Haha! Another Chapitola :) Ya, I know Im not updating as fast as before, but I started writing a super long chapter and kind of forgot :P Oh, and for those of you who havent noticed, I changed the story name :)) It is now, Ravensong instead of Missing illusion bevcause the old title really didn't make much sense. Anyways, read on!
Raven
"I really don't think it's any of your business." Raven wrenched her hand free from his, and ran off down the road. She hoped Finnick wouldn't chase after her, but she had a feeling he wouldn't. Raven knew she had never run so fast in her life and kept her head down the whole way. She was so scared, so scared that things would change somehow now that someone knew, even if there weren't any laws against child abuse in District 4. Raven stayed so focused on the 'pat' of her feet against the concrete sidewalk, she almost overshot her house. She took one last look up the road behind her then walked into her house.
The house was oddly quiet when she got home, which was strange because her mother wasn't exactly the sneakiest person around. She looked around the house and couldn't find her mother, so she hollered for her, but there was no response. She peered into the backyard, and concluded that since it was empty her mom wasn't home.
Once the coast was clear, she made for the bathroom. She slammed her fists into the old porcelain countertop, and stared at herself in the mirror. She was so, so disappointed in herself for letting him see those bruises, she was always so vigilant about hiding them, but around Finnick, she was never as careful as she usually was, and that made her angry. He made her let her guard down, and she had to make sure that never happened again. She let out a sound that was halfway between a groan and a scream as she looked at herself in the mirror, then swept out of the bathroom and down the hall into her bedroom, and closed the door with a slam. She just needed to get away from the world for a while, but since she couldn't go anywhere near the woods she loved with the fence on, she crawled into the back of her closet and hid there for a while, until she drifted off to sleep.
Raven stayed hidden in the closet until she heard her mother stumble through the front door around four, waking her up, at which point she crawled out of the closet, said a quick hello to her mother, and began preparing supper. Since she had lost time when she had fallen asleep, she hadn't begun to prepare anything, so to keep her mother happy since it would be supper soon, she trew some chicken nuggets in the oven, and began took out some bread, toasted it, and made toast. When the chicken nuggets were done, she quickly took them out of the oven and peeled the bread off from around them to make them look fancier. She spread some garlic butter on the toast. Raven sat them on the table and ate quietly with her mother. They sat in silence, until her mother spoke uo,
"Good god you're ugly." Raven said nothing. She continued, "I really should go to jail for bringing a useless like you into this world! Ha!" She let out her bark of a laugh, because apparently in her drunken starte she found this hilarious. Raven just ate her meal and imagined she was somewhere else, because her mother had a point. Raven couldn't see it, but if her own mother said she was ugly, then she must be pretty bad. She lowered her head like a sad dog.
They ate the rest of there meal in silence, her mother would sometimes let loose tiny strings of insults, but they would only be mutterings. Raven didn't pick her head up again that meal, and vaguely heard her mother stand up and move to go outside and probably drink some more. However she paused at the door and Raven looked at her quizzically, and saw her mother observing a spoon in her hand.
"Clean this mess up stupid!" And she whipped the spoon at Raven. Had Raven not been sitting down, she may have been able to dodge it, but she just lifted her arm in time and the spoon hit her arm. Her mother gave a snort and left.
Raven stood up and cleaned the mal as fast as she could, and finally let a few tears slide silently down her face. She had almost learned not to cry, but she was still young. She left the kitchen spotless, because she didn't want to give her mom something else to get mad at her about. She ran to her room and closed the door, crawling like a beaten dog into the tiniest place she could find, her closet. There, she cried. She cried because he was scared, all the time. She cried because she wanted everything to get better, even though she knew that it wouldn't. She cried because she never knew what to do and even I she could, there was always someone stopping her. And eventually, she cried herself to sleep.
Screaming. That's what Raven woke up to. Then she heard fists, rapping against her bedroom door. It didn't take her long to put together the pieces of the puzzle, she realised almost immediately she had overslept. She crawled as fast as she could out of the back of her closet, and as soon as she had stood up her mother came flying into her room. Before Raven could register what was going on in her sleepy state, she was on the floor, her mothers fists were beating against everything they could find.
