First! Let me answer a few questions.
1) No, the story isn't almost over. Katniss figuring out who she is is just the first half of the story sillies. :3 (She's still going to need to convince some people she's who she is, also figure out why she was allowed to go back.
2) Katrina isn't going away in a chapter or two, more like five or so.
3) I had something here, but I forgotted. :\
4) If you have any suggestions or what not for the story, put em in a review or a PM and I'll take note, I know where this story is going, but how to get there there's a lot of wiggle room, I am open to suggestions. :3
Motrin doesn't rid me of my migraine, neither does water, my only choice is to run from it.
Boy do I ever. I'm only in one race today, and 800 meter, I try to fight through the pain as I warm up and soon it's just a dull roar.
"You look hung over, Charity Case," Glimmer sneers.
"No, I just got sick seeing you wear walk of shame make-up. It'll pass," I smile as we line up. Four laps, that's all I need to run then I'm done for the day… Well, kind of. I steal a final glance at my "family" now joined by Gale, Finnick, Johanna, Annie and Madge, all of whom could have spent their Saturday sleeping in but instead came to probably see me fail miserably.
"Ready? On your mark, get set," we all drop back our feet on the pedal like thing behind us to make it easier to kick off, I steal one last look at Peeta "Go!" it's that second of hesitation that gives Dina Glimmer the inside from the get go, though quickly we're neck and neck fighting for the inside, she doesn't taunt me this time, putting all her focus on trying to win.
One lap down, my headache is almost gone, I can see clearly.
Lap two, I've managed to cut in front of her now she's forced to either run behind me or run on my outside. The first stretch she's quiet… Then it begins.
"Enjoying another family's wealth while you can? The second you turn eighteen you'll be on the streets like your crack addicted mother," she sneers. I'm not playing her game.
"Actually, my momma was addicted to heroin, if you're going to be a bitch, at least get your facts right," I retort.
"You'll be just like her someday."
I bite my lip and she takes the lead.
"Oh fuck no…" I mutter, I know pushing myself with half a lap now is probably not the best option, but she wasn't going to win. I put all my energy into the last one hundred and fifty or so meters, everything I have, every muscle, every nerve burning but I somehow manage to push in front of her. My body doesn't give out, somehow I've managed to place first, only slowing after I've reached the finish line, making my way off the track and onto the lush grass where I collapse, my chest heaving.
Fatigue finally catching up on me, coach Trinket comes up to me, handing me my water, "That was fantastic, a little risky and two people from the same school shouldn't be so bitter, but that was a two even. I sit up, my jaw dropping, I had just tied Katniss Everdeen's eight hundred meter record, "We'll practice much more after school, getting you up to the fifteen hundred, then the mile…" there was another shot from the gun signaling the runners to go, "Oh I just love that," she smiles, hugging me, "Now I heard you have to run. I'll see you in gym Monday," I nod heading out the gate. The first to pounce on me is Madge, followed by her other half Annie.
"You're like a rabbit!" Madge squeals.
"You know, except for the whole humping thing…" Johanna adds, elbowing me as Madge and Annie squeeze the air out of me.
"Beautiful Johanna, supportive as ever," Finnick rolls his eyes, "You are on land what Annie and I are in the water, not bad new girl."
Gale's the one to finally mention the elephant in the room, "With any luck you'll break all of my cousin's records before school lets out," I bit my lip, he said it with such disdain.
"I… I have to get going, thanks guys, I'll see you later," I push away, past everyone, even past Peeta as I go to my gym bag and pull my hoodie over my sweaty body. I needed a shower and would only have a short time before we leave for Graterford so I can see the man who fathered me.
They all congratulate me in the car, but I feel so guilty that I just nodded and smiled and thanked them.
Could I really replace all of Katniss's records? Maybe if I hallucinated her again I could ask.
My headache returns just at the thought of her reducing me into a crumpled blubbering mess in the bottom of the shower, "Am I really doing this…" I whisper to myself, in a ball letting the water beat down on me. I could only waste a few minutes like this, but I was soaking them up.
'You have to…' Katniss whispers, but it comes from my mouth.
"Please get out of my head… Please!" I sob.
'It will stop hurting once I remember…'
"Remember what?" there's no answer.
There's a knock on my door as I'm braiding my damp hair, "Come in," I call.
"Hey…" Peeta sits down on my bed, "Gale just called, he feels really bad at snapping at you earlier…"
"It's fine… I feel like sometimes I'm coming here and I'm… Unjustly claiming her spot in your lives…" I tie the band around my hair, securing my braid, "I understand if he's angry…"
"Katrina, you're… Similar to Katniss, but you're not her. No offence but you'll never take her spot in our lives, but you've made your own. Gale's just taking everything one step slower than the rest of us… Ok?"
