Ajax {Avox}

Ajax

It's past sunset when I close up the warehouse. I've grown accustomed to the stench of burning trash; it lines the inside of my nose like a thick coating of ash, and I'm pretty sure my nose hairs are gone because of it. What can I say? It's part of the job. Burning the district's trash was never going to be pleasant, and I knew that when I agreed to take the job. I've already been working here a year with my brother, so there's no point in quitting. I can deal with fire, smoke, and trash. Somebody's gotta do it.

Tomorrow is Saturday, so I'm in no rush to get home. Mom and dad are probably in bed already. I will be too, but I don't feel all that tired. Just bored. I have better things to do, better places to be.

I think I just jinxed myself.

There's not enough time for me to register the footsteps behind me. I go rigid instead, body stiff like a board as I feel something snake around my neck. It smells like cigarettes and cinnamon, and it feels like skin. An arm? Yep, that's an arm. It squeezes my throat and traps the air in my lungs, forcing me backward against a solid wall of muscle.

I panic for a second. Am I being robbed? What does this guy want? And then I grab his arm roughly with both hands, fall forward in a squat, and elbow his groin as hard as I can. The gruff "oof" fills me with adrenaline and confidence. His grip falters a bit, but I don't yet make my escape. I reach behind me instead with a closed fist, and punch him in his fucking eye. That's when he finally releases me. I gasp and swallow a long, fresh gulp of air to soothe my panicked lungs, and whirl around to face my attacker. If he has a knife, I might be screwed. If he doesn't, maybe I can scare him off with the moves my brother taught me.

Then, I clearly see that my attacker is not, in fact, a mugger, given the smug look on my brother's familiar face. I freeze and feel my lips twist into a disgruntled scowl, because I am anything but happy right now. "What the hell, Asher?" I exclaim, and I don't care if the whole damn neighborhood hears me. Why did my brother just outright attack me and almost make me piss my pants? My hand is throbbing because of him. I feel breathless and duped, a little humiliated. The heat rushes to my ears and I cross my arms. Asher just laughs. "I was testing you!" he says, donning a shit-eating grin.

"How was that a test?" I counter, throwing my hands up into the air in an exaggerated gesture. He always says I'm too animated when I'm angry, that I should try to hide it more. It will get me farther in life, apparently.

"I was testing the moves I taught you. Now I don't have to worry about my little bro getting mugged or beat up," he defends.

"That's not funny." I turn around and leave him to prod at the frame of his eyesocket, probably where I slammed my knuckle against the bone. I can hear his footsteps behind me as he jogs to match my pace. "Aw come on, I had to make it realistic," he whines. I shake my head. "Any real mugger would have a knife."

"So? You can get out of that too, I bet."

"I won't need to."

"And why is that?"

I stare up at the stars and try to ignore his unfaltering stare. "Because I'm not stupid. I don't go anywhere near the dangerous parts of the district, and I definitely don't plan on hanging around your crowd." He knows what I mean by 'crowd'. Druggies, drunks, thugs, punks, whatever you call them, I want nothing to do with them. They're reckless and always getting beat up or arrested by Peacekeepers. Mom and dad already hate Asher enough for his erratic behavior. I can't be the next one to disappoint them. I want to have a real job someday.

"We can get you free weed, man," he laughs.

I only light up when I'm stressed out.

"No, Asher." I worry about him sometimes. He doesn't deal drugs, but he knows the drug dealers. They're his 'pals'. I know they're dangerous, and if they're not, they know dangerous people. I want both of us to live a full life, but I can't convince him to stop hanging out with the wrong people to "feel good" and be "cool". He's practically deaf unless I bring up weed or money.

Speaking of, I can smell it on him. Smoke, not just from weed but from cigarettes also. It's poison. Of course he spent his night off with those contagious idiots. What else would he do? Their habits spread like cancer, literally.

"Okay okay," he says, and then he lights up another cigarette. We walk home in silence. Sure enough, mom and dad are in bed when we tip-toe in to check on them. Asher shrugs and disappears behind his door. It has a sign taped on it that reads "No bitches allowed." It was always a rule-break when I decide to step past the threshold.

