son of a traitor / jasen.

[sidney]

JASEN

AGE TWELVE — TRAINING FOR WAR

    
“JB! Vinnie! Charlotte! Get your butts inside now! Dinner’s been ready for twenty minutes—it’ll get cold.” Mama yells from the back porch, head peeking from behind the screen as she waves a dirty dish towel wildly in the air. Desperately she tries to flag down her three rambunctious children to no avail, not even with the promise of a good, home-cooked meal to coax them inside.

“Ten more minutes!” I grunt back, raising my voice so she can hear me as I take my next swing to my brother Vincent’s face. Charlie stands about ten feet away with a notebook in her hand and a pencil slid between her teeth, glasses falling down her slender freckled nose as she analyzes my next attack. I’m down six points and there’s no way in hell I’m gonna let Vinnie win, not again.

“You need to put more weight into it,” Charlie pulls the pencil from her mouth and jots something down quickly, but when she looks back up at us, she rolls her eyes and lets out a huff. “No, no! Like this.” She gives my shoulder a hard shove and I fall back onto the tall, knee-high grass with a hard thud. That’s gonna hurt tomorrow. But I watch with fervor, taking mental notes of everything she does. How her shoulders are square with her knees, how she leans back onto her left foot just before she winds up her swing.

The punch is clean. Perfect. Effective.

CRRRACK!

“What the fuck, Charlie?” Her knuckles pop against Vinnie’s jaw and I can’t help but let out a little chuckle. She always did love two things: proving a point and hitting their eldest brother right in the face.

“What?” Charlie smiles innocently, uncharacteristically sweet. “Oh, don’t cry about it. I pulled that punch so just be grateful you’re not on the ground with JB.” She turns to me and offers out her hand which I take cautiously, but all she does this time is help me up thankfully. “Hit like you mean it and it’ll be enough. Don’t second guess yourself. Ever.” I nod profusely until the stern expression on her face fades into a half-cocked grin. “Now, let’s eat. I’m starving. We start again at dawn, little brother.” And she takes off running toward home.

“She’s such a bitch,” Vinnie curses her as he rubs the pads of his fingers along his cheek, feeling out the tender flesh where a bruise will surely form by morning. I cringe at the way he talks about her; I always have. She’s our sister and Vinnie’s always behaved like she doesn’t have the same blood as he or I running through her veins, like that doesn’t mean we’re supposed to love her no matter what.

“No, you’re just an ass who’s always asking for a punch to the face,” I dust off my shirt and pick up my morning sweatshirt off the ground, walking past where my brother stands throwing his tantrum. “And you’re just jealous she’s better than you at this.”

“At what?” He sounds less offended and more wounded, and I almost feel bad for being so casually cruel, but she’s my sister and anyone who calls her a bitch deserves it. “Huh? What, gone silent now? No more witty comebacks?” The truth is Charlie is better than both of us at simply everything. She relates to our father the best, always chosen as his pride and joy whenever company comes over. Have you met my daughter Charlotte? Top of her class at the Academy. She’s as beautiful as our mother, with a long list of suitors already lining up at our door. And she’s as tough as nails, with a mean right hook and a passion for violence unlike anything I’ve ever seen. Deep down I’m jealous. Charlotte Hargrove is incredible, with a will made of steel and a heart that never gets in the way. And if I could be anyone else in the world... it would be her.

Vinnie saddles up next to me as we walk, still pestering me with looks as he waits for an answer. The truth will hurt him, though and I decide it’s not worth it. Not after he’s agreed to be my sparring partner for practice. I won’t get into the Academy without his help and Charlie’s guidance. So instead I just bounce my shoulder against his, and use the momentum to push off past him in a run. He knows it already, I’m sure. It’s why he merely interns with my father’s office and doesn’t accompany him to the barracks like Charlotte; why he fills out paperwork while our sister readies herself and our whole district for war.

“The last Hargrove home has to wash dishes!” I shout over my shoulder as I whip past a sauntering Charlie. “Later, losers!”

“Oh, no you don’t!” She kicks off her shoes and takes off in a sprint after me as Vinnie says something along the lines of fuck you both in the distance.

But I still won the race.
And washed absolutely no dishes after dinner.

[sidney]

JASEN

AGE FOURTEEN — SNAKES IN THE GRASS

"We need to move quietly."

I hear them before I see them. It's late and I woke up not but ten minutes ago with a scratchy throat and ventured downstairs to get some water. Like any other night, Bailey, our mutt of a family dog lay snoring atop the couch as I breeze past him to make my way to the kitchen. And that's when I hear it. My father and sister whispering harshly by the back door.

"That'll be difficult if we have to walk. There's like five more boxes on the porch. What are we gonna d—?"

My foot lands on the wrong floorboard and makes a loud creak. 

"Shh!" I hold my breath, willing my heart to please stop thumping so loud in my chest. "Vincent..." My father calls out, takes a step toward the threshold of the kitchen, "...is that you?"

"Dad!" My sister whispers loudly, her voice so abrasive in the dead silence that it almost makes me drop the glass in my hand. "We don't have time. It's almost one. Let's go. I'll just get the wagon from the barn."

He turns the corner and I press myself against the pantry door, sliding inside as quick as I can. Breathing deep, I wait. As quietly as humanly possible. Until he calls back over his shoulder and follows her out the door.

"Good idea. I'm right behind you."

They leave and immediately I question myself. Why did you hide? I haven't the faintest idea. Why were they moving boxes in the middle of the night? I have to find out. 

wippity wip