I just nod, "I don't want someone thinking I'm taking his place… Enough people already think I'm leeching off you guys…" I grumble, staring at my reflection.
"Well… You don't believe them, do you?" I just shrug, maybe Glimmer is right, maybe I am already a leech.
"Listen… I have to go…" my heart stings when I see how down this boy is, "Erm… You can come if you want? I'm going to need a lot of moral support. You're not going to be able to go in with me… but before and after," I nervously pulled at my hair, stroking each bump of my braid.
"Are you sure?"
I nod, smiling faintly and offering my hand, "I'm afraid…" I whisper, "That they'll put me with him like they did my momma…" I whisper, not wanting anyone to hear.
"My mom and dad won't let them they'll-"
"It's not up to them… it's up to the courts…" I shrug, only time will tell.
Graterford State Prison is nestled in a small town named Skippack were Graterford road turns to Prison Road, though the surrounding area is perfect, bucolic even, it doesn't hide the barbed wire fences and violent offenders behind the walls.
"Name?" a woman behind thick glass asked through a crackly speaker. Doors slammed all round me as guards escorted visitors and inmates from area to area.
"K-Katrina DeAuguste," I stutter, my anxiety and headache already wearing me down.
"Who are you here to see?"
I gulp, what was my father's name? He was always 'your father' or 'pops' or 'that bastard who knocked me up' when my mother talked about him, "Liam DeAuguste," I tell her, remembering the return address on the letter I received earlier this week.
I scratched at the back of my calf with my sneaker, my sore legs wanting to give out, "Ah yeah, ol' Liam's been saying you'd be by soon… How old are you?"
"S-sixteen," I stammer, drumming my fingers nervously.
"Whoever's got custody of you, they're gonna need to give you permission to go back there and see your old man," I nod but Thomas is already here.
"We're right here, and she can go back if she wants," a paper is slid through.
"This gives her permission to go back and see inmate Liam DeAuguste, she will be in an isolated room as per his request."
"His request?" I ask curious.
"Yes, we tend to make certain… exceptions for model inmates, especially when they're seeing their children for the first time in years."
"Model inmate… Aren't they all when they know parole is coming up?" I ask watching the clip board slide back under the glass.
"Not all some just don't care, some put on an act so they can get out sooner…"
"Yeah… like my momma…" I mumble.
She says something without pressing the button and a large guard comes out, "The four of you can follow me," Peeta's at my side in an instant, holding my hand, only letting go when we pass through metal detectors. They frisk me just to be sure I'm not smuggling anything dangerous in, they take my keys and hand them to Lisa who just offers a sad smile as they open the door to a room with a two way glass window.
"He'll be brought in here in five minutes," the guard tells me, "We'll have one guard posted inside, two outside. They can hear everything you say, everything you do, don't try anything funny."
I nod, like what? Try to bust him out? For all I care he could rot forever behind these walls.
Before I enter Peeta pulls me into a hug, "I'm ok…" I tell him.
"I know," he rubs my back a little, reassuringly.
"I-I'm ok," I tell myself before going into the room without a second glance. The only noise is the hum of the lights hanging above my head and the scraping of one of the two chairs across the linoleum floor. I jump at the slam, giving the lone guard a glance before sitting down.
This is it.
The door in the back buzzes and unrestrained comes a worn man, he appears to be about sixty from his appearance but I know it's from years of drug abuse, "Trina, baby girl come give your old man a hug," the door slams trapping me in here with him and a stranger, well two strangers… We haven't been in the same room for eleven years.
"No," I snap getting up when he comes over to me, I have to be strong. I point to the other chair, "Sit down Liam, now."
"Don't you call your father by his first name, that' is disrespectful."
"I haven't seen you in eleven years! My whole life!" I cry, "And besides you're not my dad, you may have fathered me, but you will never be my dad," he sits down, scratching at his arm, I can see the track marks, somehow he's still using.
"That ain't true, I was there until you were five, it's not my fault I'm behind bars!" he snaps.
"Yes! It is! You… You don't get it!"
"He pulled his gun first!"
"You were stealing his car! You paralyzed him! An innocent man will never walk again because you were hotwiring his car with your five year old in the passenger seat!"
"Your momma didn't want you that day, what was I supposed to do? How was I supposed to put food on the table?" so much unsaid that I couldn't understand back then. Now I could… And I still wouldn't forgive him.
"My momma never wanted me, and you know the only reason she stuck around was because you held her down and shot her up every chance you could get. You ruined her!"
