he should feel worried but he can't deny Gajin his moment of triumph. There are explosions in Surf's head but he tells himself they're fireworks, not bombs.
Rule #3: Don't judge Emerald for killing his girlfriend, lest he judge you for killing (insert name here).
Emerald Kiesler misses his tribute's death.
The worst thing for Emerald about sleeping with Capitolites is waking up in a stranger's bed only to find the finale of the Hunger Games playing out on the bedroom TV. Six Elites close in on the tiny boy from Three as he hides in his tree. Emerald knows that, after the last outlier's dead, there'll be a melee. An epic battle between six Elites at once.
There's no way he's missing it. His boy's the favourite to win, after all.
Emerald decides there's not enough time to get fully dressed. He pulls on a pair of trousers, commandeers his lover's bedroom slippers (there's not enough time to tie the laces of his shoes and he's not running with untied shoelaces) and charges out of the apartment, shirtless. He hitches a ride to the Control Centre, tolerating all the driver's good-natured chatter about how great it was to have such a handsome and famous passenger, and sprints the last few metres.
Emerald's heart is pounding as he bursts into the Control Centre.
"What'd I miss..." He gasps, sinking into the nearest chair.
"Gajin's boy killed everyone," Surf says, bluntly.
"Well, sh-" Emerald remembers where he is and stops himself. He covers himself up with a fit of fake coughing.
Smooth... He thinks. Real smooth, Emerald.
Then his heart stops.
Rule #5: Watch your language!
Gajin Nakamura waits by his first victor's hospital bed. It's telling that Beetee is in better shape than Emerald at the moment. According to the doctors, they'll both live but Emerald might need another heart transplant, which will keep him in hospital for a while. Beetee, meanwhile, is just a little hungry.
"I'm fine," Beetee keeps telling the doctors. "I've managed for fifteen years of being underweight. I think I can last a few more days, especially with a typical victor's diet."
It makes Gajin smile whenever Beetee says something like that. Not only has he managed to get a tribute out of the arena alive, after twenty-four years of failing his district. Beetee Latier is alive and kicking.
But maybe kicking a little bit too hard...
"I'm afraid you're going to have to deal with people fussing over you for a few days," Gajin says. "They're used to victors being less..."
"Stable?" Beetee asks, eyebrows rising above his glasses.
"I suppose," Gajin says, feeling a little uneasy. He has nightmare visions of Beetee suddenly revealing himself to be a serial killer like Lachesis Dumont. It isn't normal for victors to be this calm after their games. "Surely there's something wrong. It must've been so hard being in the arena with those Careers. I wouldn't know. They didn't exist in my day."
Beetee shakes his head. "I was in control the entire time. The only thing I was worried about was supplies but you helped immensely. Thank you."
"You're welcome," Gajin says. "So you don't feel bad about killing six people at all?"
"I... killed six Careers," Beetee says, a small tremor in his voice. Gajin doesn't think he's heard Beetee's voice shake that much... ever. "They were trying to kill me. I electrocuted them. They probably didn't feel a thing. They used to execute criminals that way, before the dark days."
That satisfies Gajin. It's clear that Beetee feels some guilt over his kills, but only a small amount. Something easily coped with. Most victors are like Beetee - capable of killing someone but not a killer. Something tells Gajin that it won't take long for Beetee to fully recover. He's glad. He's excited for the next Hunger Games, when he'll have someone smart to mentor alongside, someone to share the burden with.
Finally, all that potential hadn't gone to waste.
Unlike Seeder, I can't see Beetee changing much between his victory and Catching Fire. He's smart and incredibly good at keeping a cool head under pressure. Since he's about as canon as they come, I couldn't make his victory very surprising so I decided to zoom in on the mentors. They all have different reactions to losing their tributes, from cold indifference to grief. This year had a few surprises, like Brock being fatherly, Stallie being sociable (for once) and Emerald (who's usually extremely composed) just being chaotic. Don't worry about his heart attack. Heart transplants don't last forever and it's been a good thirty years since Emerald had his last one. Luckily, the Capitol have some very advanced medicine, so Emerald is likely to recover from his operation and live the next few years in perfect health.
