Secrets we buried in the sand//Blaine&Zada

Blaine’s embrace crushes me the way the waves did when they would hit my body with a force I was not expecting. In that moment, I expected anything but a hug from the boy. No, he wasn’t a boy anymore the same I was no longer a girl. He grew up, his jawline was sharper, facial hair now grew on his chin and he had a strong build. Behind his grey blue eyes was something I could not entirely explain but I knew exactly what it was. Something happened to your eyes when you experienced hardship and tragedy, there was no mistaking it. His life as I knew it was not easy, but he must have been through hell since I had last seen him for him to carry the same hollow look I had in my own honey-dew eyes.

I could not bring myself to wrap my arms around him in return as his grasp tightened around me. I did not deserve the hug he was giving me, and I did not deserve his kindness. When we were kids and things got rough, we would sit in our makeshift tent and tell each other all about our problems. He told me stories about his parents who could not get off the morphling and how they would disappear for days on end. I would tell him about the horrors of what happened at home when I stepped out of line. We felt like normal kids telling each other scary stories around a campfire only there was nothing fictional about the tales we told.

It was my suggestion that he talked to my father, my idea that just maybe my dad could do something positive for him even if he was the monster in my narrative.

Blaine should hate me; he had every right.

Still cautious about our reunion, I tried not to stiffen my body. I tried not to react the same way I would react when I was too scared to go home. I wanted to remain calm, and I wanted to be happy in this moment but all the danger alarms in my head were going off. This was a threatening moment, not just because I was scared of what this new Blaine was capable of but because he knew me. He really knew me. For last five years, I had been reinventing myself, becoming everything, I was not before. I learned to speak up for myself, to take care of myself, to enjoy the little things in life. I became happy being the villain in other people’s life because finally I was no longer a victim. The encounter with Blaine felt like all those years of working to become someone I was proud of were for nothing.

Here I stood in district three, the same little girl scared of the consequences of her actions. Why didn’t he fucking hate me?

“I don’t care who you are now. What I care about is that you’re here. What the fuck are you doing here, though?”

I opened my mouth to speak but again no words came out. What was I supposed to say? Hey Blaine, I ran away to One where I found out that my mother was part of a crime legacy and by default so am I. Oh and guess what, I now kill people for a living…oh right, you weren’t there when I shot my father because well…he killed my mother. Now I have a job to do here in three which means someone is going to die tonight.

Hell, even if I did tell him all of that, the truth was so far out there that it just sounded like the plot to a bad movie.

”I care who I am now, Blaine” I exasperated trying to buy myself some time to figure out what to tell my old friend.

My official document reason for coming to three was to take a meeting on the behalf of the family company to negotiate a deal with logistics company to distribute our toys across Panem. Of course, none of it was true. Just another perfect forgery done by Tallie, she really had a talent for these kind of things. I doubt he would buy that story; besides he knew me better than anyone else. This was the person who had seen me at my worst in life, there was a bond between the two of us that could never be broken no matter what happened. If anyone would be able to call my bluff, it would be him.

”I…I…It’s a long story” I struggled to find the words, my mind still coming up blank with any possible explanation that would make sense to him. ”I’m just running an errand for my aunt back in One. I’ve sort of been living there for the past five years.” It was not a lie…just a very vague version of the truth. Hopefully he would know better than to ask any questions and would leave it as it is. Accept that I have a new life that I could not really let him in on and move on. For his own good, the last thing he probably need was to get once again caught up in my mess of a family.


”The fuck are you doing here?” I returned the questioned even though I already knew the answer. He ran, just like I did. Neither of us had anything left for us in four. If I ran, why was it so hard to believe that he did the same.

The history that lingers between the two of us are like little strings binding us together. No matter how far we ran or wo we have become those strings are still connecting us, unable to break. I could have said no, I could have been on my merry way trying to forget the encounter. I could have never stopped in the first place and would have been just another face in the masses. Could’ve could’ve could’ve. Still here I was, still entertaining the fates that have not severed our ties just yet.

