Culling

Part II • Chapter X

Everyone was silent for a moment, and I felt the tension and confusion throughout the room.

Kota broke the silence and pursed his lips. "How could he have that kind of skill, it is very rare for someone with a powerful ability to come from a lower level district. Jade, now Maro too... are you powerful as well?"

Derrick shrugged. "It doesn't matter, I can do enough. I don't know about Jade. I do know that Mr Sorenson was not from district six, he was from district three. However, Mr Sorenson was not very powerful and ended up matched with Mrs Sorenson. From what Maro remembered, Mrs Sorenson refused to leave district six. So Mr Sorenson used to live part time in district three and part time in district six."

I had sat next to Sean while Derrick was talking, and began to rub my head as I thought back to my earliest childhood memories. "I had no idea. I always remembered us living in district six and my father working in the mines. I don't remember him travelling at all... Maybe I was just too young?"

"Possibly, but Maro told me that you just showed up one day with Mr Sorenson. However, Maro does have very good recall, and his father did talk to him about this a lot." Derrick waved it off and continued. "I don't know. In any case, Mr Sorenson showed up one day and had Sang with him. He told Mrs Sorenson that she was his daughter, and that she was the same age as Maro. So they were raised as twins. After that, Mr Sorenson never left district six again.

When he was younger, Maro couldn't control his abilities, so he couldn't hide Sang's projection. According to Maro, Mr Sorenson became paranoid about being found and passed that paranoia on to Mrs Sorenson. She wanted all contact with the outside world severed, so she hated Sang's ability and the risk it represented. After a few years Maro grew into his ability. Now he is actually quite powerful, and can mostly conceal Sang's presence in the astral realm as well."

I sniffled and wiped my eyes and realized that I had been crying. I had no idea that my brother had been doing so much for me this whole time. "No wonder he hates me..." I had been such a burden to him, to my step-mother... It was because of me that they couldn't have had a normal life.

Derrick's knit his brow and gave me a condescending look. "Stop. Maro doesn't hate you, he just has a lot going on. There's not just you he has had to deal with. Plus, it pissed him off that he couldn't do anything about your mother without altering the authorities of your presence. Mrs Sorenson has... issues and was worse when he was around you, maybe it became a habit. Mr Sorenson, was, well... I don't know."

"So the reason that Maro didn't volunteer in Sang's place," Kota interjected, "was because he figured that she would be safer at the games, with you nearby, then left alone in district six to face this Volto character?"

Derrick nodded, "Pretty much."

Gabriel crossed his arms. "I still don't like the fucker."

☜♡☞

I woke up and noticed that the room was empty apart from Sean and me. Apparently, the 7am breakfast rule no longer applied to me, or something because from the light streaming in the window it was past that time. Plus, another giveaway was the tray of food over on the coffee table across the room.

After our discussion with Derrick last night - and after I had forced Nathan, North and Silas to apologize - Derrick left to return to his own room. We made plans to revisit the conversation after I met with my Grandparents; we didn't want to give cause for Chet to be suspicious if Derrick was missing from his rooms too often. Meanwhile Derrick begrudgingly agreed to snoop around the other tributes to see if anything of interest came up.

Even after the conversation we had had with him, the only people who seemed to be somewhat kind to Derrick were Luke, Victor and Sean. However, since Victor and Luke had been actively involved in keeping me distracted at the spa while the others stalked/beat up Derrick, I chose to sleep with Sean.