They really ought to fix this road sometime. True, she, the milkman, and the mailwoman were the only ones who used it with any kind of regularity, but they should still do something about it. The potholes were nuts on this stretch. Annie grimaced at one, two, three bumps, but they hadn't gotten to the big one yet. And… there it was. She felt the bump in the road all the way up her back, and judging by the pacifier that flew past her seat, Ronan felt it as well. His wail filled up the car, and Annie found herself digging around the floor around her seat for his pacifier. She didn't usually like to drive while distracted like this, but a screaming seven-month-old was far more of a distraction than taking her eyes off the road for a couple seconds. She had done it so many times before, and there was never anybody way out here, and it should have been fine.
Annie screamed as the front bumper hit something. The wheel jerked under her hands, and they were sent careening off-road. Her first instinct was to reach back towards Ronan and make sure his car seat stayed safely in place. Her second, and in many ways, probably worse, instinct was to overcorrect and pull the steering wheel as far to the left as she could. An instant later, she slammed down on the brakes.
But it was too little, too late, and the car, driver, baby, and all, slammed straight into a tree. The airbag and seatbelt did their job, keeping her in her seat and stopping her from hitting the windshield, but a terrible, slicing pain cut at her back all the same.
Ronan screamed bloody murder from his car seat, and her entire body was shaking too much for her to comfort him. He can scream. He's alive. It'll be okay. Annie repeated this mantra over and over again in her mind as she wiped most of her tears away with the back of her hand. "Ronan, sweetie, are you okay?" Her voice shook, and she took another few seconds to calm herself a bit more before she climbed out of her seat to check that he was all right. The car seat was still in the right place. No cuts, no bruises. All in all, that they were both alive and in relatively good condition had to be a bona fide miracle. She'd have to give him a closer look later, set up a doctor's appointment for him… all the other things that a good mother would do. Because she should be a good mother. It couldn't be that difficult. Thousands, no, millions of mothers all over Panem managed to do so well with their children, and here she was, off the road because she'd been driving like an idiot and putting her baby in terrible danger. What the hell had she been thinking? That was the key right there. She hadn't been. Of course she hadn't. She probably didn't even care about –
Oh no. She'd hit something – or someone.
Annie scrambled out of her car. At first glance, she saw nothing, for she'd somehow managed to turn the car a full one hundred and eighty degrees around before she hit the tree. But it did not take long to notice the unmoving heap at the center of the road. "Are you all right?" she yelled as she ran towards it. "I'm so sorry, are you all right? I didn't mean to –"
From here, she could see what the mass had to be: a person, and they definitely weren't moving. Oh gods, please let her not have… Annie bent down next to them. "Are you all right?" she repeated. When she still received no response, she grabbed the person, a woman, she would guess, by the shoulders and gave them a gentle shake. "Hello? Can you hear me?"
Still nothing. Annie tried to think back to Training, those elementary first aid classes they'd been forced to take, but she couldn't remember what they'd said to do with an unresponsive person. Praying that she wasn't going to make anything worse, Annie gingerly rolled the woman over. "Ma'am? Are you –"
Her breath caught in her throat, and Annie pulled her hand away from the woman's. Her first steps back were awkward, disjointed, for she couldn't begin to understand what she had just seen. Annie hurried back to her car, grabbing Ronan from his car seat. She swore at the restraints as she struggled with them, her hands clumsy and fumbling with the clasps. Every few seconds, she looked back, over her shoulder, expecting to see too-pale hands mangled into claws and a bloody almost-smile behind her. Once she had him out and safely tucked her baby to her chest, she bent down to grab a piece of shattered glass from her broken windshield, keeping it clutched against her as she raced back towards town.
It's a feeling she had not experienced since her time in the Arena, but the sense of being followed, stalked, had never been far from her mind since.
Once one has been hunted, they never want to be prey again.
"There's nothing out there, ma'am. We looked all around the area, even up in the Victors Village proper, and we didn't see anybody or anything that looked like it'd been hit."
"Are you sure? Maybe you took a different route." She really shouldn't be angry at them; Four's new emergency team was trying to do their job, but there was a woman's life in danger. Annie couldn't let incompetence get in the way of her safety, even if it meant cracking a few skulls - perhaps literally. It would really be too bad if things came to that. Officer Norton had a nice head of hair, dark and curly and thick, and a nice bone structure to go along with it. Annie imagined a few young ladies in the district would take issue with any damage to his handsome features.
