Hey guys, me again, please review. This is a long chapter, maybe I should divide it in half. I'm trying to upload all the chapters I prewrote before I actually got the account. Tell me what you think cus this is my first
-thanks- Claire
Chapter 4.
In the morning, after I wake up, I see Johanna is absent from her corner. My heart leaps. There isn't really anywhere else she could hide in this tiny cell. I crawl over to her corner in curiosity. There are pale white rags in a sort of bed. A tan tray of food. A shard of something is hidden and I nearly miss it if it weren't for the pale sunlight streaming in suddenly. A mirror. Of course, Johanna has a mirror. Johanna, besides being one of the prettiest people I know, is one of the vainest. She got the better end of both gene pools, my mother's tan skin and green eyes, and my father's charming looks. I look more like my mother but with my father's grey eyes. I look in the mirror and am shocked by what I see. A bruise sits high on my cheek bone. My semi- curly/ semi- wavy hair has somehow gotten darker. The only things that kind've are similar to Johanna are my freckles from working in the woods and my slanted nose I had been fortunate enough to inherit from my mother. Otherwise, I would have my father's bumpy and knotted one. A door, I didn't know was there opens and Johanna is dragged in by two guards. She is soaking wet. Her long hair hangs over her face, her feet are dragged lazily. They slump her against the wall. Awake, she is awake. One guard leaves and another stays for a moment.
"I'll try to sneak some more over later Jo but right now I can't risk anything." He hurries after the other guard. Another tan tray of food it tossed in and their brief visit is over. No one noticed me. I realize it is because I am in the corner, the only blindspot, the reason Johanna must like it so much. She always preferred night to day. She said the stars made her happier because she could look up and see them without blinding herself. She moans and I look over at her. She has a paper robe, thrown sloppily over her back. She is leaned against a wall.
"Help." She says hoarsely. I run over to her and on my way grab a piece of bread. I give it to her to eat, but instead, she uses it to try and wipe all the water off her body.
"Jo-" I start to say, she stops me. She is shaking.
"Don't even try to understand. Let me do it." I grit my teeth and back up, taking the chance to take a sip of water. I sit until she is almost dry.
"Jo, who was that guy? The one who said he'd be back?" She smirks.
"Zeb, he's an underground rebel worker, he helps me out, he's gonna help us get out of here."
"What does he do?" She thinks, it's like her brain has a stopper in it.
"He brings me cloth sometimes, and more food and he also brought a heater in last winter." She speaks slowly, with a slur. There must be a catch. "But, I have to serve him in exchange we talk sometimes and sometimes he wants a hug. He's focusing on getting medicine for my legs. That's what's holding us back from escaping. It costs a lot." She begins to cough again. I quickly grab one of the rags from her corner. She grips my arm. Through her teeth, she says, "Don't ever go back in there. That is mine. Do. Not. Touch. Anything." Its times like these my sister really scares me. Back home, she would only get like that when she couldn't hear herself think, or she was really trying to keep mom from her rages.
My mother had once been normal. She wasn't gorgeous, but she wasn't ugly either. She was an average District 7 citizen. Her father had been a jack, and her mother had been a climber, like me, but she didn't climb as high, just to get certain spot on certain trees to find berries and things for the family to live on. My mother was one of the select few in the district who had a difference in looks. She had tan skin, and small eyes, in opposition with the regular olive skin and big eyes but she had the same gorgeous hair as any "sevie" would. My mother was sent to the factory at age 7 and because of how small she was, they made her go under the machines to get broken parts. Her friend, Marcella went in to get some sort of piece and several days later was brought out in pieces. My mother never let herself live that down and no one knows why that was except her. It tore her to pieces and she'd never been the same since. The only thing my mother loved and vice versa was my father. She would become fully alive with him and those were the only times when he was happy. The demons that usually possessed them in such different ways would be rid and we would see who they really were. It was true love. Because of my mother's fits, Johanna had always been the true mother of the family. My father was gone so often that she also filled his role too. My father kept his addiction to nevaeh sap a secret until after mother died. He would come home at 4 in the morning instead of two. He had craved it since grade school. Nevaeh sap is a black, tar substance that can only enter your body through your arm with a syringe. It makes you incomprehensible and you become a sort of vegetable on it. It comes from the Neveah tree, one I don't dare climb. They are full of dangerous, ravenous creatures that are high on the stuff as well. The tree is full of it and you have to tap it to get it. My father paid a jack named Lars to tap it for him. He spent my mother's funeral costs on an extra surplus of it after she died. I think Johanna had once loved my mother. I believe that was the only person she ever loved because she felt she could fix them. That's the thing with Johanna, she always tries to fix things, and it makes her feel like she's needed. She tries to fix things that don't need fixing, like me I don't even want fixing.
She eventually gains back her strength and drags herself into her corner. When I wake up, I see Zeb sitting by the place where the door is. He eyes me. He has light brown hair, and small blue eyes. He is very pale, nothing impressive except maybe his height. He is very lean and tall and it makes me think of a jack back home. Except, a jack back home wouldn't have light brown hair unless he was albino, his hair is a rarity and you are especially considered a catch back in 7 because everyone craves what they can't have. I realize I've been staring at him and he's waiting for a word I think of what will make Jo happiest.
