Eyes Open

It’s been a couple of months since Gale and I had won the 74th Hunger Games. It’s been a couple of months since Gale’s actually spoken to me. Some way to treat your fiancé right? Oh I forgot to mention at the Capitol Ball, Gale got on one knee and proposed to me in front of the entire Capitol. I said yes of course but on the ride back home from the Capitol, I asked him where we were again and his response was that he didn’t know. He thought that I was faking my feelings for him throughout the whole thing and that the whole asking me to marry him was just to show the Capitol that our berry stunt was out of love and not an act of rebellion.

Today I was sitting in a tree in the woods hunting like I did with most of my time since I didn’t have to work or go to school anymore. The only people I really hunted for anymore were for Greasy Sae and some of the peacekeepers that I liked. I was sitting really quiet and my eye caught a nice sized wolf that was prowling around. I managed to shoot an arrow through it when I heard people walking around. I didn’t know if it was Gale or Katniss but I wasn’t going to give my spot away.

“Any idea where she is?” I heard Gale’s voice and I relaxed a little bit but I wasn’t happy to see him.

“Higher ground,” Katniss said as I swiftly and quietly climbed down the tree I was in and started skinning and cleaning the wolf and separating Greasy Sae and Cray’s shares.

I knew that Head peacekeeper Cray liked wolf meat so this would be a good treat for him. As I was putting the meat in my game bag, Katniss and Gale found me.

“There you are Adyrn,” Gale said and I just nodded my head in return and started walking back towards District 12.

“Where are you going?” Katniss asked running to catch up.

“Back to town,” I replied.

“Why?” she asked.

“Shouldn’t you be in school Kantiss,” I said looking at her.

“We’re on break,” she started and I cut her off.

“Well then get back to school,” I said, “You don’t need to be getting into trouble. That isn’t the best idea for our family right now.”

“And why is that?” Katniss asked, “Or are you not going to answer my questions like you always do now? At least Gale has the ability to answer my questions.”

She then rushed back towards the fence I spun around to glare at Gale.

“You promised me you wouldn’t tell her,” I snapped at him and Gale looked down at the ground, “You promised me you wouldn’t tell her that the Capitol thought we tried to kill ourselves on purpose to create some type of uprising. I can’t believe you Gale!”

“She kept asking Adyrn,” Gale said, “I was running out of lies.”

“She didn’t need to know what was happening Gale,” I snapped walking back towards the fence, “but let me guess since you having feelings for her you thought you would be okay.”

Gale didn’t say anything after that as we walked towards the fence. The minute Gale and I got back to District 12, he came over every day after Katniss got out of school and for hours they would hang out and talk on our back porch. They also would go down to our basement and shoot arrows since I made the basement a make shift shooting range. To say that didn’t make me jealous would be lying. Soon Gale stopped acknowledging me and we stopped talking all together. Everyone in the District knew that things between me and Gale were very rocky since the games ended but they pretended not to look at it.

“You know sooner or later you’re going to have to choose Gale,” I said as we passed through the fence, “And hopefully your choice doesn’t end up killing us all because I don’t know how much Haymitch and I can get us out of it.”

I then walked down to our house we still owned in the Seam while Gale went to go walk somewhere around the district. The Capitol allowed all the victors of the games to keep the house they grew up in just in case they died and that’s where their families went back to. You didn’t think the Capitol would be nice enough to let the victor’s family to continue to live off of the victor’s winnings and house did you? That would be way too nice of them. When I walked into the house, I quickly changed back into what my mother saw me leave in earlier today and put my hunting clothes back in their respectable hiding place. I then walked to the Hob. My dad told me when I was younger that the Hob was originally a coal warehouse, but once a more efficient system of coal transport was discovered that allowed the coal to be taken directly from the mines to the trains that took the coal to the Capitol, the warehouse was abandoned, and the empty space was gradually taken over by the Hob. Not only was poaching punishable by death that we all did but so was having a black market in Panem. We were just lucky in the fact that their peacekeepers were a heck of a whole lot more relaxed than other districts and were usually found in the Hob getting something to eat by Greasy Sae. When I walked into the Hob, I was greeted by some peacekeepers and some fellow people from the Seam. I walked down to Greasy Sae’s booth and sat down on the table throwing my bag on top of the counter.

