A/N: hey guys :) new fic. Uhhh, hope you guys like it..? REVIEW AS WELL! and by the way, there is a poll on my profile asking about my other fic: Panem Academy. so check it out :) anyway, here we go!
Danny's POV: Prologue:
I wake to the sound of my mother and father talking to each other in hushed tones. Opening my eyes, I realize it's still the afternoon. Guess my power nap's over... I squint, my eyes still adjusting to the bright light of spring. I tiptoe over from the couch, pressing my ear to the wall of the kitchen.
"Dear Peeta, Katniss, Daniella and Drew Mellark, you are invited to Kai Dustin Odair's 17th birthday, in Victor's Village house # 8, District 4. April 28th. Your presence will be extremely appreciated." My mother read.
The Odairs? I haven't seen the Odairs since I was 5. That was when Kai was a dumbo and I was a weirdo. I bet Kai is handsome now. I mean, he had bronze hair, tanned skin and sea-green eyes. I wonder what he looks like now... I hear thumping, and I figure it's my dad. I turn around the corner and I face my dad. He looks at me with an excited face. His blonde curls are hanging from his forehead and they almost reach his unusually long eyelashes.
"Dad, I heard we're going to the Odairs..." I say softly. He looks at me with a mischievous glint in his blue eyes. I guess that's a yes.
Kai's POV: Chapter 1:
I felt a nudge from beside me. I groaned and swatted the hand away. Next week is my 17th birthday, can't I sleep in?
"Dude, you have to wake up. That Twelve girl is coming over. What's her name...? Danika?" I sat straight up when the name Danny was said. I opened my eyes and saw my best friend Nathan raising his hand. I swat it away. He was probably gonna flick me in the ear or something.
"Her name is Danny." I say through gritted teeth.
Nathan looks a little like me. We both have tanned skin, but his hair is a less bronze colour. His is more reddish. But both of our eyes are green. But Nathan's are light coloured. Mine are a perfect shade of sea green. He looks at me, a smirk plastered on his face.
"What?" I growl. Geez he can be annoying.
"You woke up, right when I said her name." He says triumphantly. I shrug, trying to look nonchalant.
"I just remembered she was coming. That's all." I say. Praying my voice sounds genuine. Nathan shrugs and stands up.
"Whatever dude." He says. He starts to walk out of the room, but right before he closes the door, he tells me,
"Oh, did I tell you? She's here already." My eyes fly open, and I scramble to get ready. I pull on some shorts and a nice shirt. And that's when I hear laughter. A sweet melodic voice and a lower voice chuckling. Damn. She has someone with her! Either that or Nathan's bugging her about something. I comb through my hair, trying to make it look just right. After 2 minutes of combing and brushing, it looks about right. I cross my fingers behind my back, praying she thinks I look okay. I walk down the stairs, greeting my mum hello, and I stop, dead in my tracks. Because I see a beautiful sixteen year old girl with long wavy dark brown hair held high in a ponytail, stormy blue eyes and a brilliant smile on her face. I almost come over to say hi but I see him. A boy she brought with her from Twelve. He's lean, got jet black hair, and piercing gray eyes. How the hell can I compete with cold, dark and mysterious cool guy from secluded district? I'm just Kai Dustin Odair who looks kinda cool from water district. The boy stands up stares at me for a long time. This guy isn't going anywhere. I hear someone clear their throat from beside us.
"Are you gonna let me say hi, or do you want to continue your little war somewhere else?"
A girl says. I turn my head towards the voice, and I see Danny laughing a little beside me. I smile genuinely. And she smiles back, revealing a perfectly straight, row of pearly white teeth. God, her smile is pretty. I hold out my hand playfully for her to grasp. She does, and a little pulse of electricity from where she touches it, sparks through my body.
"Kai Dustin Odair." I say confidently. Danny grins sweetly at me, and then I shoot the cold, dark and mysterious cool guy from secluded district a glare.
"Daniella Ayala Mellark." She says confidently. Her hand drops from mine, and then she adds,
"But you can call me Danny." I nod, showing her I shall use her nickname.
"Oh! I almost forgot. This-"gesturing to the cold, dark and mysterious cool guy from secluded district,
", is my best friend. Miles Hawthorne." She says in a matter of fact tone. I nod at him, making my posture more confident. He does the same. We're the same height, and at the same eye level. I guess I should stop calling him cold, dark and mysterious cool guy from secluded district.
"Boys." Danny mutters to herself. I don't think she meant for me to hear that...
"Girls." I say in turn. She turns around and tsks me playfully. I watch her as she crouches down to grab something from the corner of the couch. It looks wooden, and it has some strings. A bow? Of course. She's a Mellark. She smiles and skips over to the kitchen to talk to someone. I chuckle as she skips over with grace. Out of the corner of my eye, I can see Miles eyeing me warily.
"You know, she doesn't have a boyfriend." He says. I look over to him in surprise.
"Really? Why? She's too pretty to not have someone." I say in a matter of fact tone. This statement just makes hope rise inside of me. Miles nods his head thoughtfully.
"Yeah. She's turned down every guy at school whenever they ask." This disturbs me. She's too beautiful to be holding out. Just as this thought enters my mind, I see Danny walking out of the kitchen silently. There's no sound as she steps quickly and naturally. Hunter. She walks up to me, smiling. A black backpack is casually slung over her shoulder. She smiles up at me, biting her lip.
"Are there woods around here?" she asks. I nod my head. I gesture toward her bow.
"Going hunting?" she nods happily. I ruffle her hair slightly, and she frowns at me. Well I had to do something to break the awkwardness.
"Are you any good?" I ask. Danny shrugs. I'm startled by this. Did she really think she was bad? Her mother was Katniss Everdeen. The hunter of District Twelve.
