okay so how long has it been? well I'm getting better at this poster sooner and sooner thing. I'm always checking my email to see if my followed stories have posted. Then when they haven't I get so angry when in reality I bet to some of you I do that. i'm sorry. Soooooo don't hate me but I had already had this partailly drafted out when you guys exploded my email with your reviews. I love you all! *hold that thought* until you read the story... Literally the amount of support is something I never imagined but now that it's here I'm going to be a bit selfish and ask it doesn stop... Is that too much to ask? I don't know yet. But happy Valnetines Day I added a bit of potential love interest for y'all. If you have the snow like the northeast does enjoy it.
Disclaimer: I will never own the Hunger Games as long as I live :(
Rye POV
I was expecting a burly man to come pounding into the house. My nose was preparing itself for a sharp tang of alcohol cologne. Instead, a sweet undeterminable scent invaded my senses. The boy more like a man standing in my doorway was no Haymitch.
"Rye let Haymitch in already suppers on the table." Mom yelled from the kitchen. My heart was pounding at more than a million times a second and I felt as if I would spew all over the boy.
"Y-y-yeah okay mom." I felt queasier by the minute. His tousled golden locks and eyes remind just seem so familiar. As much as I think that, I would be frightened to see a stranger on my doorstep curiosity pushes it out of my mind. I know everyone in district 12 so who could this man be if he seems like I know him. Just in case my pesky brain was pulling tricks on me, again I slowly worked my fingers down to my pearl ring and pinched it open. The little spikes sticking out made the situation seem all too much like déjà vu. I was expecting him to notice the spikes and back off but he just gave me a hearty laugh. Why would he laugh at a weapon? What was wrong with him?
"Really? We're going to go through you trying to disarm me again? When are you not wearing your little spike ring?" So he did know who I was… "Here I'll reintroduce myself. I'm Flint, remember now?" Flint? Wait he was the boy I almost stabbed in the bookstore in two, right? How on earth did he remember me so clearly? "You said that we would meet again... I guess that meant that I had to come find you. Well, if I had known that you would never come back I wouldn't have said it Miss Mellark."
"I f I am remembering our meet up clearly I'm pretty sure I said perhaps. How on Earth did you find me anyway?"
"You're Rye Mellark how can someone not find you. The capitol knows everything about you and I'm pretty sure everyone in all of Panem knows that the Mellarks live in District 12 in their victor's houses that they won after the Hunger Games. They were the only things left in District 12 after the bomb destroyed everything." He was cute as he cocked his head to the right as he spewed facts that only a little book nerd who studied the rebellion too hard would know. His golden hair shinned with the light coming from inside the house and caught his green eyes making them twinkle. "Can I at least come in and we can talk? I've been dying to meet your parents as well." I couldn't just let the poor man stand on my doorstep all night so I let him in.
"Can you do me a favor though?"
"Sure I guess."
"Go into that room while I talk to my parents." I gestured the room where Blaze was waiting for me to return to him. "My brother is in there and probably would love to talk to you. I'll be right back."
I walked away to the kitchen so I could break the news that we would be having some company.
Blaze POV
I sat on the couch to read some of my book while Rye let Haymitch in. What was taking her so long to do so? Haymitch has been over our home a million times, there was no need to have a proper welcoming discussion before she let him in. Maybe she was just in the middle of a conversation with him.
"Hello?" A deep unfamiliar voice rang out into the entrance and I froze up. Who could possibly be standing feet away from me right now? Did this man do something to Rye and decide to come after me next? Slowly I turned my head and a handsome young man maybe a year older than Rye was standing there. Nothing about him screamed danger. So I decided to start a conversation.
"Hey, I'm Blaze Mellark and you are?"
He gave me a warm smile and his odd features almost glowed. "Flint."
"Well, Flint do you have a last name?" He laughed at my question almost like a joke.
"It's funny because as curious your sister is she has never bothered to ask for my last name. But you, a boy I have met for less than a minute asks me it."
I was confused this man knew my sister. "I'll drop the question if you just tell me how you know my sister."
"That is an easy answer. We met when she was in district two, two years ago." He smiles as if he is remembering something funny that only you could laugh at if you were there. An inside joke.
"She got busted for that visit bad. Of course, like always, she didn't get into trouble for it but she still never went back again. That was the first time she told Mom and Dad that she went to district 2. She told me afterwards that she had been going there instead of Grandmas. "
"So who was she seeing while in District 2 if that wasn't the first time she when?" I shrugged my shoulders. She never had told me why and I hadn't pressed on the situation. I had my theories but now that we trusted each other with practically everything, I decided she would tell me when she felt like it. "You don't even know? You're her brother I though you would know."
"Nope. That's one Everdeen-Mellark mystery."
"Dinner!" Dad's voice echoed through the entire house and just in time because my stomach was rumbling.
"Flint? Don't say anything on district 2. It's a touchy subject that has been quickly dropped in the family."
"Sure."
Rye POV
Mom and Dad did not react the way I thought they would. They were almost overjoyed to have company of mine. Dad tried to make dinner as fancy as he could so that he would impress Flint. Mom just sat on the island counter in a daze watching dad cook. I swear the rumors of my mother being an emotionless less, serious person is not about her. All of my seventeen years I have only seen her smile and passionate. Some people have told me that Mom never really loved dad but how could that be true?
