(2) Katnis Swan: Moved On?

Chapter 8: She's Back

She'd stayed up extra late, finishing more homework than strictly necessary. But neither sleep deprivation nor the time spent with Jacob—being almost happy in a shallow kind of way—could keep the dream away for two nights in a row. She woke shuddering, her scream muffled by the pillow. 

As the dim morning light filtered through the fog outside her window, she lays still in bed and tried to shake off the dream. There had been a small difference last night, and she concentrated on that.  Last night, after being forced to watch her mother die over and over again the scene switched. She was alone in the woods, or so she thought. Sam Uley - the man who Jacob pointed out to her once before -  was there. It was an odd, unexpected alteration. The man's dark eyes had been surprisingly unfriendly, filled with some secret he didn't seem inclined to share. She'd stared at him as often as her frantic searching had allowed; it made her unusually comfortable to have him there. She also noticed when she didn't look directly at him, his shape seemed to shiver and change in her peripheral vision. Yet he did nothing but stand and watch. 

After taking  quick shower and getting dressed, Katnis calmly made her way downstairs and into the kitchen for breakfast. Bella was cooking this time. She and Bella kept up conversation at the table but Charlie stared at her during almost the entire time, and she tried to ignore him. She supposed she deserved it. She couldn't expect him not to worry. It would probably be weeks before he stopped worrying about her too much.

~~~~~~~*~~~~~~~

Jessica didn't look up when Katnis sat down next to her in Calculus. "Hey, Jess," she said with put-on nonchalance. "How was the rest of your weekend?" 

She looked at her with suspicious eyes."Super," she said, turning back to her book. 

"That's good," Katnis says.

The figure of speech cold shoulder seemed to have some literal truth to it. She could feel the warm air blowing from the floor vents, but she was still too cold. She took the jacket off the back of her chair and put it on again. 

Her fourth hour class got out late, and the lunch table she always sat at was full by the time she arrived. Mike was there, Jessica and Angela, Lily, Tyler, Eric, Bella and Lauren. Katie Marshall, the redheaded junior who lived around the corner from her, was sitting with Tyler, and Austin Marks—older brother to the boy with the motorcycles—was next to her.  

"Where's Ben today?" Angela was asking Lauren. Katnis perked up, interested. She wondered if that meant Lauren and Ben were still together. She barely recognized Lauren. She'd cut off all her blond, corn-silk hair—now she had a pixie cut so short that the back was shaved like a boy. 

"I like your haircut, Lauren," Katnis says.

Lauren turns to stare at her with wide eyes, along with everyone else. Katnis rarely spoke really, so it was kind of weird to hear her openly speak without someone asking her a question. "Uh, thank you Katnis," she says with a smile.

"You're welcome,"

"So, are you going to tell us where Ben is?" Eric asked.

"Ben's got the stomach flu," Lauren said in a quiet, calm voice. "Hopefully it's just some twenty-four hour thing. He was really sick last night." 

Katnis also noticed that Angela had changed her hair, too. She'd grown out her layers.

"What did you two do this weekend?" Jessica asked, not sounding as if she cared about the answer. 

Katnis would bet that this was just an opener so she could tell her own stories. 

"We were going to have a picnic Saturday, actually, but... we changed our minds," Lauren said. There was an edge to her voice that caught Katnis's interest.