"A comb." I say quietly. I realize what he must think of me, Johanna's scrawny little sister who can't keep anyone alive.
"What?" He scoots closer.
"Bring Johanna a comb. It's what she wants, I can tell." I look over at her tiny sleeping body. He smirks.
"You know she really loves you." I shake my head in doubt. She has truly always loathed me. Halfway because I really was my mother's favorite and halfway because she couldn't fix me.
"She took your session too. Said you knew nothing." He smirks again. I have no idea what he means.
"What session?"
"Interrogating, they hurt you for answers, she didn't think you deserved that with you not knowing or anything." I look over at her.
"Why would she do that? What do they do to you?"
"For everyone its different. For Peeta, they make him watch reruns of his games and alternate his mind on them." Peeta. He is here and alive. And Zeb acts so nonchalant about their acts of torture. Amazing, yet terrifying. "For Enobaria, they show her mercy, which terrifies her. And for your sister," I look up at this, "They soak her, and shock her. It was the only way they could think of not coming in contact with her. She's an animal in there. She goes rabid. They were actually afraid of her. She's so defiant under anything, so…tempting. It's like she dares you to try and reckon with her. They stand behind one sided glass and she's on the other side. The rooms all white except for this pool in the middle. They tie her from a rope in the middle of the ceiling. The pool looks serene, but it's actually lined with coils. They drop her in up to her neck in 10 second intervals, and lace the pool with electricity. The questioning usually lasts about 10 minutes, but since she spared you it was 20. It is usually a question per electrocution if she doesn't answer." I am in shock, I sit against the wall. There's so much detail, such meticulous planning that goes into those acts of torture.
"A comb." I repeat. "She wants a comb."
"Sounds good to me, but it'll cost her-"
"No." I interrupt. "It will cost me, I will pay for everything now, not Johanna. I will order everything and I will pay for it." He tenses up.
"Very well, but it'll cost you," he thinks, "A story for everything I bring about back home. In 7, Johanna never talks to me, and I'm lonely."
"Fine, but I want a story back." We shake on it and he promises me the comb. I recede to a warm spot under the moonlight and curl up on Johanna's discarded paper robe. I look over at her, totally submerged in darkness, just like she wants.
In my nightmares, I am Johanna and I relive everything, the games, trying desperately to get home but being held in the captive, going in a second time, feeling hate for Katniss every step of the way. I am forced to love her and protect her. My jealousy for Peeta and how I nearly kill her to save her like they want. And this is how they repay me? By sending me captive by the Capitol, and now my family is dead except for my sister and it's her fault. Now I feel hatred over myself. Johanna hates me, I ruined her hopes of getting back home.
I wake up cold and I see the paper robe is off of me and I am left in the hospital gown they gave me. I crawl over and see that Johanna has it over her along with rags. I roll my eyes and pull it off of her. Before I can go back to my spot, a hand grasps my ankle. I freeze. Her grip is so tight. Nails, left unfiled from not doing work sink in my skin. I have forgotten her strength. It is unmarked, that's the reason she worked with the jacks.
"That's mine."
"You have all that." She scowls and doesn't let go. She digs in deeper and begins to yell.
"DO YOU KNOW WHAT I'M DOING FOR YOU? DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA!" I try to shake her off but that makes it hurt worse. Its like reasoning with a two year old who doesn't understand how to share.
"Johanna, let me go!" I scream it. "You have your rags I need something!"
She starts to scream like an animal with gurgling strangled cries. I drop the paper robe and flock by the door terrified out of my mind. Zeb comes in to respond to her screams and he is with several other guards, he looks panicked in his eyes, but on the outside he is very cool, and sharp. They grab her arm and the third guard hands Zeb a syringe. He bites his lip for only a second before shoving it in her arm, they all file out, except for Zeb, who says he is required to stay until the drug wears off.
"What is it? Will she die?" he looks at me, still in Peacekeeper mode.
"No." He sits against the wall. "It will subdue her. In the mean time, I want a story." I glance at her.
"When will it wear off?"
" 2 days, so get talking."
"Well, in 7, our main business is lumber. In order to cut down a tree, you have to have 2 lumberjacks, and a picker. I was a picker. It was my job to collect all the branches before the tree is cut down. Typically, a small girl does this. So I climb up the tree and pick them. It takes a lot of training to learn how to balance on thin branches. Usually, you're sent to the factory that makes the trees into paper. It stinks and it creates a dull, miserable life for the workers. Johanna and I were lucky enough to be tiny so we both were pickers, but Johanna got too big, the jacks kept her around and she would help a lot, bring them cider and things like that."
He smiles. "And your family?" I tense up.
"I had a sister who was younger; her name was Nessarose, Nessa for short. She was 6 so she wasn't in training for anything, just school. My mom, she worked in the factory and my dad split his time between overseer of the factory and a jack."
"Johanna, did she have friends?"
"Just the jacks." He smiles. I go over to Johanna to collect my paper robe. He points to my leg.
"Let me fix that for you." He tells me to lick part of the robe he rips off. "It stops the flow of the blood." The warmth of the healing surprises me. I'm about to slip away to sleep when he chuckles, "You know Mason, you're alright." I smirk as I fall asleep.