The man shook his head. "We took the Nine, just like you said. Not a soul around, and definitely not some woman lying in the middle of the road."
"Describe the road to me."
"It's the one with the dead maple 'bout halfway from here to the Village. Nasty thing, split right down the middle. I saw the tree you hit, by the way, and your car. Judging by the looks of it, I'm going to guess it's totaled. Nasty piece of work. It's a miracle you and the baby got out all right." Annie didn't have anything to say to that. "You convinced we know what we're doing now?"
That might be taking it a little far, but she nodded all the same. There was no need for an argument right now, not in the cramped, already-untidy office that the district government had set up for the emergency response force only months prior. Ronan was loving the attention he was receiving from the nurse on staff, a woman old enough to be Annie's mother with soft features and the gentlest of voices, but he'd be getting antsy soon. "Thank you. If you don't want me to fill out any paperwork or anything, I think I'll be heading out now."
"Don't worry, we don't have too much of that for ya." He grabbed a a notebook from his breast pocket and flipped to the last page. "These are the notes I took when you were talking and a few observations on the crash scene. Be glad this is happening now and not in a couple weeks. We don't have all the office stuff figured out yet, but pretty soon, these things are gonna get a whole lot messier." Annie scanned over the pages for anything unusual before signing her name. She grabbed her purse from where she'd left it, but the man didn't move from his spot between her and the door. "Annie, what's got you all worried? I promise you that I didn't see anything to be scared of out there."
"Nothing," she lied. How was she supposed to explain that she had hit herself, that she had seen her own dead hands clutching the corpse of her child? "The accident just shook me up a bit." Annie knew she had a few tells, that her eyes wavered and her hands tightened into fists, but there was no reason a stranger would know such things.
He watched her. "You hit something, that's for sure. But if it was a person, they were able to walk away, and the hospital hasn't had any patients tonight whose injuries would suggest getting hit."
"Then what do you think happened?" she asked, exasperated.
He shrugged. "I'm not sure. My guess would be that you hit some kind of big animal – maybe a deer, they're not exactly known for being good at crossing the street – and your mind was playing tricks on you when you thought you saw a woman."
More than anything, Annie wanted to discount that, to say that she wasn't mad, that she'd never see anything that didn't exist. But she knew better. "Perhaps."
"Just the stress of the moment, I bet. Must have been quite the jolt. We've all dreamt up things under pressure, right? How 'bout you, Mamrie? What do you think?" he said, addressing the nurse.
She looked up from where she played with Ronan. "I'd say the same. Annie, stressful times play with everyone's mind. With a baby at home and the, erm, events of the war, I'm guessing you're pretty tired, maybe emotionally drained on top of it. Right?" Annie couldn't have agreed more with that statement. "The extra push of the accident was just a bit much for your mind. Don't worry too much about it, love, it happens to everyone once in a while."
"I'll drive the two of you home. You can point out the exact spot where you had the accident, and we can check it out together."
Right now, Annie didn't care if he thought she had gone insane. She was happy for any help she could get. "That sounds great."
A part of her knew already that they would find nothing. The woman, the impossible woman with Annie's own features, would not allow herself to be so easily explained away.
If she kept the doors locked and the windows shut tight, maybe they would be all right. Not for the first time, Annie cursed the isolation that came with living in the Victors Village. Perhaps if there were neighbors about, she wouldn't be jumping at shadows or assuming that every creak warned of a monster coming to get them.
Fine, she would probably still think of anything out of place that way, but at least she'd have someone nearby. Her one protector lay on the living room floor in the middle of a ring of her toys. Annie had thought having a dog around would make her feel safer, essential for a woman alone with a new baby far away from anyone else. As it turned out, Martha, though the kindest, gentlest dog she could have dreamt of, did not have the makings of a good guard dog. She did, however, have a knack for taking naps, eating far too much, and begging and pestering Annie until she gave her a belly rub. Oh well. Everyone needed a talent, right?
She gave Martha a quick ear rub on her way back to the kitchen. "Let's find you some dinner, huh?" she asked Ronan, who she had left in his high chair as she closed the windows.
She hadn't expected an answer – funnily enough, babies didn't tend to talk back – but the house and the wind provided one anyway. Annie felt the pressure of the impossibly deep, rumbling groan against her chest, and her heart rate skyrocketed.
