Moves and Counter Moves: Hannah
Chapter Two : The Goodbye
Sunday 28th June - Reaping Day
District 12
Palms and face sweating, heart hammering in her throat, hands and knees gripping on to the drainpipe for dear life. The peacekeepers had Hannah surrounded. And they had semi-automatic riffles. And they were from the outside. They didn't look like the two peacekeepers that stumbled around the town all day and night; shirts unbuttoned, bottled drinks in both hands. These looked alert and ready to fire their semi-automatic riffles at her.
She makes eye contact with one of them. Their eyes gleamed back at her, like a Fox about to jump its prey.
... Maybe she should go back up?
She starts to climb, only to find the view of peacekeeper weaponry pointing at her from the window she had just escaped from.
She blinks away the tears that have started to collect in her eyes, because she knows full well that the knife she had put in her sock won't help her against semi-automatic riffles.
Where was her Papa? They were going to fire those riffles at her and it was going to hurt.
She closes her eyes tightly, trying to block out her fear, and instead hum the song, Sae, used to sing to her when she was a little girl.
Sae. She blocks out the other noises to concentrate on her singing. Singing louder than the angry noises echoing around her.
But then the angry echo gets louder.
Loud shouting.
So Hannah, screws her eyes tighter, clinging stronger to the drainpipe, and hums LOUDER.
But now the old woman is no longer singing, she is shouting loudly at her too.
Screwing eyes tighter, humming louder. She wants to be back in her quiet little house with all her books, Silver and Bufo. She wants -
The silencing echoey crack shook through Hannah's body.
Silencing the verse instantly on her lips.
Silencing the loud noises around her too.
Silence.
She hears her father's voice call her name, breaking the silence - But there is something wrong with how it sounds. It sounds odd. So, she furrows her eyebrows and clings on to the drainpipe so tightly, her whole body is shaking.
His voice is now ordering her to come down. It sounds a bit more normal now. So, slowly, she pries her eyes open and looks in the direction of his voice.
Joy spreads through her as he stands at the bottom of the drainpipe, directly underneath her, arms open for her.
She knew that if she only closed her eyes and waited for his voice, when she opened them again, he would be there for her.
Just like he always was!
With a grin so firmly fixed in place, she slides gingerly down into his arms, which wrap around her instantly in a tight hold. The back of his hand burying her head into his chest. She appreciatively breathes in his scent - even if it was much too sweet than normal - it had been a long time since he had held her like this. And must mean that he is no longer angry at her.
"Just stay where you are, Shorty, and don't lift your head until I tell you to".
Not that she would be able to, she realises, as she fails against his rigid hold, to nod her affirmation into his chest.
~xXx~
"Is she OK?"
"What happened?"
"We heard a gun shot?"
"Prim?"
Voices all spoke at the same time. Distorted because of the way her father's grip had her. He had walked them somewhere, up a few steps and through some heavy doors, that closed loudly behind them. Her father was easing the hold though now, and lowering her onto her feet. She felt him fix her skirt in place.
"It wasn't Prim", her father. His voice came from right in front of her.
"Who?"
"Where's Effie?"
"In hell for all I care", her father.
Hannah blinks rapidly. It was taking a while for her eyes to focus and to stop the white and black spots they had been forced into her father's chest so hard. Her ears rang from the intensity of his grip, and her neck and waist, where he held her was throbbing too.
"It was Sae", her father and his face was slowly coming into focus too.
Grey eyes.
Thick knitted black eyebrows.
Thick pink lips, all framed by black curly hair.
Her Papa. He had helped her escape those peacekeepers, because he was the Quell Victor, and all feared him! She grinned widely at him.
"Where's Effie? She followed you, Haymitch".
But her father's eyes are looking at her with sadness. He had a wetness in them and she wondered vaguely if he had been crying.