“What do you have for me today sweetheart?” she asked and I smiled lightly at her.

“Wolf meat?” I asked giving her, her share of the wolf.

“Well that’s a lot of meat sweetheart,” she said as I handed her a couple of squirrels I also killed.

“Bring some home,” I said and gave her some money, “We don’t need it anymore.”

Ever since Gale and I won, both of our families have enough money and food to last a lifetime. I usually spent some of the money in the Hob and gave a lot of our food to the people in the Seam and to my friends that needed it. Today was such a day where I splurged. I spent a little something at every booth and when I came to the spirits booth I knew I needed to buy some. I remember when Old Man Carney ran out and Haymitch couldn’t have something to drink for a like a week so I started collecting it so Haymitch wouldn’t end up killing himself from withdrawal.

“How many today Adyrn?” Old Man Carney asked.

“Give me three bottles Carney,” I said and shelled out some money for him.

As I was putting the bottles into my clean sack for home, Darius, another peacekeeper was walking by me.

“You shouldn’t drink that stuff girl,” Darius said and I shook my head smiling.

“My mother uses the stuff to help ease some of the pain,” I lied easily.

“Good,” he said, “That’s stuff is too strong for ya.”

I just smiled as I put the stuff in my bag and headed towards Haymitch’s house first. I figured I would stop by Cray’s house a little later today since I knew he liked fresh meat for dinner. I walked back to Victor Village and saw that Hazelle and my mother were talking in our house so I decided on to bother them and went straight to Haymitch’s house. When no one answer the door when I knocked, I knew Haymitch was passed out somewhere in his house. I sighed as I let myself in and the bitter smell of old food, sweat, dirty clothes, and vomit hit my nose and made my eyes water like it always did. No matter how much I came over to check on Haymitch the smell of his house always made me want to spill my breakfast all over the floor to add to the smell.

“Abernathy!” I yelled walking through the house cautiously.

I remembered one time I wasn’t cautious and Haymitch so drunk that he almost cut my head off because he thought I was coming to kill him. When no one answered me, I continued walking towards the kitchen to see that Haymitch was passed out on the table and there was dirty dishes of old stew next to him. I walked over to the windows in the kitchen and opened them to let some air flow through the house and grabbed the bowls and started washing them and cleaning up the kitchen a little bit. I was sweeping the floor of the kitchen when I heard footsteps coming from upstairs and I quickly armed myself with a knife that I forgot to wash.

“No need to arm yourself,” Gale said walking downstairs with a box of trash.

“I thought you were someone else,” I said putting the knife down and quickly finished up sweeping the floor.

“You cleaned the kitchen,” Gale said as I picked up the box of trash and walked toward the front door.

“Yeah,” I said, “The living room is the next thing I clean.”

“Why?” Gale asked, “Haymitch hates having the place clean.”

“And I hate walking into this house wanting to throw up the contents of my stomach every day,” I said as I turned around and started cleaning up the living room.

“You get used to it,” Gale said sheepishly as I turned to give him a look that said he was lying, “Okay so it doesn’t get any better but still. . .”

“This is my way of paying him back Gale,” I sighed as I picked up the old spirit bottles and threw them in another box I found lying around.

“You don’t owe him anything Adyrn,” Gale said, “He didn’t keep you alive. You kept yourself alive.”

“Not really,” I said, “Last time I checked I almost died of blood poisoning.”

“Adyrn. . .” Gale said and I shook my head.

“Just drop it Gale,” I sighed, “You and I both know I’m not going to stop so just let me clean in peace. I know you don’t want to talk to me after what I said earlier today. Just go talk to Katniss she just got home from school.”

Gale didn’t say anything but when I looked up from picking things up, he was gone and I was alone. I managed to clean Haymitch’s house in a couple of hours and was walking down the stairs with the last box of trash when I noticed he was up.

“My house is clean,” Haymitch said from the other side of the kitchen table.

“It smells a hell of a whole lot better than before,” I said and he smirked slightly.