Maybe she had bumped her head sometime during the accident. Could airbags deploy with enough force to cause concussions? The house had always made noise. Seventy-five year old homes whose foundations probably hadn't been looked at since the day they were built were practically guaranteed to have creaky spots. "Do you want some food too?" she asked.
No response there. Good. Worrying about going mad would make her go old far too early.
"How is it that even though I bought most of this food last week, it all goes bad on the thirty-first, hmm?" Annie dug around in the fridge for another apple. Even though it was only her and Ronan, and it didn't seem like either of them ate that much, the fridge always managed to look like it had just been hit by a hurricane. Out of habit, she glanced at the expiration dates of everything she pulled out. Sour cream, milk, half a jar of maraschino cherries, all of them set to go bad on the thirty-first of December.
On a whim, she grabbed the furthest-back item she could spot. She wrinkled her nose at the sight of the way-too-old tub of yogurt. It really should have gone straight into the trash – she hadn't bought that flavor in who knew how many months – but curiosity caused her to look at the expiration date all the same. "Do you see that?" she said, holding it out a little closer to Ronan, who babbled something in return.
She shook her head. "Do you think I should hope it was a misprint and they really meant December thirty-first of last year, or should I never put any faith in those labels ever again?" Annie waited a second for a reply before shaking her head. "I think the real solution here is to go through the fridge more often."
It sounded ridiculous, but her entire world lit up when Ronan smiled. She blew a kiss towards his high chair. With one more look into the monster that was her refrigerator, she finally found the second apple she'd been looking for. "Now, what do you say we try some mushed-up apple and cinnamon today?"
It felt strange to be in town without Ronan strapped to her chest. Annie worried about him every moment they were apart. Even though she knew he would be very safe with Aunt Clodagh, for Finnick's older sister had managed to raise her own children just fine, he hadn't left her thoughts for a second since she'd been here.
"Mrs. Odair? Are you listening?"
"Of course," she lied. Even if all she wanted to do was think about her baby, she still had business to finish.
The salesman smiled, all teeth and no real sentiment. "Your driving record looks good, your credit is fantastic, and I don't see any reason why we shouldn't be able to give you the same deal on insuring your new vehicle as we gave on your old one."
Yeah, most people with excellent driving records had driven into a tree in the past week. Luckily, she could buy insurance from him without having to buy into anything he said. "That's fantastic." How badly were you screwing me over before?
He flashed her another one of those smiles. This one sent a chill down her spine. "No accidents and a loyal customer for six years? I'd say you've earned yourself a good deal."
Oh gods, he could be patronizing. She made a mental note to always handle her future business with this office over the phone if at all possible. And wait, no accidents in five years? Did they only count car on car collisions?
Annie rifled through the events of a few days prior in her head. No, she had definitely sent a report to her insurance company, because she'd had Officer Norton sign it for her. It never hurt with these kinds of things to have an officer make matters a little more official. Well, she had done her part. Annie certainly wasn't going to jeopardize a good deal by reminding them of something they should already know.
"Now, Mrs. Odair, if you'll just sign on this line, we'll have you all set up and ready to go."
This new car was a hell of a lot nicer than her old one. Annie had to give it that. The air conditioning, while not a necessity in December like it was during the warmer months, ran much colder than the other one had, and it practically glided over the bumps her old car had magnified into a verifiable roller coaster. She had forced herself not to look at the site of the crash since the day it happened, but from the safety of her new vehicle, Annie finally felt comfortable to watch it as they passed the tree. The poor thing looked like it could topple over any minute, but then again, it always had. Annie guessed it had just been tough enough to take out her car without doing too much damage to itself. Damn that evil old tree.
On a brighter note, the towing company had done a good job cleaning up the area. Though her shattered windshield had left broken glass all over the roadway, she didn't spot the telltale glint of a single shard as she passed through the site. Nothing was left to suggest there had ever been a wreck, and maybe, she could forget it now as well, treat it as nothing more than the little accident it had been.
Ronan gurgled from the backseat, and she grinned at him in the rearview mirror. "It's nice to be back on track again, isn't it?"
She would take that smile as a definite yes.