"What did I tell you, Hannah?" He suddenly grabs her shoulders and shakes her violently, a complete contrast to the emotion he is showing. "Why couldn't you stay in the woods like I told you?" He stills her and waits for her to answer.
"Because I want to play", her voice scratchy. Her father was hurting her, she didn't like it. And she hadn't done anything wrong! "I want to win the Games"
"How many times do I have to tell you. Nobody wins the games, Hannah!"
"But-"
"-Where is Effie, Haymitch?!" A hand grabs at her father's shoulder unkindly, and Hannah growls, baring her teeth and sinking them hard into the pale white knuckles.
"Hannah, let go", her father.
But she only sinks her teeth in deeper, sneering at the one legged Bread Man, who dared offend her father.
Something hard pinches her nose and makes her release her grip instantly.
The Hunting Woman looks down at her with an icy cold stare.
"That's enough, Katniss", her father. "Let go of my daughter", a growl in his voice that always sent shivers through Hannah. But it wasn't until the Bread Man placed a hand on the Hunting Woman's shoulder, did she relent.
Hannah wrinkled her nose at its release before hissing at the woman, showing her bare teeth, ready to be sharpened.
"Are we sure this isn't Enorbia's, and not Effie?"
Enorbia? Curiosity peaked, Hannah moved her snarl towards - but ... it was Finnick Odair!
Finnick Odair!
She races straight up to him and looks up at him in awe.
He was SO much bigger in person. He no longer had the scar that ran from his right eyebrow to his lip, from when he had taken a hit from the tribute from District 1's sword! But that was alright, he still looked menacing. And it was definitely him! He was normally always in the Capitol.
There was a laugh beside them.
"I think you have an admirer, Findick"
Johanna Mason!
Hannah stepped back this time in awe. She had never seen her up this close.
"Don't say that word around her", a sharp, high pitched voice echoes from behind her, the echoey sound of heavy doors closing following.
"There's Effie", her father.
"Effie!" The voices sounded so alarmed, and suddenly everyone's wasn't crowded around her in a semi circle, they were behind her.
Hannah turns to see what all the commotion was about this, 'Effie', she had heard speak so many times in the short whi-
- Euphemia Coin.
Hannah gasps.
As she lived and breathed.
And covered head to torso in blood.
Her murderous eyes are locked on Hannah, which makes Hannah wobble, but she quickly recovers, snarling, bearing her teeth. She pulls out the knife she had hidden in her sock and lunges at her target.
The Angel of Death screams her war cry, but that didn't deter her - not that she got far. Quickly and suddenly being picked up in the air, she releases her grip on her knife over the shock of it and Hannah dejectedly watches her it clatter to the ground.
"What on Earth!" The bloodied butterfly woman squawks.
There was loud laughter. Johanna Mason. She was in Johanna Mason's arms and she was laughing at Euphemia Coin.
Hannah decided to join too.
"How many hours were you in labour, Coin, and this is how she repays you?!"
Hannah doesn't quite understand what she is saying but by the way Euphemia Coin was looking at them, it must have been something deeply insulting. So Hannah laughs louder.
"That's enough, Johanna", came a voice, Hannah only knew too well from the movies.
Enorbia Meycrenden.
As she lived and breathed.
Hannah's eyes went wide, her jaw slackened.
"Save this for your Games. For your real enemy", Enorbia Meycrenden told her, and she felt her put the knife back in her sock.
Enorbia Meycrenden.
Hannah used to ask her father repeatedly if he was sure Enorbia Meycrenden wasn't her mother, and he repeatedly told Hannah that no, her mother had died giving birth to her.
Birth. Noun. 'The emergence of a baby or other young from the body of its mother. The start of life as a physically separate being'.
Hannah didn't doubt that she had died in birth, she had watched a doe give birth out of interest, and there was a lot of blood - Hannah blinks that thought away as Enorbia Meycrenden was now analysing her, with a smile on her face, that Hannah was far too in shock to respond to.
"She looks like you, Haymitch", Enorbia Meycrenden says.
