the devil wears heirloom bracelets / d4 train

florentine. 

i just want to make it clear that it wasn't me who burned down the house.

in fact, i wasn't even on that side of town when it happened. it's overdramatic, even, to say it burned down; it was still standing, once they got it under control. just singed around the edges, and missing a good section of its roof. they did have an excessive amount of roof to begin with. while the boys poured the gasoline, i was sitting on the roof of an apartment building playing with lena's hair. and, afterwards, i kissed away the tears on her cheeks and told her it was going to be okay. 

she never knew it was my idea. she thought we broke up because she wanted to explore her options, whatever that meant. it wasn't anything to do with me, she promised. she never even noticed that i borrowed her key.

that's the most important rule: don't get caught. 

i always leave a shred of doubt behind. take something they'll miss, but not before the one-night-stand has faded from their memory, enough that they wonder if they simply misplaced it. perhaps the cat ran away. maybe all of the stitches in the seams of their socks undid themselves because the washing machine is too vigorous and the quality of the fabric they import from eight has gone downhill. it's more than likely that the fault was electrical, that the door was left open by mistake, that the handbrake was forgotten... that the bracelet fell off somewhere in between hurling your drink across the room and getting a right hook to the eyeball.

the second most important rule is: make sure the punishment fits the crime. 

and i thought that i did this - one bratty drunken tantrum in exchange for a diamond-studded heirloom. it seemed reasonable to me. pearl, obviously, disagreed. 

"my name is pearl mcclain and this bitch stole my bracelet last night." 

imagine stepping up in front of everyone and exposing yourself as a materialistic, superficial little upstart. the forward planning was minimal, but that's looking like a bit of a pattern. it's genuinely embarrassing to behold.

"people are dying, pearl," i'd retorted, to emphasise her vapidity. the peacekeepers intervened before pearl could throw herself across the stage and pry the thing from my wrist, which i think was a very real possibility, given her track record.

in the justice centre, while all the other tributes across panem were saying goodbye to their loving families, i sat cross-legged and considered my options. luckily, my mother had chosen to remove herself from this equation a decade ago, leaving me alone in this godforsaken world and providing me with more time to think.

my first idea had been to plead innocence. tell pearl that there had been a mistake - that i'd found the bracelet in the party clean up, and intended to find her after the reaping to give it back to her. something about the way she'd looked across the stage at me while denouncing my good standing to the entire nation makes me think that generous reflection and revindication of her claim are not possibilities.

i don't have much choice, then, when they ask me to select my token.

it is in pride of place on my arm when i board the train. it is nice to have something familiar and inconsequential to think about, to keep my mind off the significantly bigger problems at play.

i sprawl across a plush velvet seat and prop my boots up on the opposite side. i enjoy a singular moment of tranquillity before the devil herself enters the carriage. she is everything wrong with this world, bottled up in the perky body of a sixteen year old.

in my head, i start a list of things to do before i die:

1. overthrow the government, or similar. 
2. destroy pearl mcclain. she deserves it.