GO CORDAY, DISTRICT THREE

It was like this every night. Angry and real and brutal.

She licked her lips and pulled her black scarf tighter around her neck to keep the warmth in. She had been standing in this particular doorway for nearly three hours now, fingertips brushing against the pointed ends of the hidden blades attached to her wrists every now and then as if checking to make certain that they were still there.

She was waiting for a woman.

Not just any woman but the woman named Marjorie who owned the bakery on Fourth Street and ran a human trafficking ring in her spare time on the side for a little extra cash. Go was going to kill her tonight, quick and quiet, she would be out of the way in moments, the business would fall apart and people would have to find a new favourite place to stop and grab a coffee with a fresh bun.

Go wasn't doing this to save lives or anything valiant like that, she was doing it for the same reason that anyone bothered to do anything. Money. Some asshole was paying her a hell of a lot to get rid of this woman and with half upfront she was more than happy to do so. Marjorie was an okay lady. Her cinnamon buns were to die for; Go had bought one regularly every second Sunday for twelve years. Her coffee was always fresh and hot. She always had a smile and a bowl of dog treats beside her cash register for the strays that ran p and down the streets in the heat of the day. Yeah, she was alright and all except for the fact that she literally bought and sold people.

Still, if it wasn't for the money, she wouldn't be here right now. Contrary to popular street rat belief, Go wasn't some icon of justice for the people to look up to. Go was a human being and was driven by the same wants of needs of the masses. To be fair, her tastes were a little bit more refined. Black leather and fabulous hair does not come cheap.

She pulled the scarf up to cover the bottom half of her face, a mass of black curling hair doing the job of hiding the rest of her pretty well. The door to the bakery had finally opened, spilling light across the stonework of the cobbled street and her victim was on the move. So was she.

She was of the idea that a job should be done fast, accurate and with quality. She never skimped on a job or it could come back to haunt you via a knife at your throat and a vendetta as loud and hot as the sun. Today she chose to use the uneven footing to her advantage and stumbled out of the doorway, making her way down the street with odd falling feet and the allusion of drunken disorderliness, nothing new in this side of town but also something that made her an easy target. Marjorie the baker loved the drunkards and meth addicts that called this street home only because they were extremely easy to kidnap.

Go made herself extremely tempting by making herself annoying, yowling out song lyrics about flying to the moon and being up in space or some romantic bull that her dad had been so invested in when he wasn't busy rearranging her face for her. Nobody was upset when someone shut up a yowler, specifically at one in the morning when most were trying to get some much need shut-eye. Maybe it was over the top when she hiccuped and let herself trip over her own two feet only to slam into the arms of Marjorie herself. "Oh deeeearrr! Do excuse me Miss!" she said, over-enunciating and giggling sweetly as she 'tried' to disentangle herself.

Her breath was soured with a mouthwash of scotch and she let her gaze flutter over Marjorie in an unfocused manner. Jenna was always saying that Go should give this life up and get her ass into acting; she was wasting movie star talent out here in the boonies. However, Go was always a big believer in job satisfaction. She was certain nothing could feel as good as a wad of laundered cash in her pocket and a job well done.

Marjorie offered to help the 'poor dear' home and Go gushed happily, pleased to give Marjorie her arm, happier still when the old lady decided that Go had to be too out of it to really know where they were going and led her down one of the sketchiest looking alleyways that She had seen in her entire life. It also happened to be her dumping ground for bodies, seeing as it was over the main overflow pipe in the city sewers. Convenient as hell.

She could rationalize it as self-defense this way if she felt like it. Later when Wendy asked her about it, she'd lie and say that she did it because it was her or the old bat. Lying to Wendy made her stomach twist but she couldn't bear the thought of losing her either.

So when Marjorie's grip tightened, Go swung her palm up right at the gullible old lady's neck, blade popping out with precision to take out her jugular as she did so. The witch didn't even see it coming. With a soft sigh, she wiped the blade off on the check patterned pants of the corpse and slid it back into place. It wouldn't do to walk around with that in plain view.

She removed the manhole cover and kicked the old bag of gurgling bones in, listening past the roar of water for the gorgeous splash of a body hitting it.