And Hannah hisses at her, showing her teeth, because she wants to show Enorbia Meycrenden, that she's like her too.
"Well in case you haven't noticed, this is your number one fan", her father's voice comes from next to her.
"I don't know if that's a good thing" Enorbia Meycrenden.
Hannah nods her head violently. Yes! Yes, it is a good thing.
Enorbia Meycrenden smiles before she finally did what Hannah had been waiting for. She hisses at her in a similar style, showing her rows of perfectly white, gloriously, sharpened set of carnivore teeth.
Hannah's heart fills with so much love and admiration that she launches from Johanna Mason's arms into Enorbia Meycrenden's. Burying her nose, deep into her neck, so that she can have a track of her scent. Hannah at that moment doesn't care what her father says, Enorbia Meycrenden is her mother, and when she returns from her games a Victor, they will all live together in her father's house as a family.
"It will keep her alive in the games", her father.
"Why didn't you tell me, Haymitch?" Enorbia Meycrenden.
"Why didn't you drown her more like?" Johanna Mason.
"Johanna!"
"You know, I always knew you were a bitch, Coin", Johanna Mason was laughing loud again, and Hannah plucks her head out of Enorbia Meycrenden's neck to watch. "But I never pegged you as a stupid bitch". Johanna Mason is doubled over laughing, and Hannah, seeing again how much it irritates Euphemia Coin, decides to join in again.
"Stupid bitch", Hannah repeats the term, that she again does not really understand the phraseology of. But it made Euphemia Coin's eyes glower even more, and her teeth clench. "Stupid bitch", again.
"Hannah", her father's stern voice. "That's enough", taking her out of Enorbia Meycrenden's arms and firmly locking her in his. "Don't you have another name to draw out?" He addresses that woman!
"I can hardly like this can I?" Euphemia Coin squawks. Glowering now at her father.
Hannah hisses at her again, until her father's hand silences it.
"Well, I suggest you hurry up and get changed, so we can continue this show, before anyone else gets hurt".
"There's been a change of plans", Enorbia Meycrenden speaks, but Hannah keeps her icy stare on Euphemia Coin storming off.
"Of course there has".
"President Snow has requested that Peeta, Katniss and Finnick stay, and that only you accompany the ... the tributes", and Hannah's ear perk at the word. Enorbia Meycrenden is looking at her with sadness, so Hannah smiles gleefully at her. She doesn't want Enorbia Meycrenden to be worried about her. She was going to win the Games and -
" - I guess they're not going to let me go back home and pack", her father. "I guess they have been planning this for sometime".
"And so have you", Enorbia Meycrenden's voice cuts off her father's, and the way she is touching his arm, Hannah knows that they would get married when she returned from her games, and they would live like a normal town family. "It seems like you have been training our Hannah for sometime", and Enorbia Meycrenden smiles at her again.
Our Hannah.
Her father had been Enorbia Meycrenden's mentor you see. She won exactly the year after her father, and had been best friends ever since, and had brought home five Victors together.
"Here you go", the Hunter Woman was suddenly in front of Hannah, with a metal circle thing in her hand. The woman pinned it on her t-shirt.
Hannah fingered the silver thing, it had a bird and an arrow on it.
"For luck", the woman said and Hannah looked at the woman, who was looking back at her. She was pretty. She looked like Papa.
"And here", the Bread Man, replaced the woman, giving Hannah a paper bag filled with something. From the smell of it, those sweet foods, she would sometimes swipe in the early morning when he was cooking and had left his door open. His hair was white and curly like hers. His skin was also white like hers. The only two people she had interacted with in her life had darker skin, dark hair...
Johanna Mason laughed loudly again. "Are you both serious right now? That was your great mentoring tricks. A bag of cookies and an old talisman".
"Worked for me", the Hunting Woman growled at Johanna Mason. And Hannah was beginning to second guess her father for not showing her this woman's movie. "And I managed to bring Peeta home too".