"Yeah, well I heard her new guy wasn't much of a winner, though according to the guys on his block he was into the younger crowd," I wince, "He touched you… Didn't he?"
I look away, maybe he was showing genuine concern for his only child (that I knew about)
"Trina damnit look at me, look at your father when he's talking to you," his fist slams on the table and I jump.
"Father's are kind, they're loving, they protect and raise their children… You may have helped create me but you will never be my father!" I hiss shoving the table.
"Hey!" the guard shouts, I sink down, knowing better.
"I'd like to be your father, Trina. I'm getting out in a month, my parole was approved," my heart stopped, "I want you in my life," I ball my fists up trying to breathe deep, calm myself.
"No! It's too late! You're sixteen years too late! If you wanted me in your life you wouldn't have treated momma like you did, or you would have gotten a job instead of open a chop shop! Just leave me! Leave me in the system so I can turn eighteen and-" I cut myself off. What would I do when I was eighteen?
"Trina, you will learn to respect me as your father you-"
"No, don't you come near me!" I stand up too fast my chair knocks back, "When you get out, you get a job and right your life, don't you dare come near mine!" I cry, I couldn't lose my life now, especially to him.
"I have rights as your daddy, you're going to learn that girl."
"I'm going to make sure each and every one of your rights as my father are taken away before you get out of here. When you get out, go back to Philly, hell go back to Puerto Rico and be with your family, do whatever the fuck you want there, as long as I'm kept the hell away from it."
I go for the door, but he speaks once more, "Katrina, why did you come?"
I turn the knob and look back, why was I here?
"Because I had to make sure there wasn't anything I was missing in the last eleven years of my life without you." I tell him finally.
"Well?"
"My life would have been hell even if you stuck around. The only difference would be that you're not sick enough to put your hands on a fourteen-year-old." I don't look back, I don't wait for him to react, I just run out of the room, straight past the Mellark's and into a bathroom to vomit everything in me.
"Shhh…" there's a hand on my back, rubbing up and down, "It'll be all right Katrina…" Lisa promises. I have to believe her, I just have to, "We'll protect you, I promise…" I have to believe her, I just have to.
I seclude myself in my bedroom when we get home pulling the shades and locking the door just so I can stare at the ceiling fan, the wall, anything really.
The twins begin wrestling at some point and I distract myself by listening to their taunts and the thumps of furnature, finally I hear a feminine voice, a familiar one.
"Can't you two keep your hands off each other for two minutes?" it's Johanna, probably here for Peeta.
"I'd rather have my hands elsewhere," Madge giggles from the other room. Bleh.
"Ew, guys seriously, we just got over the vomiting session from the idea of you two together. Can you… you know, with the PDA?" that's Annie, quiet and sensible, though sometimes completely off it.
I continue to hide as people who call me their friend flood the Mellark's house for whatever normal teenagers do on a Saturday evening. I hope they'll forget about me, just let me wallow… No such luck.
"Katrina! Open up!" Madge and Annie call, pounding on my door.
"Hey guys?" Peeta calls, "Why don't you give her some space right now?"
It goes quiet but the pounding never starts again, I do her Peeta's door open and close, then the fire escape creek. My eyes squeezed shut as I pulled the sheet over my head.
"You gonna get up?"
I just groan.
"Come on Kat, it'll be a good distraction," I sit up, hopefully so he can see my tear streaked face and red eyes, but he's not backing down, "Come on, let's get you washed up, you'll feel better," I grunt again and he pulls the sheets from my face, "You can't mope around in your room… It's not good for you," I go to argue that he did the same thing when his friend died, but chose to keep my mouth shut, I didn't need to destroy a friendship I actually treasured.
He pulled me from the bed even though I offered some resistance and lead me to the bathroom, "Do you need help or can you…"
"Thanks Peeta, but I think I can wash my face without your help," I stick out my tongue and he smiles, a small glimmer of hope. If I went back with my father… Would I lose him?
When I got out of the bathroom everyone was in my room. I felt slightly violated, but I couldn't, it wasn't really my house, "So what are we doing tonight," they've managed to somewhat make my bed, only leaning on the decorative pillows. Out of the clock radio I seldom use pours homey country music, a song I know though I shouldn't. It's a song Katniss would know probably.
"Sit," Annie tells me, pointing to my desk chair. I blink, where they going to lecture me? Did they find the journals?
No, Annie and Madge were doing my make-up while Gale and Johanna flipped through Car and Driver, Finnick and Peeta idly making comments about which car they'd die to drive.
"You look just like Aishwarya Rai," I blinked as Madge braided the hair by my temples but kept it loose, "Well… If she and who ever played River Tam had a baby."