❖

It's later when I'm lying in bed that the Wendy-bird comes crawling in through the window, little blue nightdress bunching up around her waist as it catches on a loose nail that I've been meaning to fix. I curl down deeper under my covers and pretend to be sleeping, cheeks heating up in shame anyway. Usually I'm happy to see her, it's why I always leave a window open but tonight I know I've done something wrong.

"Why did you kill that nice lady, Go?" She asks, voice firm. I peak out from under the covers and she's standing in a shaft of moonlight, hands on hips and legs spread apart with her chest stuck out and a horrible look of disappointment on her face. I don't know how she knows these things that I do but by now I've come to expect that she always will. She's my conscience perched on both shoulders.

I study her for a moment, putting off answering. She's cherubic, eight year old features set on a slim build. She's got perfect black curls, much like mine. Much like dad's. Her gaze is intense, dark and knowing. Around her waist, over the blue night gown is a belt made of leaves and vines, a wooden sword tucked into one of the natural loops hangs down to her knees. A circlet of leaves adorns her head and her feet are bare and dirty. The Wendy-bird.

"I did what I had to do, ok? She was trafficking kids. That's bad sh-stuff, Wendy-bird, real bad." I pull myself up on the mattress and fold my arms, trying to look tough, like I know I'm int he right. She narrows her eyes at me and places a slender little hand on the hilt of the toy sword, lips forming a pout.

"Don't lie, Go!" She stamps her foot in anger and I flinch at the sound, eyes shutting and opening with the movement. I twist my hands up in the bed covers, knuckles going right as I work at remaining calm. "We both know that you did it for the money," she says and look away at this statement. "When did you become so much like da-

"That's too far, Wendy-bird," I cut her off, voice soft, dangerous. I have to bite my lip to keep myself from saying anything that could make her leave me permanently. She's silent for a long while, so am I. Usually she can twist me around her little finger and I'll bend happily but often times she forgets who's in charge. It's me.

She doesn't say anything. She just sticks her tongue out and goes cross-eyed. I watch as she climbs out my fifth story window and goes walking off, feet landing on air to catch the moon.

❖

She sends me a memory that night as I try to sleep and it's not a good one. She's out for revenge here, trying to prove a point. Dad liked to teach me little lessons here and there that were always more meant for her, than me. I was just the example he'd use to drill it home. I was ten years old the night he decided to teach us about how to not leave a trace at a crime scene.

He started by shaving my head because you can't leave hair behind if you don't have any. I remember biting my lips to keep myself from sobbing as it feel into my lap and on the floor around me. I had to sweep it up later that night; I burned it in the fireplace.

Next he taught us how to not leave behind fingerprints. He showed Gina how by taking my hands and holding them down on our electric stove. I remember the pain, coming so fast and hot like a storm that sets in, in seconds. My fingers shook and I screamed at the top of my lungs, I could smell my flesh burning. Gina was only eight years old then and she couldn't do anything. Mom was where she always was, in the bathroom, getting the ingredients to make me better ready. Red spirals were burned into my hands that night and I didn't go to school for two months because I couldn't write from the pain anyway.

❖

Mom tried to take us away from dad a couple of times. Once when I was twelve, she took us across district to this hole in the ground. Our landlady was a woman named Rebecca who looked like a story-book grandma. She always had us over for dinner and there was always something to eat despite how little money we had.

Gina had discovered 'Peter Pan' a year or so before and insisted on us calling her Wendy-bird instead of Gina. We'd play games and I'd always be Peter. She'd talk about catching the evil pirate captain and we'd get the other kids involved too, they'd be pirate rogues or lost boys. Captain Hook was never present. "I'm the cleverer one," Gin- Wendy-bird would say, proudly standing tall next to my meekness, "I'll be the one to defeat the evil pirate captain, you'll see."

I wanted to believe her.

When my dad found us he blamed me for our disappearance and as a result I got the shit kicked out of me before he dragged us back across District to our home. Gina screamed at the top of her lungs the entire time until he finally left me alone. Even Daddy's little princess couldn't save me from a broken nose and bruised ribs that time. Mom cried as she wrapped up my torso that night and I wanted to comfort her but I was angry and I hated them all.