Asher thinks he's funny.

It's not so funny anymore.

I always thought that if Asher ended up hurt or dead, we'd have Peacekeepers knocking at our door to notify us. I never expected to walk into work one day, creeped out by the silence because I knew my brother was supposed to have fired everything up by then. I never expected to walk by my locker and see a gun on the floor. I never expected that one innocent choice of picking up the gun to have such dire consequences.

I never expected to turn the corner and find my brother in a puddle of his own blood, shot dead in the chest. His jaw was open and slack and his eyes were glazed over. I remember falling on my ass and holding my breath, holding everything. I didn't sit there for long. I was still trying to process the horror of it when they busted in and aimed their guns at me. Peacekeepers, three of them. They didn't see a heartbroken boy crumpled on the floor; they saw a killer with the murder weapon, acting irrationally for no justified reason. They arrested me on the spot. They hancuffed me behind my back and dragged me out like a criminal while I cried and denied my involvement. They were as deaf as Asher had always been.

I never saw my parents again. They took me to the Detention Center and interrogated me in a small, white room. My pleas and tears were ignored. My honesty got warped into lies. They charged me with my brother's murder and sentenced me to slavery. I felt everything when they pressed the cold metal into my mouth. I tasted the iron in my own blood as I spat it on the floor and screamed until I blacked out.

I woke up in a hard bed surrounded by other people. Other Avoxes.

They taught me the basics of communication by sign language. It probably wouldn't matter, they said, since I would inevitably be purchased by some rich family who wouldn't give me a second glance. But if there were other Avoxes around, it would be nice to hold a conversation.

When I was "ready" (meaning when the distributors were ready), I was auctioned off to - you guessed it - a rich family. One married couple with two teenage brats kids. I was to be trained under their chef's supervision (another Avox) to become his replacement. He was going to be a professional in some restaurant, which was nice. He was a generous enough man; he helped me polish my sign language skills and told me all about the family. Lots of martial disputes and teenage drama. He told me not to cross the husband. I didn't know what to think. I had never been a damn slave before. What did they expect of me?

They never called me by my first name. They addressed me as "A" for short. I learned to hate that name.

Adjusting was difficult. I wasn't meant to pour people's drinks and clean their tables, yet there I was, and it felt awkward. I've never been ignored for such a long period of time. Sometimes it felt like I didn't exist, but the moment I tried to fade they would catch my attention and order me to fetch them a snack. I was like a pet, trained to bring them things and make them happy. Meals were my treats. Affection involved dying my hair different colors to match seasons or to add a "spice" to their house. One time, they died my hair cherry bomb red because the son's girlfriend loved the color red. He thought it would be a nice touch to have her servant decorated in her favorite color when he invited her over to dinner.

Fortunately, I had my own bedroom. At night I could drown myself in my private thoughts about home. It felt like a distant world, another dimension. The Capitol was a dreamworld that became my nightmare. I didn't even have time to mourn my own brother. Who killed him, and why? The Peacekeepers would never go searching for him. No doubt my parents heard the wrong side of the story. Had they planned a funeral and mourned both of their sons? Here lies Asher, shot down by his own brother...

No, no, they couldn't believe that. I'm a good kid, I always was. It was a mistake. Please believe in me.

The family started getting too comfortable with me after six months. Stella was the one who dyed my hair. She would sit me in the little spinning chair in her bedroom and gossip away as she colored my roots. Most of it was boring shit about school and boys, but it wasn't so bad. She treated me the best out of everyone in the house. I know she didn't care all that much about me, but it was still nice. She was my only access to the outside world. That house was a literal prison, and my captors all had issues.

Their son Jackson only thought of me as a prop and a punching bag. I was in the wrong place at the wrong time (a bad habit of mine) when he stormed in after a bad break up. He punched the wall before he spotted me wiping down tables. I knew right away from the fire in his eyes and the malice in his posture that he was going to hit me, so when he marched up to me I threw down my cloth and prepared myself. I fought back at first. He was an amateur fighter, and I ended up knocking him to the floor. The way he looked at me with disbelief and rage made me remember my place, I guess. I wasn't allowed to hit anyone or disobey. They could throw me out in the streets and starve me.

