Chapter 55

"Ugh!" Gale groans sitting down in the living room beside Posy, Tai, and I as we color. "There are muscles in my body aching, that I didn't even know I had."

"Oh stop complaining." I say teasingly. "Yep, I think yours definitely looks better." I say to Posy as we compare drawings.

She smiles up at me and continues coloring.

"Here," I say turning the crayon in Tai's hand right side up, so that it actually colored on the paper. "That's better," I say tickling him.

He squeals in laughter.

"What color is that?" I ask pointing at the blue.

He rambles out an incoherent string of sounds.

"Let's try that again, with feeling." I say smiling at him. "What color is that?" I move to the purple.

He says an almost identical string of sounds, only a little more vigorously.

"Could you repeat that? Maybe mix in a vowel or two?"

He says it louder.

"You've got feeling down, let's get coherency." I say poking his stomach. "Can you say blue?"

He points at me with a cute little frown and starts telling me off in his own little language, loudly.

"You're really loud." I whisper smiling.

"Nah!" He shouts shoving the corners of my lips downwards. He starts rambling again.

"Right, I can't be happy if I'm in trouble." I say trying not to smile.

"When are you not in trouble Johanna?" Gale says smirking at me over Posy's hunched back.

"I don't remember the last time I wasn't in trouble." I say smirking over my shoulder at him.

Tai tells me off, and then finally he's done. He picks up his drawing and shoves it into my face.

"Thank you, is it for me?" I ask looking at the scribbles.

"Nah!" He says pointing towards the kitchen.

"Ma?" I ask tilting my head.

"Nah! Mommy," He says shoving his hand onto my lips. "Mommy,"

"Your, Ma?" I ask tilting my head.

"Nah!" He shouts getting angry. "Mommy,"

"Oh right, Mommy," I say standing up and walking to the kitchen. "Annie,"

She turns around from her conversation with Sophie. "Yes?"

"Your son wants you to have this." I say handing the paper to her.

"It's beautiful."

"Newsflash, blue no longer has vowels in it." I say seriously. "He's fascinated with my face, by the way. Then again, who isn't?" I say cockily strutting off.

"Just like Finnick," Annie says chuckling.

"Where do you think he got it from?" I call over my shoulder, winking at her, and walking back into the living room.

I enter the room to find Peeta and Gale in a conversation, and there's Katniss as far away from Gale as possible.

Posy and Tai probably disappeared off to the beach or something with the boys.

I plop down onto the couch next to Katniss.

"How's it going Fire Feathers?" I ask winking.

"Fine," She says lost in her own thoughts.

"It don't look like it."

"Doesn't," She says vaguely.

"What?"

"You said 'it don't' it should be 'it doesn't'."

"Since when have I cared?" I say rolling my eyes. "Even then, I'm not exactly the most literate person on the planet."

"It doesn't matter." She says quietly, still lost in her own thoughts.

"Upset that he's here?" I ask nodding towards Gale.

"So what if I am?" She snarls defensively.

"So you are?" I ask tilting my head. "You would think, him being your last real friend other than Peeta and Haymitch that you would hang onto him tighter."

"You wouldn't understand." She says scoffing and turning her head from me.

"Oh wouldn't I?"

"Yeah you wouldn't understand." She snarls standing up.

I narrow my eyes at her. "How so?"

She groans and rolls her eyes walking from the room.

Peeta moves to follow her.

"I got it." I say rolling my eyes. "Gee kid, there is such thing as too clingy." I say shoving his shoulder with a smirk on my way out.

I walk briskly after her as she storms towards the beach.

"Explain to me exactly how I wouldn't understand." I snarl after her. "Listen up sweetheart, you aren't the only with problems."

She whirls on me. "You don't think I don't know that?"

She thinks she scares me. She actually thinks she scares me. "With the way you're acting, yeah I do." I snap.

"How do you expect me to act?" She shouts back. "You knew he'd be coming here didn't you? You wear the same uniform; you had to have known he was coming back."

"Of course I did." I say tilting my head.

"Why didn't you tell anyone?" She shouts back. "You could have given us some sort of warning!"

"You're the only one complaining sweetheart." I simper. "Why would I warn you? Just to have you sneak out in the middle of the night, to be caught, and used for ransom, then killed anyway because you're the precious Mockingjay."

She looks taken aback.

"You're not here for a resort vacation." I say advancing. "You're here because a bunch of spoiled angry as fuck rebels want everyone dead. Now, we can discuss why of all people I wouldn't understand, or you can shut the fuck up, before I rip your throat out. I don't care if you are the Mockingjay."

She stands limply. I'm almost exactly her height, although I'm a little taller, I'm definitely more muscular, and I just happen to have the skill of projecting myself several feet taller than I really am.

Her shoulders sag slightly, while my muscles protrude due to being angry.

"I can see you calculating." I say cocking an eyebrow. "And I can see that disappointment. That, 'my ally is more likely to kill me before I can even turn around to run' disappointment on your face. You can't run sweetheart. I may not be a hunter." I lean in so that I'm in her face. "But I'm a Victor just like you are."

I'm basically kicking her to her knees and demanding respect from her or I'll kill her.