She poked a finger into the soil. The dirt was wet against her skin. "Huh," Annie said, wiping her finger off on a towel. On the one hand, it made sense. She had watered them yesterday, after all. When she checked the leaves and stem, she could see no sign that any critters had been helping themselves to her poinsettias. Maybe they'd had a little cold snap last night. Poinsettias were delicate flowers, after all. A bit of cold weather was all it would take. After the day she'd had yesterday, Annie wouldn't be surprised if she didn't wake up with the cold.
And you would have let Ronan freeze? He can't change into warmer clothes by himself, you know. You would have left your baby to die, just because you're so selfish and lazy to get out of bed. Would you even care if he –
Nope, not going down that road, not today. Annie had no desire to return to being the village lunatic. She had her explanation, and Ronan was perfectly fine. She would just have to make sure to double-check the weather forecast before going to bed from now on. Pity the poinsettias couldn't have at least lasted until Chrismtas, though. Having them die on Christmas Eve put a bit of a damper on things.
Annie peered into the living room, where Ronan and Martha played on the floor. She really wished they both were not so enamored with each other's toys, but Annie didn't see any way to change that in the foreseeable future. For now, she just made sure to wipe down the chew toys ever night with that child-safe cleaning solution Clodagh had whipped up for her and hope that one or the other would someday learn to understand the distinction between human and dog toys. The candy cane in particular drover her nuts. The little squeak-squeak noise it made echoed just right so she could hear it no matter what room of the house she happened to be in. That thing was going to disappear the second the holidays were over. She could guarantee that.
Thankfully, they had settled on the blue fish toy today. The squeaker on that one had been holding onto life by threads for months now. Though all he could get out of it was a raspy noise that she couldn't help but think sounded like the poor fish's dying breath, Ronan whacked the toy against the carpet every few seconds, giggling at the sound before trying again. Every few rounds, Martha would reach out a paw to make the toy squeak herself, and both dog and baby looked so happy together that Annie wouldn't dare to interrupt their playtime together.
She leaned against the wall to watch them, next to the picture of Finnick she kept up so he could watch over them. Annie slipped it off of its hook and angled him in towards where Martha and Ronan played. From here, h should be able to see not only the dog and baby, but also the holiday decorations she had put up this last week or so. Though Annie had debated skipping the holidays this year – it wasn't as though Ronan would remember them anyway – she had decided that now was the right time to start what would hopefully become a tradition of Christmas merriment in the Odair household. Annie remembered little from last Christmas, when the triplet sharks of grief and guilt and anger had constantly swam in and around her, threatening to consume her completely at any moment.
No, Annie refused to relive that nightmare. This year, she would make their Christmas one to remember.
Annie didn't believe she had ever experienced the luxury of sleeping in on Christmas before, and she wouldn't bet on ever being able to do so again. Since she'd turned down Clodagh's offer of spending Christmas morning with her family, they had no rush, nowhere to be. It was nice to see the presents under the tree, each one neatly wrapped with a bow, as she ate breakfast and not have anyone pestering her to open them. Ronan would be there soon enough, certainly, and she looked forwards to seeing that kind of joy from him on Christmas morning, but she was determined to enjoy these moments while she still could.
But still, even though she knew exactly what was in each one of them, those presents were tempting. As soon as Ronan stopped showing interest in the sweet potato puree she'd made him for breakfast, Annie took him out of his high chair and led him towards the tree.
"Nope, we don't get to touch those," Annie said, guiding his hand away from a light bulb. "They're pretty, but the lights are just for looking at. I don't want you to get burned." True, she had bought the child-safe versions that were supposed to run cooler than the others, but Annie didn't particularly want to test out that claim.
"Come on, let's find a present for you to open." There were plenty to choose from. She'd gone a little overboard these last couple weeks, snatching up every toy or outfit that caught her eye and wrapping them for Christmas morning. "How about this one?" Annie asked, holding out a green box with a red ribbon around it.
Ronan stared at the brightly-colored box, transfixed. "All right, sounds like a winner to me." She guided his hands as they untied the bow together. "Ready, sweetheart?" she asked as they lifted the lid. Annie was pretty sure this one had a stuffed elephant in it, perfect to go with the blue-grey she had painted Ronan's room, but the box was empty. Annie closed her eyes, counted to three like the therapists had told her, and opened them again, but still, she saw nothing.
Okay, she could have made a mistake. There were gobs of boxes. Of course she wouldn't be able to keep track of what was in every single one. Ronan amused himself with the empty box as she opened a second one. Nope, nothing in there either. A third, this time chosen from the very back of the pile, also held nothing but air.
