A/N: So I wrote and revised this fairly quick, I had an idea and I was pretty eager to write it down.
Fair heads up: This chapter meets its PG-13 rating. It contains more crude language than I typically use.
Disclaimer: I don't own the Hunger Games. Yet.
. . .
It seemed like a dramatic scene pulled straight from the pages of a romance book: a infuriated father chasing away his daughters love interest. Although this wasn't a novel this was reality, and it wasn't a pissed off dad it was an enraged Katniss. Which was worse.
For the youngest Everdeen it all was was recklessly spinning, the world's joined in some blur of motion that makes her nauseous. Tears ceaselessly stream down Prim's porcelain face as her sister charges down the steps of the front porch.
"Get the hell out of my yard you prick!" Katniss shouts, as she barrels towards Cato with a metal broom in hand. She could taste the sweat on her lips, she could feel it beading on her back and in between the strands of her hair. She saw red, her veins were spilling with her anger. She wanted nothing more than to beat him black and blue with the metal rod pressing into her palms.
"Please Katniss," Prim cries,"let him go!"
Cato ducks into the front seat of the car and fires it up in an instant, the engine purrs. He hits the gas so hard it leaves marks in the grass and turns up dirt.
From across the yard Katniss hurls the broom at the retreating car but misses by a foot, it clatters on the driveway in a heap. "Damn it!" She screeches, majorly disappointed that her chance to inflict damage on his car has passed.
She turns around slowly, seething with intense pent up frustration. When she spots her little sister her jaw clenches, Prim's wails echo from the fenced porch. The sun burns behind her making the fly-away hairs that'd escaped from her uneven ponytail glow. She has her back to the outdoor table.
"Get in the house now!"
"I hate you," Prim chokes out. She stomps her foot on the weathered wood. "I hate you! I hate you! I hate you!"
"Inside! Now!" Katniss shouts like an impatient parent. She picks up the broom and squeezes it untill her knuckles bloom with white. Finally the blonde obeys her command and stomps inside slamming the door and taking her teary snuffling sounds with her. Katniss exhales deeply and looks to the asphalt where the car receded from view. "Oh my god," she mutters under her breath. "I can't believe her. Stupid brat." She spots the marks in the nearly perfect grass. Only someone like him would so rudely park in the yard.
After propping the broom back up against the wall Katniss pushes through the door. The air-conditioning feels heavenly on her flaring skin and heated mind, however she is not soothed, she's still off the handle. She stalks through the house seeking her sister; it is certainly not a difficult task, Katniss just follows the sound of whimpers and gasping and ends up in the kitchen. Prim has her slimy hands wrapped around around a glass of water, her sounds mute every time she slurps down more liquid. Her cheeks are as red as her freshly kissed lips, she finally let her hair down and now it's a fuzzy mess. Like a golden halo on some teenage angel.
"Why did you let him? Do you know to what extent of trouble you're causing me?" Katniss stresses her words but she feels like they just float through Prim's ears and never skim her mind. "I warned you! And you let him take advantage of you anyways!"
She makes a move to leave but Katniss positions herself before her. "Oh no, you're gonna talk or I'll let dad know." Prim shrinks back entering a patch of sunlight that makes the tears on her cheeks look like diamonds.
Katniss steps forward. "Why did I just have to put down my homework to chase off a guy that shouldn't even know where we live?" When there's still no reply she begins to worry her lip and furrows her eyebrows. "You better talk soon, dad gets off work in half an hour."
"Katniss!" The younger sister squeaks, the cup obscures her lips. "It was just a kiss. Please, you're making such a big deal about it!" Prim won't even meet her eye, she just stays backed against the counter with the edge jabbing into her hips. Sparse sunlight streams through the window and catches on her smeared cup and the steel teapot their mother left behind.
"Just a kiss?" Katniss chortles spiritlessly, "he tore up the damn yard and groped your tits and shoved his tongue down your throat."
Prim's eyes widen. "You make him sound bad! He wasn't rough with me, I liked it, and he didn't mean to-"
"Prim, do you understand that he wants to use you to get back at me?" She speaks lowly, her voice is hinting danger. Her body aches everywhere, her sister is too dense to get anything, she just bypasses her messages of caution.