So, I let him pummel the bile out of my gut. I let him slam me against the wall and sock me in the jaw until I tasted blood. I gave him his free shot to the groin and I doubled over, waiting for him to stop trying to break my nose and miss every time. When he was finished, he grabbed my hair and said "You're just like her, you need to learn to take a hit," then shoved me away and marched off to wherever. Stella found me in the kitchen rinsing my mouth with water. "Mom and dad aren't going to like this," she said, then invited me to her room to apply foundation to my black eyes. "Jackson has issues," she said, and if I had a tongue I would've said "No shit." She told me to avoid him when he was angry. Horrible advice, but I guess I'm just an Avox. It was the nicest thing she cared enough to do.

I also ended up in the crossfire of marital disputes. June and Marty would scream at the top of their lungs every time he blew her off, and I was always somewhere in the background, obligated to clean before I could leave them to their privacy. Marty always stormed out when he couldn't handle it anymore, leaving June to cry somewhere near me. I could never leave because I was always under their order to clean things, and instead of dismissing me, she started ranting to me. Apparently her life lacked romance because Marty didn't care about her. Whenever she asked me if she was wrong, I was honest and shook my head. The woman just wanted some romance.

Sometimes I wonder if it was smart of me to agree with her. If I had said otherwise, would she have left me alone?

It all started when she invited me into her room. She said she had chores for me to finish. I was so used to following orders that I didn't think anything of it until she closed the door behind us. When she cornered me and smashed our lips together, I froze up. It was the last thing I expected. I had never kissed anyone without a tongue. It was weird, especially with her shoving her tongue down my throat. I honestly didn't know what to do. I put my hands on her shoulders when her hands wandered too low, but she gave me this pitiful look and said "Are you going to reject me too?" There was something venomous in the way she said it, like I was going to be punished if I didn't comply. That woman could literally end my life if she wanted. I was just an Avox, after all. A servant. Less than human. But I guess I was just human enough to be her play thing.

The first time she slept with me, I thought my life was over. I expected Marty to come bursting in at any moment, and then he'd wring my neck with his sausage fingers and bury my body in the back yard. That didn't happen. June just sent me off to my room and that was that. Nothing about it was mentioned until she had anoher nasty argument with Marty. She pulled me by the arm that time, expecting me to follow like a puppy. I did, of course, but I wasn't a puppy. I sort of acted like a puppy to make her happy, but I didn't find anything attractive about our evening escapades.

Eventually, Marty did find out. I have no idea why, but June confessed everything. I expected it, yet when he practically kicked my door down and dragged me outside by my collar, I was confused and terrified. He told me I was going to regret fucking up his life. He said he found the perfect buyer for my punishment. I was "dead meat".

He was right.

I ended up half-naked and shackled in a filthy room. They dyed my hair a different color, fitted me in some skimpy warrior's outfit, and tossed me into a huge stadium. I was dazed by the roar of a crowd surrounding me at every angle. I had a spear in my hand and I didn't know why, not until the Hellhound appeared. When it raked its teeth across my leg I heard them all scream louder. When it ripped the skin on my back I heard someone laugh and call me a loser.

When I stabbed the thing in the eye, they cheered.

I was angry.

They assigned me to a cell, and from there I could watch as many fights as I wanted. I've seen heads get crushed like berries inside a mutt's jaws. I've seen limbs get torn off. I've seen people get eviscerated alive. I've also seen people prevail, and I was among that lot. Whenever they dragged me into that arena I screamed like an animal until my throat turned raw. I was wild from fury at the injustice in the world. I ripped a mutt's throat open with my teeth and I became somewhat of a champion. It doesn't mean anything. People love me, yet I'm still treated like a worm in the dirt. I'll still die in here, someday. I'm still doomed.

All because I picked up that fucking gun.