Let me just start off by saying thank you for continuing to read my story, and thank you for the follows, favs, and reviews. I especially appreciate the reviews! Also, trigger warnings: there a rape scenes in this chapter. This chapter is also written in past tense unlike the rest of the story is and will be. I did that on purpose. Thank you!
When it feels like all is lost and there's no guide that's left to prove it
Take a look inside, cherish your life
And live before you lose it
You're all waiting for the answer
Keep on searching, strength in numbers
-Of Mice & Men
My father was killed in a mine explosion.
It felt like the whole world stopped existing, he was our rock. He was a protector, and provider. My mother went right along with him, emotionally, mentally…she was gone. Not as an absence of body but absence of mind and soul. When he died he took every piece of her humanity with him. She stopped talking, stopped responding to us. It was as if she just died too. That's how Prim became mine.
There was never a moment when I decided to take control and accept responsibility for my family, it just sort of happened naturally. I don't think I even realized it myself.
Gale is the only one I had.
Nothing has ever been in my favor.
Prim is mine.
We look nothing alike, her beauty is captivating. Her face is soft and she has pretty blonde locks; she has gentle features. There is nothing 'soft' about my face.
We have a stepfather. He is a coal miner also…a charming man, seductive. Devious is perhaps, a more appropriate word. My mother fell into his trap the way I didn't. I could tell, from the moment I met him I could tell.
I'm not sure where they met, but he started hanging around the house one summer and introduced himself. He told my mother she had beautiful girls. She smiled.
He did something to her. He put a spell on her. He lit up the light in her eyes, the light that was buried away for so long. She started talking again.
There wasn't a wedding. No ceremony. The night they got married, quietly, they came home and he asked if he could have a word alone with us, Prim and I. My mother left the room to get ready for their evening and he sat us down on the couch. He sat Prim on his lap and touched my cheek.
"You don't have to worry about another thing as long as you live," he told us. He looked right into my eyes. A sincere statement, but I saw past it. I could tell he was a snake. My mother couldn't see it but I could. I'm not gullible, I'm not an idiot; I know when I'm being lied to.
That same night when we were in our bed, he came into our room and walked to my side. He kissed me on my cheek. "Good night, Katniss," he whispered, something nasty in his breath. I laid still.
Then he leaned over me, his chest in my face, to kiss Prim too, "Good night, Prim."
When he rose up he looked down at me, "I love you. Both of you."
He did this every night for a week, but I didn't feel as if I was in danger until the night he kissed me on my lips and stuck his tongue down my throat. My reflexes snapped and I pulled away from him, he rose up and looked down at me like nothing happened.
"Good night," he said sweetly. I laid there, in shock at first. Then I became afraid. He walked away rather slowly, multiply the fear instilled. That kept me awake for many hours, I looked over at Prim. Was she in danger? This was only the beginning. I noticed he treated me differently than her. I think he saw me as more of a woman, though I was a kid, and that put my mind at ease for a moment at least.
The next day he approached me as I was about to go hunting. I had gotten up before everyone, I was getting ready to leave and he appeared out of nowhere before me.
"Katniss? Where are you going?"
I looked at him strangely, "hunting," I answered.
"Oh yeah, you're mother said you go with this boy. Gale, is it?"
"He's my friend, and yes, we hunt together."
"No," he said shaking his head and taking a step towards me. He pointed to my bedroom.
"I provide for this family now. I don't want you going into the woods anymore. Little girls don't belong in the woods. Especially with boys." I looked at him even more strangely.
"I said I was going hunting," my words were spaced out slowly for emphasis, then I tried to step past him but he blocked me and pushed me. My legs weren't prepared to sustain the force of his brawny arms. I fell down with a small thud, it didn't really hurt.
"Katniss, now I don't want to have problems with you. I like you."
Our eyes never left each other as I stood up slowly. I knew he was trying to manipulate me. I knew exactly what he wanted: control. Control over our family which meant control over me. The problem was that I didn't know what he was capable of. And I knew how to fight back. Or so I believed.
"I went yesterday, and the day before that, and the day before that. You didn't say anything then. I hunt every morning, it's what I do," I tried explained to him but he ignored me. He looked past me, at the wall.
