Cato and Clove parted ways at the end of Clove's perfectly paved brick drive. Clove's house was a large unwelcoming gray stone house with two stories and a balcony jutting out the side. She pushed open the gate on her tall rod iron fence walked and up the drive, every muscle in her body aching from her intense pre-testing workout. Clove smirked as she passed the lion statutes at the base of the steps leading up to her porch. The lions were the only decorations, aside from a few twisted thorn bushes, on the Sevinas' vast lawn. The lions were like the kind you would see outside a library or town hall except for their posture. While most were carved looking superior and serene the Sevinas' had one lion ripping another's throat open. Clove remembered picking them out with her father when she was five, one of the only happy memories she had with her father. Clove pushed open the heavy double doors to her home and was greeted with the smell of furniture polish and leather.
"Hello?" Clove called out. She was greeted by no response except her own echo ringing out through the marble foyer. She assumed both of her parents were still at work. Clove rubbed her biceps, regretting the intensity of her workout. She needed to be in good shape for the physical test the next day. She suddenly remembered her dad had a jar of muscle relief gel in his room. Clove wasn't technically allowed to use it since her parents wanted her to "power through the pain" but they didn't have to know. She climbed upstairs and into her parents' bedroom. She walked into the attached bathroom and tried to open the medicine cabinet but it was locked. She snatched a bobby pin off of the counter and jammed it in the lock. She wriggled it around for a minute until she heard the tumblers in the lock turn. She opened the medicine cabinet and grabbed the blue canister she was looking for. She slathered the cool gel allover her body sighing with relief. As she was exiting the bedroom she tripped and hit the ground with a thud.
Some career you are, klutzy girl. She could practically hear her father's voice in her head. She sat up and turned around to see what had caused her fall.
That's weird, she thought. Sticking out from underneath her parents' bed was a dusty discolored shoebox. A tiny part of her head screamed not to open it, fearful of the repercussions if she was caught. However, a much larger part of her head told her to open the damn thing. She ripped the lid off and was hit by a wave of dust and a cloud of musty smelling air. The box contained yellowed report cards, tests and other papers related to Clove's history. Under the papers there were stacks of dusty faded photos held together by old rubber bands. Clove attempted to take the rubber band off of the first stack and it snapped. She looked at the photo on the top of the stack and saw her ten year old face staring back at her, there was nothing special about the phot or really any of the rest of the stack. I few caught her eye as she delved deeper into her past. She smiled at a picture of her laughing as Cato gave her a piggyback ride. She chuckled at a picture of herself beaming excitedly and standing in front of her first ever bull's-eye. Clove found it endearing but strange that her parents kept this box. They had never been the sentimental type and she wasn't surprised the box looked like it hadn't been touched in years. They must've stopped adding pictures after she reached puberty and stopped being cute. She looked at the other stacks of photos and they were more or less the same as the first. She was about to but the box away when a thick stack at the bottom caught her eye. As she pulled it out she noticed it looked even older than the rest. Looking at the first picture she noticed something even stranger, it didn't have her in it. Instead, the picture had a boy around Clove's current age with floppy brown hair and piercing gray eyes. He looked a lot like her father and she considered the possibility of it being a photo of him at a young age. This theory was dismissed when she saw the next photo of the strange boy standing next to Clove's mother. Her mother looked about 20 or 30 but the boy was five. She had never seen a cousin that looked like the boy and the photos had no captions. She was about to look for more photos of the boy when she was interrupted by her Rottweiler, Hatchet, barking in the yard and her garage door opening. Clove made a snap decision and stuffed the photos down her shirt. She closed the old box and shoved it back under the bed as she ran out of her parents' bedroom. She didn't know who the boy was but something in his icy cold stare made her want to find out.
A/N: Hope you enjoyed my second chapter, please review.