The Spark of a Revolution {Book 2 in the Daughter Trilogy} Watty Awards 2015

Chapter 12

  The room is cold. Faces of the people I once entrusted my life with surround me, their mouths forming words I don't hear.

  Charley wraps his arm around me, and Max rolls his eyes.

  "How does that sound Prim?" Eli asks.

  "Fine." I reply looking down at my hands.

  "Rosie--" Max starts.

  "Don't call me that Max!" I stand up and storm out of the room. My steps echo throughout the hallway, followed by someone elses, two someones.

  "Rosie!" Max calls.

  "Prim!" Charley calls.

  I don't know who to answer so I sprint, I sprint faster then I've ever sprinted in my life. I can almost see the sparks flying from my shoes, creating an eruption of dust leaving the boys coughing.

  "Primrose Mellark!" This voice doesn't belong to Charley or Max.

  Elias.

  I look behind me, Charley and Max are standing side by side, Elias is running towards me.

  I keep running, knowing he won't stop. He doesn't give up that easily.

  He pants, I barely break a sweat. He slows, I grow faster. I keep running faster, and faster, and faster. Full tilt, my body aching, my mind racing.

  I run for miles, afraid to stop. But somehow I manage to stop, and I stop right at Dare's grave, a giant stone marking the place.

  It takes several moments for Eli to erupt from the forest, but he does, and when he does he stops, a look of sympathy  forming on his face.

  "Primrose." He breathes heavily.

  I don't reply tracing the stone with my finger tips.

  "Prim."

  "We used to play here. I used to swing him around in my arms, and throw him in the air." I smile, "He used to be happy, I used to be hap--" I stop, falling to the ground. Elias rushes to my side, and I let him put his arm around me, I let him hold me, tell me "it is okay," and he lets me cry.

  "Prim, things happen for a reason. You don't choose fate, fate chooses you." He whispers.

  "Fate doesn't exist. Evil exists." I reply.

  "In every bad there is a good."

  "How can you say that?" I sit up, wiping the tears from my eyes, "There is nothing good about Dare being dead! There is nothing good about Paylor being hospitalized! Nothing good comes from The Games! Nothing good comes from war! Good, is a fairytale. Peace is fictional."

  He looks confused.

  "Happiness is just an illusion." My words come out with a certain hisss that makes me sound demonic.

  "That may very well be true. But you felt it once, and you will feel it again."

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  My eyelidss feel like boulders, pushing down on my eyeballs, taking up every ounce of strength, and every yurn to want them open.

  "Good morning. You sleep well?" Charley's voice echoes in my brain.

  "Just fine thank you very much." I open my eyes to find I am not in my room, "Charley, where the Hell am I?"

  "I'd like to ask you just the same question."

  The room is almost pitch black, a silky fabric beneath my hands and what look like yellow walls. There is a distant aroma of smoke and ash, and beneath that primroses, fresh in bloom.

  "My--" I start.

  "Your room. Not your actual room, your old room." He finishes my sentence, "Now how did you get here."

  I try to think back to yesterday. The last thing I remember is sending Elias off, and promising I would be back in Thirteen by night fall.

  "I--"

  "Prim, don't I me! You had us all worried sick! Especially Eli! He felt horrible! You could have gotten yourself killed!" He raises his voice.

  "Char--"

  "Prim! Don't you understand? We need you! I need you, god dammit!" He is now full on yelling.

  "I know! I know, I know, I KNOW!" Now I am the one yelling, "My little brother just died, I am sorry if I am a little distant!" I scream.

  "A little distant? You call running away, a little distant." He shouts, moving so he is leaning over me, and for some reason I do the unexpected...

  I kiss him.

  I kiss him hard, right on the lips. 

  I push our lips so hard against each other, it hurts.

  He groans as his tongue slips through my lips, but this is it. I don't let him go any farther, no matter how hard he pushes, how bad I want it.

  I won't give in.

  He pulls away, panting.

  "Better?" I ask.

  "Yes." He replies.

  "Damn our relationship is really messed up."

  "We need to get back, and soon... Before they send out a search party."

  I nod, and he pulls me in for one last, slow kiss. It is powerful but gentle, a mix so unfamiliar it causes a lightening bolt inside of me.

  "I love you." He smiles, his teeth glowing in the darkness.

  "I love you too." I reply, letting him take my hand and walk me home.