Hunger Games fic: Treading Water (4/30?), PG-13
Title: Treading Water (Part I - District Four)
Chapter Title: Liars and Thieves
Rating (this chapter): PG-13
Word count: ~6,700
Betas: mrsdrjackson and pinkfinity (all mistakes and missteps are my own)
Focus: Annie Cresta/Finnick Odair
Characters: Finnick Odair, Johanna Mason, Plutarch Heavensbee, Annie Cresta, original characters
Summary: Which is easier? Wondering what will happen or knowing exactly what will happen and being helpless to do anything about it?
Warnings: references to situations of dubious consent
Author's note: no music at the end of this one. Instead, go here to download the music for all of Part I - District Four, 20 songs in all to enhance your reading pleasure. And also, if you enjoy this chapter, you may want to read Interlude, which follows Johanna and Finnick after their meeting with Plutarch (rated NC-17 for Johanna/Finnick).
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When Finnick arrives at The Abyss, Johanna is already there. She’s dancing with a very tall, very pale man, her red dress and dark hair a vibrant contrast to the man’s skin, hair, clothes. She reaches up to twist his long hair around one wrist and leads him into the warren of back rooms for which the club is infamous. At the last second, she turns around, the man’s hair still wrapped around her wrist, and winks at Finnick, reminding him of the night he and Johanna first met.
The tributes were arriving in the Capitol, district by district, for the 70th Hunger Games. He knew who Annie was, had stood beside her on stage at the reaping, knew that he’d be her mentor, but he hadn’t spoken to her yet. She and the boy from 4 weren’t supposed to arrive until the next morning. Then as now, he had nothing better to do, no one on his schedule, so he went to The Abyss, the closest club to the Training Center.
Johanna was there; she wore red then, too. He recognized her as the girl who won the games the year before and knew that she was probably in the Capitol as a mentor, just like him. She was attempting to lead a guy into the back rooms, but Finnick was close enough to hear him refuse unless his friends could join them. Johanna told him off and grabbed Finnick by the belt, dragged him to the back instead. To make a point, she told him. He was nineteen, she was eighteen, and he was curious, so he went.
They’d never even spoken to each other before, but within minutes, she had him up against the wall, or maybe he had her up against the wall. It was kind of hazy. They never did work out as lovers, but they’ve been friends ever since.
Finnick glances at the clock above the bar. He doesn’t want to head for the back rooms too soon after Jo, so he whistles to get a bartender’s attention. The time it takes to get a drink should be about right. A pretty girl with spiky green hair and glowing green eyes, wearing a skin-tight green skirt and nothing else, smiles at him and dances over to take his order.
“Sex on the Beach, Finnick?” No matter how long it is between visits, Korinna always remembers what he likes.
He reaches out and snags her hand, pulls her toward him over the bar and kisses her wrist. “Ah, if only there was a beach nearby, my love,” he purrs. The pounding music surrounding them vibrates through the bar.
She extracts her hand from his with a laugh and an interesting blush and says, “I’ll take that as a yes.” A couple of minutes later, drink in hand, he weaves his way through dozens of dancers. With a glance around the room for watchful eyes, he slips through the doorway to the back rooms and heads to the third hallway on the left, then the third door on the right.
He knocks and Johanna opens the door, grabs his hand, and jerks him into the room. Her tall and snowy boy-toy is nowhere to be seen.
“Hey!” he protests as a good half of his cocktail sloshes over his hand, splashing his trousers on the way to the floor. “You’re wasting a perfectly good drink!” He shakes some of the spilled liquor from his hand, takes a sip of what remains in his glass and sets it on a low table, then looks around the darkish room for something to dry off with. If his trousers stain, he’ll hear about it from Rafe later, the entire time he’s in prep. Possibly longer.
“That fruity crap you like? If it was a real drink, I might actually care.” She takes his hand, a paper napkin in one of hers, but instead of dabbing at the sticky alcohol, she shoots him an impish look and licks the sweet liquor from his hand.
