Hello again.
Just want to say a big thanks to anyone who's reviewed. Really makes my week, anyhow I won't keep you.
I cannot cry.
I will not cry.
But I don't understand, why must we leave, we're happy in the Capitol, aren't we ?
Just yesterday my mum was telling me how brilliant the Capitol is, how lucky she is to live here and not in one of the many districts of our great nation. How has everything changed, in the space of a day?
There's a knock at the door and my father stands, gingerly, in the hallway. Waiting for me to let him into a room in his own house.
"May I come in ?"
"It's your house" I remind him "not much I can do to stop you"
he comes and sits on the edge of my bed, still cautious. But I'm not angry anymore.
I just want to know why. He opens his arms as I turn into him and rest my head, wearily, on his shoulders as he holds me. Like nothing else matters. After all ,the only man a girl can depend on is her daddy.
"Are you okay?" he asks and this time I don't run, this time I swear that I won't lie.
"Why? Why do this to me, you know it would have been okay if you'd told me a while ago, now I don't get to say goodbye to my friends to … to …" Thorburn, perfect and beautiful Thorburn. I can see him now standing alone on the dancefloor cursing my name and my memory.
"We don't have time" he replies and I stop to listen, really listen to him.
He's scared,
He's worried,
"Why not?"
There's a silence, a difficult and awkward silence that hangs in the air as my father sits there, staring into space.
What's so bad that he cannot tell me, his best friend and only daughter ?
" I've made a dress " he says and I want to laugh, if he's moving us away for fear of embarrassment I will kill him with Katniss' synthetic flames.
"I've made a dress that might kill me"
The laughter stops.
Dead.
I cannot register that word, dead, it suddenly feels like a lump of coal is stuck in my throat, chocking me to death. I can barely speak as my father takes me by the shoulders, pushing me away so that he can see the shock that must be written all over my face. He looks at me and sees me clearly in the fading sunlight.
"You must listen to me" he says in a calm and reassuring voice "You must" and so he begins to explain this awkward and complicated history that I am now to be a victim of.
He tells me everything, sparing me no details.
He tells me of district thirteen, of the mockingjay, of dresses and firebolts and the price the artist must pay for his work.
" You see why you and your mother have to go"
"Come with us" I beg "Come with us we can save you" but he shakes his head and my heart begins to break.
How can he think that this is all for my own good ?
my best friend, and father. Can he honestly believe that leaving me alone in the world is for my own good ?
" I cannot leave Katniss, you know that Rosa "
I want to scream, I want to kick him, punch him, scream abuse at him and I want to burst in to tears so I can feel that familiar warmth pressing against me. I couldn't live with the guilt, if my last words to him were spoken in anger and besides, the kicks and punches will come in time, thick and fast. It is not my job to add to them.
We're ready to leave, my mother and I, I look at back at my room, one last time and it looks like nothing's changed. The bed is unmade, the pictures still hang on the wall. I leave that house with nothing. Not even a picture of my father, he was very strict about that.
"They will suspect you" he reminded me "If you start making a shrine for me in the middle of the woods or something else bizarre like that"
"Don't flatter yourself" I reply.
Then I realise what I've said and I hold him tight, fearing every second, every minute and every day.
"I love you"
Now I stand in our hallway, as mum rams food into our backpacks. I watch my father looking out of the open window, the cool night air brushing past his face.
He looks strangely content, for a man who in a few days will be on his deathbed.
He walks over to me, with a strange transparent paper in his hand.
"Give me you arm" he tells me and I hold my hand out to him. He rolls my sleeve up and places the paper on my arm. A tattoo.
When he peels the paper away a small bird is perching on my arm, looking at my father's finger, which reaches towards its beak.
"A mockingjay" I whisper and he nods, I wince as the sound of backpacks, zipping shut fills the empty living room.
"Putting ice on an open wound are we?" and I cannot help but notice that vicious edge in my voice, but my father knows me well. We both know each other so well, like twins.
" They'll say I died for the mockingjay" he begins and my mother runs out of the room, a trail of tears behind her, like a wedding veil.
" But there's only one mockingjay I love with all my heart" he declares "You". I look at him as our eyes fill up with tears and I throw my arms around him, for what I know now is the last time. My mother joins us and we grab our things. He gives my mother his ring. "They can beat me to a pulp but they won't touch you" he promises and maybe my mother is too distraught to disbelieve my father, but I know better.
Me and Cinna know that we will all pay for his actions and the look in his emerald eyes tells me everything.
" I almost forgot " Cinna says as he breaks out of my mother's embrace. He takes a piece of paper and helps me pull my top up so that my back is exposed to the cool night air.
"It's a quote from our ancestors, well one of them anyway" he chuckles, as he presses the familiar paper to my back. " the reason birds can fly and we can't is simply that they have perfect faith, for to have faith is to have wings"
As the quote sinks in and my top rides down my back, I think of my life and how everything will change. Nothing will ever be the same again.
After one last hug I'm separated from my father by everything.
By my mother's urgent tugs,
By my father's fate,
By the crisp white door that separates our home from the cruel cruel world of Panem.
In the darkness we are lead to the hovercraft that will take us into the forests, into the unknown.
In the darkness, walking away from the life I knew I hear a familiar sound
Fire glows brighter in the darkness
It's my father's voice, he's standing by the open window as I pass it and he whispers his final words to me
Fly for me, Mockingjay
Hope this was as interesting as the first chapter, please continue to review.