TWISTED // Clato | ✓

Chapter 5: Glimmer

CLOVE'S POV:

When we reach the Capitol, I can tell Brutus is grateful to hand us off to our stylists. Mine is named Marcella, and she has green hair that's enclosed in straws and sticks out every direction. She takes one look at me and smacks her dark purple lips. "Fantastic. I know just what to do with you."

I'm kind of intimidated by this approach, but I allow her to hover around me, measuring my arms and body and holding up various types of fabric to my face. She has this funny habit of murmuring to herself constantly as she's bustling around, but she still talks so quickly I can barely understand her.

The next thing I know, I'm standing in a dressing room while Marcella fits my costume on me. This is the tribute costume I'll wear when I ride in the chariot with Cato into the Training Center for the tributes. It's supposed to reflect our district's business, but I don't know how this gold-plated armor and winged helmets are supposed to reflect masonry. Maybe Marcella is paying as little attention to facts as it looks like she is.

The moment she places the helmet on my head, I want to rip it off. The wings on either side settle down over my ears in an extremely uncomfortable way. Marcella puts a gold-scaled collar around my shoulders and neck. It's the worst kind of torture imaginable. I hate turtlenecks, and this is basically a metal one. If I didn't know better, I would say she was deliberately trying to subject me to pain. But I've seen enough of Marcella to know that she is too ignorant to realize what she's doing.

With the scales around my neck that resemble feathers and the wings on my helmet, I look like a bird. A metal one. A caged one.

I haven't seen Cato since we got here. Probably better anyway, since he wouldn't want to talk to me.

Would he?

I force myself to slide Cato out of my head. If I'm going to survive in these Games, I can't be distracted by him. I have to remind myself that it shouldn't really be called surviving. You can't just survive. You have to win. And if I win, Cato will die.

Ugh, I've never hated the prospect of the Games like this before. I should never have volunteered.

CATO'S POV:

My stylist tells me to shut up and stop wriggling around so she can put the metal gaiters on my legs. I can't figure these people out. They wear brightly-colored wigs and masks of paint, and then they kit us out in the stupidest outfits. But the outfits look nothing like the Capitol outfits. Rather, they're supposed to look like what our district produces. 

District 2: Masonry. My costume: Golden armor. It doesn't click.

Finally, my stylist Ellia lifts her electric blue head, gives me one last examination, and slaps both my cheeks. This is her way of greeting people, apparently.

"You look just like a Titan, Cato. Perfect."

Titan? That's great; that's really great. Did we happen to mention that District 2's business is masonry, not whatever a Titan is? But I decide not to say anything. Clearly my stylist needs help.

Ellia yells something and the green-haired woman who is Clove's stylist comes in. I try not to look too hard at her outfit.

"Is she ready, Marcella?"

Clove's stylist nods. "Clove!"

She comes in, and I realize that while the outfit looks ridiculous, my Clove hasn't changed. She's beautiful as always. Her face, though trapped inside that stupid helmet, bears a look of determination. Rebellion. She looks ready to rip that cage off. Her brown eyes are set, hard. Those eyes meet mine, and then abruptly look away.