Her blood boiled. What kind of sick prank was this? She'd paid good money for these. None of the shop clerks or delivery boys should have been able to mess with these. The managers would be hearing from her, she'd guarantee that. Screw Christmas joy. She'd call them right now, give them a piece of her mind on how they'd -
You wrapped them yourself. Annie froze halfway to the phone. She had, hadn't she? Over the last week, she had spent hours wrapping them, making sure they all color-coordinated so they'd look nice in pictures. Annie snatched Ronan from where he sat and ran towards the phone. Somebody had broken in, might still be in here with them, could have something far more threatening on their minds than a practical joke.
Just as her hand reached the phone, the power cut out, plunging them into darkness.
Stay calm, Annie. She opened the blinds with trembling hands. They illuminated the room, but she could see nothing amiss. Still cautious, she moved towards the cutlery drawer and fetched a knife. She'd carried one not much longer in the Arena, where it had served her well. Annie prayed months of neglect had not diminished her skill with the weapon.
"Where are you?" she demanded of the shadows. "Show yourself."
Ronan squirmed against her side, a gentle reminder to stay here, with him, not to let her mind run away with her. "Show yourself!" she shouted, but silence came as her only reply.
Carefully, checking around every corner, she made her way to the front door. Once outside, she hurried towards her car, getting in and driving away as fast as she could.
"Annie! We weren't expecting to see you this morning!" Clodagh scooped Ronan out of her arms before she could get a word out. "Come on, come in. We're just starting dinner, if you'd like a bite to eat. How about some punch? It's good stuff." Clodagh's cheeks were rosy, and Annie suspected she'd already had quite a bit of punch. All the same, she followed her sister-in-law into the dining room, where the rest of her family sat, eating their Christmas dinner. Roast duck, gravy, biscuits, potatoes… it smelled like heaven on earth, and despite herself, Annie's stomach grumbled.
She didn't have tiem for embarrassment, though, before she was swarmed. "Aunt Annie!" the youngest cried, getting up out of her seat and rushing to give Annie a hug.
"Hello, Margaret!" Annie returned the hug. "How has your Christmas been going so far?"
"Really good!" Margaret's older brother, Caspian, chimed in. "Dad built a kayak for us to play with!"
"Oh, very neat. I'm sure that's going to be a lot of fun." Annie couldn't spoil their joy, not on Christmas. She turned to Thomas, Clodagh's husband. "Could I talk to you for a moment, please?"
"Of course." He wiped off his face with his napkin and followed her out to the hallway. "What's got you all worried?" he asked.
"I think someone broke into my house."
Thomas' forehead furrowed. "Have you gone to the police?"
She shook her head. "Not yet. I realized what must have happened while we were opening presents. I wrapped them myself, but there was nothing in any of them. Someone had gone through and taken the gifts out of each and every one of them then wrapped them up all nice and pretty again so I wouldn't notice."
"That seems like a lot of work for a joke."
"I'm not making this up. I know what I saw. And then, when I realized what had happened, I went to the phone, but the second I reached it, the power went out. Whatever's in there, it's still there, or at least it was when I left."
"What do you mean, 'whatever's in there'? You don't think it's a person?"
"I don't know anything. I don't understand any of what's been going on these last few days. All I know is that I can't go back there, and I definitely can't take Ronan back, until I figure out whatever is in that house and have made it leave."
"Okay." he thought for a moment. "Let's get you to the police office. I'm sure they'll be willing to check it out."
"Are you sick of seeing me yet?" she asked Officer Norton.
"Why would I be?" he responded, completely clueless.
"With the accident last week…" Never mind. He must deal with tons of car crashes every day. What was unusual to her was merely mundane for him. "I think there's someone in my house." She recounted the story to him, being sure not to leave out any details.
The man took down notes, and when she reached the end, he nodded. "Yeah, we definitely need to check that out. Mind coming out with me? If you're all right with it, I'd like you to show me around, show me what you're talking about with the phone and presents."
A chill went through her at the thought of stepping inside that house again, but she nodded anyway. There would be another person with her. If the woman – or man, or thing – that was in there wouldn't threaten her when she was alone, she doubted it would try anything when there was a person with a gun along. "Of course." Out of instinct, she grabbed for her purse, but she didn't find it there. Of course not, she'd left it at home.
