Something always brings me back to you. It never takes too long. No matter what I say or do, I still feel you here 'til the moment I'm gone. – Sara Bareilles
"Um, my house is this way." Tyler says, motioning to the pathway that goes across the large grass lawn to his house. Julie keeps walking down the sidewalk though.
"I know. But her house is this way." She says without missing a beat, continuing until they are in front of Johanna's house.
"Julie, we can't be here." He whispers frantically, about to pull her back but she stomps up the steps, her boots clacking on the stone. She swings both legs over the railing and stands on the window ledge, crouching down so she can look inside.
She sighs and laughs in spite of herself. "Calm down, she's not home." With that said she leaps down from the ledge and walks around to the back of the house and looks in the back door. "Yep, definitely vacant." She says to Tyler, who followed her around the back of the house. She takes out a hairpin and unlocks the back door. "You coming or not?" she challenges, slipping inside before he can answer.
"This isn't a game." He whispers furiously when he steps inside.
She starts ruffling through a stack of mail. "It's an adventure. It should be exciting, right?" she asks with an exhilarated smile plastered on her face. She puts the mail back just the way it is and creeps down the hall. "Wow. This house is exactly like yours."
"That's great, now let's get out of here." He says, not following her down the hall.
She opens the door to the cellar and flicks on the light. "Creepy. Is your cellar this creepy? I bet your dad fixed it up or something." She comments, peering down the long stairway. Tyler finally walks to her side and looks down.
"I don't think we should go down there." He says.
"We need proof that this code is valid, right?" she asks.
"It won't be very good proof if we broke into her house to find it!" The lock on the front door clicks. "Shit, downstairs now!" he orders quietly, turning the light off and shutting the door silently behind him. He activates the flashlight on his phone and leads Julie down the stairway.
They emerge in a large, open concrete cellar. Light pokes through small windows sitting right at ground level. He runs to a closet and throws the door open, about to step inside when he notices Julie on the other side of the cellar. There are footsteps overhead.
"Julie! Get over here now!" he whispers to her, his voice sounding louder than he liked.
She stays still, looking at what looks like large brass sink in front of her. "Tyler, why is this the only thing down here?" she asks quietly.
He runs over to her as she bends down to look closer at the sink. "This is blood." She whispers with fear in her voice. "Tyler, its blood. This thing is covered in blood." She starts to shake and she gets pale. "I don't like this adventure anymore." She adds.
The footsteps get closer to the door to the cellar so Tyler fairly drags Julie to the closet. Once inside he flicks the light off of his cell phone and backs up but his foot catches something kind of hard. He bends down and feels the large, curved object in his hands. Julie finds the light for the closet and turns it on. "What is that?" she breaths.
Tyler turns it over in his hands, inspecting it closely. Finally he looks at the bottom and nearly drops it. He looks down at the floor and sees what the uneven surface is that they are standing on. He takes a step back and feels something behind him vibrate. A golden mockingjay lights up in the corner of the closet. "This is a sheath. We are standing on arrows. And that is my mom's bow."
Julie gasps but Tyler clamps a hand over her mouth. The door at the top of the cellar creaks open. He holds his breath and fights the urge to move his feet, keeping his hand over Julie's mouth. The door slams shut and they can hear footsteps walking overhead and then the front door closes. He waits for several minutes before leaving the closet. "What about the arrows?" Julie whispers.
Tyler doesn't answer. He walks up the steps and out the back door, waiting for Julie to steps through before locking it behind them. He storms around the house and across the stretch of grass to his house.
"You're acting like you don't even care anymore." She calls out behind him. He turns in time to see the sadness in her eyes disappear in the dim light of twilight.
"Yes, until it go dangerous. But now…she killed the best hunter in the country! Well, one of the best but still…I don't want to mess with her." He argues.
"She doesn't have to know it's us." She says desperately. "Please Ty."
"No." he says, shaking his head. "I can't. Maybe if Jesse could help but Julie, I'm leaving in two months anyway and I've never killed an animal bigger than a squirrel."
"No one ever said you have to kill her. Just turn her in."
He keeps shaking his head. "That's not good enough for me. I need her to pay for what she did to my mom."