"Fuck you, Brainless. That wasn't you. That was Haymitch and Effie. And fuck knows how many people Finnick had to fu-"
"-Johanna"
" - No. She thinks she's so fucking perfect and-"
Johanna Mason's voice was cut off by the sound of doors banging open, that made Hannah jump. Turning towards the sound, there was a line of peacekeepers-
"-no Hannah, don't look", her father's hand tries to cover her eyes, but one of the peacekeepers has her Sae. And she is bleeding a lot of blood.
Hannah bites her father's hand hard and wriggles out of his hold. Dodging the other hands that try to stop her. Knife pulled out and at the ready, she charges. Only to have her vision splattered with blood.
The loud echoey crack having sounded again in the distance.
But right in front of her, her Sae lay still, forehead to the ground. A horrible gaping hole in the back of her neck, and blood quickly surrounding her body.
Her Sae.
She felt a lightness.
And then...
Darkness.
~xXx~
Rousing, the first thing Hannah acknowledges is that she feels like she is going to regurgitate her breakfast.
What had happened?
That peacekeeper had killed her Sae with a riffle and she had not been able to stop him.
She was weak.
She is weak.
It had made her weak.
So weak, she had given up to just stop and stare.
She was soft. The curse of her white hair and skin had made her soft and she had faltered. And then ... she fell into darkness and lightheadedness and now she is here.
Where is here?
Where is her Papa?
There was something rubbing on her ankle.
It is soft.
Ticklish maybe.
Comforting.
She opens her eyes.
The light is bright.
Glass. Dangly bright glass, which make her eyes squint.
She squints away.
Wood. Chairs. Table.
Cushions.
Silver.
It is all too shiny and smells too sickly sweet.
She can hear humming too, but it isn't Sae.
She decides to close her eyes again and wait for her father's voice.
"Don't wake her", an angry voice.
Hannah's eyes blink open. That was her father.
The humming stops and so does the movements on her ankle.
"I was just looking at her", a tension releases from what Hannah is laid down on.
Euphemia Coin walks past her. Same hairstyle, different dress. Yellow like her hair. Again stuck to her like skin.
"She does look like you, Mitch".
"Don't", her father's voice warning, and Hannah sits to peak her head over the large chair she is on.
"Don't what?" Euphemia Coin.
"Pretend that you care", her father snarls, and Hannah's fingers tingle in excitement. Ready to go into attack mode.
She goes for her knife, but it was no longer there!
Her!
She must have taken it from her. That was the movement on her ankle!
Hannah turns back and peers over the seating.
She had always thought her father a giant, but Euphemia Coin is the same height as him.
"I do care, Haymitch. And don't you dare accuse me not of", she is making herself a drink from the different coloured bottles on the table. Her drink comes out pink!
Watered down blood?
Flesh?
Hannah momentarily wonders before her perplexment turns to the fact that Euphemia Coin is stood right next to her father, their sides actually touching and yet he does nothing.
"All I'm saying is you obviously didn't go down on the woman well enough. Maybe you didn't let her fuck you har-"
Euphemia Coin's claws hit her father clear across his face.
Hannah decides she will strangle the woman with her own two hands. Sneaking round the furniture, the adults are so lost staring at each other.
"Or maybe it is the other way round. What do I know?" Her father shrugs, and Hannah catches the moment when the corner of his eye catches what she is about to do, but it is too late.
With a heavy leap, Hannah climbs up Euphemia Coin's back and wraps her hands around her throat, before biting into the flesh of her neck.
"Hannah!" her father shouts at her, while the woman starts her squawks again. "Let go of her!"
She can feel him trying to carefully pull her off the woman, as if she is trying not to hurt her.
Hannah doesn't know what this woman has done to disarm her father so, but it is not working on her!
She then feels teeth painfully sink into the back of her neck and she cries out more over the shock of it than the pain. Then hands wrap around her neck, not tightly, but it is enough to know that her father is serious for her to let go.
