Finley O'Hara // District Four [FIN]

Finley O'Hara.
Female.
Seventeen. 
District Four.

She is not afraid of death.

In fact, Finley O'Hara isn't afraid of anything, not since the day she died.

(Funny story, that, and you can bet she'll tell everyone and their mother all about it whenever she gets the chance.)

Only problem is, she's the kinda girl that likes to tell fantastical stories, all wrapped up in adventure and blood and unadulterated badassery. She's told enough lies that most people sit around and question whether she's actually done any of the things she's claimed to do, but who's to say that she's making it up?

("Do you think she actually punched that shark in the face?")

("Nah, where's the proof? Where's the scar from the attack? It would've at least taken her arm or somethin'.")

...

(And there is a scar, by the way, just in an area of her body she doesn't feel like sharing with the general public, thank you very much.)

The rumor mill runs fast whenever Finley is involved, but she can't help it; she's been a topic of great conversation around the shoreline for years, ever since her father was carted off by a couple of Peacekeepers a couple years back.

("Where do you think they took him?")

("Hell, I don't care about that. Why did they take 'im? That's more important.")

Mr. O'Hara was an oddly quiet man, but needless to say, nobody ever saw him again.

Even though he was a weird sorta guy (shut up in his house all the time, or fishing by himself, or sulking around on the beach tying up nets) nobody had anything bad to say about him. Nobody really knew his name 'cept for the fact that he was called O'Hara, and he was affectionately titled "the man with the red hair" by those who had no fucking clue who he was. At least, when he was still an existing member of society.

("You know that guy with the red hair?")

("Ah yeah, I love him! Looks like a clown..")

(And that was that.)

What nobody knew - and Finley O'Hara never told anyone, except for the Peacekeeper - was that her father was the worst kind of man, the kind of man who would absorb all the evil in the world and let it seep into his heart like a sponge, quiet - so quiet - only to let loose when he arrived home to his wife and three children.

...

She's a dirty rotten liar, but she never lied about death.

On the day the Peacekeepers came for her father, he brought her out to the water to fish.

It wasn't abnormal for the man to take his daughter along with him, especially when the bulk of the day's work was done. She had been 15, and responsible enough for her age, and she didn't have much choice in the matter either way. She understood the burden her family would face if she didn't contribute her fair share of effort, so she'd brought out line and hook and net and settled over the water, expecting little for her efforts except a meal to bring back home for the night. She sat on the small boat, back-to-back with her father, drifting through the water as the breeze took them closer to shore.

And they sat in silence until her father snapped.

It happened out of nowhere. Maybe he was upset that neither of them were catching anything of real nutritional value, or maybe he just couldn't stand the silence anymore.

One minute they were silent, and the next Mr. O'Hara was drowning his daughter in the waves, in full sight of the shore.

And she was dead.

...

In the beginning, she was pulled out of the water by a woman who saw her from the shore because her red hair was glinting under the summer sunset like a beacon. That's what she told her, at least - "I saw you because your hair was so red," and Finley believed it, 'cause that's all anyone had ever told her. If her father was "the man with the red hair," Finley O'Hara was much the same, known only to the people of the District by the way she looked.

Before she died, they talked about how pretty she was. She looked like her father, but nothing like her two sisters or her mother; she was the only one to get the trademark hair and the green eyes and the face that looked so goddamn mysterious, 'cept nobody ever told her this aloud until she started growing up a little and becoming shapely and getting unwanted attention from the pig-faced males of the District.

Then she knew all about it, and she hated it.

Not that she didn't crave the attention, of course. She'd always been the kind of person to claim the spotlight when the opportunity presented itself, but this wasn't the same at all. This kind of attention made her feel like she was going to be attacked at any moment, and she didn't like walking around the District with her head down like a wimp.

(But everything changed after she came back to life that day, because Finley O'Hara decided she was never gonna be afraid of anything ever again.)

With the kiss of life, the woman brought her back from the dead and home to the shore.

("What happened?")

("I drowned.")

("How?")

...

Her father thought she was good and dead, but he was wrong, and Finley O'Hara was spiteful.