TWISTED // Clato | ✓

Chapter 22: Cow's Tongue

CLOVE'S POV:

If I wanted to draw attention to myself, I definitely succeeded. I turn around and see the others staring at me. Cato's face shows extreme confusion and very little understanding. As for Marvel, he's frozen in place, staring at me like I'm from outer space. Glimmer raises her eyebrows mockingly as though to say, "Trying to get attention, are you?"

I'm stupid. I'm an idiot. My impulses at seeing Cato kiss the flirtacious and seductive District 1 girl without even knowing who she was kicks in until it's out of my control. I avert my eyes downward as Marvel stumbles backward against the wall and presses his hands against it, breathing heavily.

"Something between you two we don't know about, Clove?" Cato asks. The sound of his voice jerks my head in his direction as my feelings boil inside of me. Where is the Cato who understood me and I likewise understood? They have all poisoned his mind; the Capitol, New York City, and now Glimmer. I miss him so much it hurts to think about.

"I could ask the same of you," I say coolly.

Cato and Glimmer's gazes abruptly meet at these words, but then he shrugs it off indifferently.

"It was nothing. We were just at a party, and we kinda, lost it I guess you could say." This remark of his causes Glimmer to glare at him suspiciously.

Marvel still looks stunned, his gazes traveling from Cato to Glimmer to me and back again. 

"Well I 'kinda lost it too' then," I snap at him. "Once I see you flirting with this--" A dreadful word that I've never dared speak before in my life escapes my lips. Glimmer's eyeballs expand rapidly, and then shrink back. Her skin is as pale as a sheet.

"How... dare... you..." she gasps, advancing on me. Literal veins are visible in her neck now. Then she spits the same word back at me, but I remain unmoved.

"Stay away from him, Glimmer, you hear?" All these words I should have spoken back when we were normal humans in the Games are flooding out of my mouth now. Instead of sniveling in my comfort zone I should have kicked Glimmer out of bounds. Sent her far away. Chased her from my Cato.

But Cato won't come to my assistance now. I know he won't. And why should he? He doesn't owe me anything. He doesn't know me for who I am. He doesn't remember what a flirty jerk Glimmer was back then. Now, being exposed to so few females, he has few with which to compare her. It's not his fault, but it's reality.

Glimmer's pale face reddens into a bright red mask. "You... complete..."

"Leave it," I shoot back at her. "Words can't bring me down; you know that. Leave it, Glimmer."

She shifts to Cato's side, like she expects him to rush to her defense. He's been standing here in the doorway for the entirety of our argument, not offering any opinions. Now he looks at me.

"Clove..."

"What are you going to tell me?" I yell. "That Glimmer deserves your attention?" I'm painfully reliving mine and Cato's bitter fight in the Capitol apartment after he had been hanging around with Glimmer. Now we're in an apartment in New York City. And just as trapped now as we were then. Like a mouse in a cage. Capitol people or Marguerite? What's the difference, really? (A/N: No difference. Clove doesn't know at this point that Marguerite is from the Capitol O_O)

Cato looks at me with what could be taken as sympathy, but I don't want it. Not while he remains at Glimmer's side, an arm around her shoulders. That should be me. I should be there. Is he blind? Or is he merely seeing me for who I really am?

A cold shiver creeps into my lungs as I back away, terrified of bursting into tears all of a sudden. Here I am, the only one who knows what's really going on, and there's no way I can explain it to them!