"Madge failed biology, and sex ed," Finnick joked, he slapped the bed, "Corvette Stingray, there we go."
"I did not, I was just saying if you take both their features you'd get Katrina… And lob off a few inches."
"Look up," Annie told me before bringing the mascara brush dangerously close to my eye, I wanted to flinch away but she was steady with her hand.
"Please you couldn't handle a Stringray, remember what you did to your uncle's cobra?"
"Yeah, I drove it well and within the speed limit… Until I hit that guardrail," he scratches at the back of his head, "He's stopped sending me money for my birthday, probably to pay for the door… and the side panel."
"Wait… Turn that up…" Gale leans over and turns up the radio, "She wears high heels! I wear sneakers, she's Cheer Captain and I'm on the bleachers!"
"No… No…" Johanna cautions as Madge dives for the bed, resting her head in her lap, "Dreaming bout the day when you wake up and find that what you're looking for has been here the whole time!" she sings into my hair brush, "If you could see that I'm the one who understands you. Been here all along so why can't you see?"
Instead of shying away Johanna picks up the singing blond, "Come on, we're doing this," she struggles a little but Johanna manages to get her over her shoulder walking out the door.
"Hey what are you two… doing?" Ryan asks coming down the hall.
"We're running away together, she just serenaded me, you can go to prom with Gale if you want."
"Finally! I thought you'd hog him forever."
I get up from the chair, everyone already occupying themselves and climb through the window into the cool night air, but I'm not alone for long.
"Hey…" Gale starts nervously, "Listen, I'm sorry, for what I said this morning. It was a jerk move."
I shake my head, "No, don't be sorry, sometimes I feel like I'm coming in here and pushing her out… Like we're occupying the same space…." I sit down, my legs hanging over the edge, "But Peeta told me something earlier today… I'll never take her place, I'll make my own." I fiddle with some of my loose hair, "Just have to figure out how to do that, especially with the little time I have left…"
"You going somewhere?" he joins me, watching the moon rise and stars shine through the thin haze of clouds.
"Well… My dad's getting out of the slammer, he could get custody of me," I wince, after how I talked to him would he even want me? Hopefully not, "Then who knows, there's nothing here for him and hopefully he'll go back to where he's from, and leave me here with the Mellark's until I'm eighteen…"
"What happens then?"
"I'm kicked out of the system and basically told to find my own way or…" I look away, only a short time ago I was planning on offing myself when I was out of the system, so I couldn't be a burden… Could I still go on with that plan?
"Or…"
"Just… Disappear… Vanish from the system, not leech off welfare though I may end up there…" there's laughter coming from my room, people who will never have to be in this position.
"Lisa and Thomas won't let that happen to you…" he throws an arm around me, he's strong, I know built from years of hunting and hauling game, he feels like family.
"If I'm taken from here, they don't have a choice…" I stand up, "We should go inside before someone gets worried," Gale nods but digs in his pocket pulling out a pack of Marlboro's, "On second thought, share," I hadn't had a smoke since I got here, probably cause for my headaches as the nicotine I was so dependent on washed form my system.
He hands me a cigarette and a lighter, I blow out the first drag, habitually never taking in the first bit from when I'm lighting. I tend to take in too much smoke when I do so and hack it up, "I'm going to fight it…" I promise, kicking my legs over the edge once more, "I won't be taken from here without a fight. You guys are growing on me," I smile, flicking away ash.
Gale just smiles and does the same, "I wouldn't expect you to do anything else but fight," he pauses for a second, "So… You and Mellark?"
"What? Oh… No, he's…" I think about the warmth I feel when he touches me, "It's too soon…"
"It's almost been a month, sometimes you just have to let things happen," I take another drag, Marlboro wouldn't be my smoke of choice, but these are desperate times.
"I don't date…" I grumble.
"Please, that's a lie."
I chuckle, "The closest thing I've had to a relationship was with a guy a good handful of years my senior who had a girlfriend at the time… Actually I'm sure he still does."
I watch the smoke trail from my lips, Gale was so easy to talk to, as if we've known each other for years, but that was the way they all were. Each and every one of my new friends I felt like I've known forever.
I crinkle my nose, "There's a first time for everything," we sit silent for a few minutes before flicking our cigarette butts onto the sidewalk below us.
"I'll be inside in a minute," I tell him watching the glowing ends fade out in the darkness.
"Maybe I have known these people for years…" I whisper, no matter how ridiculous that sounds.
As always, please review with questions, comments, suggestions, I want to hear from you whether you loved it, hated it. See you in chapter 9!