“Aw, Jo, and here I thought you didn’t care.”
And that’s the moment Plutarch Heavensbee chooses to open the door. He pauses at the sight of Johanna licking Finnick’s hand. “I can come back if you two are, um, busy,” he drawls.
Finnick pulls away from Johanna. “Jo’s just being a brat.”
Heavensbee looks from one to the other and shakes his head, closes the door and walks around the room, a small black cube in his hands. “It’s just the three of us tonight.” He gestures for the other two to sit and Johanna drops into an overstuffed leather chair, her legs over the arm of the chair and one arm across the back. Finnick picks up a pillow from another and slumps into the chair, stretches his legs out in front of him, crossed at the ankles, and puts the pillow under his head on the back of the chair. He closes his eyes and tells himself not to fall asleep. The wet spot on his right leg is cold, distracting. Maybe it’ll help him stay awake.
“How long have you been back?” Johanna asks, kicking Finnick’s hand where it dangles over the arm of his chair.
Finnick doesn’t bother opening his eyes when he answers. “A week? Maybe? I don’t know. I haven’t gotten much sleep so it’s all kind of a blur right now.” All he knows for sure is that he’s had six clients in as many days.
“Bet you’ve had plenty of time in bed though.” Johanna’s snark mirrors his thoughts. Sort of.
Finnick opens one eye and rolls his head toward her to glare at her. He runs through several retorts in his head, but any one of them will elicit a like response from Jo, escalating into something he really isn’t up for, so in the end, he just closes his eye again and settles back into the chair.
“If you two are quite finished?”
“Sorry, Plutarch,” Finnick says and straightens up. He finishes his drink, since there isn’t much left, and places the empty glass back on the table. An employee of the club will clean it up later.
Heavensbee settles into a third chair and places the cube on the table in front of him. He presses a button that glows green and then he waits a couple of seconds before he says, “We can speak freely, but keep your voices low. This will jam any devices I may have missed, but it won’t prevent us being overheard by someone standing outside the door.”
“Great,” Johanna says. “So tell us about the arena, Plutarch.”
“That’s not why we’re here, Johanna,” Heavensbee points out mildly.
“Well why not? I’m intensely interested, since I’m going to be in the damned thing in a few weeks.”
Finnick throws the pillow at her. “You’re not the only one, so stop bitching.” He isn’t sure which is easier, wondering what will happen on Reaping Day or knowing exactly what will happen and being helpless to do anything about it.
“You have a one in five chance at staying home. I have a one in one chance of being reaped. Again.”
“One in four and Snow’s not happy with me, so maybe less than that.” There was an unpleasant interview with the President when he arrived a week or so ago, not that any of them are enjoyable. The car Snow sent for him didn’t drop him off at the Training Center, where he usually stays in the Capitol, but instead took him to the President’s mansion. Snow commented on how long Finnick was away this time, reiterated what was written in his summons, that several people asked about when he was coming back and expressed an interest in his company. Finnick snorted at that, almost amused at the euphemism, but Snow shot him a look and asked after Annie, after his parents, after his nephew Rhys, and Finnick was no longer even remotely amused.
Johanna frowns and pulls him out of his reverie by asking, “One in four?”
Finnick looks from her to Heavensbee. “You didn’t hear?” They both shake their heads. “Jackson Hull committed suicide a few weeks ago. It didn’t hit the news here?”
“No,” Heavensbee says. “I wonder what sort of message we should take from that?”
“Probably nothing,” Johanna says. “Hull wasn’t exactly what you’d call a popular victor.”
“Still, I expect something like that to be reported on, especially this close to the Games.”
Finnick agrees with that and can’t help but wonder why it was a big enough deal back home for the Peacekeepers to nearly arrest him just for cutting Jack’s body down, but not important enough here, where the Hunger Games are all-encompassing, for even a passing mention.
“I’ll look into it, if I have the time,” Heavensbee says. “I suppose it could become problematic.” He jots something into a low-tech paper notebook. “Finnick, have you picked up anything we might be able to use?”