Euphemia Coin, whips around to look at her. Her father has her locked in one of his arms. "Don't hurt her, Haymitch!" she squawks, and if Hannah is not mistaken, she actually flies off the floor a bit, as her arms flap like wings.
"I'm not hurting her!" he shouts back, but Hannah does feel him loosed her grip on her slightly. Her father then snorts, "you do realise, it was her hands and her teeth that were trying to suck the life out of you".
Euphemia Coin hisses at her father like a snake, spit actually flying, her eyes looking green like one too. She's stepping closer to them, her attention no longer on Hannah, but her father.
Hannah takes her chance again, swiping her hand at the woman. Her nails successfully catching the skin on her cheek, creating a red mark. Well, it's something.
"Don't get close to her", her father warns again, stepping back.
"And why is that, Mitch? What lies have you told her about me", some of her words fall onto Hannah's face, she is hissing so fervently.
"No lies, Sweetheart. The truth. That you are a blood thirsty Capitol, who lives and entertains to bring children to their death. You are so fucking lustful for it, you thought you would have your own!" Euphemia Coin tries to attack them again with her claws, but her father dodges out of the way, so it falls in the air. That doesn't stop the woman from trying a few more swats. Her father dodging them all. "So that you could one day watch her have her guts splayed on national television!"
Something flies past Hannah's face and crashes loudly against the wall.
"That is not true and you know it!" The woman flying in the air again.
Her scream is impressive. So much so, that she has to catch her voice.
"You have no idea", the woman puffs out of breath.
She's used up all her energy. Her eyes look defeated. Her voice wheezy. Her father managed to disarm her without so much laying a hand on her.
"NO IDEA what I have been put through, what I have had to do these near 13 years, to keep her a secret".
Hannah feels herself go loose in her father's arms again.
Something changes in the woman's eyes.
Something changes in her father as he places her quickly on the floor and marches towards Euphemia Coin.
He pins the woman to the wall. Her piled up hair cushions the force of it.
Hannah decides to stay in the spot her father left her in, as she has never seen him look so angry. So ... alpha male. Never seen him attack anyone in person. Not even after she almost drowned in the lake did he look as ferocious as he was now.
Euphemia Coin however maybe had because she didn't flinch.
"What did she do to you?" Her father demands. His voice quiet but at the same time filling up the entire room.
The woman stares at her father for a few seconds, chin stuck out in defiance, before moving her head away from him.
But her father locks the woman's neck in his hand, so that she has to stare at him, and raises her wrist above her, crushing his body into hers. "What did she do to you?" Her father's voice sounding so dangerous. "What did that woman make you do?!"
Silence.
Her father shakes Euphemia Coin violently.
"Why do you care?!" Euphemia Coin shouts back. "Mitch, you're hurting me", her voice changing to soft as she tries to wriggle free.
But the snarl only increases on her father's face. And in a blink, he has pushed all the things that cluttered the table next to Hannah. They crash loudly around her, and Hannah has to quickly step out of the way, so no more fall and cut her. But her father doesn't seem to care about this as he carefully lowers the woman on to the table, until he is hovering over her.
Hannah has to give the woman credit because she still doesn't even flinch.
Just what kind of warrior is this woman? Hannah wonders, watching on in further perplexment as her father loosens his grip on the woman's wrist and brings it to stroke his fingers gently on her cheek.
Moving closer and closer into the woman until there is hardly any space between them, his strokes become softer on her face, before he gently rests his forehead against hers and whispers something.
The only thing that Hannah registers is the name, Mia.
The woman moves her head to the side. Her watery gaze landing on Hannah. She blinks them away and looks elsewhere, but her father hooks his finger around her chin and brings it back, so she is once again looking at him.
"Not in front of Hannah", the woman pleads, resting a hand on her father's face, before sliding it carefully off.
It looks affectionate. Haymitch had just been affectionate.
