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XLV. Vanessa Juliette Berranta-Delgado
"Do you really think this… rebellion thing is going to work?"
Glancing around the pub, I absentmindedly tap the table with my fingers and exhale loudly. "No," I admit. "I mean, I don't know. I think even thinking of a plan to rebel is stupid."
"Yeah, I kind of just want to see how this unfolds," Marlene agrees.
"So, what do you plan on doing for the rest of the week?"
"I can tell you what I don't want to be doing."
"And what's that?"
"Fucking immature men who think that paying thousands of dollars for the pleasure of a woman will make me like them," she says angrily, slamming her glass of alcohol down onto the table, silently demanding for another shot. "I'm so done with this shit; I have no clue how you've even done this for two years. I swear, I'm going to be sick the next time a man touches me with his filthy paws."
"I just want to drown in my sorrows and regrets for the rest of my life," she continues, slumping in her seat. "Preferably with some alcohol."
The shoulder part of Marlene's left sleeve slides down a little, revealing a nasty yellow bruise. Narrowing my eyes at the sight, I reach over to examine it. "Hey, what happened here?"
Marlene chews on her bottom lip – a sign that shows her nervousness – and shoots me an annoyed glance. "I bumped into the door on my way out last night."
"You're the least clumsy person ever."
"Buzz off, would you?"
Reaching over to touch her cheek, she flinches and almost falls off the seat. Marlene swats my hand away with a scowl. "I said, buzz off," she repeats.
As I rub my fingers together, I instantly recognize the familiar feel of makeup and it isn't just one or two layers. I've been through this too many times to not understand the situation. I stand up abruptly ignoring the screeching of the chair against the ground and say, "You're coming with me."
Attempting to yank her arm out of my grasp, she replies, "No, I'm not. You can't tell me what to do."
Ignoring her screams of protest, I grab a hold of her waist and hoist her up over my shoulder. "You can't hide anything from Finnick Odair," I taunt her with a teasing grin as I click 4 in the elevator.
"No one wants to see your butt, Odair-"
"Really? Women always pay to do-"
"-and like I said, I just want to drink. I don't need you bossing me around. In fact, I'm older than you, so I should be bossing you around."
"Make up off," I demand, dropping her onto the couch.
Marlene glares at me. "Who are you? My mum?"
"No, but I am your mentor. Look, I know who did this to you. You don't need to cover anything up. This happens to Cashmere every single time."
With an angry, immature puff of air, she flips her hair over her shoulder. Just as I'm about to shove her into her room, an Avox knocks on the door, the sound like a peep from a cat. She keeps her head down, avoiding our gazes and hands me a slip of paper.
Scowling, I grab onto Marlene's arm. "Looks like we're heading out to Gloss' place. Don't even think for a second that I'm letting this go."
For the entire taxi ride to Gloss' apartment, Marlene clenches and unclenches her fist, wriggling her fingers around with a frown. Then, she holds onto her wrist and moves her hand around as if it pains her to do so. With every rotation, I can hear a painful crack.
"Stop that."
"No."
"It'll get worse."
"Shut up."
Rather than knocking the standard three times, Marlene bangs on the door, pounding her fist against the wood, when we arrive. "Open up, Delgado," she yells, when he doesn't answer for about ten seconds.
"Shut up, would you?" he responds when he opens the door, allowing us in.
"What happened to you?" Marlene asks with a raised eyebrow, giving him more than just a quick once-over. He's only wearing a pair of trousers. His eyes are red and puffy, and his hair messy like he'd just rolled out of bed. Not to mention, his voice is hoarse as well.
Oh my god," she continues. "Is that your kid? She's so cute!"
On the other side of the room is Cashmere, looking about just as bad a Gloss, cradling a baby in her arms and bouncing up and down gently. Cashmere offers us a tight smile in response.
Either Marlene's choosing to ignore the fact that the twins are unusually down in the dumps or she's just rather oblivious. The former seems more likely, since her new, chirpy attitude is a little too abnormal for her.
Gloss quickly pulls on a tank top before producing a bundle of paper from the shelf behind him. "I need your help," he says, ignoring Marlene's remarks.
