Ghost of a Thought (Axel)

As Ghost pulled the person through, he couldn't help but notice that the grip on the hand felt wrong. He had hauled a bunch of people to their feet in his time and, even through a glove, he knew how a hand should feel. He pulled the person all the way through and looked her over. The girl seemed about his age...give or take a year...and extremely underdressed for this weather.

Before he could introduce himself though, the girl backed away from him, seemingly scared. He looked at her questioningly and then remembered the sword. He placed the hand that he had hauled her through with to his head and, instead of dry cloth, felt a wetness to his glove. He took it back and looked at it before sniffing it, his eyes widening and looking at the girl with concern.

He held up a finger and walked over to a hidden alcove nearby. He pulled out a pack and grabbed a bandage wrap as well as his black jacket. He walked over to her and put the jacket on her shoulders and then took her hand and turned it palm up. What he saw made him shudder but he continued nonetheless, wrapping her hand up with bandage...no matter how much she tugged. A self mutilator eh? It's a wonder that she survived this long. He thought as he finished.

"My name's Ghost. I'm a wanderer...like you, though it seems as if I have been one longer." He points to her now bandaged hand. "With shit like that...you will have widespread infection in months. Fortunately for you...you seem to have held on longer than most. You got lucky this time." He then remembered something and looked off to the side. "I had someone I loved that did that. Someone who is now gone." He looked up at her and shook his head before sitting in front of her. He waited for her to say something.

Ghost watched as she backed away from him and tried to pull her hand away. He held her until her hand was bandaged and then let her go. Not surprisingly, she backed away from him and began to pick at the bandages on her hand. He sighed and watched her pick, trying to get them off. Trying to pull her wounds open again. He waited for her to say something and when she did, he couldn't help but snicker a little bit at what she said. "Okay Ms. Natural Instincts...fine." He sighed and sat with his back against the wall behind him, watching her pick away.

With those that had self mutilated themselves, something worse than their parents being killed usually triggered it. It usually meant some kind of feeling of abandonment to him. He didn't know how close his thoughts were. He sighed and looked over at her as she picked away at the bandages that he had put on her hand. He couldn't help but think of Dwyn. As he looked at the girl, he saw an image of Dwyn overlaid on top of her and he fell backwards in surprise. He looked again and everything from the blonde hair to the face structure and the body structure was the same as his girlfriend.

That was when the girl yelled in triumph, snapping him back to reality. "Don't ever try and stop me from doing this, it's the only thing that eases the pain I feel in my heart. You have no idea what I've seen and what I've had to do, and this is the only thing that helps me." She said as she pulled a knife from her boot and stabbed it into her palm drawing blood. He sighed. "I didn't want to do this...but you leave me no choice." That was when he moved.

He was on his feet, moving swiftly towards the girl, his foot lashing out and hitting her funnybone on the arm that held the knife, causing the knife to fall. He grabbed the knife as he spun and chucked it straight up. The knife made a soft thunk as it sunk deeply into the wooden roof above them. He moved back to his place and stayed standing, staring at the girl. "You don't know me either. I can tell that you felt abandoned and betrayed probably. Well you have no idea how I felt when Peacekeepers publicly executed both of my parents for doing absolutely nothing." That was only half of a lie, but it would get his point across to the girl.

Ghost had expected the girl to take out another knife and start cutting herself again, but what happened shocked him. The girl broke down and walked over to the wall where she curled up in the shadows. He just looked at her as her pathetic self basically imploded and she seemed to lose all grasp on reality. He remembered something similar with knives happening with Dwyn when he first met her...but she hadn't broken down and cried despite having lost everything. She had fought him until he had bent her knives (having gotten them repaired later).

"You've as good as killed me now, I don't have anything, you've taken everything away from me, you're just like everyone else. You want to make sure I'm never happy again...I hate you, I hate you so much, you wouldn't be so tough if you didn't have your big sword"

He looked at the girl. What she had said just insulted him. To say that he wasn't tough when he didn't have a sword was the complete opposite. He was usually tougher without the sword. He slung the sword in it's scabbard off of his back and threw it to the side, making a clattering sound as it skidded along the ground. He looked at her and sighed, kneeling next to her and looking at her.