“As a matter of fact, yes.” He leans forward and rests his elbows on his knees. “The woman I was with a couple of nights ago was pretty high up in the Peacekeeper hierarchy.” He pauses to give Johanna an opportunity to needle him, but she says nothing. “She told me all about beefing up Peacekeeper forces in the districts, particularly Three, Four, Eight, and Twelve, but also in Six and Eleven. I’ve seen it first hand in Four. Tensions are high and it won’t take much to set things off. Even more helpful, though, she gave me a rough idea of where their weapons caches are located and how lightly they’re guarded.”
“You’re kidding. Why would anyone tell you something like that?” Johanna asks, surprised.
“Why not? Who am I going to tell?” He adopts a broad District 4 drawl. “I’m nothin’ but a pretty boy from the districts with barely a brain in my head.” He drops the accent. “And if I repeat what she told me, who will believe me?” He picks up his glass and then remembers that he already finished his drink, puts it back down. “To be fair, I don’t think she realized just how much she told me.” He smiles. It hadn't been a bad night, really, even if Eshara wasn't someone he would have chosen to be with. “I was keeping her pretty distracted at the time.”
“These people are morons.”
“They can be, yes,” Heavensbee says in rebuke - he is, after all, one of ‘these people’ - “but we can use that to our advantage.” He holds out his notebook and pen to Finnick. “Write down what you remember and I’ll have those locations checked out as well.”
Finnick eyes the notebook. “I’m happy to.” He glances up at Heavensbee. “I hope you can read my writing, though.”
Johanna laughs. “That’s right. You dropped out of school at a younger age than the rest of us. Didn’t quite learn that whole reading and writing thing, did you, Finnick?”
“Shut up. It’s not like that. I just don’t have good handwriting.” And yes, that is probably because I dropped out of school at fourteen, he thinks, but I’m not going to admit that to you.
As Finnick writes carefully in the little book, noting rough troop movements and strengths, weapon types and cache locations, everything he can remember, in each district Eshara mentioned, Heavensbee leans forward and drops his voice even lower, just above a whisper. There’s a barely suppressed excitement in him when he says, “We’ve found our catalyst.”
Jo raises an eloquent eyebrow at that and Finnick pauses in his writing, asks, “And what, or who, might that be?” He pushes the hope that rises inside him back down. Hope and the Games don’t mix, and it’s only a couple of weeks to Reaping Day, a handful of days past that to the Games. It wasn’t apparent during his latest interview with Snow whether the bastard hopes Finnick will be sent back to the arena or whether this particular cash cow will continue to perform.
“Katniss Everdeen of District Twelve,” Heavensbee answers. “The girl is a walking, breathing symbol of rebellion after her performance last year. And with all the drama surrounding the cancellation of her wedding to the Mellark boy, well. Mockingjay tokens are popping up all over the Capitol, more so now that she’s going back into the arena than before, when she was merely a lovely bride to be.”
“Now that just pisses me off,” Johanna says, looking both angry and disgusted.
“Everything pisses you off, Jo,” Finnick comments and continues to write. She shifts until she can kick his chair, causing the pen to jump on the page.
“Shut up, fish boy. Isn’t it bad enough she and her little boyfriend were pushed into that whole wedding farce in the first place? Now the good citizens of the Capitol get even more entertainment out of watching her fight for her life again while we, the supposed good guys, use her as a symbol to what? Start a war?”
“Exactly,” Heavensbee says with a predatory smile. “Katniss Everdeen is our Mockingjay. She’s our best chance to light the districts on fire. Our best chance to light the Capitol on fire at the same time.”
“Does she know that?” Finnick asks.
That seems to give Heavensbee pause. “No, she doesn’t. Haymitch feels it’s safer if neither she nor the boy know about it just yet.”
“Fabulous,” Johanna says. “We get to be just as bad as Snow and his buddies.” Heavensbee glares at her, but Finnick agrees with Jo.
