Culling

Part III • Chapter V

That was the plan. "Are you going to tell me what I need to know?" I asked again.

Greg blinked at me, and this time he visibly flinched as I grabbed him by the arm and hauled him back into the seated position he was in before.

"Wait," He said quickly as I stepped back. "What do you even want to know? I mean, fuck if I know anything..."

"Tell me how you know Maro Sorenson and Derrick Brenner. I know that you knew them before you came to the Capital." I asked the first of many things that had been on my mind lately. The other part of my plans with Greg, being of a more personal nature, could wait until after I got some answers.

I had a feeling that the information from that particular conversation would make it harder for me to think straight.

Greg frowned, he seemed confused by the question. "Those losers? Why the fuck do you care?"

He didn't need to know why I cared. I stepped forward, mostly intent on intimidating him. It worked, as Greg spoke quickly. "Fine! Fuck. We used to be friends when we were kids, alright?"

Interesting. I raised an eyebrow, I had not been expecting that as an answer. "What happened?"

Greg was silent for a long second, as he glared at me, but before I could even open my mouth to ask ahead he was already talking. "When Mr Sorenson came back to town to stay, Maro suddenly became too cool to hang out with the normal folks. He was always off doing shit."

He paused, and didn't seem inclined to give more information.

"And...?" I prompted. Surely there was something else. Perhaps Maro had beat him up in an alleyway, stolen his lunch money, cheated off an exam, something?

"And what?" Greg spat out. "When we started high school he suddenly started hanging out with others. We tried to talk to him again, but he still was too good for me. No one ignores me and gets away with it. I hate that asshole."

Seriously? The core of his hatred stemmed from an ended childhood friendship - was he five years old?

I fought the urge to roll my eyes at his juvenile reasoning. I had been hoping for something with some depth to it, but there was nothing in Greg's posture or words that hinted at insincerity. He really was that childish.

Moving on. "What about Sang. When was the first time you noticed her? Why did you assume she was related to Maro?"

"Sing?" He scoffed in a disbelieving tone.

I was not in the mood for this, after everything he had put her through, he could at least get her name right. With the amount of times we had been in the spotlight this past month, and apparently with Chet's frequent rants, there was no way that he didn't know what it was.

"Who?" I glared at him.

He quickly changed his tune. "Sang! I'm talking about Sang! Dude, fuck! I swear I had never saw her before until the day she was chosen as a tribute! It was obvious that she was his sister, since Maro brought her to the stage. Plus, there are no other Sorenson families in district six. She could only be his sister. She didn't deny it."

This was interesting. I didn't know a lot about the Sorenson family, even though apparently the Academy did have some information. So, their name alone was unique enough to stand out from the other families in the lower level districts.

How had their family not stood out more, even with Maro's ability cloaking Sang's presence. Derrick had said it only worked as long as the subject of his ability didn't draw attention to themselves. What had Mr Sorenson's ability been? It almost seemed like Mr Sorenson wasn't afraid of the Sorenson family being known around town. He was only concerned about Sang being found.