old knives // { adder | oneshots }

It had been unreal, returning once again to your home: the second floor still cordoned off, turned into an attic of broken glass and charred timber posts; dirty sheets and cardboard taped over the smashed windows, a new makeshift front door hung in the place where the peacekeepers had kicked the old one to splinters in a boorish show of force when they'd come to take you as a tribute.

It's not a good door. Cracked riot shields screwed to a scavenged wooden sign and secured with a chain and padlock, it would've been easier to brick the whole thing shut and just use the one in back. Still, it's better than no door at all, particularly with your newfound status as a high profile mark. Half the district hates you. At least.

You have comrades here too, but yours is a dangerous name to be associated with in these times, where each day is darker than the one before it. You get your support in knowing nods and reverent glances these days, from the weak smiles of near-strangers, from the shift of neighbors sitting on their porches and stoops at all hours with their eyes trained on the street, from the covert supply lines sending the occasional loaf of sourdough or tray of bread pudding home with your siblings.

"You hang this?"

Violet shakes her head, the silent treatment persisting.

"Talia?" Your younger sister grows uncharacteristically mute at the question.

From his place on the floor in the corner, your baby brother chimes in, not even bothering to look up from the smooth pebbles he has arranged in two rows. "No!" he chirps happily, sweeping his arms and bringing everything into a chaotic pile in the center. Is he playing battlefield again, or has Hunger Games taken its place? Are you a stone? Too young to know better, he's always held the wrong things in esteem.

"Elya came and fixed it!"

Your jaw tightens imagining the traitor Elijah Johnwayne standing on your stoop with a hammer in her hand.

It's not his fault. He's always had the wrong heroes.