“I’m not happy about using her without her knowledge, Plutarch,” Finnick says.
“You of all people, Finnick, should know that we sometimes must do things we find distasteful for the greater good.”
“Oh, don’t even go there,” Johanna says, eyes flashing, voice raised. Her hands are gripped tightly on the arms of her chair and her feet are on the floor. She looks as though she’s ready to launch herself at Heavensbee.
“Jo.” That’s all Finnick says, just her name, but she settles back into the chair, loosens her grip on the arms.
Heavensbee looks at her as though he’s never seen her before and subtly shifts in his chair, closer to Finnick, further from Johanna. He clears his throat before speaking. “With a pool of sixty-” He glances at Finnick before starting again. “With a pool of fifty-nine victors to choose from, at least half of whom are well over fifty, we need to make sure there’s someone in the arena we can depend on, physically and mentally, to protect Katniss.” He looks back and forth between Finnick and Johanna, but when he continues, he looks only at Finnick. “I’m sorry to ask this of you, Finnick, but if your name isn’t called, we’d like you to volunteer.”
Finnick sits back in his chair, feeling as though he’s just been punched. He blinks and the room comes back into focus, although he doesn’t remember it losing focus in the first place.
“What the ever-loving fuck?” Johanna exclaims. “Are you joking? Are you seriously asking him to throw away his life for Katniss Everdeen?”
“Johanna, please…” Heavensbee begins, but Johanna doesn’t let him talk as she stands and takes the two steps necessary to reach his chair. Little Johanna Mason looming over Plutarch Heavensbee, Head Gamemaker of the 75th Hunger Games, would be funny if Finnick didn’t think she might actually choke him to death.
“Don’t you ‘Johanna, please’ me, Plutarch Heavensbee. You may design the fucking things, but you have never been in that arena. You have no clue what it’s like.” Her voice breaks at the end and Finnick sees the glitter of tears in her eyes. Angry. Frightened. It doesn’t matter which.
“Don’t hurt him, Jo,” he tells her. “If we’re going to end the Games, end all of it, we kind of need him alive.” He looks at Heavensbee then, but the man won’t meet Finnick’s eyes. Finnick returns his pen and notebook. “I’ll think about it, Plutarch,” he tells him quietly, but all he can think about is Annie.
The first time he saw Annie was the day she was reaped, although if anyone were to ask her, she might tell a different story. He didn’t notice her right away, blending in with the other girls in the enclosure. He didn’t want to be there, but since he was mentoring that year, he had no choice. Story of his life. Hers wasn’t the name called, but the girl chosen first was only thirteen. The entire crowd in the square seemed to hold its collective breath, Finnick along with them, and then a pretty girl in a sea green dress, nearly the same color as her eyes, stepped forward. “I’ll go. I’ll take her place.” Everyone could breathe again, except maybe the older girl’s family. Phineas LaSalle, the Capitol representative for the district, asked her to come forward, up onto the stage, as the family of the little girl who’d just gotten a reprieve cried and called out “thank you” over and over. LaSalle said something to her and then had her stand next to Finnick as the man announced, “Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you the female tribute for District 4 to the 70th Hunger Games, Anwyn Cresta.”
Finnick doesn’t know how long he’s lost in that memory, but he blinks and Johanna is standing by the door. Heavensbee is still in his chair, but he doesn’t seem to be damaged at all, their voices are no longer raised, and Jo’s anger has faded.
“I’m out of here,” she says. “I need a drink. Or something.” With that, she’s out the door. Finnick is sure she won’t leave without talking to him first, so he’s not in a rush. He doesn’t have anywhere to be for a few hours yet, so maybe he and Jo can stay for a while, maybe dance, enjoy themselves a little.
“Finnick.” Heavensbee stands, looks down at him. “I apologize. I didn’t mean to sound so cavalier about your life. You are not expendable, anymore than Johanna is, but there are so few we can trust with this. We can’t afford for Johanna to be the only protection our Mockingjay has.”