Huck's hands crossed and he rubbed circles on his palms.
"Katniss, I can tell that you're a very smart girl. You've been through a lot, you've practically raised Prim. I see the way she is towards you, you're basically her mom."
I focused my eyes elsewhere. He stepped closer and started massaging my shoulders; his chest appeared more immense than before, towering over me.
"I know that you'd do anything to protect her too, yeah?" he said in a friendly whisper. "So, we got to find a way to get along here now don't we?"
I dithered; looking up at him I remained silent.
"Now I said that I don't want you in the woods anymore, we understand?"
The hell I did. I didn't falter, "I hunt."
And then his burly hands took hold of me, which I wasn't expecting. He thrusted his hand in between my legs and drew me against his chest. My feet were barely touching the ground as he growled in my ear.
"Don't you dare make a sound," Huck snarled. "You've got a little sister that needs you. You don't want anything bad to happen to her, do you?"
Everything was a question with him. Like he was giving me a choice, like it was my decision.
"You stay away from her," I tried to break away, quietly.
"You stay out of my way, this is my family now. We're family so get used to it. And you are not to see that Gale anymore. Two teenagers have no business being alone together in the woods. You don't have anything to do with him, do we understand each other?"
I reasoned in my mind when he started to let me go. Of course I would do anything to protect Prim.
"You keep your hands off of her," I said.
He held his grip, and didn't reply.
"Fine," I replied and I moved away from him quickly.
"There we go, now why don't you go back to bed? I've got plans for this family today."
As I made my way back to the bedroom, I rubbed my chest and shoulders. I could still feel his hands squeezing me against his hard body. Could I tell my mother that I was afraid for my life and Prim's? Yes. Should I tell her? Yes. Was I going to? No. Because as long as I wasn't afraid of him and didn't let him scare me, then he couldn't hurt me. At fourteen that was what I tried to force myself to believe.
…
Gale was my best friend. We grew up together. He loved me, I loved him. He's always been there. After my father died I fell into his arms and he stayed by my side.
I didn't go into the woods anymore but of course I continued to see Gale at school, there was nothing I could do about that. I talked to him as if nothing had changed, obviously it did. We both felt the distance. But Huck couldn't control me at school too. I could talk to whomever I wanted; it was none of his business.
I thought that maybe we could still be friends, until the day he showed up at my house. I was sitting outside with Prim when he walked into the yard.
"Gale!" she said running to him. They both laughed loudly as he picked her up and spun her around. Huck had just got home from the mines and was asleep on the couch inside. I knew that it wouldn't end well if he woke up and saw him in our yard.
"Prim, go inside quietly and don't wake him up." Her sunshine smile ended and she walked away slowly as Gale's smile also turned into a confused frown.
"What's wrong, Katniss?"
I crossed my arms, "You have to go."
My heart sank when I saw the look on his face.
"What? Why?"
"Gale you can't come here anymore—" and then I was cut off by the sound of the old wooden door creaking behind me. I didn't have to turn around to feel the cold chill of my stepfather standing behind me.
"What do we got going on here?" he asks in a friendly voice.
Gale looked taken aback; he didn't even know that I had a stepfather.
"Nothing," I said, "he was just leaving."
"Young man," Huck said in a tone that I didn't quite understand, "what's your name?"
"Gale," he said with no trouble. He stood up straighter, "What's yours?"
Huck didn't say anything for several moments, but then I heard him laugh,
"Katniss, your mom needs you in the kitchen." God I hated Huck. My mom wasn't even home. I hated him so much. Never in a million years had I ever dreamed that I could harbor so much animosity and distaste for someone as much as I had the Capitol. As soon as he walked inside I didn't hesitate with Gale.
"Don't come around here anymore," I said.
"Who is that?" he said, ignoring me.
"I mean it," I finished. And then I turned my back on him and walked inside the house, where Huck was waiting for me. He spared not a second before grabbing me by the arms.
"I thought I told you to get rid of him."
"Let go of me!" I growled. He only held on tighter, digging his fingernails into my arms. He gave off the foulest odor.
"That boy is trouble, if you can't keep him away then we'll have to figure something else out."
