She had stepped into the role of protector firmly by the time she was fourteen. Her parents had never done anything, too busy keeping themselves safe, and she was the only child that hadn't needed the protection.
She sat by the door, a bottle of water in her hands. When she saw the flashlight coming up the walkway, she tensed. She reached for the door, prepping her excuse, just in case. She opened it quickly sighing when she saw the familiar sight of her brother, propping their sister up. She reached out for her sister, preparing to help carry her in.
"Up you go," their brother grunted, pushing her over the doorstep. Apollonia giggled, then groaned in pain.
"Thank you Billy," the only sober girl whispered, leading the two toward the stairs. Billy picked up Apollonia bridal-style and carried her downstairs.
"'Mia," She moaned and reached out for her sister. "Hurts."
"I know," She responded, choosing not to chastise her. It wouldn't do any good when she was in this state anyway. "We've got you."
Billy carried her into the bathroom and dumped her into the bathtub. He left the room while Mia stripped and put her hair up. She stepped in, making sure not to step on her sister, who was curled up in the tub, and turned the cold water on. Apollonia looked more alert the second the water hit her, lifting her head slightly.
Mia rinsed her off as best she could, wrinkling her nose as she pulled off the vomit-stained, inside-out t-shirt. She ran a quick soap over her limbs before turning the water off. Apollonia sat up, and Mia handed her a towel.
"Can you dry off?" She asked, and her sister nodded. She smiled at her and scrubbed at her own skin quickly. She pulled on the pajamas she had worn before. She tugged a nightgown over Apollonia's head, and lead her to her bedroom. Billy stood in the room, placing a bucket beside the bed.
"Look, Billy got your bed ready and everything!" Mia said cheerfully.
"Thanks," Apollonia slurred, patting her on the head, well trying to at least, and staggering to the bed.
"Here's a water if you get thirsty," Mia said, placing it beside her. Apollonia didn't seem to hear her. Mia went over to Billy and kissed him on the cheek.
"Thank you. I couldn't have handled that on my own." Her brother smiled weakly.
"Well it's hardly the first time, and you don't… She's our sister. We stick together. We're a team, a family." Mia smiled at that. It had been so long since things between them seemed like a regular family. Ever since she learned about her family's problems it had seemed like she was just a secret-keeper.
"Oh, yeah. I set up the air freshener for you. So you know it's not going to smell like," they both winced as they heard their sister vomit behind them. "Well, that."
"Thank you. Good night." Mia smiled weakly and climbed into her bed across from Apollonia. she turned away from her sister. She used to be her best friend, the one she went to for comfort when their parents were arguing or sad. The one she had "secret sleepovers" with. Her protector.
It was dark when she wandered down the stairs. She could never have told anyone what compelled her to do it in the first place. A need for knowledge, she supposed. However it had started, it was tradition now. She sat down on the edge of the staircase and closed her eyes. The door to the next room was open, and voices could be heard from inside. They were quiet tonight, so she had to strain to hear them at all. She sighed and opened her eyes. There were problems at work again. Dad was too sympathetic to be married to a woman like Mom.
Within a few minutes, a sniffly four-year-old joined her. Apollonia leaned close to her and whispered into her ear.
"Dad wants to protest again, Mia," the small girl's eyes went wide as she absorbed the information. She didn't know what protesting was exactly, but she knew they were never supposed to do it. Billy had gotten in trouble at school because he did that. She frowned, and her sister tugged at one of her ponytails.
"It's okay, though. Mom won't let him." Mom had always kept them out of trouble. She had been the one to stop the teachers from reporting Billy, chiding them for making a fuss over a little boy's mindless comment.
Apollonia tugged Mia closer to her. The four year old's head fell onto her shoulder. She was already drifting into sleep. Apollonia let her. She always did. Mia didn't really care about what was being said. She just wanted to be with her sister. Footsteps came near the door. Apollonia tensed, ready to head back up the stairs in case someone came out, but when the door closed, she could have groaned in irritation. There was no point trying to eavesdrop anymore. She shook Mia awake, and they silently went back to the room.
"Is Dad going to get in trouble?" Mia asked, clutching her stuffed bear.
"Nah," Apollonia said. "He's too smart, and Mom's too bossy." Mia giggled at that.
"Nobody's gonna find out. They don't think we're like that. They just think we're weird." Apollonia shrugged at that, and Mia frowned.
"Yeah, we are. Is that bad?"
"No way. It's awesome. It means we can run around and play loud games and they just think that's who we are. It means we can do whatever we want."
"Anything?" Mia asked, eyes wide.
"Yup. We get to do the impossible."
Mia had long since realized that being different did not mean they got any special privilege. It meant that people expected them to fail. Sometimes, she thought that they were right about her siblings, but that was mean. But she knew what they whispered. She knew why they stared at her arms and expected her to be on time. She was the only one her parent's hadn't screwed up, and she was determined to keep it that way.