“It’s okay, Plutarch. I understand.” He doesn’t bother to mention that Katniss’ district partner will be protecting her, too, given that it’ll be either Peeta or Haymitch.
“Can we count on you, Finnick?”
He looks up at the Gamemaker, a man whose sole purpose for existing, as far as the Capitol is concerned, is to create death for the entertainment of its citizens. The work of his fellow Gamemakers still haunts Finnick every night in his dreams.
“It’s a lot to ask, Plutarch. I can’t give you an answer right now.”
Heavensbee nods. “I suppose the fact you’re considering it has to be enough for now.” He collects the device from the table, but doesn’t turn it off, pauses at the door. “For what it’s worth, Finnick, our hope is to get as many of you out of the arena alive as we can.” Then he deactivates the box, turns and walks out of the room, closing the door behind him. Finnick waits a few more minutes before he follows, trying hard to keep his mind a blank, his memories of the arena at bay.
xXx
Annie sits on the beach, a blanket around her shoulders, watching the sea for any sign of movement. She doesn’t expect to see anything - the moon is in its dark phase and the stars, though beautiful to look at, aren’t bright enough to see by - but still she watches. It’s well past midnight and Thomas and Shandra should have been back by now. They took Thomas’ seiner out right after the sun dropped below the horizon, heading first to pick up Rick and Corin and then for the open sea past Victors’ Island.
Rhys approaches her from behind. She knows it’s him, no one else kicks so much sand when he walks. He drops down beside her with a dramatic sigh and she hides a smile in the crook of her arm, resting on her upraised knees. “I still don’t understand why I couldn’t go, too,” Rhys says. “I could’ve helped.” He’s only thirteen, full of dreams and with no understanding of his own limitations, his own mortality. She wonders if she was ever really that young.
“Of course you could have, Rhys, but it’s dangerous, what they’re doing, and it’s easier for your mother to do what she needs to do if she knows you’re safe.” Annie knows how Rhys feels; she would’ve liked to be out there helping, too, but she knows she’d be more of a liability than an asset. She doesn’t do well under pressure and there are times when she can’t bear even the thought of being surrounded by all that deep, deep water. It would’ve been the same for Rhys, although in his case his unreliability is due more to his age and inexperience than being prone to panic attacks. And the Odairs aren’t alone, they don’t need her help. Half a dozen boats fish in Capitol waters tonight, while the commercial trawlers contracted to the Capitol drop anchor near the public wharf. There simply are no more viable fish to be had close to shore.
It’s only been a couple of weeks since the President issued his edict, but the people of the district, including the Odairs, already feel the pinch. Shandra told Annie just that morning that she saw a man harvesting barnacles from the concrete footers of the public wharf. He collected them in buckets to take home to his family. At least the barnacles don’t belong to the Capitol, he’d told Shandra.
“I wonder if the Peacekeepers caught them.”
“Don’t say that, Rhys.” Annie shivers and pulls the blanket closer around her. The heat of the day has long since leached from the sand and she thinks that maybe she should go inside and change into something warmer than shorts and a thin shirt, at least grab a sweater.
“Do you think they’d send them to jail?” Rhys sounds excited by the prospect.
“They’d do worse than just send them to jail,” Annie responds, but she isn’t sure Rhys, caught up in his fantasy, hears her.
“We could break them out. You and me.” He shifts a little, turns more toward Annie. “They’d probably put ‘em into the cells in the Justice Building. You could distract the guards while I steal the key and-”
“Rhys.” Jenna’s hoarse voice behind them stops the boy in his tracks. She’s fought a summer cold for two days now or she’d be out on that boat beside her husband. “It’s not a game,” she tells her grandson. “What they’re doing is a crime against the government. Treason. If they’re caught, they’ll be shot, not jailed.”
Annie covers her ears, not wanting to hear anything more. She burrows deeper into the blanket, starts to hum a song, just something Finnick sings for her sometimes. He wrote it years ago, a few months after she moved to Victors’ Island and they’d run into each other walking along the beach occasionally, and then later, more than just occasionally.