Twisting my way out of his grip somehow, I bolted for the other side of the room.
"I'll get rid of him," I spoke, only allowing him a moment to reply back. When he said nothing, I turned around and slammed the door to my bedroom.
I found Prim sitting on the bed, holding her cat. She looked up at me sadly,
"What happened? Why were you fighting with Daddy?"
I blinked. And then I sighed in confusion. Daddy. She called Huck "Daddy." After everything that was happening, hearing her call him that was the last thing I wanted to hear. I knew that she would never call him that on her own, he must've put her up to it.
"Don't call him that," I said rushing to her side. I took her in my arms as that stupid cat jumped onto the floor.
"Who? Daddy?" she said with her innocence clearly speaking.
"He's not your dad. He's not my dad."
"But he said that he was my daddy now."
And then a different horrid thought came to mind.
"No, you're right Little Duck. You can call him that all you want."
He wanted her to call him that, so she should. Whatever it would take to keep her safe. If that kept her safe, then so be it. Things could be a lot worse.
"Don't worry about…Daddy and me. I shouldn't have even brought it up," I said, though it caused pain.
She grabbed onto me tighter and I stroked her back. She was an innocent. A little girl that didn't ask for any of this. She didn't ask to be born just as I didn't. I am never having kids, as I said to myself repeatedly.
And then I felt her jaw open against my chest and I listened for whatever she was about to say.
"Katniss," her voice quavered, "I'm hungry."
Huck. That son of a bitch who lied to all of us when he said he we wouldn't have to worry about food anymore. We wouldn't have to worry about anything anymore. He can't provide for us any more than I can.
I'm going hunting. And I don't give a damn what he says, and if he touches Prim I'll shoot an arrow through his face. And skin him like I do the squirrels and birds.
"I'll be right back," I said to her with a hopeful smile.
I ran out of the house before he had a chance to stop me. I ran fast, deep into the woods only stopping to get my bow from inside the log. The forest looked so much more alive to me than before. I hadn't been there in a while.
Even though I wanted to spend the whole afternoon in the woods, I had to get to the Hob to trade for the food I promised Prim. The bread I got would only be enough to feed us for the next day or two but we would make it last.
I got back to the house as quickly as I could. Mother and Huck were waiting for me.
"Why did you run off like that? We were so worried." Huck said.
I didn't answer. I just stood in front of the door with resentment all over my face.
"Where were you?" he asked.
"Out."
My mother stood next to him with a nervous glance.
He breathed so loudly, more for show than anything. I glared at him, if I didn't bring home food then how were we supposed to eat?
"I went hunting," I said bluntly. "I traded the squirrels for this," and then I pulled out the bread I had hidden in my jacket.
His eyes widened as my mother just stood there. He turned to my mother and kissed her, then she turned around and disappeared into their bedroom. They had the strangest relationship I'd ever seen.
As soon as she was out of sight he charged at me and grabbed my shoulders, his hands almost snapping my bones.
"Don't you ever embarrass me like that in front of your mother, you hear?"
I broke away from him with no struggle, "Prim is starving," I said taking off my jacket.
After several silent moments he snickered.
"Smart ass. If you think that you're the provider around here, you're not."
"I'm trying to keep my sister alive, damn it," I said going to my own room. I held up the bread in my hand, "She's starving."
In a flash he appeared behind me, his fingers played with my braid.
"Katniss, why don't you like me?" he asked, almost like a child would. I turned to face him.
"Get away from me."
He started twirling my bangs around his index finger.
"You married my mother. You took over my house. I don't owe you anything."
"Katniss," he shook his head grinning, "you're well past your years."
"I'm fourteen," I tell him.
"Oh Katniss…we both know that your about thirty years older than you look."
"Get away."
He massaged my shoulders and stood closer to me. I could feel his warm, steamy breath on the back of my bare neck.
"Would you do anything to protect Prim?"
"I would die for her."
Then he turned me around and I felt something wet and squishy hit my mouth. It happened so quickly that for a moment I didn't know what was happening. Then I realized that he attacked my face with his tongue.
He licked my face and grabbed my head with both of his hands. He trembled and closed his eyes. I tried to push him off quietly without Prim coming to the door.