Spreading each sheet of paper out onto the table before us, we all take a seat aside from Cashmere. "Cornelius Sinello," he starts. "Does that name sound familiar?"
"Familiar?" I repeat. "More like, I hear his name every single day."
He turns his gaze to Marlene, who sits frozen in her seat, her blue eyes glaring harder than ever at the tabletop as if she's attempting to laser burn holes into the timber. Gloss rams his elbow into her side and she takes in a sharp intake of breath.
"Do you know a Cornelius Sinello, Marlene?"
"Um…" she hesitates. "No."
Looking skeptically at her, I raise an eyebrow. She ignores me, digging her nails into the tabletop. The natural flush in her cheeks seems to slowly dissipate she seems almost as blue as her eyes. Stubbornly, Marlene shakes her head.
Gloss stares at her, disbelievingly and presses on, "Are you sure?"
He lifts a hand up to grab a pen, I assume and as he does so, Marlene flinches back with an uncharacteristic whimper. "Don't," she murmurs. "Don't touch me."
Cashmere, Gloss and I stare at her with a combination of blank and concerned expressions. Gloss awkwardly clears his throat. "Go sit on the balcony," he says softly. "Cashmere, go with her and get her something to drink."
The girls leave, and Gloss leans back with an aggravated sigh, shoving the slips of paper towards me. "Cornelius Sinello," he says. "Guilty of rape, physical abuse, identity fraud, and murder. Sexual harassment victims include Shelley, the first prostitute Snow decided to use, Enobaria, Cashmere, Krystal, you, me, and Marlene."
"You?" I echo in confusion. "Me?"
"Oh." His cheeks seem to flush in embarrassment. "Forget I said anything then. That's five female victors, and he's the most regular and dedicated customer for all of them… Though, I suppose Enobaria doesn't really count anymore."
"How'd you know about Marlene?"
"You didn't?"
"But, you just asked her like you didn't know."
He shrugs. "I wanted her to admit it," he says, glancing around as if paranoid. "I know for a fact that she knows him, and has connections to him. Like you and Cashmere, Marlene and I come to the Capital at the same time, and about three nights a week, she'll come over past midnight and sleep on the couch.
"She doesn't even talk to me. She just crashes here and I find her drunk and battered. Who else could it be?"
Gloss clenches his fist and sets his jaw. "I'm done with his crap," he says. "I can't even hear his name without wanting to slit his throat with a butter knife. So, I decided to take matters into my own hands gather some information on him. Apparently, he's not so popular here either. People just like to pretend to like him in order to please Coriolanus."
Coriolanus.
He says that like they're friends – or mutual acquaintances, at the very least.
As I flip through the pages of accusations that have been spoken from many people – mostly women – it takes a while for me to actually process every single little bit of information before me, as well as everything Gloss says.
'Cornelius Parker Sinello, it reads. Guilty of rape (both males and females), physical abuse, theft, identity fraud, unauthorized murder, and the rigging of the Hunger Games.'
An image of the red lady – District One's escort – is shown. Her abnormally white body is stained with a shade of red just about as ruddy as her hair, on her wrists, waist and thighs. Her expression is void of any emotion.
'Lyddia Sinello, sister of Cornelius, has reported her own brother for sexual and physical assault – can be proven by pictures.'
Refusing to read the rest of that extremely long paragraph – there are too many words for my taste, anyway –, I flip over to the next page.
'… has taken the identities of Finnick Odair, Gloss Delgado, Bryce Hannelius, Wesley Lancaster and several other men for his insatiable desire for women.'
Absolutely revolting.
"Insatiable?" I ask. "Really?"
"That's seriously all you got out of that?"
"I just really don't even want to think about the rest of this," I respond. The urge of storming to Snow's office and reporting Sinello seems pretty enticing to me. "How do you know this?"
"I don't," he admits. "I have a few… connections who are willing to help me and are equally unsatisfactory with Coriolanus' most respected and trusted acquaintance.
"But, uh, I actually found out about the rigging myself. I was over at his place a few years back – it was the year you won – and he was messing around with some things. The girl from my district… Indiana, right?"