Conflicting ideals and thoughts clashed in my head as I hesitated to answer his invitation. No matter how much I tried to forget Makayla, she was a part of me. I was Makayla for the majority of my life. I could suppress her so far back into my mind that she was nothing but a whisper from time to time, but it would never change the fact that she will always be a part of me. That whisper was growing now, and it was no longer powerless. It was a screaming sensation, screaming to be let out of the prison that was so carefully warded by Zada Mahdavi.

I could not tell if Blaine could see it, but it felt like a slight shift in my demeanor maybe a fleeting reflection in my eyes. My muscles loosened up and it felt like for the first time since arriving in three, my lungs were able to fill themselves with air. I wanted Blaine to be a part of my life again even if it was just for this fraction of a moment. I longed to share my life with someone again, someone who knew every aspect there was to know about me. The little things, like my favorite seashell or what I named the first set of knives that I owned myself. The way my eyes widened when I became excited about something or all the tells I would give when I would say everything was alright when in fact nothing ever was.

More than anything I wanted to feel safe, and Blaine was the only person that ever made me feel like I was truly safe.

I nodded in agreement and followed him down a path of people with places to go and things to do.

Our short little walk was mostly spent in silence, trying to make our way. He led and I followed just like when we were kids. When we would need to get away from everyone and everything, he always seemed to know the right spots to hide out. Somewhere where we it could be just us because that is how it was. The two of us against the world and all its harshness.

Living on edge meant that you always needed to be aware of your surroundings. Even if I had relaxed, I was still looking for an escape route just in case and I had found multiple. I may have been a huntress but there was a time I was just as much the prey. Those survival instincts they may shift but they never leave. Metaphorically my relaxed state was just me sleeping with one eye open. Waiting for a threat to pounce from around the corner and end this little reunion quicker than I could say his name one last time.

My watchful observant eyes catch his hands slip into the loose pockets of an innocent bystander. Wrong place wrong time, quite unfortunate for him. I raise an eyebrow at the ordeal, Blaine was not joking when he said he learnt a few tricks along the way. I guess we all had to find our own way to survive, and I would be last person to judge anyone for what they had to do to make it through a rough patch. Seeing him swipe the cash made me hope that he would have a similar stance and maybe there would be hope that he could come to understand why I had to give up Makayla and become Zada.

I was ripped from my contemplations as Blaine grabbed my hand, leading me out of the hot and sweaty pool of bystanders into the cool shadows of an alleyway.

”Y’know if cash was a problem, we could have had lunch on my aunt. She didn’t send me here empty handed” I let out a slight laugh along with a sly smile. Back in four, I was never poor, but it did not come close to the amount of money I had now. Little things that we would once debate buying were no longer an issue. If I had a bad day, a trip to the mall would sort me out. That is how my family seemed to see things. There was no problem that money could not fix, everyone was always so obsessed with it. At the beginning it made me uncomfortable, but now I had grown to accept that sometimes it was okay to burn some bills to make your life a little better. It was not as if I did not pull my own weight to contribute to the family funds.

”But where is the fun in that, right? I must admit though, I am more of scam kind of girl. My cousins are the ones with the sticky fingers.” I held my breath awaiting his reaction to the first real piece of information I had offered him about my new life. ”I could definitely eat; I think we have a lot of ground to cover. Maybe I should start with my full name, Zada Mahdavi.” If Blaine was living a dishonest lifestyle, maybe he would have come across a family member or two in his career. The more I learned about my family, the more I realized we seemed to have a hand in a lot of different affairs in a lot of different places.

Blaine stops dead in his tracks as I took a few steps forward. I could not see his face in the moment but there was a tremble of uncertainty in his voice when my family name fell. I could tell immediately he was not exactly a stranger to the activities we conducted. I pressed my lips together turning back around to face him with contemplation written all over his face. Maybe I should have waited or not have mentioned who I was affiliated with at all. Right when I thought I could allow myself to relax, Blaine was the one tensing up.