"Get off," I hissed but he continued rubbing his whole face all over mine. It was happening so fast I didn't have time to process it. I hit him in the stomach with one fist and he let me go.
He wiped his face and smiled.
"Remember how much you love that girl, now," he said. I didn't hesitate in going inside and closing the door as fast as I could.
…
The first time he raped me was in the middle of the night, just a day after our confrontation. My mother was asleep in their room, Prim in ours, and he came and got me.
He told me he needed to talk to me and he helped me out of the bed. I was groggy. He led me to the kitchen and picked me up, setting me down on the table. My arms rested on his shoulders as my senses awakened. He touched my thighs and grabbed my waist.
"No, no!" I jerked but he told me to be quiet or I would wake up my mother.
He massaged my hips with his warm hands and then kissed me on my lips. I pulled away and he snickered like he loved to do, but pulled me tightly to his chest. He started sucking on my neck. I whimpered and he slapped my face and warned me that I could go back to bed and he could just go get Prim instead.
I didn't mumble another word. He laid me down gently. He pulled down his pants and I slowly opened my legs. He pulled off my underwear and kissed the insides of my legs. Then he stuck his finger inside. He poked it around in there, twirling it in circles and it hit a spot so tenderly. I gasped, goose bumps appearing on my arms and legs. He giggled again.
"Oh, you like that?" he smiled. I turned my head away.
"Feel it?" he said pressing his groin against my own. I felt something stiff protruding.
He took it out, it was big and it didn't look the way I thought it would. He forced my eyes upon it. I closed them. He jerked my head by my hair and told me not to look away.
"Touch it," he said. I poked it and he laughed.
"Not like that," Huck smiled, then he grabbed my fist and wrapped it around the hard formation.
I stared at it and sat up. Then I watched him get closer, he spit into his hand and patted my crotch. Rubbing me with his slimy fingers.
"My turn," he announced.
I braced myself for what I knew was going to be extremely painful. He lined himself up with me and thrust forward, but it didn't go in. I was too small, he was too big. It was shutting him out like a wall.
Huck didn't seem fazed; he just took another few minutes slipping his fingers in and out of me.
"Let's just stretch, shall we?" he said politely. Then he told me to lie down, and I did.
He bent my legs and instructed me to hold them back while he tried a different position. After several tries and many throbbing attempts, it finally went inside.
A gasp escaped from my lips and I felt nauseous as he played with me, my body.
I groaned and clenched my mouth tight. The pain, binding and cramping. He moved it out a little bit and then shoved it roughly into my body. My hands fell to the table, for something to grasp, anything. My legs spread around his waist as I let him pierce me deeper. I was wishing on every last breath that Prim wouldn't wake up and find us. I laid down flat on the kitchen table with my legs wide open, his member, hard as concrete, tearing me apart. I desperately tried not to make a sound but I couldn't help it.
"Oh you like that? You like that?" he huffed. My eyes squeezed tight. I wanted to die right then.
I already knew he was going to hold her over me. I wasn't surprised one bit.
It felt like it was never going to end. The way he panted made me want to vomit. His hair dripped with sweat. Then when he couldn't possibly go a second longer he ripped it out and I let out a huge sigh of relief.
"Clean up," he said, "go back to bed."
I rose up from the table in pain, a little dizzy. I looked down and I was so wet everywhere. I started to shuffle off and he warned me,
"You remember how much Prim means to you, now."
I nodded my head and he helped me to the bathroom. Before I even closed the door, which was a joke in itself, he threw my undergarment at me.
I cleaned the inside of my legs. And my insides. I ached in such a way and I was bleeding. I had never seen one before, a penis. I never even thought of the idea. I stumbled back to bed and looked at Prim who was still sleeping.
As I climbed back in to the warm covers I wasn't sure if what just happened was real. But when it continued to happen every night afterwards, I understood it was. And every night it seemed to last longer and longer. It was my living nightmare.
I began to forget what a peaceful night's rest was. Every night was terrorizing.
I often dozed at school. My teachers lectured me at drifting off in class and they ignored the look of defeat on my face, as did my mother. Gale tried to talk to me but I pushed him away. I shot him down time after time. He tried to help, but the truth was he would only make it worse.