She laughs hysterically. "Then I don't know what to tell you." She spreads her hands and walks away, down the street.
When Peeta gets home that night he starts cooking dinner. As he is waiting for the soup to warm up he goes upstairs to Tyler's room. "Hey." He says, opening the door. "How was your day?" he asks.
"Fine." Tyler sighs.
"Did Julie come over?" Peeta asks.
Tyler hesitates and looks down. "Yeah." He eventually says. "She did."
"And?"
"And…I don't think she's going to be around again soon."
Peeta nods. "Oh. I'm sorry to hear that." He pauses. "You know Ty, you have to know that when it comes to girls—
"Dad, you've already told me everything I need to know, okay? So just stop trying to give me advice. Please." He says coolly. He instantly feels bad about saying it. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean that." He quickly apologizes.
"It's okay Ty." He says quietly but Tyler knows it is not okay. "Your sister is coming home tomorrow so make sure you clean the bathroom in the morning. Johanna is coming over for dinner if you would like to join us."
"I'm really tired actually. I think I'm going to go to bed." He says, sliding beneath the covers and turning his back to Peeta.
He nods. "Okay." He sighs before going back down the steps to the kitchen.
Tyler watches the moon slip across the sky through his windows, tossing and turning and listening to Johanna and Peeta laugh downstairs. Thoughts of Julie invade his mind ceaselessly, not allowing him any peace through the night. He keeps replaying their last conversation through his head, trying to figure out where exactly they went wrong.
Just yesterday they were smiling and having a good time. All of days spent in the courtyard of the school eating lunch; playing cards, trying to throw blueberries in each other's mouths, doing homework. The thought of how perfect they are for each other crossed his mind multiple times a day and he constantly found himself brainstorming ideas for how to propose to her or wondering what their wedding would be like, what their children would look like. He could see her so easily at the kitchen counter sipping a glass of wine while Tyler made dinner just like his mom always did or her working at the cash register in the bakery once he takes over for his dad.
He hears the front door slam and knows that Johanna has left. But then he hears whispering and a quiet laugh, followed by a soft shush. There are quiet footsteps ascending the steps and down the hall, past Tyler's room and into Peeta's. The door shuts quietly.
Suddenly, Tyler is full of rage. He cannot contain it. There's a bang in the room next to his but he doesn't take the time to go see if Johanna has killed his dad or something of that sort; he slides out the window and leaps into a tree, climbing down to the ground. He sprints to Julie's house, located in the part of town that used to be the Seam. The houses are still pretty run-down but are nothing like they were when his mom lived there.
He pounds on her door, relief flooding through him when she answers. It quickly disappears when she tries to slam the door shut. "Wait!" he huffed, not being in as good of shape as his older sister. "Just, please let me apologize."
She presses her lips together tightly and opens the door slightly.
"You're right. I should be more proactive. It was just a lot to handle. I mean, I had found hard evidence that Johanna actually—" she presses a hand over his mouth to stop him.
"My parents are right inside." She says, grabbing her coat from the rack behind her and stepping outside. She pulls the door shut behind her and takes Tyler's hand. "I shouldn't have been so hard on you. I just loved your mom so much; she was an incredible person. It made me mad that someone would do this and I wanted justice." She pauses and they stand in silence. Finally she says, "So what now?"
"We go back to her house to get the evidence." He says decisively.
"Where is she?" she asks. "Are you sure she isn't there?"
He nods. "She's currently having sex with my dad so I don't think we'll have to worry about it."
She stands still for several moments. "Ty, I'm sorry."
He shakes his head and smiles slightly. "He's probably drunk or something. I can't resent him for wanting to fill the gaps in his life with another woman. Especially when he has no idea that she's a psychopath."
They walk quickly back into Victor's Village and to Johanna's back door. Julie unlocks it again and waves him in. "I'll go get the bow and arrows. You stay up here and guard." Tyler says, slipping his hand out of hers and going down into the cellar.
She wanders around the boring living room, picking up little knick-knacks here and there but nothing really catches her attention as more evidence. She pokes around the kitchen, searching for any knifes that maybe have a little blood left on them. The phone rings and she freezes. She can tell Tyler is still downstairs too. She is standing just a few feet from the phone itself so she tiptoes over, eyeing it suspiciously.