In that moment I wanted to reach out and tell him to just forget it. However, the words I spoke were just like our shared past, you could not just forget.

With caution he proceeded to tell me what he knew about my family. It was not much more than the information I was privileged to. Outside of my own affairs and the operations that went down in one, I kept my distance. I was still not the most rusted person in our family ranks. I knew I was a person that a lot of people had a lot of differing opinions about. It was not quite forgotten that I had killed my father and the murder of family members was severely frowned upon. It was almost as if there was only one real rule we all followed, family over everything. I have heard aunts and uncles arguing that if I had no issue shooting him in the head, what would stop me from doing the same to them.

Only they did not understand the circumstances.

They did not comprehend what it was like to live in fear every single day. My hands shaking as I would push open the door to what I called home. The feeling of a thousand bricks on my chest preventing me from breathing as I hoped that I would be able to escape to my room before my fathers first drink. Betrayal like no other as the man I considered my entire world, a role model, would lay his iron fist against my cheekbone over and over again.

I may have shot him in the head but if they knew the agony I lived in ever single day, the saying family first would have meant nothing to them as well.

There were a few I was close to that heard me speak of my life before one. Those were the same people that defended me, my aunt argued that I acted in order save her sister, my mother. She said that if anything I was protecting the family to the best of my abilities. My father may have been my father, but he was nothing short of an abusive tyrant to the Mahdavi’s. Slowly with time, more and more family members have begun to trust me. One secret at a time I have began to understand just how far our influence reaches.

I nodded my head as Blaine recounts his very minimal connection to my family. He knew people that knew people, it always seemed to happen that way. Everyone knew someone that knew of something that we did but never knew any of us themselves. This way we stayed in the shadows, only really interacting with amongst ourselves. An exclusive club you could work for but never truly join.

”It is all a little bit complicated…I don’t quite understand it all myself really. I have my specialty and kinda just stick to that, try not to make any waves or anything.” I briefly mention as we continue down the narrow alleyways.

I could tell that we were walking further away from places deemed safe by the general public. The streets turned small and narrow. The buildings seemed to be a bit more run down than the ones in the district center. There was no sense of grandeur or status. I had the sneaking suspicion that most people would consider this area unsafe at night and would not dare to wander the concrete jungle alone. Just the kind of place I grew to feel secure in. The people who lived and went around their business here were most likely to turn a blind eye to what the most considered suspicious activity. Whether it was out of self-perseveration or because they had their own shit to deal with, this was where I blended in the most.

Although in One, I was able to afford flashy clothes and all kinds of cosmetic enhancements, I could not afford to travel to places such as this and stick out like a sore thumb. My worn-out black trousers were wide enough to not give away the concealed knives strapped to my legs, but also helped me fit in with the working class. Blaine was definitely not kidding when he said the location was discreet and I was grateful we had the same interpretation of the word.

He proceeded to ask questions about my reason to be here, what kind of errand I was running. Whilst I hoped he would have dropped the subject by now, he seemed determined to figure out why I was here.

You could call it a business deal of some sorts. More like I am here to provide a service a select few could pay for. What about you, what kind of clients are we talking about?”, it was only fair that I got to ask my questions too. If had to guess, he was some sort of paid company. Escorts and gigolos were always a good source of information, who else would the rich trust but the ones they were most likely cheating on their partners with. Considering the stealing, he was either not a gigolo or had not worked his way up the latter yet.

We slowly came to a halt as we reached what I assumed was Blaine’s client’s diner, he was not kidding when he said it was discreet. In fact, if it was not for Blaine then I would have never assumed that there was a diner here in the first place. ”This it?” I asked hinting at a building that looked like it was in desperate need of a paint job. ”I promise I’ll be a little more willing to answer your questions when we are inside. I just can’t be announcing things on the street, the less people that know I am here the better. Besides I think we need to catch each other up on some more pressing matters than the present. Like what happened with my father, you might be the one person that will understand” I gave him a pained smiled as I pushed open the door.