Verge Hayes // [District Twelve /CB 3]

My half-brother died almost ten years ago.

People think that should matter to me.

But it doesn't.

Asunder, his father named him,
after he killed his mother coming into this world.
Asunder, he kept the same name,
encouraging death to follow him home.

I guess I do think about him, sometimes.

But I'm not Asunder; we just share a last name.

I'm Verge.
Except when I go to the black market.
Then,
I'm Dwindle.

Mr. Hayes - my father, but that's pretty much irrelevant which he's made plain - showed me the way. When I was just barely a teenager, I got to following him around the district. After his shifts at the coal mine, he'd run errands for spare change. District Twelve doesn't have much to spare, as you know, so the jobs weren't exactly savory. He'd gone to the black market and it was there that I finally found something more interesting than him: contraband.

It took awhile for anyone to pay attention to me, but I'm stubborn. I just kept coming back week after week, delivering messages and newspaper wrapped sugar and saws. I didn't tell anyone - not even my best friend. I blended right in with everyone, else, from my coal-black hair to my burnished skin. It's not much of a life, but it's mine, and Mama looks the other way. Like she always said,

Better to diverge than be torn asunder.