"Preposterous," Prim says, "he's actually interested in me. If you were nicer you two would get along! You have no room to hate him, you're very unlikable yourself!" Her voices adopts a high pitched tone one sentence into her speech. Primrose is wholly certain of her words and the older sister can tell her efforts are becoming futile, but settling for less than the truth is hard.
"How clear can I make this to you? He would've got his way if I hadn't intervened." Katniss swallows a mouthful of salvia to wet her throat and looks Prim in the eye. "He wants to fuck you. That's all he's trying to get from you."
Prim lowers the glass and gapes in disbelief. "You obviously know nothing." Her eyes shoot daggers at her sisters feet.
It just makes Katniss a tad bit more irritated. "No, I'm just not blinded like you. When he orders lunch at school he has condoms in his wallet. Tons."
"That doesn't say anything," Prim protests, "maybe he just likes being prepared!"
Katniss wearily shakes her head, then she rubs her closed eyes with her fingers. "He's always replenishing them. Always new colors and packages. He's a model Prim, he gets what he wants. You've got to understand that." Still the little sister keeps her face tense and disbelieving, her mind has pondered the subject so long it's accepted her hopes as reality. Cato likes her and wants a relationship in her world, that's that.
"Even if he were who you say he is, which he's most definitely not-" Prim hiccups and her voice drops drastically, it's so small she sounds like a needy child. "I could change him."
There's something tough about watching siblings grow up, you watch them make wrong choices and you try to point them in the correct direction. They never listen. So when Prim won't listen to Katniss she feels incredibly conflicted, she can't exactly trap Prim against a wall and knock some sense into her.
Katniss gives a sharp shake of her head. "No," she says dropping her head, "that's not your job or your baggage to bear."
She feels the dirt stuck to the heel of her feet and in between her toes.
Finally Katniss gives a heavy sigh. "I won't tell on you but you'll have to make an excuse for the tire tracks in the yard and explain that to dad."
It was the best she could do. Katniss couldn't forbid her from seeing him because she would only sneak around and hate her more. That's hard for the older sister to accept but she reminds herself that her job is not to raise her rebellious sister.
Her dad she knows, will catch her and set her in line soon.
Katniss turns her back to the kitchen and slogs to her room before collapsing on her bed. Her papers scatter and the pen rolls off the bed and smacks the floor. She only lays there for probably a minute before she feels the phone tucked in her olive green cargo pants begin to vibrate. It's Johanna.
"Hello?" Katniss croaks.
There's faint sound on the other end. Light chatter and the sound of chairs scraping tile.
"Hey we need to go somewhere, my brother is seriously pissing me off."
Katniss is quiet for a moment. "Again?"
"Yes! That idiot tried to take the house phone into the shower with him, he already broke his own, he needs to piss off."
Katniss thinks of Jo's single mother, a woman with dark hair and a voice like a blade. "Well, where's your mom?"
"Work. Enough of me, you sound like you've been to hell and back. Explain." That's when she did realize her throat was scratchy, most likely an effect of her hollering at Cato to get his hands off her little sister's breast.
"I, um." Katniss thinks of Prim just outside her door, whose still trying to muffle her shaky breaths and clear her face before her father arrives. "I'll tell you once I pick you up."
"Okay that better be soon, I'm going insane in this house. Really, drink some water first, your voice sounds-"
"Pained? Rough?"
"-I was going to say it sounds like shit, but whatever floats your boat."
. . .
"Drive, now!"
Johanna clambers into the old car with a vitality that she cannot conceal. She balances the house phone on her knee, and bounces in her seat voice hysterical, Katniss doesn't hesitate or ask questions before hitting the gas. An overgrown tree drooping freely over the road scrapes against the roof of the cab, charcoal shadows sail through the windows and dapple the road in a pattern less way.
After putting a mile between Jo and her house, Katniss turns to her friend moderately perplexed. "What was that all about?"
