A Debt Owed
Chapter I
Only here in District One would a girl named Storm not get a second look; not when there's Glitters', Shimmers' and all sorts of ridiculously pompous names like that at every turn.
Sure it's worth a snicker or two when the six foot boy with the burly muscles called Sparkle walks in, but the laugh suddenly sticks in your throat as you watch him dissect two training dummies within ten seconds, and you consider then Sparkle ain't actually that funny afterall.
Gunmetal grey ominous clouds were stacking up along the horizon and a stiff breeze that carried a sharp bite swept in from the ocean as I climbed the white porch steps of the huge building on the coast.
A storm was brewing.
I gave a wry smile; how very appropriate. Call it irony or just plain payback for naming your kid storm but – I hated storms.
Turning on my heel I shouldered my way through the double mahogany doors, squaring my shoulders resolutely as I walked up to the desk, managing a tight smile at the lady who sat there.
"Can I help you?"
I look at her – hard; she knows damn well why I'm here, the only reason why I could or ever would be here.
She flinches just slightly in response to my dark glare, her own eyes sharpening in challenge because this is District One. The other Districts talk about their constant fight for survival – for food, for medicine, for anything, but here in District One it's each other we fight with.
"I'm here to see Mrs Haywire," I finally manage, begrudgingly.
She nods just slightly – she won this time.
We walk down the familiar hallways, my nose burning with the clinical smell of metallic cleanliness that emanates from the spotless white walls and the gleaming linoleum floor.
We reach the door – Room 103, key in the lock, a resounding click.
I inhale deeply, grimacing slightly when all I can taste on my tongue is that bitter taste of something metal. Outside a fork of lightening finally arches across the thunderous black clouds and I flinch as the soft patter of the raindrops against the roof increases to a dull relentless roar.
Great, simply marvellous. Today of all days there is a storm…
I'd call it fate or destiny only it reminds me of two girls I know with suchnames and besides such things don't exist.
All outcomes are inevitable.
People make decisions… I can't…I'm sorry…those decisions affect others, the outcome is a culmination of their decisions. I did it.
Inevitable.
That's why I'm here now; I'm 18 years old and at the Reaping next week I'm going to volunteer.
…
I pull out a chair, wincing as it screeches loudly against the floor. The door closes – locks and then I'm alone, with her.
"Mama?"
She's agitated I can tell, looking worriedly to the window as she chews hungrily at her nails. She hates storms too.
It had been stormy that day…
I swallow thickly, looking about the room and its sparse belongings trying to find something, anything that will give me an opening to some form of conversation.
"How are you feeling?"
It's pathetic, and I cringe as soon as the words leave my mouth.
Her gaze snaps up to me, immediately suspicious, immediately wary. She moves her fingers long enough away from her mouth to point an almost accusatory finger at me, her gaze narrowed before she speaks.
I'm already waiting for the paranoid accusations, the sharp bitter tone that is so unfamiliar, but when she speaks her voice seems so normal…like it used to be… that I sit up straight in the chair, alert.
"You haven't been here in months," there is a gentle reprimand in her voice and I look down feeling a hot blush burn across my cheeks.
She's right of course, but what can I say? I hate this place, hate what she has become, hate having to face what I did to her.
I brace myself, grit my teeth, clench my fists, take measured breaths – all the things I've seen others do as they step into the training ring preparing for a fight. Because that's what this is, a fight – and this time I must win.
"I've been training," I look up, meet her silver-blue eyes.
The paranoid woman gazing at me suspiciously as she chews at her nails like a child melts away and I see something of the mother I once knew seep back in, filling this husk of a shell for a brief moment as her chin tilts up, eyes assessing me – but not me.
She's looking at the outline of my toned arms, assessing how straight I sit in my chair, eyeing the honed calluses on my hands that all testify to what I've said.
She grunts it seems in grim approval or maybe I imagine it; the thunder is booming outside in huge claps, fingers of white brilliance splitting the sky and I can't be sure anymore.
She's waiting for it, I know she is – it's like electricity licking across my skin, this brief moment before the plunge.
My tongue darts out to wet my lips, my mouth suddenly dry –
"I'm going to volunteer."
I'm not sure if she screams first or lunges but suddenly we're on our feet, the chair falls with a bang like a gunshot to the floor and I have her wrists restrained in my hands as snarls rip from her lips.
Oh but mama, you forget – I've been training. I effortlessly hold her back, her once lean and agile frame is nothing but skin and bones now.
Nurses rush in after too long minutes as I've held this woman I barely recognise at bay, snarling and snapping at me like some Capitol mutt.
They drag her off me, force her onto the bed – she's fighting back against them – like everyone is this District always is fighting against someone.
I don't wait to see the rest as I stalk from the room, cringing internally each time the thunder rumbles and a scream punctuates the air in tandem with it.
…
I should never have gone to the sanatorium this morning I think but it's too late now. Some idiotic sense of duty compelled me to do it and now I regret it.
I go straight to the training building – not because it will calm me, not even slightly, but because I'm good at it.
It is something I can do, unlike trying to fix the mess of a woman back in that sanatorium by the ocean.
I've trained – I'm ready – I'm deadly.
The thing is walking into a District One training building – so is everyone else to some varying degree or level.
That's the reason why most volunteer; here in District One its nothing special to be deadly, we're all deadly, that's why we train but suddenly you volunteer and you're someone special, someone to be revered and worshipped – and feared.
You come back a hero – you've won the fight.
The sounds of clashing metal, the grunts and voices coloured in anger greet me as I enter into the spacious main training area; it's nothing new though – some prefer to be deadly silent, others to be deadly terrifying with almost inhuman shrieks as they attack.
