Early because Thanksgiving and we're going out of town, because of that the next chapter probably won't be till this weekend or early next week. Phoenix should be updated later this evening.

Please note that I have changed this rating to Mature.

Disclaimer: This chapter deals with rape.

"If so, then it was also here where I came to know I can survive what hurts. I believed in my capacity to stand back up and run into the waves again and again, no matter the risk."
― Terry Tempest Williams, When Women Were Birds: Fifty-four Variations on Voice

From the time I was three until age six, my cousin Tristan Harless lived in our District. His mother was my mother's only surviving sibling. My grandmother had lost three sons, another daughter, three grandchildren and her husband by the time Tristan and I were born.

We were born close together-only days apart and in the same house before his mother left for District Six with her husband. My mother missed her desperately-they had hoped to raise us together but the Capitol had moved them.

When I was three, he came back.

Tristan, Alaric, and I would spend long summer evenings playing outside. We ran and climbed trees while our mothers washed clothes for the Peacekeepers. Their voices would float to us and we knew without a doubt that we were safe.

They would sing sweet songs of mountains and valleys, of hopes and sorrows-and as always there were the songs from the wars of brothers. That's what we called it. It happened long ago, when we were still the United States of America. Brothers fought and died, and for some reason we didn't understand they called it "civil."

We were inseperable, we didn't need anyone but each other.

Then one day, a family came to our District from 4. The father was a mechanic-tall with bright red hair, and the mother was petite and gorgeous. All of the peacekeeper's stared at her no matter how she tried to hide her beauty.

Their daughter, Victoria was freckled and red-headed. She was long-limbed and full of energy. In no time, she was one of us. She could climb just as well as us and she could swim so much better.

Her mother washed with ours, but now the peacekeepers stayed around no matter how silent Victoria's mother remained. They fought for her attention. One of the men kept putting his hand on her thigh.

We were five when Victoria's father died.

We were playing in a tree when we heard the scuffle . Victoria's mother was on the ground, the buckets of water overturned and the suds drifting lazily on the dirt. Her father was scuffling with a peacekeeper, and her mother was yelling. They knocked her father down, and he stayed there as they pulled a gun on him.

Victoria tried to jump out of the tree and run to him, but I held her tightly while the boys helped to hold her and keep her quiet.

We couldn't hear the words, but we watched as one of the officers shrugged his shoulders and then fired his gun into Victoria's father's face.

Red exploded like a smooshed tomato, and it pooled around his fallen body like a puddle. We were taken aback by what had happened. We had never seen death-at least not violent death before.

Victoria's mother was screaming, cradling the body to hers. She was covered in some r point, we realized it was blood.

We let Victoria down from the tree, but instead of running to her family-she ran the other way as my mother screamed for her.

I ran after her as fast as I could, fighting to catch up with her. Finally, she slowed running out of breath from sobbing. She flung herself on the ground, gripping the blades of grass in her hand as she wailed.

I laid down beside her on the grass, and put my hand on her back as she sobbed-and I sobbed too. Before long, we were wrapped together there on the ground sobbing. That's how my mother

found us.

That night I went outside to find a toy I had left, but instead I found Victoria's mother standing with a soldier inches away from her. "If you don't, she'll die." He pulls up her skirt in the fading light, leaning her against the wall. She sees me, her face streaked with tears.

Slowly I back away, and then I run home.

Victoria's mother hardly ever spoke after that. She covered the bruises as best as she could, but everyone knew. My parents tried to protect them as much as they could, but when Victoria's aunt on her father's side came to get her Victoria's mother begged for her not to take her from her.

I still remember the fury of her words, the harsh voice as she told her, "I won't let my niece stay with some whore."

Victoria didn't want to leave, she cried and begged but in the end she had no choice. Tristan was the one that found her mother hanging the next day, he was six. I never saw him smile again.

It seemed as though I was losing everything, a day at a time. A week before my birthday, they were moved back to six. I didn't see him again until we were ten.

My father and mother received news when I was eight that Vicoria's aunt had died, she was set to go to the Community Center. With some difficulty my parents got work visas for four, and for the few weeks they worked there.

Using all the money they had scrimped and saved, they were able to get Victoria a visa to go back and live with us. She became my sister.

She lived with us for a year before the visa was rescinded, and back she went to four. Neither of us cried, we wouldn't give them the satisfaction.

She was taken in by a nice old woman in four named Melanthe-who had no children. She needed help bringing in her catches. They grew close, Melanthe was like a grandmother to her. Together they saved each other from loneliness.

I always looked forward to Victoria's visits, they were some of the best moments of my childhood. We would swim, we would hunt on our allowed hunting days, and we would talk.

Each time she visited, I saw how beautiful she was becoming.