Jo paws at her flushed cheeks, panting. "Just," she gasps for air, "my brother found out this was missing just as I left and was coming out of the house just as I jumped in." She waves the sliver and black phone before cradling it in her arms again. Katniss frowns, Johanna continues, "He got a girlfriend and now he's constantly trying to phone her. I wanna kill him about now."
The engine hums and mingles with the brunets breaths.
"How unusual," Katniss deadpans, as she begins to drive aimlessly through suburbs. They pass a handful of things, nothing remarkable. A cream country kitchen with a hideous red roof, a recreation center and a gaggle of people strolling down the broken up sidewalk probably on a quest to find town.
Eventually the tightness eases from Johanna's bones and her breathing calms. She throws the phone into the bench back seats and works at the wind-up window."Why was your voice hoarse earlier?" Imploring brown eyes stare at Katniss with hidden mild concern.
"It's quite a story." Katniss starts running her nails against the wheel, the wind tugs at the loose strands from her braid and kisses her neck. "I was about fifteen minutes into my homework today when I got up to go get a glass of water. . ."
Jo raises an eyebrow impatiently, "And?"
"I looked out the window and saw a convertible in the yard." The car rolls to a halt at a empty red light; sunlight files through the cab and twines through both girl's messy hair as they make a turn for a newer road.
It's obvious Johanna can't take the wait and she alerts Katniss of it after ten seconds of silence and painful anticipation. "Who the hell was it? Get to the point."
"I looked out the window of the front door, Cato was making out with Prim on the front porch."
"-That son of a bitch," Johanna gasps.
"It gets better," The raven-haired girl warns, "he was groping her and forcing himself on her." Shock is blatantly written across Johanna's face, her jaw is slack and her eyes are the size of full moons. "Being enraged as you could expect, I went on the front porch screamed my voice out and grabbed the first thing I saw, which happened to be a broom. I literally chased him with it, he jumped in his car and left."
"You didn't get any hits on the car, right?"
Katniss shakes her head in defeat. "Sadly, no. I missed by about a arm's length as he was driving away."
Johanna turns to her, eyes feverish. "Well damn. We've got to do something, he's way past due to get his own medicine. He's been harassing you for years, that spoiled bastard needs to learn that there will be some repercussions for the bullshit he pulls."
"What can I do? He's rich."
Jo's disgruntled now, the situation seems to irk her. "Some oppurtunity should present itself," she grumbles. The realization of powerlessness in that particular area of life elicits a scowl from both girls. "I'll take matters into my own hands if this goes on much longer," Johanna mutters darkly, biting her down turned lip and leaving crescent moon shaped nail-prints in her palm that nearly draw blood.
Some friend's are more protective than a well bonded dog, and those are the ones who stay with you until the end most of the time.
"No," Katniss says with finality, "I've got this."
. . .
For Peeta Mellark Saturday usually meant rising early to hold down the bakery until the later afternoon. Today was no different really, people buzzed in and out of the glass door, the bell continued to chime at each's arrival and the sun persisted to shine. A few teenage girl's come and go, each pointing him out as the guy who served a year sentence in jail. Luckily, most of the people who come the bakery are bored elderly couples and rushed middle aged women.
Still, nothing was peculiar. Not even Katniss slipping into the dingy music store across the street. She collects unwanted rock and roll albums like a little boy forcing his stash of Pokémon cards to accumulate more. Peeta was slightly more nervous as he saw Johanna follow, she was a stormy crudely-spoken girl he hadn't crossed paths with more than twice. Peeta, a nearly full grown man found her intimidating, despite his refusal to admit so, ever.
The youngest baker was thankful a uniform wasn't required, this was his chance displaying itself. To make it look even more like fate had establish such interaction his brother had just come in to take over until early evening, He himself was rapidly approaching the end of his own shift. He'd watched Katniss before, she could carelessly spend twenty minutes wrapped up in strange titles she found intriguing. Peeta would most definitely finish long before them with time to spare. This is where his draining endeavor of falsely taking out Katniss was supposed to begin; Cato didn't pay him a lump of money yesterday for nothing.
So fifteen minutes later he sticks to his mental plan and leans up against the hood of her empty truck. Butterflies swirl a web of chaos in his stomach, he thinks of her tight scowl and begins to wonder if the money is worth it.
