As the police inspected the home, they surrounded the place with yellow caution tape. Since they all knew Thresh and his parents, it was an extremely serious matter. They searched everywhere through the house until a crime scene investigator discovered one small hint of something.
"Mr. Kealoha!" The woman waved him over. "There's something you should see."
He walked over there and she pointed at a little stain on the floor.
Blood.
JJ appeared and stared quietly at the small red stain. "Please tell me that's old blood."
Thresh shook his head. "Mitchell always takes out every stain possible. This one happened today."
"Whose Mitchell?" Cato asked.
"He's like my housekeeper. He helps me around the house because my parents are rarely home to clean." Thresh replied solemnly, his eyes still glued to the floor. "He's a good friend of mine."
Then Katniss saw the blood and cringed. "No..."
Peeta pulled her away to the side. "Kit Kat, we don't know anything for sure. It could just be from something else."
Clove felt angry tears threatening to slip down her cheek. How could she let this happen? How could she have been so careless? Cato pulled her in and held her tightly as she fought her sobs. She recollected herself in a few seconds and pushed away like she always did. Crying was only for the weak. Clove could not afford to be weak again; not when it cost her so much last time.
"I...I need some air." She jogged out of the house before Cato could say anything.
She sat down and leaned against a tree on the sidewalk. She picked up her phone and tried one last time to reach Madge. What she did expect was it to reach voicemail again and that's exactly what happened.
What she didn't expect was her car to drive into the street and park near a sidewalk.
Madge turned her car onto Thresh's street and the first thing she saw were police cars with their flashing lights on. The whole perimeter was crowded with crime scene investigators and officers.
"What the hell?" She said as she killed her engine and got out of the car. "Stay in the car."
Clove spotted her and sprinted like a bullet. "Oh my god. Why the hell were you not answering your phone?"
"I was driving and I was sort of busy...what is going on here?"
"Busy? You always answer your phone are you kidding me?" Clove was furious. "You had me worried sick!"
Then Gale shut the car door and walked over. Clove glanced at him and then whirled back around at him in surprise.
"Hi Clo. Did you miss me?"
Her mouth hung open for a few moments. Was she imagining things now? "Gale..? What are you doing here?"
"Visiting my best friends and my girlfriend of course." He smiled.
She jumped into his arms without hesitation. It's been so long since she's seen him it was almost overwhelming for her. "You have no idea how much we all missed you."
"I know. I've missed you all too." Gale then released her. "But what is going on here?"
"Well since Madge wasn't answering her phone, we got worried and decided to head to Thresh's house. It turns out the place had been broken into and there was a little blood on the carpet." Clove looked at Madge eagerly. "Please tell me Rue and Prim are with you."
"Yes." Madge said. "They're fine. I can explain everything."
"Please do."
"Okay, so basically I was at Thresh's place and then Gale rang the doorbell. He stayed at my house for an hour and then Gale offered that we should all go see a movie. I had to turn my phone off in the theater."
"What about the blood stain on the carpet?"
"Oh, that was Rue. She had a small nosebleed, but it stopped after a few minutes."
Clove sighed with relief. She turned to Gale and hugged him again. "Thank you."
He understood her appreciation. If he hadn't come and suggested to go see that movie, they could have all been dead. "Let's just go inside and see the others-"
"Gale!" Katniss and JJ both crashed into him. Peeta,Thresh, and Cato gave their "man hug" right after. Then Rue and Prim got out of the car and everyone hugged them too. Everyone was safe and sound; they were incredibly lucky.
"Hey Cato," Gale flit his eyes between Clove and him, noticing the closeness that they stood. "So you got the house?"
"Yeah, thanks for letting me have it. This place is great. Well...minus this..." He gestured toward the house."
Then Thresh's walkie-talkie buzzed and he pressed a button. "Yeah?"
"Thresh, I think you better come in here." A gravelly voice projected from the device.
"Coming." He pressed another button. "I need to go in the house real quick."
"We're coming with you this time." JJ said stubbornly. He smiled and intertwined his fingers with hers before nodding in agreement.
"Guys this is Darius. He is the chief police officer and a family friend of mine." Thresh introduced.
A red-headed young man-maybe mid to late twenties-smiled warmly at the group. "Hi nice to meet you all."
"So what did you want me to see?" Thresh asked.
Darius suddenly grew serious. "We found a body stuffed in your closet. We need you to see if you can ID him."
Madge gasped and Gale put a protective arm around her. "We'll take Rue and Prim back to the car real quick."
Everyone was nervous. Who could it have been? Madge and Gale returned shortly just as tense. "Madge, do you really want to be seeing this?"
"I need to get used to this. We're probably going to be seeing a lot more stuff like this anyway."
"What?" Gale was confused. "Why?"
"Long story." JJ replied. "We'll explain everything later."
Gale did not like the sound of that.
The crime scene investigators rolled out the body in a stretcher to the group. It was covered in a black body bag and it was a fairly long one so it probably ruled out any children. Darius slowly unzipped the bag and they all peered inside. It was an adult male with a single bullet to the head. He had grayish blonde hair and glazed over light green eyes. His mouth a slightly agape as well almost as if his last words never got to be said.
Not one of them cried; they were all numb from shock upon seeing someone they knew dead. Thresh was the first to look away. "That's Mitchell Greene. He was my housekeeper."
Cato felt slightly disturbed. He saw who Mitchell was dead instead of meeting him alive. "Was he killed here?"
"Most likely." Darius answered. "It seems like the suspect held him at gun point and forced him to go into the closet before killing him. Did Mitchell have any reason to be in your house?"
"Yes, sometimes he stops by from time to time to clean up or just to say hello. He had his own key to the house." Thresh said sadly. "Please take him to the M.E."
"So basically Mitchell was just in the wrong place at the wrong time." Now JJ had tears in her eyes. She was equally as close to Mitchell as Thresh had been. "I should have called him or something to not come today."
"You couldn't have possibly known this would happen." Clove consoled her. JJ merely nodded, her glum expression still clear on her face.
"First off...why now? Why would they decide to come now?" Cato asked to himself and the others. "What could have triggered a response?"
"Would they have responded if they by chance saw a photo of you two together?" Madge inquired.
Thresh brought his attention back to them. "Yes, that could have been it."
She looked to the ground guiltily. "I'm sorry. This is all my fault then."
"Why..?" Clove quirked an eyebrow.
"Because I posted some photos of us on Facebook. I'm so sorry. I didn't think about it at all."
Katniss tensed. "They're all monitoring us via social networking?"
"Yeah," Thresh sighed. "They probably broke into my house because Madge uploaded the pictures onto Facebook here. It's easily traceable."
"So they've always been watching us..." Clove didn't like the sound of that at all.
"Well I only know one thing for certain." Thresh said.
"And what is that?" Gale asked, still lost about this whole situation.
"We can't stay here. It's no longer safe for us in our homes."
So that's my final update before school starts :( When that happens, I probably could only update every other week or so. I'll try my best to update ASAP so in the meantime, keep up the reviews. My dream is to make it to 100 or so reviews :) Keep up the feedback on what I should do for my next story! Love you all!