Thomas met her at the door. "If you're okay being alone with him, I think I'm going to head back home. I'm sure Clodagh has her hands full."
"Please feel free," she answered. "Thank you so much for all you've done, Thomas. I didn't want to spoil your Christmas."
"You're family, Annie. You're not spoiling a good time or bothering us when you make sure you're safe." He waved before disappearing outside, leaving just her, the officer, and the monster of things yet to come.
She ended up sleeping at Clodagh and Thomas'. A thorough inspection had revealed nothing, and though Annie was certain Officer Norton had done his job well, she didn't feel safe at her house. At least down here, there were other people around. A young woman and her baby made far too easy of targets for those who wished to prey on others.
But early the next morning, she found herself driving the narrow, winding road towards the Victor's Village yet again. She should have brought Martha with her when she and Norris poked around yesterday, but Annie hadn't thought about it at the time. As much as she hated the thought of going back, it was probably good for her. You had to confront your fears to get over them, that's what the doctors and therapists had always said. She should make an appointment with one of them for after the holidays were over. It'd be good to talk some things out.
Bump, bump, bump. Gods, she could not stand this road. Maybe, if she offered to pay for it herself, she could get the council to move it up on the repairs schedule. It couldn't cost hat much of her winnings to fix up a stretch of road only a couple hundred yards long, right?
The rest of the drive was spent in silent terror. Annie sat in the driveway for several long minutes before she worked up the courage to go inside. The second she stepped through the door, she knew something was wrong. Barking came from upstairs, and a moment later, Martha stood before her, teeth bared and growling just as she always did at strangers when Annie forgot to shut her away before opening the door. "Hey, girl," Annie said. "What's wrong? You forgot me already?" She made sure not to make eye contact, but she moved a step inside. "Would you like to go outside? Get some food? I bet your water needs to be refilled."
Martha's growling only intensified as she stepped closer. "It's okay, Martha. I'm not going to hurt you." At the sound of her name, Martha barked, and she ran towards Annie.
Annie wasn't going to stick around and be attacked by her own dog. She sprinted out, not stopping until she was safely inside the car. Martha never went further than the porch, but she also never stopped barking. Scared, Annie turned the key in her ignition, running away from her house in fear for the second time in two days.
It wasn't until she reached the site of the crash that she realized what was amiss. Her new car had a leather interior. Annie hadn't been a big fan of it, since it would blisteringly hot and stick to her skin during the summer months, but she'd gone along with it because otherwise, the vehicle had been a great deal. This one, though… this had canvas. Nice canvas, definitely, and in a kind of pretty polka-dotted design that she loved from her old car, but not what should be there. Reaching into the glove compartment, she found her old sunglasses, the ones that should have been destroyed in the wreck.
A part of Annie wanted to abandon the car right here, to run back into town as fast as she could and never go near the Village or her car again. She stopped herself from doing just that. Ronan needed her, and the fastest way to get back to him was to stay in this car. Most likely, there was an explanation. She couldn't' find one right now, but that didn't mean she wouldn't any minute now. The reasonable part of her brain understood that. Still, for one time in her life, Annie wondered if she was making a mistake by listening to the reasonable part of herself.
"Where's Ronan?" she demanded the second she got inside.
"Ronan?" Clodagh replied, confused.
"Yes, Ronan, my son and your nephew. You were supposed to be watching him. Where is he?" Her heart was absolutely pounding against her chest, and she really out to be kinder, for Clodagh and her family had done so much for her since Finnick's death, but she couldn't be calm right now. "Where is he? Where's my baby?"
"Annie, I don't know who you're talking about."
Tears ran down her cheeks, and Annie did nothing to try to stop them. "Clodagh, this isn't funny. You need to give me my baby back."
"Thomas?" Clodagh shouted. "Thomas, get in here."
Annie grabbed her sister-in-law by her sleeves. "Please, stop. You need to help me find Ronan. I need my baby. I can't live without him!"
Clodagh pushed her away. "You don't have a baby, Annie. What are you talking about?"
"You have him! I left him with you just an hour or two ago! What have you done with him, give him back!"
She was ripped away by strong hands. "Annie, stop it," Thomas' voice came from behind her, and she slowly realized that the hands restraining her must be his. "You need to calm down. Clodagh, call the hospital. She's having an attack of some kind. She can't be around the kids in this condition."