❖

Tonight there is no job but Go intends to create one for herself. She woke up that morning feeling volatile and angry, like someone had dropped a pile of bricks on her chest. She felt like a fight, like going for it and it wasn't because she was mad at the Wendy-bird for what she'd said, she was mad because she knew it for truth.

She'd never set out to become her father but causing pain made her feel clever, it lent her joy, something that she didn't feel much of these days. Life was a circle, the rinse and repeat kind. She woke up in the morning, went for a jog, got a coffee at the shop uptown because she could afford to and the baristas there never got her order wrong, then she'd wait for a job. When she got her job, she'd case the victim and get it done quickly and efficiently, done and done.

She hated the time in-between jobs, when there was nothing to but reflect on what she was doing with her life. She was now in-between jobs. She didn't want to be. The option was of course to simply choose her own victim and do them in for practice but Go had a promise to herself and to the Wendy-bird that she'd never kill for sport.

She'd never said that she wouldn't fight.

In-between job postings she'd head down to the seediest bar in all of Panem no doubt and try her hand at stirring things up. Everyone liked 'pretty little things' but no one liked one with a tongue, a cheeky one at that. Go was an expert at getting a good old bar brawl started, especially after a couple of drinks.

When she makes her way in the door the barman groans, "Oh come on lassy, please. Tonight again? I just got me new stools in, I ain't in the looking to purchase another set." She shrugs, a glittering grin transforming her features from ear to ear. By way of answer she swings herself up onto a stool and taps her fingers on the mahogany counter top. She's rewarded with a double shot of whisky and an exasperated look from the barman. "Alright, alright," he says, "But please, can't you take it outside this time?"

She likes his pleading but only grins wider. "Oh Bert, you know I won't," she says, swiveling around to take stock of tonight's victims. The regulars are in of course, a swarthy-faced bunch of old drunks, their noses red, veins broken from the drink. So far, boring. Still, it's a Friday, she won't give up hope.

A couple of years ago she would have rather licked a toad than touch a drop of alcohol but as it turns out, her father had it right. The right amount can send you into oblivion, right out of the ballpark. With the right amount, she didn't have to think anymore, about the people she killed, about the dead, about the Wendy-bird, about her father, about her mother. It all flew away into oblivion.

Sometime later she held her hands up in front of her face, eyes trying to focus on the faint swirling pattern that was still etched into her skin and happily found that it was becoming rather difficult. Experimentally, she clacked her teeth together and found that it felt numb, a sure sign that she was as drunk as she assumed. Perfect.

People had begun to enter the bar in a steady stream, the latest shift at the factories had just ended and workers were coming in to spend a penny or two on Bert's shitty beer. Which was great. They were tired and angry already, she wouldn't have to do much to stir the pot. Just being a woman and daring to breath in this bar usually resulted in something or other. If she was already drunk then it was even better. It made her an easy target.

"Now what's a gorgeous thing like you doing in a place like this? Can I buy you a drink?" A voice asks. It's attached to a young man who seems happy to set himself up on the stool beside her. She smiles lazily, a feral grin, that of a predator.

"Actually, you can fuck right off, you ugly son of a bitch," she says, resting her chin heavily in her upturned palm. It's so easy. So damned easy. A few more rude words and he's gripping the bottle of his bear too tightly, his face is going red, he's like a volcano ready to explode and all she's had to do is turn him down, albeit rudely. It isn't long before he's staggering off his stool and she's slipping off of her's hands clenched into fists. People begin to clear a space and the crowd quiets, tension filling the air as they continue to trade words back and forth.

An idiot steps between her and the offender and she almost laughs when he gets a facefull of fist for it. No one else tries to rescue her, not in a place like this. In a place like this, she's more likely to find a bag of magic fairy dust to take her to Neverland than get any useful help from anyone.

She lets him hit her first.

His fist hits her squarely in the cheek, she feels her skin split as her head whips around to the side. Long black curls follow her momentum and she almost, almost loses her footing. The crowd goes silent, and the thug stands there in shock, as if he can't believe that he's just hit her. She straightens up, fingers going up to feel the split in her cheek and arches one beautifully arranged eyebrow.

