The Price of Peace (Finnick Odair)

No Peace in Death

Everyone dreams of another world, another life. One full of adventure, love, and triumph. When characters come to life on a page or when stories are painted on the silver screen, some can't help but long for a peace of that distant reality. 

Evadine Blackwell was the same. 

Especially now more than ever.

Fictional stories filled her head with fantasies of a far-off world. One away from her crazed stepfather and paranoid mother. She counted the minutes until she could lay down her head at night and escape into her dreams. 

If she was allowed to sleep at all, she would bask in the bit of solace her mind would create for her before she was once again awoken for morning training. 

Evadine couldn't remember the last time she had awoken after the sun. 

God, she was getting tired, but she knew if she closed her eyes now she would never open them again. 

She would always be up and ready before the sun rose, as John demanded. 

John wasn't a horrible stepfather compared to most. He loved her in his own deranged way. He truly did believe that he was helping her, protecting her. His dilutions could get out of hand at times but he never hit her outside of training. 

John was probably the only man on the planet who would deal with her mother's crazy because they were a matching pair. Terrified of the government hunting them down or of demons who look like people. 

The government turned out to be the lesser threat, the demons in people's minds, however...

John would train her in combat, using archaic weapons. He didn't trust guns because ammo ran out but knives and axes were safe. He said that when the world ends it would be better to wield a blade than a gun. His paranoia about the end times was also why he moved them into a cabin in the woods, far from all others who might 'turn on them'. 

Her mother was no better, constantly drilling survival techniques into her daughter's head and how to avoid kidnapping. She played games with Evadine at a young age, teaching her to lie and lie well. Evadine suspected her bio father was into some shady shit for her mother to be so paranoid even sixteen years after his death. 

Her mother loved her more than anything, she knew. But her crippling fear of any danger that might come to Evadine bordered on psychosis. 

That fear was the reason she did this in the first place.

She loved her parents, truly she did. For all their strange habits, they could make her laugh, they were affectionate, and they were kind. Sure they sometimes heard things that weren't there and her mother always scoped the cabin whenever they returned from the woods. She wasn't allowed to go to school but her mother taught her everything she wanted to know. 

Her mother would bring her books whenever she went to town which was rare, though Evadine would find solace in the pages when her parents weren't around. 

She had her favorites of course: Percy Jackson, Harry Potter, Game of Thrones, and anything by Jane Austin. 

She chuckled to herself while reading The Hunger Games, thinking how well she would do in the arena thanks to John. She knew her life wasn't normal, her family was strange and borderline unstable but at least she didn't have to fight anyone to the death (Yet according to John). 

Turned out he was right, but even with all that training she couldn't fight off the deadly demon wearing her mom's face.

Evadine just counted the days until she was eighteen when she could move out on her own and escape the craziness.