Annie struggled against him, but she wasn't strong enough to get away. "No, there's nothing wrong with me! Give me back my baby, you monsters!" She spotted Margaret peeking out from the other side of the doorway, and she tried to appeal to the child. "Maggie, sweetie, do you know where Ronan is? Do you know where your mommy and daddy put him?"
"Maggie, go back to your room. Aunt Annie's not feeling very well right now."
She clawed at his arm. "No, Maggie! Where is he? Tell me, please!" Her throat felt raw, and though her hands continued to fight, Annie knew she was drowning. The monsters, the ones she thought she had buried away forever, clawed at her, dragging her down into her own personal hell with them. "Please, please, call the police," she cried. "Tell them I can't find my baby, that I need them to help me."
"Clodagh's getting you help right now, Annie. Don't worry. The doctors will have you feeling better in no time. It's just the stress of the holidays. Relax. You're going to be okay." His voice was soothing, and she was so very tempted to give into it, to forget that Ronan ever existed and wait patiently for the doctors to fill her up with morphine so she could never think again. It all sounded so nice like that. Floating on a sea of drugs and dreams, never to think or be heard of again. The world had no need for Annie Cresta Odair. It had shown that time and time again already. Wouldn't' it be best for everyone if she just disappeared?
"She's in here. My husband has her subdued, but she's very angry. She seems to think we stole her baby." Groggily, as if from a dream, she heard footsteps coming from the other room. They didn't need to worry about her anymore. She wasn't really a person now, just a shell that the waves could kick away, do with as they pleased.
"And where is Mrs. Odair's baby?"
"That's the thing, doctor. She doesn't have one."
"Just relax, Annie. This'll hurt for a second, but I promise it will make things much better in the long run."
Annie wanted to argue to tell them that she did have a baby, and his name was Ronan, and he had green eyes like his father's, and his smile was the last thing she thought about before she went to sleep each night, but the drugs were too powerful, too fast. Her words went unspoken, and that made for a very worrisome situation indeed.
Over the next few days, they repeated the lies so many times that Annie began to wonder if they were true. She had never had a baby. She lived in the Victors Village alone and had since the end of the war. But they were lies. They had to be. She could not have invented a pregnancy, imagined nights spent rocking Ronan back to sleep, only dreamt her joy and pride as Ronan grew, learning and maturing with every day.
What do you remember from just before Christmas? they asked. They were always so concerned for her, by her. What do you remember from before you invented your son? Her answers, though she always gave them the truth, never satisfied them, and they would ask again, and again, until she had little choice but to agree with them, to tell them the answers they had already decided on.
Sometimes, she asked questions of her own, and she had become adept at guessing what their answers would be. Did Officer Norton remember the crash? No, while there was an Officer Norton on the force, he had no recollection of the incident, and the police had no documentation of such an event occurring. Did she buy a new car on the nineteenth from the dealer next to the train station? Again, no. No purchases had been recorded for that day, nobody at the dealership remembered seeing her, and they did not have the car that she had traded in for scrap. No insurance had ever been purchased for the vehicle she claimed she bought. The towing company had never moved a junked car away from the scene of her crash.
It took five days to convince them she was well enough to go outside. It was New Year's Eve, she had argued, her last chance to be outside before the new year. She chose not to mention that it may very well be her last chance to be outside ever. It had taken quite a bit of nudging for Doctor Cairen to sign off on it. Even then, the woman insisted that a nurse stay by her side at all times. She did not argue. It wouldn't do any good, and Annie suspected that the end result wouldn't change much whether she was alone or not.
In the center of town, in front of the now-defunct Justice Building, there had long stood a granite monument that listed the names of Four's Victors. When she was in training, Annie had occasionally come to this spot and admired it, imagining what her name would look like up there with the others. She ran her fingers over the space below Finnick's name, and watched as the words Annie Creta disappeared, the etched letters returning to smooth stone.
"Claire, come look at this," she called to the nurse. When the woman did not respond, Annie walked over to her, repeated herself, put a hand on, then somehow through her shoulder.
It shouldn't have surprised her, not really. Absence or existence, life or death, real or not real. Why had she chosen for so long to deal in such absolutes? Reality was a flexible thing; surely, it could accommodate them all.
A/N: This fic was inspired by the 1959 Twilight Zone episode "And When the Sky Was Opened". I'd highly recommend giving it a look sometime. The title comes from the Beatles song.