"My grandmother can hit harder than that," she says, a cruel grin twisting her fingers before she's arching back and her leg is up in the air, foot connecting with the side of his head in seconds. It sends him stumbling into the bar cursing but better yet, it acts as a signal. The bar erupts. Utter chaos takes over the floor, men and women alike are breaking bottles over each other's head, spit and blood mix together, people scream in rage and it took nothing but a kick here and a punch there. People are mad things, utterly insane. Go knew this.

She spends the night draped across a table, a bottle of whisky in her hand, using the thug as a footrest. Her body is bruised and battered but she's happy.

❖

Dad sent me to one of the district's only training academies when I was thirteen years old. He said it was to toughen me up, scare the 'little bitch' out of me. It was a boarding one and I didn't want to go. I didn't want to leave Gina and mom alone with him. But dad loved Gina, he did. There was something about her that he adored more than anything. He always said that I was the failed experiment, Gina was the prize. I never knew what I did to deserve it but I loved Gina too. I never blamed her for it. I knew to blame the drunkard called dad.

Gina convinced me that it was better for me to go, that mom and her wouldn't have to worry anymore if I was safe from dad. I'm ashamed to say that I was happy to leave. I was so relieved that I cried. Like a real pussy. I always thought that my dad would kill me.

They were tough at the academy, not as tough as dad. I got to keep all of my teeth and bones intact and on Sunday afternoons they would let us out for three hours to go to the market and do as we wished. Gina and I would always meet up, she'd come no matter what even though I'm certain that she had her own plans. She made me feel like nothing was more important than me.

When I was eighteen years old and Gina was sixteen, I'd been at the academy for five years and I was getting damned good too. I didn't want to admit it, but dad's constant 'training' had proven useful. My pain tolerance was exceptionally high in comparison to those of my classmates, in combination with the intensive training they put us through, I was nearly career material.

One Sunday, near the end of our visit and we were drinking coffees at a cute little cafe that I often still go to, Gina told me that she was sure that dad would let me come home soon, that she had been working on him and she was certain that she could get me home again. I was excited. Sunday afternoon visits were not enough, not when I'd spent every waking moment of my childhood with my sister. I hadn't seen mom in five years. I should have told her to lay off anyway, told her that she shouldn't stick her neck out for me. I'd forgotten how dangerous dad could be.

I like to remember her that way, how she was that afternoon, cold fingers clutching a cup of coffee, a thick scarf wrapped around her thin neck and black butterfly winged eyeliner painted on her lids. I like to think of her smiling.

She missed the next Sunday visit and I didn't know why. I waited two and a half hours for her before I finally returned back to the academy. When I got there, there was a note. I'd missed a phone call from the Peacekeepers. The secretaries had taken a message.

There'd been an 'accident'.

Gina had fallen down the stairs.

She'd broken her neck.

Sustained extensive injuries to her body.

They couldn't save her.

This was my fault.

❖

She'd run away from school when she was Eighteen years old. Not so much run as walked out. She'd caught a cart down to the darker parts of the District and stayed there. She hadn't gone to the funeral.

She couldn't.

Go was able to build a reputation first as a thug by hiring herself out for small jobs in the gang community. She was well known for her refusal to give anyone her allegiance and ability to reinforce this with skill. She was expensive. People payed a pretty penny for the use of her skill but as long as you paid her more than the other guy, you could expect a job well done. They liked her because of her beauty, feared her for it too. She was cold, like ice and was unafraid to put a bullet through someone's brain.

They called her unstoppable too, a title she picked up once after taking a bullet to the side and barely flinching, or so they say. In reality, she was cursing and the bullet had done what most bullets do, stopped her. For second or two. She had better aim than the other girl that day though, her bullet hadn't hit the girl's side, it had hit her straight between the eyes.

She'd take on any job given to her as long as it was good pay, seemingly without prejudice. Every now and then a story would get out that she was insane, that she was talking to 'invisible birds'. She never tried to dispel these rumors. She just killed those that started them and they often went away.

Her father had taught her a lot, see. If there's a problem, punch it. If you're mad, violence is a good answer. If you're not made then violence is still a good answer. Just violence and pain and suffering in general is a very good answer for anything at all. Even when you don't need an answer, just punch someone's lights out.

In fact, just toss that all out.

Toss them out.

Kill them.

Just fucking kill them.

kneel,  k  n  e  e  l
to the  a  n  g  e  l  s  in
h  i  g  h  h  e  e  l  s