The Capitol didn't scare me now. It was a fight just to live each and every day at home. My safe haven. Or at least once was my safe haven. I just wanted everything to stop. I wanted my home back.
But it didn't matter what I wanted.
I was dying. And nobody could help.
I was late one time. Maybe it was due to the stress. I asked Huck about getting a natural contraceptive from the Hob but he just slapped me. He told me to shut up and get on the table. I wondered why he insisted on doing it out in the open where my mother could walk in. Maybe he liked the thumping of the table legs. Then he turned me around, something we had never done before. He thrust his self into me in a way that he'd never done before, I hated it even more than before. I know my mother had to have heard us because I cried out and gasped as he shook me around. But the whole time I was just hoping that Prim wouldn't wake up.
We did it every night before Huck went to work. I mean every night. He was never too tired. No matter how long or how hard he worked in the mines he was always ready to come get me. Sometimes it would be quick and I could go right back to bed. Other times it would last much longer.
One night it happened. My mother walked in on us and I was so relieved. When she saw me I was on my stomach, my cheek against the table, and his hands on my naked hips. His chest against my bare bottom. He told her to go back to sleep. She asked what was going on. She started to move towards us and he told her to go back to sleep again. We made eye contact, my mouth was hanging open and I was breathing heavily. I was waiting for her. She saw that I was scared, but she did as she was told. She just turned around and walked away. Like she never saw anything. Anything at all.
Those late nights took a toll on my body. I became nauseated, all the time. My energy always gone before the morning was even over. I felt different; it was changing everything about me.
Then I quit having periods completely. I told Huck and he told me to relax.
"Stop trying to be dramatic," he said.
I knew better. Over the months my breasts grew, and I got rounder and fuller even though we were barely eating. It became even more uncomfortable to give my body to Huck. He would grab my breasts and rub them and it hurt because they were so tender.
Then early one morning my mother came into my room while I was sleeping. I woke up with her sitting on the bed, my covers pulled back and my nightgown raised. She didn't make a sound, Prim was still asleep next to me.
She put a hand on my stomach and looked at me as soon as I looked at her.
"Oh no…" she whispered.
I was awake immediately and I pulled my gown back down, I jerked away and rolled over to where she couldn't see me. I snuggled close to Prim. It was happening, she could see it now too. It wasn't in my head, I wasn't being dramatic.
She got up and ran into the living room outside our door. I could hear her shouting.
"You son of a bitch!"
"It. Wasn't. Me!" I heard him reply. Then Prim woke up next to me, her beautiful blue eyes squinting, adjusting to daylight. When she heard my mother scream she shuddered.
"I'm right here, don't be afraid," I whispered to her.
I held her as we listened to the fight going on outside our door.
"You did this to her!"
"It was that Gale boy, she's been seeing him this whole time!"
"You said that you loved me, and that you loved my daughters!"
"I do!"
"You bastard!"
The fighting went on and on. But it didn't matter how much my mother reacted now. It was too late.
Prim started to whimper when my mother screamed again. I held her and kissed her head.
"Down in the valley, the valley so low…" I sang. I sang because if I didn't sing at this very moment, I would break and I couldn't. Prim is my little duck. When they got louder, I sang louder.
Then when I sang all the words to that song I sang it all over again. And then when I ran out of words to sing I told her how much I loved her. She told me that she was scared. I told her I was too.
Then I had a baby. It was a girl, she was beautiful and perfect. And they stole her from me. My own mother and Huck. The two people who say they love me. They're sick. They're vermin of the earth. They're sick in the head. I looked for her everywhere but I couldn't find her. I've not given up, I will never give up, but like I said, nothing has ever been in my favor. Something else that was horrible was still coming. As if I didn't have enough to worry about, Prim, who was all I had left, was turning twelve that year.
And then I had a new nightmare to face.
The 74th annual Hunger Games were approaching.
I apologize, that was kind of a mouthful but I wanted to give the backstory in one full chapter. I'm also sorry if it bothered you, I included the warning at the beginning for that very reason! If it didn't bother you and you liked it, please tell me so in a review! It would make me extremely happy! Thank you very much!