"I'm OK." I turn to Miles, and see a shocked expression on his face. He nudges my arm.
"Don't listen to her. She's amazing. She always hits a bull's eye," he says. Danny tries to shoot him a glare, but the blush on her cheeks ruins the effect. She hears my chuckle, and hits me in the arm. Ow. That actually hurt a little. I reach up to massage my arm, but Miles nudges me.
"get used to it." He says. Danny seems to hear this, and punches him in the shoulder. I throw my arm over her shoulders, while patting her head with my other hand. Danny glares at me, and I can feel Miles' golden eyes boring in the back of my head. I smirk at her, and she shakes her head disapprovingly. I shrug, and take my arm off her shoulder. My arm feels cold without her. I look to Danny and she suddenly reaches over her head and pulls the hair tie out of her hair. Making her hair fall around her shoulders in loose curls. She runs a hand through her curls and it looks super soft and glossy. No split ends and it cascades down her shoulders reaching where her bellybutton should be. Someone clears their throat next to me, but this time it's not Danny. It's my mother. I smile sheepishly at her, and she smiles knowingly at me. She's a small, delicate person. My mother is so great, but sometimes she seems lost at times. She's told me so many times that I look just like my dad. I'm glad. My dad is a great person. He fought the war, he got through the Games and he did so many hideous countless things and still managed to be good to my mother. Mother gestures to the door where Danny (and her beautiful hair) waits. I smile at her, and I make my way to the door. Reaching over to the knob, I turn it, and a gust of wind ruffles my hair. Danny walks through the door, and the breeze blows through her hair, making it fly all around her. It's beautiful. I catch up to her and casually put my arm around her. I think her mouth twitches up into a smirk, but she wipes it off her face quickly. I can feel stares from around us. People pointing and whispering at us. Well of course. We are the Rebel's children after all. The people here are used to me. A Mellark in District 4 is a rare sight. Most of them point and whisper,
"Is that a Mellark? It's a twelve girl. An Odair and a Mellark?"
The whispering gets even louder when Miles comes to join us.
"Odair, Mellark and a Hawthorne too?" the whispers say. News travels fast here in Four. When we get to the beach (there are woods at the edge of it) I see a few of my friends hanging out by the water. I wave to them, and they motion to come over. I look over to Danny who eyes the woods.
"We'll go there, I promise." I whisper. She rolls her eyes, and we walk over to my friends. Nathan, Aaron, Bray and Angelo. I hear wolf-whistling and it's from my friends.
"Did you finally get a girlfriend Kai?" Aaron hollers.
"She's pretty!" Bray yells.
"How did you get her? She's way out of your league!" Angelo remarks.
"Oh shut up guys. She's a Mellark." Nathan says. And everyone does.
Everyone's eyes are averted to Danny. She gulps, but she doesn't really look too affected. I sit down, and everyone seems to go back to normal. With time I can feel the tension ebb away. With time, my friends warm up to my girl. My girl? Where did that come from? Everyone warms up to Miles too, but I think everyone's favourite is Danny. Mostly because we outnumber her boys to girls by 6 to 1. We talk about our crazy adventures together. But I think Danny's are the craziest.
"This one time, Danny and I were hunting out in the woods. Then she climbed up this one tree, then she frickin' dropped a bee's nest on top of my head." Miles laughs. Danny snickers at me and everyone starts to laugh like crazy.
"Excuse us, Danny." Miles says abruptly. He motions for us to meet him a minute's walk from our spot.
"Ok, I promised I'd get Danny back for that, so you guys have to help me." He whispers. We look over to Danny who looks confused. I shrug, and then turn back to the guys, but not without noticing her eye-roll.
"What do we do?" Angelo asks. Miles shrugs, and then gets a mischievous glint in his gray eyes.
"Catch her." He whispers. We all look to one another, but Nathan pipes up before we run.
"Is she fast?" he asks curiously. Miles shakes his head.
"I haven't seen her run that fast. So I guess, no." He says thoughtfully. We all start to walk back to Danny, who tenses up because she notices our smirks. Suddenly, Miles shouts,
"Get her!" Then we all start to run full speed. Danny gets up, still wearing her sneakers.
"What the hell?" she shouts while getting up. We almost catch up to her, but then she sprints. Full speed. Damn she's fast. We don't stop, and I can hear the pounding of our feet in the sand. Danny's steps are quick, agile and light. Almost making no sound. We start to run faster, and when Danny looks back, we're right on her heel. She starts to run, pushing herself to go faster. And she does. I can hear her steps (because she's wearing sneakers.) as she pounds across the smooth rock of the woods. This is her stage now. At the beach she was slower because of the sand. But now, this is her time to shine. She runs faster, dodging rocks, leaping easily over logs, while all of us clumsily climb over them. While I help up Aaron (because he tripped on a tree root) Danny disappears. I don't know how she does, but she does. We realize her bow and her quiver of arrows has been taken with her. Knowing what this means, we start to holler and yell.
"What the hell Danny?"
"You can't hide forever!" we taunt. I start to laugh, but I'm cut off because the tree I'm leaning against suddenly has an arrow pierced into its bark. Right beside my face. I start to back away as all of the guys laugh and snicker. I throw my hands up on exasperation. Another arrow sails through the sky landing by Angelo's hand. In fact, since his fingers were in a high five position against the tree, the arrow lands right in between his index and middle finger.
"Danny watch the fingers!" he remarks. We search everywhere for Danny. But we don't find her, so we start to yell for her. Just as we start to head back, I see two pairs of stormy blue eyes staring right back at mine, at the top of a tall tree.
Daniella Mellark.
so... .. ... . what did you think? check out the poll on my profile regarding my last fic: Panem Academy. :)