“Thanks for the present,” he said as he pointed to the three bottles of spirit I left on the counter.

“No problem,” I said, “I was in the Hob today and I remembered you were running low.”

“Thanks,” he said and I nodded my head.

I was about to head out when he stopped me.

“Hey Sweetheart,” Haymitch said.

“Yeah,” I said turning around.

“Don’t be so hard on the kid,” Haymitch said, “He’s scared that he’s going to get hurt that’s why he’s running away from what he’s really feeling.”

“I’ll try to remember that Haymitch,” I said and headed out and over to my house.

When I walked into the house, I was attacked by five different bodies.

“Adyrn!” I heard them exclaim.

“Hey guys,” I chuckled and hugged them all back.

“Where were you?” Prim asked.

“Oh just helping Haymitch out with some things,” I said, “How was school?”

“It was good,” Prim said.

“Was not,” Rory said, “I can’t wait to be done with it.”

“Oh don’t say that Rory,” I said, “You wouldn’t want to go down in the mines would you?”

“Not really,” he mumbled.

“See so school isn’t so bad,” I said as we walked into the kitchen and I saw my mom and Hazelle still talking.

“Hey Ma,” I said and kissed her cheek, “Hi Hazelle.”

“Hey Adyrn,” she smiled at me as I did the same and kissed her cheek.

“Hey Mom I’ll be right back,” I said as I put the bag of goods I bought from the Hob on the counter, “I need to run something back into town. I’ll be back before dinner.”

“Okay sweetheart,” she said, “Please be careful.”

“I will,” I said and went to grab my coat and grabbed the bag of wolf meat and headed towards Cray’s house.

When I got to Cray’s house, I knocked on the backdoor to be met with someone who wasn’t Cray’s housekeeper. It was a man who had a pristine white outfit and an aura of authority.

“Can I help you?” he snapped at me.

“I was just wondering if Head Peacekeeper Cray was in,” I said, “I have something for him.”

“What is in the bag?” he demanded and snatched the bag out of my hand.

When he looked in the bag his eyes got huge and I knew I was in trouble and in over my head.

“Is this wolf meat?” he demanded, “How did you get a hold of this?”

When I didn’t answer, he backhanded me across the cheek to where I could taste blood.

“Answer me girl,” he demanded.

“It was roaming in the Seam by the fence,” I said, “I take walks along the fence and I killed it so it wouldn’t kill anyone. I was bringing it by to ask Head Peacekeeper Cray what he wanted to do with it.”

I then should’ve known what was going to happen but for some reason I didn’t. This man grabbed me and dragged me straight into this house and down to the Justice Building. He called all of the peacekeepers and told them that I was to be punished in front of all of District 12. I had been caught poaching and that was not something to get away with. No one said anything in my defense which I wouldn’t blame them. This man was scary and I wouldn’t mess with him. Too bad I already did and I was the first one to feel his wrath. He then bound my hands roughly in rope behind me and took me out to the middle of the town square where everyone was. It was around three in the afternoon and people were just getting off of work.

“Ladies and Gentlemen I would like to show you all the work of what we like to call a troublemaker,” I heard the man’s voice, “My name is Thread and I will be the new Head Peacekeeper for District 12. This young lady here has been caught poaching and punishment for a first offense is sixty lashes.”

Everyone stopped what they were doing when they saw me on my knees in the dirt and Thread behind me with a black leather whip. I then braced myself for the first lash but I never realized how much pain it was. It was as if someone was stabbing me in the back multiple times quickly and efficiently. It was like he knew where to have his whip hit me because the pain didn’t dull or numb it actually increased with every hit. I had tears silently running down my face but I refused to give him the satisfaction in me screaming. I stopped counting after twelve lashes but I knew Thread was going to go more than sixty. He must have hit fifteen when I heard someone step in front of me.

“Don’t you think you proved your point Thread?” I heard Darius’ voice and then heard a crack but it wasn’t against my back but I then looked over to my right to hear a thud and saw Darius was now passed out next to me.

I then didn’t last much after that. I slowly let the blackness consume me as the cracks of the whip continued.