At least dinner was almost done before Flint arrived or else it would have been another hour before we could eat. When they finally called everyone one to dinner my nerves wound back up again. What if Flint said something about where we met? My parents may just kick both of us out and send us back to district 2. Mom set the table, flinging Dad's plates of food across to each table place. Dad looked a little unsure of moms behavior worried that the food would slip off the table. He had even brought out the good silverware tonight.
Blaze escorted Flint into the kitchen and everyone quickly settled into his or her places. Flint smiled warmly at mom and dad then waited for them to eat.
"So your name is Flint?"
"Yes sir, as in the stuff you can start a fire with." He flashed his perfect teeth and winked at my mother who blushed furiously. "Ironic how you're the girl on fire."
"I was the girl on fire. The past tense is implied. Now, I just a mother to my two normal temperature children."
"Mom! We are not children anymore" Blaze whined making his statement very false.
"There, there little Jay eat your venison." Everyone at the table laughed and for a while, we all focused on the meal. Dad once again tried to spark up conversation.
"So how old are you son?"
"Well, I'm getting older every day but currently I have been around this place for 18 years." Why did he turn everything into a joke?
"That's a whole lot less than I have been in Panem." The two exchanged jokes like they had known each other for years.
"So since you're an adult do you have a job?"
"I had one at a bookstore in district two from the age sixteen to seventeen. I really loved it there because the books were so comforting to just soak up all that knowledge. However, I really missed my home and after all my education through school, my parents wanted me to do something with my life. I graduated from school and now I am enjoying my last month of freedom before I start my serious job. I'm going to be a politician out in the capitol. My parents aren't thoroughly pleased but to turn down such a high up job is a joke and it's a completely new world. Prejudice is not an answer anymore."
Mom took in his words like air. It almost refreshed her because I saw her eyes literally twinkle when she listened to his last sentence. Maybe just those few words had changed her views.
"I think that you are an incredibly intelligent young man to have such open eyes to the world." Mom choked on her last words and if I was seeing this with my own eyes, I think she started to tear up.
"It's not hard when you have never had to live through with what you two suffered."
I can't help but jump into the discussion now. "Who taught you so much about the rebellion Flint?" Mom and Dad exchanged wide-eyed glances and when mom puts her hand on dad's shoulder, he tenses up. Dad's eyes go distant and he grimaces. Mom immediately jumps out of her chair and runs across the room.
"Come on guys let's go into the living room and we can watch some television and talk in a more comfortable environment." Mom tugs at my shirt and ushers me out into the hall. What is going on!
"Mom something is wrong with dad and you just want to leave him alone in the kitchen!?" I break out of her grasp and go to run back to him.
"RYE ROSE MELLARK STOP IMMEDIATELY YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT'S WRONG! YOU CAN'T STOP IT!" I ignore my mother's warning and rush over to my father whose fingers are now digging into the wooden table. His eyes are squinting and I can't tell something is hurting him not physically but mentally.
"Dad relax I love you. It's Rye your daughter…." I hug him and he pushes me away.
"You look like that mutt… get away!" What mutt? I back away slowly and run into the living room with everyone.
Mom looks up at me with pained eyes. "I should have told you before Rye and Blaze." Flint just bites his lip like he already knows why dad is going insane.
'Will he be okay Mom?" She runs her hands through my hair brushing lightly braiding it like she used to when I was little and couldn't style my own hair.
"Peeta- Dad will be fine. He hasn't had an attack in more than seventeen years. During the rebellion, after we were pulled out of the Quell he has taken by the capitol. The capitol highjacked his brain and ever since it made him get these bad memories of me, like I am a mutation and evil. "
"Does all of Panem know about this?"
Dad walks in highly embarrassed rubbing his temples. "No absolutely not. Most rebels do or did but they never brought it out to the public really and I sincerely thank them for it." He kisses moms forehead and pulls her onto his lap on the couch.
"Then how does Flint know…" Everyone turns to look at him. His hair has taken on a spiky look instead of messy now.
"Flint how do you know something so personal? There's no way it was in those books of yours…" He looks so nervous like he's about to throw up all over the carpet. Just as he begins to open his mouth, Haymitch comes busting through the doors.
"HEY EVERYONE I HEARD THE MASON BOY WAS HERE!" Haymitch throws his arms up holding a large bottle of wine in one hand. "WHY DIDN'T YOU GUYS INVITE ME TO THE VICTOR FAMILY PARTY?"
All our eyes fly back to Flint and he blushes.
Blaze is the first one to ask the long awaited question… "You're Johanna Mason's son?"
Not too long... Sad I know but would you rather long and long wait or short and quicker? Honestly i would love to know. Did you guys see that coming? And if you thought it was Gale or Bow I appologize but I'm saying right now that they will be back i swear. I hate to leave off on a cliff hanger but it makes me write the next chapter faster because I feel wicked guilty.
until next time! love all of you reviewers/readers/followers/favorites :)
SHOUTOUTS?!
keroppi2471
LeslieMellark
kayola15
Pamluvzu2
samiesimpson1
Littledolphin2000
THGlover4life
DomiHearts1497
azflower
Laxgirl92
skybrezz everdeen