The next day Apollonia was hungover, but she seemed to have gotten the effects out of her system. There were nights when she came back so drunk and so high she was still feeling it the next morning. Mia had left the room early when the smell worsened, but went in occasionally to check on her.
"I don't think I have to tell you how stupid that was." She said, as soon as their eyes met. Apollonia winced. Mia didn't care if it was from the noise or regret.
"You know that it's not safe, and you don't even try to stop or hide it or anything."
"I'm sorry Mi-" Mia cut her off, angry enough not to care that it was rude.
"You put us all in danger of being found out, and that's your apology?"
"I needed it." Apollonia pleaded. "You know what I'm like when it gets bad." Mia remembered earlier in the year during the Games when patrols had been especially common. Every night Apollonia's "friends" (she used the term lightly) had sent her a message warning her not to go out. Apollonia had been unprepared to spend that long a time off of her vices. Mia never wanted her to have to go through that again, watch her shaking and sickness. She and Billy had almost had to tie her to a chair to keep her from sneaking out. But this wasn't enough to calm her.
"That's why I let you keep your supply in our room. I was the one who found the secret cabinet, do you think I couldn't find it again? It would be much worse if they found alcohol there, but I let you use it because I don't want you to suffer. But you have to give me something back. I checked it this morning, there's plenty in there. You had no reason to go out except that you wanted to."
"Not enough," Apollonia muttered.
"Are you telling me that you put all of us in danger because you couldn't get quite as drunk as you wanted?" Billy wandered into the room then. It wasn't uncommon for the sisters to argue the day after Apollonia went out, but it rarely got to the volume it was reaching. Mia didn't want to exacerbate the pain she knew her sister was feeling, and she knew that it wouldn't be safe if their parents were to hear.
"You deal with her!" She commanded Billy, though she stopped suddenly when her eyes landed on her brother's arms. They were bandaged and the few wounds she could see were fresh. She knew she would have noticed if they had been there last night. She closed her eyes tightly. She should have known.
Three days after her tenth birthday, Mia wandered into her brother's room uninvited. She froze in the doorway when she saw what lay inside. Billy cursed when he saw her, throwing a towel over his arms. Mia stared at him, confusion filling her mind. She couldn't think past the blood on her brother's arms and the knife that wasn't really hidden by the towel.
"Billy?" She spoke, uncertain. He came over to her quickly, keeping the towel between his arms and her body.
"Mia, it's not what it looks like," He winces and she realizes that she's giving him a disbelieving look. "Well it is, but it's not like I do this all the time. It almost never happens."
"That's not good enough," She choked out. "I don't want it to ever happen." Even as she said the words, she realized they sounded accusatory, but she could barely wrap her mind around what was happening, let alone find the polite way to talk about it.
"Hey, it's okay. I haven't done it in so long before today. I think I can stop soon, I just… I couldn't stop thinking about it, and you know how things have been." She nodded numbly. Ever since the Games a few weeks before, Dad had been tense, which meant everyone had to be on the best, sanest behavior.
"Promise?" She asked.
"Yeah," Billy nodded.
The trouble was that no matter how truthful he had been at the time, he hadn't kept that promise.
She was eight when she was allowed to go to her first "adult" party. The colors were bright and overwhelming. Her mother's friends cooed over her, and asked what she thought of the party. She did as she was told and said that it was beautiful. Her mother smiled, but she needn't have bothered instructing her. She would have said so regardless. It was vastly different from the relatively plain interior of their house. Her father had always had the final say in decoration, and he didn't have the same taste for elaborate designs as her mother. Everything in the house needed to be a compromise between the two, and while Mia liked it, she was enchanted by the patterns around her.
Apollonia dragged her off to the corner where the other children were chatting. She heard a nasty giggle as they ran past two women her mother's age, but she paid no mind to them. She was introduced to the other kids, and before long, they had split into smaller groups. She stuck by Apollonia's side, and watched as her brother joined a group of older boys.
After some time, one of the girls they were chatting with gestured to the group of boys and, giggling, pointed at them.
"Look at their arms," She whispered. Mia was confused, but Apollonia scowled.
"Don't say that," she protested.
"Oh, yeah," the girl said, wincing. "I forgot that your brother is with them. He doesn't…" She said leadingly.
"No!" Apollonia denied.
"What do you mean?" Mia asked. The girls looked between each other, silently questioning something.
"You're too young," One of them said, a girl with brown hair and blue highlights protested. "And anyway, it's all rumors."
"Why don't you go find Mom?" Apollonia demanded, running a hand through her blond hair. She had kept it down tonight, despite her mother's protests. Mia saw now why she had raised complaints. All the other girls wore their hair up, and most of them had it dyed an unnatural color.
Mia wanted to protest, but she knew that she shouldn't argue with her sister in front of everyone. When she was leaving, she kept glancing back, seeing her sister speaking to the other girls sternly and pleadingly in turns.
Eventually she found her mother, and she stuck by her side for the rest of the night. By the time she went to bed, she had nearly forgotten the conversation. But she never forgot the way it felt to see strangers point to her and whisper.