Her fiery red hair was straight, and instead of being glaring or loud-it set her apart in beauty. The freckles on her face disappeared though a few remained on her shoulders. Her eyes were so green that they looked like emeralds. And little by little, she started developing womanly curves.

I became afraid for her. She was as beautiful, if not more so than her mother.

A few weeks after her thirteenth birthday, we went to visit.

It was late, we were down at the docks when they came. My parents were with old Melanthe, and we were fixing nets in the fading light. We were the last ones there. I didn't even see them coming.

Something exploded in my head, my face slamming into the boards of the dock. I could feel blood in my mouth, my body was sore probably bruising. My head throbbed, waves of dizziness overcoming me and making me feel sick. I try to push myself up, but something hits me hard again. I slam into the wood harder.

Through blood and tears I see Victoria there beside me. One man holds her arms pinned above her, and another is laying over the top of her. She screams but one of the men hits her hard and her head jerks violently to the side.

Dimly it registers in my mind, rape.

They're raping her.

I push myself up again, a boot hits me hard in the face. I can feel my nose break and blood gushing everywhere. I struggle to get up again, but the boot is now firmly between my shoulder blades pinning me down. I struggle against the weight and I choke out her name, "Victoria!"

Her glazed eyes flick to me, and her lips move not even a whisper-Stay down.

But I don't listen, all I can see is that she's hurting that they're doing something terrible. I fight harder against whoever is holding me down. The butt of a gun rushes toward my face, and I black out.

…

I wake up to screams. My mother is sobbing, holding me when my eyes flicker open. I realize now that she thought I was dead. "Victoria," I croak out as I'm lifted up. The motion of whoever carries me makes me sick, I fight to choke back the vomit. What seems like an eternity later, I'm laying in cool sheets.

I call for her again, I beg for her and then she is there. Her face is bloody and bruised, there are terrible bruises along her neck, arms and legs. I sob through my broken nose until I can't breathe, until my mother forces me to take some cough syrup to sleep.

The days pass like agony, I'm able to get up after four days. Everything still tilts and whirls, but it's better than before. Victoria can barely move though. It's an effort for her to sit up let alone walk across the floor.

At night, when I lie down beside her I tell her, "I'm sorry. I should have helped."

Her broken lips tilt into a smile, "You took a beating to save me."

"But it didn't help," I hold onto her broken hand gently.

"It did," she whispers. "It helped me be strong. We're alive." We fall asleep like that.

It's been three weeks since then, my head still bothers me and Victoria has just gotten to the point where she can start to work again. I'm sleeping when she wakes me.

"Emera," her voice is soft and low.

I stroke the hair back from her face, but she takes my hand. "What?" I ask as gently as possible.

Her eyes are shining bright with tears when I look at her and her voice is filled with heartbreak, "I think...I think I'm pregnant."

She doesn't cry at first, but I do. I lay in bed beside her and she clings to me-our arms and legs intangling. We lay there together for hours, and all I can think of is that she's only thirteen, that I love her, and that she doesn't deserve this.

But no one does.

She gets up and goes back to working the next day, I help her haul in the nets and I hold her hair as she vomits discreetly as possible. I notice that her small breasts are starting to show more.

That night, I hold her hand as she tells Melanthe, as she tells my parents that she's pregnant. There is nothing but silence at first. Her hand goes to her stomach protectively, "I'm going to keep it. I know...no one would blame me if I didn't. But...I didn't do anything wrong, and neither-neither did it."

Over the months of coming and going to four, I watched Victoria's stomach grow. At first people avoided her and shunned her. Then one day, Adrianna Isen brought her some baby clothes and told her she was proud of her.

Little by little the attitude of everyone changed. Victoria's life and smile was infectious if few and far between. Her work ethic and her simple faith were admired. At nine months pregnant at thirteen, she would haul in as many nets as boys a few years older than her.

By some grace, I was there when she gave birth. I sat behind her and wiped the sweat from her face for hours and coaxed her while she pushed. Twenty-seven hours later, a squalling beautiful baby girl was born.

I held Victoria from behind as she held her daughter for the first time. Dark hair, beautiful green eyes-and petite at only five pounds. I'd never seen Victoria smile so much as when she held her, and while the baby drank from her breast for the first time she told us the name she'd decided-Melanthe Aurelia Hawthorne, after her mother and the woman who took her in.

We stayed friends though we didn't get to see each other as often anymore. Despite how small Melanthe was at birth, she flourished. She was Victoria's pride and joy. We wrote each other often, and I received photo after photo of them.

By the time, I was 14 I hadn't seen Victoria for over a year. They arrived-Victoria, Melanthe and baby Melanthe-two weeks before my fifteenth birthday and the start of the revolution.