It rings four times when finally the person calling leaves a voicemail. "Johanna, its Gale. I'm just making sure you have gotten rid of the bow and arrows. I'll have the poison that will take out the rest of them in no time."
Julie stands frozen for several more moments before sprinting to the steps. Tyler is already there with the bow and arrows in hand. "Come on!" he yells, no longer worried about subtlety. He has the sheath of arrows over his shoulder and the bow gripped tightly in one hand, taking Julie's hand in the free one. Once out the backdoor they jump off the deck and run into the woods, completely black in the darkness of night.
They take a circuitous route around Victor's Village that lands them behind Haymitch's house. "Wait, I can't run anymore." She says, starting to cough. She lets go of his hand and stops running. Tyler stops too. "Tyler…" she pants. "Gale…I thought he was dead."
He's shaking his head and also breathing heavily. "I don't know." He breathes out. He puts his hands on his hips and paces in Haymitch's back yard. "He was…I've seen his headstone but I guess it's just like Johanna; they brought him back."
"Can they do that?" she asks.
He shrugs. "They can do anything they want." He answers sadly.
"Did you hear what he said? About the poison?"
"Yeah." He nods. "Come on, we gotta talk to Haymitch." He says, grabbing her hand and walking her around the house to Haymitch's front door, not bothering to knock; he just walks in. "Haymitch!" he calls out.
The old man sits up on his couch, gripping his bottle tighter. "What now, kid?"
"We've got the evidence you need." Tyler says, dropping the bow and arrows on the table.
Haymitch stands up and walks to where Tyler is standing. "Where'd you get these?"
"Johanna's house. Before you say anything, just know that if we hadn't broken in we would've never found these. There's something really wrong about her too. She has a cellar, just like you do but there's nothing in it. She has a tub but it's coated in dried blood. Then there was a closet and that's where we found these." He explains.
"And while we were just there," Julie jumps in, "she got a phone call from Gale. Gale."
"Like, the dead one?" Haymitch asks.
They both nod affirmatively, too anxious to speak.
"What'd he have to say?"
"That he hopes she'll have the bow and arrows out son and that he'll have the poison to kill Peeta, Jesse and Tyler in no time." Julie answers quickly.
Haymitch plops down into one of the chairs at the kitchen table. He buries his face in his hands. Julie also sits down. Tyler gets a bottle of water for her and sits down next to her, starting to worry about the ashen color of Julie's face.
Finally Haymitch looks up. "Alright, listen to me real closely. This is dangerous stuff you're dealing with here. Johanna is a killing machine. If she finds out that you two have broken into her house she'll slit your throats in your sleep."
"I sleep with a knife." Tyler cuts in.
Haymitch ignores him. "I'll keep these and you two go home and get in bed before she can realize that you were gone." He says, the last part referring to Tyler.
He nods. "Thank you so much." He says, taking Julie's hand and walking out.
Johanna rolls over, keeping the down covers close to warm her chilled skin. She kicks some out of the way to get close to the bedside table to look at her cell phone, buzzing madly. She reads the caller ID. Looking over at the drugged Peeta she gets out of the bed and pads quietly into the bathroom. "What?" she demands quietly.
"You've moved her bow and arrows, right?" Gale asks.
"I'm getting to it, why?" she tells him.
"I think you had some visitors in your house tonight."
She freezes. "What are you talking about?"
"I called and I could hear someone breathing near the receiver."
She nearly drops her phone. "Why'd you call?"
"Because I need to know your progress."
She laughs. "Look, the Capitol didn't bring you back to check up on me. They need you as a weapon, okay? So let me deal with the field work and you sit back and watch me do it." She says angrily before hanging up.
But the next morning, when she gets to her house, she knows that she too had some visitors because she checks the closet in the cellar and finds it is empty. "Shit." She whispers.
What's Haymitch going to do with the bow and arrows? Is he going to turn Johanna in or will he get rid of them? And what is the deal with Gale?
PLEASE REVIEW!
~PennStateGRL4eva~