"I'm not going back there until he's gone." She chokes out after a pause.

"That's a problem ain't it sweetheart?" I say sneering. "Neither of you are leaving. You because I'm not going to be responsible for our dearest Mockingjay becoming our dearest martyr, and him because he's not going to give in to you. I get it, he reminds you of Prim." I roll my eyes. "Annie reminds me of Finnick, you remind me of, well, something not very, eh, child friendly."

She looks offended and slightly scared. Although her jaw line is set.

She's the worst actress on the planet.

"It's not the same."

"Oh is it?" I roll my eyes. "Annie won, so my sister is dead, if my sister had one, Annie would be dead. I don't even get the pleasure of wishing it had been different. You however, what's your problem again? Oh right, he built bombs. The bombs that Coin used to kill Prim. That was such a tag team effort! You know, I hate the inventor of guns." I say shrugging. "Why? Well a gun killed my other sister. You don't see me getting pissy around guns now do you? Get your fucking act together so that we don't have to deal with the stupid blatant elephant in the room." I snarl.

"The inventor of guns wasn't your best friend." She growls back.

"You have my sympathy." I say sarcastically.

She glares at me.

"I can carry you back you know." I say glaring back. "I'm stronger than you think."

She starts to trudge back like the moody teenager she is.

I shove her inside, she glares at me, and I return the glare.

I snatch up the ax in the corner and start sharpening it, sitting on my bed on the far corner.

With every ring of the metal, I glare at Katniss.

Katniss crosses her arms and looks away from us.

Oh look, she's pouting. Poor, poor, baby! She just needs a hug and a lollipop. That'll work just fine.

Gale and Peeta both look uncomfortable.

Peeta just looks frightened.

Every chime of the ax blade reverberated around the room, bouncing through the silence.

Gale leaves the room looking at me curiously.

"So, eh, what happened?" Peeta asks awkwardly.

Katniss is silent. I continue to sharpen the blade roughly. She definitely deserves everything I said to her outside. Any idiot would be able to tell.

She's always constantly moping and pushing everyone off.

Fine by me, but she won't keep hurting Gale that way.

Another stroke, the sound pierces through the tension.

"I'll take that as a not now," Peeta says leaving the room hesitantly.

Katniss jumps up and run to the back room where she and Peeta share a room. I set my ax down and desert the now empty room. Annie is in the kitchen cooking something fishlike.

"Do you cook anything other than fish?" I asks leaning next to her.

"On occasion," She says smiling. "Complaints can be taken up with my ass."

"Will do," I say winking at her. "Speaking of your ass, where is Sophie?"

"She just had to do an interview with me, she left early. How does my ass remind you of Sophie?" She asks laughing.

"Well, for starters, she looks like one, acts like one, and she's always up one." I drawl.

Annie laughs, she doesn't answer back.

"It's so boring here." I say leaning my forehead on a cupboard. "So much drama it feels like school again."

Annie chuckles. "I'm guessing you weren't a fan of school."

"Never," I say rolling my eyes. "Everyone knew, if you have a problem with Johanna Mason, you take it up with your fists. Rumors and shit don't work on her."

"Why's that?" She asks smiling at me.

"Because anything they'd make up, I'd find away to say it's true and make it enhance my reputation."

"Like what?"

"One said I was a slut."

"Were you?"

"Of course I was," I say looking at her with a smirk. "And I owned it."

She bursts into laughter. "You're the best Jo." She says stirring a pot and flipping a searing fish. "We're having boiled shrimp."

"What's shrimp?"

She looks at me. "Really?"

"What? District Seven!"

"Right, well, you'll see at dinner."

"Alrighty then," I say in mock surrender. "Testy,"

She laughs as I retreat from the kitchen out to the back porch where everyone save Katniss and Annie are sitting around talking and laughing.

I walk over to Peeta and put him in a headlock, digging my knuckle into his scalp.

I finally release him and sit down between him and Gale. Tai runs up to me and climbs onto my lap.

"How's it going kid?"

He starts playing with my lips. The kid is just fascinated by my face.

Hey, so am I. I mean how can one person look so fucking sexy without blinding people?

"So what was that all about with Katniss?" Gale asks, just too curious to leave it.

"You should know Gorgeous, we don't get along." I say smiling wickedly.

"C'mon Jo, we're dying to find out." Peeta practically begs.

"I told her to grow a pair and stop acting like a little bitch." I say inspecting my nails.

Gale snickers into his hand. Peeta outright laughs. Hazelle, Gale, Rory, Vick, and I tilt our heads confused. We assumed he'd get just as angry as Katniss did.

"She does kind of have that teenage angst going on doesn't she?" Peeta says through his laughter.

"You practically took the words from my mouth." I say smirking.

A/N Shorter chapter I know, but I didn't want to write a long one, for fear that you'd lose the point of the plot moving along. Anyway, review?

OH ALMOST FORGOT!

Slenderman is totally awesome, dude you rock! 100th reviewer! Sorry this wasn't last chapter, I forgot about it, anyway, I'm pretty sure you were one of the ones who have been with this story since the very beginning, and for that you deserve a medal. Unfortunately, I can't give you one. :/ So, thank you so muchhh! :DDD