girl is a gun. delia, 7th games

I wake. I shower. I brush my teeth. I fix my hair in the bathroom mirror, draw a smile in the steam where my own should  be. I pretend that I am content with my life. I make coffee. I eat the balanced breakfast laid out before me. I try not to make it too obvious that my eyes are fixed on the block of knives next to the stove.

I've decided a regular steak knife will make Terra Montague bleed today, right between my second and third sips of espresso. I can see her lying there with fingers wrapped around the handle, which is buried in the space between her fourth and fifth ribs, unsure if pulling it out would do more damage than leaving it wedged into her faltering heart.

I blink.

"Errol, what time are they coming?"

Errol is maybe only two or three years older than me, is from the Capitol, looks like someone I would've beaten the shit out of in high school, and is not actually named Errol at all. Some kind of paperwork mishap a few years ago when he was hired, which wasn't ever fixed. Now, I call him Errol because I know he hates it, and I hate him.

Moreso, I hate how quickly it has become his job to tell me what to do: where to go, when to be there, escorting me all around Panem like a mother holding a child's hand. My own mom wouldn't have been caught dead. Well, you know, caught dead again.

Errol peers down past a hooked nose to his wrist watch.

"They will be here in thirty minutes. Need something?"

I need too much. I need to hurt too many. Before you can slay the monsters which haunt you, you have to speak their names.

"Am I out of cigarettes?"

Looking pleased with himself, Errol crosses his arms over his chest.

"They'll be waiting in your train car."

I don't really let him finish, but I assume that's what he would have said if he kept talking after my interruption: "Go make sure, then."

He rolls his eyes and steps out, and in an instant I'm across the kitchen, tucking the blade of a steak knife into the waistband of my skirt.

By the time he comes back in, I'm back to my chair. I tried in the earlier days to keep Errol in on all the important shit, but he's pretty helpless and I think the only reason I still tolerate him is because I haven't given him enough rope to hang either of us with yet, so he hasn't. It's really only a matter of time, I'm sure, so I keep him at arm's length and tell him exactly what I need him to repeat to people who ask.

And every now and again, he's a good lay, I suppose.

"You're all set."

I smile.

"Good."