Primrose Mellark

Chapter Twenty-Three

   Taking Bear with me, was a lot harder than I expected. He trails off everywhere, and becomes interested in something as small as a bug on the pavement. I found a piece of rope on the ground, so I decided to make something like a leash for him. I have to practically drag him around, and I have to be quiet doing so. That doesn't turn out well. But, since he was family and still is, I can't abandon him, even if he's a pain. 

   I made my way down the alley, and I managed to run to the hospital, and go behind the large building, to the parking lot. The clouds are coming in more, but they are white, pure clouds. Good. I wouldn't be able to manage a storm with a lynx on me. looking for someone, while trying to be quiet all at the same time.

   Me and Bear are just entering the other alley that connects to the house's neighborhood. The one where Evan said he was. The guards are most likely not going to be here. There's too much space, and this isn't where the main part of District Twelve is. I start to look around and down the streets, not paying attention to my surroundings. Bear starts to tug at the leash. I don't look down, just keep moving. He starts making little cat noises. I finally look down at him in an exasperated way. I sigh and pet him to try to calm him down.

   "Bear, you-"

   I don't have time to say whatever I was going to say. A hand covers my mouth, and the force makes me stumble backwards as the hand drags me into a dark alley. I think, "Murder, murder, muder. I'm going to die." Bear is dragged along with me. I hope the murderer spares Bears' life.

   The hand releases me. I immidately raise my bow and take an arrow from my shoulder. I lock it into place as quick as a hummingbird and point the tip at the neck of the person. I am panting from the struggle, and the person holds up his hand, giving up. They have a hood on, and it's dark, so I don't see the facial features right away. But I reconise the brown hair that flops lightly out of his hood, and the height of my attacker...

   "Evan!" I shout. He quickly moves forward and covers my mouth with a hand, whipping his head back and forth. I smack his hand away with my bow. He's about to get a very loud scolding, weather he's in danger or not!

   "Shh!" he says, waving at me. He un-does his hood so it falls behind him. I glare at him, but he only looks at me as if I'm a dog. Blank and unhumanish. "Be quiet! They were just here less than five minutes ago. Looking for me."

   I blink, holding back my loud voice. "You freaking scared me! Why couldnt've you just called my name?"

   "They would have heard," he replys evenly.

    I sigh heavily. "So it would be alright to let me think I was being attacked, then dragged into a dark alley?! Geeze, Evan." Then I realized, I found him! I was distracted from my anger and fear before, because, well, he attacked me!

   I quickly tell him all that I saw, and what I heard outside my cave. All the time I tell the story, his eyes become wider. At some points, I can see the glint of his brown eyes as they narrow in anger, or how his eyebrows raise when I tell him about the poaches, and how they were chained. Then I tell him about how they tried to escape when I came looking for him.

   "Wait, wait, wait," he stops me, waving his hands in the air. He look at me directly in the eye. "You came looking for me? Why? I thought you hated my guts."

   I cross my arms over my chest, bow still in hand. "I do. But, my concious won over, because you came to tell me about the workers in the first place. Remember? So it was only fair to warn you this time."

   Flashes of memories about Evan come all rushing into my mind all the sudden. When I saw him for the first time, on the soccer field, on the team. Or when Cleo talked about how she liked him. When he came running into my mother's lake. Or, how the men said that we were a couple. Would we be a good couple?

   But I quickly shake my head mentally. Of course not! We hated each other.

   Then again, we would make a good physical couple, you could say. We both have brown hair, and look a little similar. He has brown eyes, and I have blue. He's taller than me, and I am stuck at a measly 5'4. He's... dare I say... now that I look at him, handsome?

   "Hello?" I am snapped out of my thoughts. I look around, to see him gone. Then I see him ont he ground, petting Bear. He looks up at me, confusion clouding his gaze. "Are you going to answer?"

   Color rises on my cheeks.  "Uh... I was thinking. What'd you say?"

   He sighs. "I asked, where you got him. This guy." He's referring to Bear. 

   "Oh. I raised him myself." I add a defensive tone to my to tell him that if he hurts Bear, he'll regret it. "Along with my brother. I....we set him free a couple weeks ago. Okay, so like five weeks ago, but I found him again today."

   Evan looks up at me, smirking. "So, you let your only awesome pet go wandering free and starving?" 

   I glare at him. "I didn't know he was starving! He was abandoned when he was a little kitten, so we took care of him until he could properly eat and hunt for himself." But he couldn't, but I don't tell him that. I look down at them. Evan's eyes are surprisingly, lit up while he is petting Bear. He runs his fingers through the long fur at the sides of his cheeks, and Bear is purring. I didn't know lynxes could purr. Let alone purr to Evan.

    He stands up and brushes his hands off on his pants. "You should bathe him."

   "I was looking for you this whole time!" I nearly shout again. "Now, I'm leaving. And I'm not going to bathe Bear, because he can do that himself." I turn around and take his leash in my hands. But then I freeze. I forgot to ask him something important.

   I whirrle around. "Where do you live?"

   He looks up at me, and narrows his eyes. "Why?"

   "Because I went all over town and even the forest looking for you. First you said you were living over here," I stop to guester the neighborhood around me. "Then you said you lived in that sh- I mean, the little house in the forest. Where do you live?"

   Immediately, his gaze darkens. "I live... around."

   "So, you don't live in a house?" I question, trying to make him answer. Then a thought, an evil, smart thought comes to my mind. "Like.... a hermit?" I clearly remember the day when he called me one. "Or homeless?"

   He had his back turned to me, about to walk away, but then he quickly turns around to face me. "I am not a homeless hermit. I live, I told you, around. Just plain around. I don't have one solid place to stay. And you know why I don't?" He doesn't wait for me to answer. "Because then the guards will get me." Then he swiftly turns around and diappears into the alley. I turn to look, but he's already gone.

   So much for the answer about the home, I grumble to myself.

    I turn around and give a gentle tug on the leash. Bear understands the way the leash works, and immediately gets up. I walk across the old parking lot, with Bear jumping and playing behind me as I trudge on the hot cement, the heat wavering off of it.

   Now my mission is complete. But I wish that Evan would stay in one place, because if I needed to tell him something or to warn him, he would be on his own. I have to go home, mind my own busniess, and hope that Evan doesn't get himself into trouble, because that would mean trouble for me, too. I sigh and bend down. I pick Bear up because I know his paws are burning from the hot black cement. My feet are sweating in my hot black boots, too.

   I wish it was autumn already, I think as I walk back.

   ---

ZOOM! these chapters are just whizzing by now, arent they?? more like a SWISH! haha ok, enough of my weirdness for one chapter.

-katniss_on_fire13