Her father then brushes his lips against Euphemia Coin's owns lips...
Perhaps to encourage her to say whatever it is he wants her to say? Again, Hannah doesn't quite understand. But Hannah does understand that this woman isn't going to say anything when he is being so soft towards her, so picks up a broken bottle near her foot and targets the woman's neck.
Euphemia Coin however catches her movements out of the corner of her eye and startles in her father's arms.
Her father too startles before putting his fist around the sharded bottle, easily throwing it from her grip, before pinning her against the wall by his hand around her waist.
"Mitch", Euphemia Coin squawks, rushing towards them. "Let go of her!"
Hannah's heart is beating in her throat as she now gets the force of her father's rage.
"Don't touch her".
Both Hannah and Euphemia Coin look at each other. Who was he talking to?
"Stop hurting her!" The woman screams, ignoring her father's words. "You're hurting your daughter".
Hannah hisses, swiping her hand at Euphemia Coin, to at least get another scratch on her.
"Stop trying to touch her!"
And again, Hannah doesn't know which one he is talking to.
"Can't you get it through that thick skull of yours", turning from Hannah to Euphemia Coin, "she wants to kill you. You are her enemy".
His words make the woman flinch.
The woman then looks at Hannah with wide eyes, hand on heart. Hannah sees that she has added a few more scratches to her chest and smiles smugly about this. She hisses again at the women, to show off all her teeth.
Her target storms out of the room.
Hannah moves to go after her. "Don't Hannah", her father breathing heavily. "Sweetheart," he lowers her off the wall to stand on her feet, "she is no longer your target". Her father looks exhausted, defeated and breathless, just like Euphemia Coin had. "She is your ally, Sweetheart. You can't hurt her".
"My ally...?"
Haymitch nods.
"She will kill me"
"She isn't going to kill you, Sweetheart, I promise. Not in that way, at least. I never - I never meant in that way. Should have realised you would take it that way though".
"But how do you know she won't try to kill me?"
"Because she is your mother, Hannah. Your mother", her father's grey eyes bore into hers. "Your mother won't kill you".
Mother?
That woman was her ... her mother?
No. She couldn't.
"You said-"
"I know what I said", he rests a hand on her shoulder, resting his defeated weight. "But that woman is your mother".
Her mother?
She blinks back tears. "Some mother's kill their young if they are weak", she had seen it.
"But you're not weak, Hannah"
"I am", Hannah cries out suddenly, surprising herself as well as her father. But she suddenly feels so tired about the whole day and everything that has happened. She wanted to play the Games, she wanted the win the Games so much. But now she wishes, she had listened to her father and that she would still be in her little house in the woods. "I'm sorry I didn't listen to you Papa! I'm s-s-sorry I couldn't s-save Saeeee", she starts crying. "I'm weak and soft. I'm cursed".
She watches through bleary eyes as her father kneels to her height, placing a sturdy hand on her other shoulder. "You are strong. You are going to win the Games. But then your mother is going to want to take you. Do you understand? She is going to want to keep you in the Capitol, and keep you away from me".
"NO", Hannah flings her arms around her father's neck and buries her nose in his shoulder. "I will never let that happen. I'm sorry, I didn't listen to you, Papa. I want to go back home. I don't like these Games anymore".
"We can only now go back if you win the Games". Her father rubs her back, and it is comforting. "I know you are angry and confused. I know because I have been here too, and after everything that has happened today and what you have seen and learnt, you must be feeling it a hundred times more. But that anger you must save for when you are in the Games, so that you can fight, and you can win, and we can go back to District 12 together".
"But Sae won't be there", she cries, knowing she sounds very much like a baby.
"She is watching over us now. We are in her hands".
Hannah didn't know what her father was talking about. Sae was dead. She had seen it with her own two eyes. But the way her father was holding her was comforting.
Uploaded: 27/6/2016
Updated: 4/7/2016