Two minutes later Peeta's more fidgety than someone whose been in a car for five hours straight. That's when they come out, each carrying a handful of plastic CD cases. He can tell she's still oblivious to him, neither have looked up, Katniss' shoulders haven't tensed up like they do most times when she encounters someone from school.
"Did you ever get to eat?" she asks Johanna.
"No, nothing. I tried, but the idiot kept distracting me. Didn't even have time to make a simple sandwich."
Katniss squints to avoid the intense rays of the sun from burning her eyes. "Me either, I'm famished. Maybe we should swing by-" She looks up to find him hands in pockets, eye's brighter in the sunlight.
Jo smiles devilishly. "Hello there, you look fine today," Johanna begins striding forward towards. Peeta. "What do you think about your life?"
"My life?" Peeta's eyes widen, not grasping anything.
"Yes, it's a walk in the park, am I right? It's to my understanding all the girls in our school would love a night to do some nasty things to you."
Peeta gapes, shock washes over him in high tide. He'd never heard of such unashamed boldness coming from a woman he didn't know personally. "I. . . I," he chokes, unmistakably flustered.
Johanna smirks. "Don't be so shocked darling. Most teenage girls love a bad boy, we all are aware of your record."
He internally curses, Katniss hearing such things probably isn't helping his case.
Finally Katniss speaks up saving Peeta from her friend. "What are you doing here?"
He clears his throat and finds calmness once again. "I was in the bakery I saw you around here and I thought I'd stop by and say hi."
Katniss stares for a moment, narrowing her eyes in suspicion. "Hi."
"Impressive vintage fenders by the way, you don't see too many of them anymore."
"Yeah." She shrugs, she didn't even know the piece of junk had any admirable assets until he pointed them out.
Peeta glances between both girls before settling on Katniss. "You're not a huge talker I take it?"
"I suppose it just depends on the topic. My fenders don't sweep me into a verbal frenzy, you know."
"Well, what does whip you into a verbal frenzy," he inches toward her, "I really would like to know."
She unlocks her car door and points her nose up at him, "my life" she says, "is none of your business." Katniss slides into the front seat of her truck, Johanna follows suit. After adjusting her CD's in the backseat she begins to turn the key of the ignition. At that moment a vehicle pulls behind Katniss' effectively blocking her in. Not just any car, Cato's. She glares at him in her review mirror. Rolling down the window his loud hipster music begins to taunt her ears.
He parks and steps out, strolling past her, smiling like a snake.
"You better go move that damn car," she snarls. Her eyes are knives waiting to pierce his skin and cause harm. She knows she can't do much in public, chasing him with a broom was a once in a lifetime opportunity and she had already done that earlier today. However her dimmed rage from hours ago was still alive and well, and she would just have to contain it as best as she could.
Briefly she wondered if it was the same anger that put Peeta in prison, but she brushed it aside, his life was none of her concern.
Cato doesn't even bother to look back at her. "Nope, sorry, you'll just have to wait sweetling."
Johanna rolls down the window furiously. "Move your car asshole, or I'm going to go find an ax and stick it though your ugly skull."
Cato simply ignores her remark and continues on walking leisurely past the shops.
Katniss rolls up the window gnashing her teeth. "Jo," she says softly, "roll up your window and put on your seat belt."
The friend does so thinking that perhaps she found some way out but when she turns around she doesn't spot a way out. Then Johanna sees the way she looks at the back of his head, and the way her eye's gleam with malice. "Katniss, what the hell do you have in mind?"
She blinks. "Earlier you said a opportunity would present itself. I found one." Time slows down as she shifts to reverse, Peeta watches from the sidewalk appearing deep in thought and Cato is not too far away.
Johanna gives a Cheshire smile. "Do it brainless." And that was what she loved most about Johanna, her bravery and recklessness, any other friend would have tried to calm Katniss and suggested finding a food joint in walking distance. She only supported her rash decisions.
With the approval of her friend Katniss drops her foot on the reverse, her truck jerks sharply as she backs into the side of his spotless vehicle. While her truck receives a mere scratch the left side of his car caves in and metal pieces clatter to the asphalt.