Reprisal

CHAPTER THREE

     She's home by nine o'clock, quietly tip-toeing in after realizing her husband had already gone to bed.

Approaching the dinner table, she lifts the silver lid of the plate cover, seeing steak, some asparagus and a baked potato before quietly replacing it...

It's when the lamp in the formal living room snaps on, capturing her attention as it luminates the face of her father that she nearly jumps out of her own skin — her mind already riddled with enough guilt tonight.

"Ah!" A sharp but short scream leaves her throat.

Her hand rests over her pounding heart, taking in deep breaths as he offers a warm smile. "I forgot that you and mom were coming to stay for a little while." She admits before it hits her fully.

Oh, shit.

The house isn't ready, the groceries, her mental capacity to handle her parents...

"We just got in about an hour ago — Dyess fed us, don't you worry." He keeps the smile on his wrinkled face despite his daughter's appearance.

Exhausted and clearly scatter-brained.

The same as she was when he and her mother visited for the night a little over a month ago.

She had crept in well into the middle of the night, heels in hand, skirt on backwards, makeup smeared, hair a mess...exhausted.

He had kept his mouth shut, then, and he does so, now.

"I'm gonna go to bed. I've got a big day tomorrow." She informs him quietly, kissing his cheek.

"Goodnight, dear." He replies sweetly, watching her disappear behind her bedroom door, the both of them huffing out heavy breaths once they're out of sight of the other.

"Everything alright?" Dyess asks, still awake, book in hand as Tawny steps to him, crawling onto the bed, on top of him to lay on his chest and huff out a breath. "Did Snow go easy on you?" He adds, not taking his eyes off his book.

She wants to scoff at the question.

Snow never goes easy on her — or anybody for that matter. In any aspect of anything.

"I still have a job. He told me we'd go over it tomorrow." She mumbles, closing her eyes, deciding to leave off the part where he had her backed against the door, leaving her with no option but to dig her nails into her palms and bite her teeth into her tongue to keep from getting on her knees, falling at his feet.

"What about your aunt?" He asks it cautiously, eyeing her reaction.

"She just sat there and let me ramble on. She didn't say a word to me until I went to go and she told me we'd discuss it in depth tomorrow."

"So...meet with Snow tomorrow, and your Aunt?" Dyess asks, terrified at the agenda himself.

But he knows Tawny will face it with a stiff lip.

She'd always been the better of the two of them to pull up her bootstraps and just push through.

"They're going to rake me over coals, Dy." She whispers, dreading the lectures.

"They're like cats that bat around a mouse until it dies but never actually eat it. They're bored and need someone to pick on. This time it's you." He mumbles, sighing out as he turns a page. "It'll pass once they get bored again and move on to a new victim."

"I don't know what to do. It's easy to fix things when you know what needs to be fixed. All the problems start from nothing, it seems." She thinks it aloud. "I started doing this because I believe in the Games. I believe they're good, and justified. Everything I've done has been for our girl, but this last year...especially these last months..."