I prefer close combat – hand-to-hand.
Long range weapons don't interest me – to shoot an enemy down from a distance is impressive, even practical but it's a coward's way out – and I can't be that anymore.
I squash down that voice in the back of my head, if there is ever a place not to show weakness in District One it is here.
I make my way over to the knives and collecting a few I position myself in front of the targets.
Tally is already there, throwing knives at a practice dummy with ease, before going to retrieve them.
She grins at me brightly as she returns, slipping her knives back into their places on her belts.
I have never understood people who became attached to weapons – I've watched Tally hone and sharpen her knives for hours, shining them with a cloth as she almost croons over them. A weapon is a weapon – the most important thing is who wields it.
"Reaping in a week, eh Storm?" she winks at me and I pretend to line up my target as I try and gauge her tone of voice.
My first knife flies embedding itself directly in the skull, second the throat clean through the windpipe, third the heart. Throwing knives are only good if you are sure of a kill shot otherwise you are just giving your weapon away and opening yourself for a counter-attack.
Tally's eyes narrow – I'm better than her and she knows it.
"You gonna volunteer?" Tally's voice is baiting as she idly drags her thumb along the blunt edge of one of her precious knives.
But I don't get to answer for suddenly the doors to the training centre swings open and the real reason I'm here enters.
Head held high, ramrod straight back, slate grey eyes – she strides into the centre, towards the fighting pit.
Subtlety never was her strong point.
I place the knives back on the table, hearing the excited whispers of younger kids being exchanged as they point and whisper.
I can feel the moment her gaze falls on me, eyes boring into my back with a silent cold fury. My spine unconsciously straightens, stiffening as I turn around and meet her livid gaze.
There's precisely about twelve seconds it takes for her to stride over from the pit to me.
Oh, but I'm ready for you this time.
She immediately goes in brash – as always, her fist coming up to slam into my face but I catch it with ease.
It isn't shock that registers on her face but a grim smile, "finally you grow some backbone," she hisses.
I push her back, but she barely moves two steps away from me and immediately she is back in, a feint left, my fist lashes out hits her in the gut – doesn't matter, she built her stomach up to be like iron a long time ago, she grabs the arm that I don't retract quickly enough from my punch, intending to twist it around in that age old move – not this time, I think – my foot catches her around the ankle and as I expected she brings me down with her but I have the momentum and as we fall I drive my knee into the vulnerable space just below her ribs at her diaphragm. Sly move; but fighting fair doesn't win anything.
She snarls at me, eyes like the storm that is still raging outside – fighting, always fighting.
"ENOUGH!" we both look up; it's Anderson; District One Mentor and Past Victor.
Slowly and reluctantly we get to our feet, brushing ourselves down, we stand side by side shoulders brushing; that small fission of electricity fizzing between us; always ready to fight.
"Get out," he spits at us; he's sick of us disrupting the training and with one week to the Reaping he is no mood to be indulgent.
I prepare myself for us to pick up the fight as soon as we leave the training centre – to be ready for the tackle but none comes.
She stands for a moment, rain soaking her white-blonde hair to her skin looking out towards the worsening storm.
I can't look towards the horizon, my gut roils uncomfortably, and so I wait.
She finally speaks.
"You went and seen mother today," the detached formal tone throws me for a moment – so that was why she was late to training.
"It had been a while – "
"Cut the crap!" she snarls vehemently at me, always ready to fight.
Our identical slate grey gazes slide to meet one another's in a stubborn battle of wills but Tempest unlike I lives up to her name, she can never keep her silence.
"I warned you to stay away from the training," her knuckles are stretched white with the pressure of her clenched fists.
I'm tempted to answer but I don't – anything we would say now has been said before.
We stand stoic, avoiding one another's gazes in the pouring rain; completely different yet alike in so many ways my twin sister and I.
"We should get back, dad…" I begin but she's gone before I can finish the sentence.
We trudge home in the relentless sheets of rain, a steady distance of a few feet kept between us at all times.
When I reach the porch Tempest is already toeing off her squelching shoes, she barely acknowledges my presence as I start to do likewise.
She's just wringing out her dripping ash blonde hair when the front door is pummelled open and an eight-year old with the cockiest grin you ever saw leaps out.
I can't help the smile that curls my lips, the warmth that blooms from somewhere inside me that pushes me to ignore my chilled limbs as two beefy arms tackle my waist.
I chuckle, ruffling my kid brother's hair; it seems like years since I have seen him, despite it only being this morning, and his sunny smile is the one thing that has made today bearable.
"Elson," Tempest's voice is cold, as cold as the ice rain that is soaking through to my very bones.
Elson turns to look at her, defiant already with fierce eyes but there's an innocence in his eyes also; an inability to comprehend.
He wasn't old enough to understand what happened two years ago, he'll never understand why Tempest will only ever look at me now with burning hatred, why our father acts as though I don't exist and why his mother can never leave Room 103 of the building that overlooks the sea where the storms brew.
He detracts himself from me though sensing that something is wrong with his actions.
With a firm directing hand on his shoulder Tempest directs him into the house – away from me – the door slamming in her wake.
Thunder rumbles loudly for a moment, lightening casting an eerie light for a split second on the sea roiling like some incensed creature. I shudder before quickly entering the house.
It doesn't matter that she is far from me down in that building by the sea – I can still hear her screams.
Okay so if you've made it this far thanks very much for reading etc. and I'd love to hear your thoughts - constructive criticism, love it, hate it...etc.
Also; I realise things might be a bit confusing - a lot of failed attempts from me to create 'mystery & suspense' but if you stick with it I promise things get explained pretty soon.