The name sends chills down my spine. I'd forgotten about her for a while now. Most of my nightmares consisted of family who'd died indirectly by my hands, and Maxwell's death.
Indiana… the names start flowing back into my mind.
Indiana, Carter, Rhea, brown eyes, Maya, Alora… fuck.
"Yeah," I reply. "That's right."
"She wasn't supposed to volunteer. He had it all set out. Cornelius was planning on sending my cousin into the arena that year but Indiana volunteered. She'd been told not to but… I don't really know what happened. He sent Cash in, too."
"Why were you even at his house?"
"Did you not read the damn paper?" he snaps at me.
Holding my hands up momentarily, I nod for him to continue on and I flip through the pages – it could become a published book.
"You've got a friend, Arden? And, Oliver?"
"Yes."
"They were supposed to go in the arena this year."
When I look up, I expect a teasing glint in his eyes or a smirk. Laughing nervously, a smile tugs at my lips as I shake my head. "Nice joke, Delgado."
"I'm not kidding." He glares at me, like he's challenging me to disagree.
Something definitely crawled up his arse this morning, and still hasn't come out.
"Marlene volunteered and he didn't get to the male reaping bowl in time, so consider yourself fucking lucky, Odair. It was written in his documents when I sneaked over a few days ago. And, it's not because you defied him in any way. Heck, you've only talked to him once, let alone have sex with him. He does it out of pure enjoyment and self-satisfaction. He killed your whole family."
Blunt and straightforward, just like he always is.
No wonder Gloss and Marlene don't get along well with each other most of the time.
His chair screeches against the floorboards when he stands up abruptly, shuffling the sheets of paper back together. "I'm heading off to Coriolanus' place. I'd love to show him how to execute one of the methods to snap someone's neck within a second."
"What crawled up his arse and died?" Marlene demands as soon as he's out of sight, with a scowl.
Cashmere releases an exhausted sigh and collapses onto the couch, running a hand over her face. I'm assuming the baby's in another room asleep. Cashmere reaches for the TV remote and clicks the power button, flicking through the channels until it displays District One.
"They dumped Lynne here on the doorstep earlier this morning," she says.
Lynne: beautiful waterfall.
The screen immediately displays a chaotic event in the Delgado's home district. A familiar man – a burly man in a professional suit and his hair slicked back – holds a beautiful woman's arm in his grip. She screams in protest, thrusting her palms and elbows everywhere but she's got nothing on the two Peacekeepers and the man.
The man is Cornelius Sinello. His blue eyes are the same – conniving and the epitome of evil.
Cashmere clenches her jaw and Marlene looks away from the screen, picking at her nails casually.
The woman looks to be around the twins' age. Her light brown hair whips back and forth due to the wind, and her hazel eyes glance around frantically as she stares around her in panic and despair. "Let go of me," she demands.
A few photographic shots are taken. Then, the video cuts off and plays at a different time. She's stripped of her clothes and she's on her knees with her back hunched over. Four whips land on back with a sharp noise and she releases a scream so loud and piercing that even Marlene cringes.
"This is disgusting," she mumbles and brings a cushion up to her chest, wrapping her arms around it.
The torture doesn't stop there. They continue to hack their whips onto her body, leaving nasty red cuts of open flesh behind. Blood drips onto the ground from her arms, legs and torso, and it's a miracle she's still conscious.
"Gloss missed out on one meeting with a woman," Cashmere says to us, her voice void of emotion, like the energy's been sucked out of her.
The men pull at her hair and ignore her protests, demanding for Gloss and Lynne and Cashmere. "Don't do this, please."
She's no longer beautiful. Instead, her cheeks are puffy, her eyes are red with tears and she's trembling in fright. "Stop," she manages to croak out.
It's relentless – the whippings, the torturous words and the jeering crowd. Finally, the biggest Peacekeepers firmly grabs onto her hair and snaps her head back. She falls onto the ground, lifeless.
Cornelius stands behind them with the cruelest smirk.
"He killed her," Cashmere says, her eyes never leaving the screen. "He murdered Gloss' wife."