Our Love Could Be Lethal Act I Re-Write

Act I: No Alarms But There Were Surprises

The song for this chapter is "No Surprises," by Radiohead.

We get back into 2 in the wee small hours of the morning. The fog still clings to the streets as I trudge back to Victor's Village, following the streetlamps and the cobbled path. The Peacekeeper at the gate has dozed off but I decide not to wake him—at least one of us will get to have a decent sleep and not be miserable.

I walk into Gran's house for what might be one of the last times. With everything that happened, I forgot to ask Plutarch if I could trade my own house and get to keep hers instead. Just another way I messed up in the last 24 hours.

The boxes still all sit there like usual. Except as I look around, there are a few items strewn all over the place. Certainly not where I left them. The hairs on the back of my neck stand up and I start to walk with caution.

Has someone broken in? An animal maybe? A person? But who?

Could be someone looking for some victor merchandise to sell, maybe a message from Plutarch or Snow?

I slowly advance into the main room towards the fireplace where I've stashed a large knife under one of the loose stones. I'm regretting my decision to not hide any knives by the front door, but I thought that I was preventing intruders from being able to access them—I should've accounted for the scenario of me entering to the intruder already being there and not just the other way around.

I hear footsteps come from the study. They must not know that I'm here, they might not have heard the front door open since the room is at the back of the house. I decide to advance cautiously, tiptoeing around all the sensitive planks of wood that I've grown to know from sneaking out of bed to grab snacks and press my ear to the wall to see if I can hear them inside.

Someone is definitely rummaging through something in there. It's muffled, but they seem to be talking to themselves, about what though I have no idea. That is, until I hear a very familiar curse word.

Bitch.

It couldn't be. No, there's no way. She might be terrible, but she wouldn't break into Gran's house. My mind starts to spiral, thinking of everything she's done—every utterance of the word bitch, every slap, the yelling, the crying, the screaming, the hugging, the laughing, everything. It all comes together at once.

I practically kick the door down, begging the reality that my mind as come up with not to be true. It can't be my mother who's broken into my Gran's house.

But it is. It's her. She stands in the middle of a box with everything thrown out around her. She looks like a mess. Her dark copper curls fall every which way, and there are purple bags under her eyes. I dare say, she looks worse than I do right now, which is hard to do. She also happens to smell more like a bar than Haymitch usually does, which is really saying something.

The disappointment is clear in my voice when I ask her, "What are you doing here?"

"I came to get what I'm owed. You wouldn't let me into the reading of her will—"

I roll my eyes, unable to put up with this right now. "That's because I only invited the inheritors. Which, by the way, is just me."

"Your grandmother promised me a necklace."

I sigh. I'll just give her whatever it is. Whichever one it is, it can't be worth the fight and the hassle she'll cause. "Whatever it takes to get you out of my hair. Which one is it Shelia?"

"It's a locket. Silver chain. And there's stars on it—the stars are diamonds."

I remember the one that I found in Lydia's room the other day. The one from the delicate jewellery box; the one that was Gran's daughter's. As much as I want to get rid of my mother and just go to sleep, it feels blasphemous to let her have it, a spit in the face to Gran's memory and Lydia's. How could I let my mother have something that clearly meant so much to them? She'll just sell it anyway. She probably only wants it because she probably knows it'll fetch the most out of all the jewllery.