Thud
Below the rib, below the collar bone, beside her spine all over her back
Thud
Raven rolled over and she was facing her mother,
One in the shoulder, then in the stomach,
Then another,
Then another,
Then another,
And then, all of a sudden, it stopped, and her mother swept out of the room as quickly as she had come in. Raven sat there, below her bed, frozen. Too scared to move and see if anything was broken, too scared to have to look at her mother again. But Raven knew that if she stayed where she was, it would only happen again. So, shakily, she rose to her feet, testing her weight, and was pretty sure that nothing was broken. She move gingerly, each step brought a new wave of pain, and she left her room with her eyes glued to the floor. She entered the kitchen and began making breakfast, but when it was ready she didn't eat it. She simply moved over to the living room and began clearing away beer bottles from the previous night. 11. She counted eleven beer bottles. It was wrong, all wrong! Raven knew her mother shouldn't be doing this, however Raven also knew she could do nothing to stop it. A tear tried to slip its way down her face, but she blinked it away and told herself that crying was wrong, and you can only cry when you're alone. She took them outside and placed them in the recycling bin. When she came back in, she just saw her mother sweeping out the back door with a six-pack under her arm. Raven cleared up her mother's mess, but all of a sudden she stopped. She remembered her mom saying she didn't want to pay the electric bill, and she knew her mother's wrath would be terribly if her precious TV stopped working. So she looked out the window and saw her mom, lying flat face in the grass, with a puddle of vomit nearby.
So she thought of a plan. It was risky, but it would be worth it in the long run. She pulled a chair over from the table and stood on it in front of the fridge. She opened a small wooden cupboard, and pulled out a small box, containing the family's money. She took out just enough to pay the bill, and thought about taking some for a treat on the way home, but decided she'd better not push her luck. So she jumped down from the chair after putting the till back exactly where she found it, and she snuck out the house and left for town.
Once Raven reached the town, she took the path left of the town square towards the building that the electrical company ran their business out of. He walked up the stone steps in front of the building, and when she opened the door, looked around and walked up to a lady behind a counter.
'Um,' she began, the lady looked up at her, 'I'm here to pay a bill.' she told the woman a little uncertainly. The woman behind the desk looked at her funny, but replied none the less,
'Oh, and who's bill might that be?'
'The Carlyle's,' The woman behind the desk gave her an odd look, but she rummaged through her desk none the less and took out the necessary files and accepted Ravens money, but the while transaction was really one rather awkward situation. When it was finally done, Raven thanked the woman and left the building. She quickly walked down the marble steps and turned back towards the square, when she heard someone call her name from behind,
'Raven!' She turned around just in time to see an auburn haired boy running towards her, and her heart sank when she realised it was Finnick/ She looked around her, wondering if there was any place she could run and hide, but to her dismay she was in a pretty open area, and in the time it took her to decide whether or not to run, he was in front of her.
'Finnick.' She greeted him icily,
'Listen, I know you probably don't want to talk to me, and rightly so, but just hear me out okay.' He looked at her hopefully and she found it was hard to say no, so she sighed and turned to him,
'What is it?'
'Okay, listen,' he rushed out, and he took her off guard because he almost looked like he was pleading with her, which was so different from his usual cocky, sure of himself demeanor. 'I'm sorry about yesterday. I, I shouldn't have been so forward, it's not my business. Can we just forget about it? Please?' Raven wasn't quite sure what to say. She had never had someone genuinely mean what they said when they were apologizing to her before. She knew that being friends with Finnick was risky, and thus was her chance her to break it off. He was observant, too observant, and he noticed things about her that she didn't want people to notice. But on the other hand, she did quite like talking to him, and he was almost someone she would like to call a friend. She missed his company. In the end, her want to have a friend ruled out her fears of what he could learn, and she softened her expression and smiled at him,
'Ya, it's fine. Water under the bridge' she said softly. She could see him visibly relax and return to his usual self at her response, and she was suddenly very glad she had chosen to forgive him because she felt like if she hadn't, he would have followed her until she had.
'Well then, lovely day isn't it' he purred out in his usual voice.
'Why yes,' she replied, 'I suppose it is.' She hadn't really realized that she actually missed talking to him until now.
'Care to join me for a walk?'
'Well…' she tried to answer, but he cut her off.
'Pleeeeease?' he said, pushing out his bottom lip in attempt to make a puppy dog face. H failed terribly, making Raven laugh and answer sarcastically,
'How could I say no to that face?'
'My thoughts exactly."
I know I could never say no to Finnicks puppy dog face, no matter how shitty it was :3 Anywyas, hoped you all like it :D