"How about I go and hang onto your knife for you? By everything I guess you lost your entire family after your parents. Well I'm sorry that it happened, but I don't think self mutilation is the answer. I lost everything when my parents died and I almost died myself. I found some friends and then decided to leave to get stronger for two years to find them all gone...taken. I've even lost my girlfriend to the Capitol. But you don't see me mutilating myself."

He sighed and sat next to her. "Tell me when you want me to go get your knife and I will. Otherwise...I'll sit right here, without my big sword."

Ghost sat in silence next to her. He knew what he had done was probably wrong in her eyes...but he was helping her to get over her habit. What he wanted to do was protect people...and a wanderer cutting themselves would eventually die. She had lost everything...well he had as well and had almost gone for that painful escape. Instead...he met Tom and the rest of the Vigilantes and eventually...Mel, John, Flight...and Dwyn. But all of that was gone...except for Flight who was her usual bitchy self.

"I wouldn't expect you to understand what I have to go through, why I turned to that. I wasn't always like that, it wasn't until I had to watch my dad be killed by the Peacekeepers and my mother kill herself that I turned to it. It was the only thing that made me forget, each cut would take away a piece of the memory and I would be safe, at least for a little while. Don't you see...I need it...I need something to help me. I can't trust people so I don't look for help in them, I only trust my knife and myself. Please, please just get it, please give it back to me I need it."

Then she did something that he didn't expect. As he was going to get her knife...she grabbed onto him for dear life. It was as if she was his anchor. He slowly moved around in front of her, holding her hand tenderly in his and looked at her. "Okay...I'm going to go get the knife for you. Promise me right now that you won't break down without me around or your knife. I'll come back. I promise." He let her hands go and walked around the corner into the alley between the two houses. He knelt down and then sprinted forward.

He got speed and began to run up the wall of the house on his right before jumping off and catching a ledge on the other house with his hand. From there, he climbed to the roof of the house and walked along the roof until he was above the girl. He looked around for a bit and saw a thin glint on one of the beams just over the edge. He reached down and his fingers touched metal. He smiled and found the handle, pulling it out and examining it. It was a good quality knife from the way it handled and the weight of it. He slid it into his other boot and was about to climb down when a flash of white caught his attention.

He got down and watched as peacekeepers walked along the alley that the girl was in. Shit...I don't have time for this. he thought as they got closer to the girl. He counted three. He reached for his sword but only grasped air. "Shitshitshitshitshitshit!" he exclaimed in a whisper. He felt his blade and her blade in his boots and pulled them out. He waited for one to be directly beneath him and jumped. He landed on the one and turned, slicing the necks of the other two with the two blades. The one under him had cusioned his fall but was reaching for a radio. He broke the neck of the peacekeeper and put his stolen earpiece in that he had taken a long time ago. He was now on the PK frequency and could hear everything that was said.

He went over to the girl and wiped the blood from her knife before handing it to her handle first. "Hey...take it and put it away unless we get in a confrontation. A few Peacekeepers almost noticed you. I tapped into their communications so I can get us to safety. Now we need to go." He waited for her to grab the knife and when she did, he grabbed his sword, putting it over his shoulder again, waiting for her to be ready to go. "You never told me your name."

Ghost had expected the girl to give him some false name that was generic. Something that concealed where she was from at least or who she had used to be. When one became a wanderer...one usually no longer had a family. He had been Kurt Smith from District 12. He had then become Ghost the Vigilante and was now just Ghost. So it was surprising when she actually told him her real name.

"My name, oh, my name is Elizabeth Verdain, though everyone used to call me Lizzie. Shouldn't we be going now though, there will be more Peacekeepers coming if we stay here, and I doubt the two of us would last long in a real fight."

Ghost looked at her for a second completely taken aback by her response. The last name Verdian he had heard back in District 4 which meant that this girl was probably from there. One person on the streets was talking about the family when he had been there. He nodded his head and grabbed her by the arm. "Okay Lizzie. We need to get out into the open and act like a couple. I know it sounds crazy...but there is a lot of that kind of stuff that happens at night. If the shit hits the fan. Then we run."

He smiled as he pulled her along. "And don't worry about the peacekeepers. I've been fighting them for almost three years now. So i know how to handle them."