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Chapter Eleven
They're all sitting quietly at the dinner table, all staring at the food on their plates as if studying it, each pea and grain of wild rice. They don't see me approach the table until Booth glances up to take a sip of the bright red liquid in his cup. When he notices me, he smiles and clears his throat, alerting the others to my presence.
Daisy's eyes widen and she smiles up at me. "Oh, there you are!" she exclaims, "I thought you'd never come out of there! Sit! Sit!"
I take a seat across from Booth, who's now sitting straight up and looking directly at me. I divert my gaze to Hodgins, who looks to be on his third glass of wine. Or fourth. Unless that bottle on front of him is his second. It's hard to tell since he's looked like this for about as long as I've known him.
He catches me staring at him and scowls at me. "What choo lookin at?" he slurs at me.
I shake my head at him and turn back to my plate. Since I was the last one at the table, everybody begins to dig in to their food. As we eat, a redheaded girl, about my age, leans over me and pours some sort of red liquid-which I assume is what Booth is drinking-into my glass. I turn to thank her and am taken aback by how familiar she looks, but I know she's not from Twelve…
But, if that's true, where could I have possibly seen her before? Perhaps she was in one of the Reaping videos? But then why would she be here? Was she here when we first came in? No, I'm sure of it.
It couldn't very well hurt to ask, could it? "Excuse me?" I say, louder than intended. She doesn't look at me, though everybody else at the table does. I clear my throat and ignore them. "Miss?" I address her again. "Excuse me?" This time she looks at me, looking slightly like a deer caught in the headlights, but says nothing, nor gives any indication that she recognizes me. I continue anyway. "Do I know you from somewhere?" She squints at me for a moment, before turning visibly red and shaking her head vigorously, and turning on her heels to walk out, not bothering to say a word.
I turn back to my plate, only to be shocked by the many eyes on me. Everybody at the table is looking at me, even Booth and boozy Hodgins, who looks a bit green, but not from the wine he's consumed.
"What on Earth possessed you to do that?" Daisy asks me.
"Do what?" I ask, nonchalantly, taking a sip of the red liquid in my cup. The taste is pungent, but familiar; Wine-I am only allowed it on special occasions.
"Talk to that avox." She practically spits the last word at me.
"What's an avox?" Booth asks before I get the chance to.
Daisy narrows her eyes at him, not as if she's angry or annoyed at him, but more like she smells something bad. "An avox is someone who's broken the law. But not just any law, one of the unforgivables; treason. When treason is committed by anyone, they become an avox and have their tongues cut out. Then they are forced to work the rest of their lives in the Capitol as punishment. It's less than they deserve, after such a heinous crime." She smugly takes a sip of her wine and I stay quiet, trying to analyze this.
She may be from District Twelve, after all…but wouldn't I have heard about someone breaking such a horrible law if she were? We've never had anybody-not in my lifetime anyway-who's committed such a horrible crime that they're needed their tongues cut out. They've never even taught us this in school.
"I could swear I've seen her before…" I mumble aloud, apparently loud enough for everybody to hear, since they're now all staring at me once more.
Daisy stares wide-eyed at me, as do Gordon and Caroline. Hodgins visibly pales to the shade of a ghost now. Booth seems the only person in this room capable of speech, because he speaks first.
"Delly!" Booth exclaims. I jump slightly at look at him, questioningly. "Delly Cartwright." He says, as if that makes any more sense. "You know Delly. She's in our class back in District Twelve. That girl…she's like a dead ringer for Delly. Don't you think?" He gives me a look that tells me it would be very stupid of me to argue with his logic, even though the redheaded girl looks nothing like fair-skinned, blonde-haired Delly Cartwright. But I nod anyway.
"Yes, of course," I say, a little airily, "that's who I must have been thinking of. My mistake." I take another sip of the wine, which is beginning to make me feel light-headed.
"Well, whoever she is," Daisy says, sternly, "she is not to be spoken to, except when giving an order. No avox is to communicate or be communicated to by a non-avox. We mustn't encourage them. Understood?"
Booth and I nod, solemnly, before returning to our meals. We share a secret look over our dishes where I thank him and he sends me a small heart-stopping grin over his chicken.
I sneak a glance over to Hodgins, who seems to have regained his color and is now snoozing in a drunk slumber, laying back in his chair. I smirk at him and push my own glass of wine away, opting instead for the water.
Later, when I'm sitting on my bed, in my room, in a pair of soft cotton pajamas, playing with my window remote, there's a knock at my door.
"Enter." I command so the door will open. When it does, I am surprised to see the redhead standing there, looking very nervous. She's holding a laundry bag and raising her brows, questioningly. I nod and she begins to pick up my discarded clothing, not sparing me one glance as she does so. When she picks up my shirt, she pauses, but only for a moment, before dropping it into the bag.
As she does this, I study her, trying to remember where I've seen her, and then it hits me…
And the reality of the situation causes more pain in my chest than I've felt throughout this whole experience.
Because now I have one more reason to fear for my life.
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