Finnick’s mother sits down beside Annie and pulls her into her arms. “Hush, child,” she tells her. Annie stops humming. “Things went so smoothly the first two times, they were bound to run into a snag this time around.” Jenna pulls abruptly away from Annie and coughs, the sound rough and painful.
“Yeah, Annie,” Rhys chimes in from her other side. “They’re not even all that late, really. I’m sorry I worried you.”
The three of them sit for a few more minutes in silence until a strong coughing attack strikes Jenna again. Annie says, “You should go back inside, Jenna. Rhys and I will watch. He’ll come get you when they’re back.”
“You know I’d rather be out here.” Jenna sneezes.
“I know. But your cough is getting worse.”
Jenna releases a breathy sigh. “I suppose you’re right. I should at least take something for it. If they’re in any kind of trouble, I’ll be better able to help if I’m not falling over from coughing.” She laughs and ends up fighting yet another cough. “I hate taking my own medicine.”
She stands, using Annie’s shoulder for support. She takes only a couple of steps toward the house when Rhys jumps to his feet. “There!” he shouts, pointing out beyond the end of the pier. “Two boats!” He sprints across the sand, leaving Annie and Jenna where they are on the beach. Annie sees a darker shadow on the water, still a good way out, but there isn’t enough light to discern any details.
“They’re moving too slowly,” Jenna says. Annie hears the worry in her voice.
Annie rolls to her feet and throws the blanket around Jenna’s shoulders. The two women walk across the beach to the pier. Rhys is already up the ladder and pounding across the wood planks to the end; Annie half expects him to dive off and swim out to meet them. When she and Jenna reach the pier, Annie waits at the bottom while Jenna climbs the ladder, the older woman’s movements much slower than they normally would be. She pauses halfway up to cough.
By the time Annie and Jenna join Rhys at the end of the pier, Annie can hear the low thrum of an engine and voices calling to each other, though she can’t make out the words. “There’s only one engine,” she says to Jenna. The older woman takes Annie’s hand, her grip tight. They both know the fishers ran into more than just a snag.
They wait for what seems like forever, but the sky is still dark, the stars still sparkling overhead, dawn not yet lightening the horizon. The waves of the two boats’ quiet passage break against the footers and the single engine grows louder as they draw near. It soon becomes apparent from the labored sound of the engine and the almost jerky motion, that one of the boats tows the other along behind it.
Finally they draw up alongside the pier. A man Annie doesn’t immediately recognize in the darkness jumps from the larger boat and begins to haul it against the pier, tying it off to the cleats. Rhys runs to help and when Annie makes a move to follow, Jenna’s grip tightens, holding her there. Annie looks over at Jenna and even in the darkness, she can see her fear. The smaller boat, the one that was towed, belongs to Thomas and Jenna. Instead of helping to tie the boat off, Annie puts her arm around Jenna.
Someone calls out instructions. A second person jumps onto the pier. Within minutes, both boats are secured and everyone aboard disembarks. “Thomas?” Jenna calls, but his name quickly devolves into another cough.
One of the shadows breaks away from the others and hurries to where Annie and Jenna stand at the end, out of the way. Annie steps away from Jenna as Thomas pulls his wife into his arms, holds her as she coughs while Annie joins those unloading the boats. There isn’t much talk and Annie is just fine with that.
Finnick’s brother Kyle struggles to haul up a heavy sack that missed its mark and nearly fell between boat and dock into the water. Annie gets a grip on the canvas and between the two of them, the sack is saved. The two crews make quick work of unloading and carting the catch to a large storage shed attached to the boathouse. Unlike a normal fishing trip, this cargo was never meant to be sold. Before dawn lightens the sky, roughly half of it will be divided up between the dozen men and women who harvested it from the sea, and the remainder, as soon as arrangements can be made, will be distributed to those in the town most in need.
As she works alongside Kyle, Annie becomes aware that he’s favoring his right arm. He loses his grip on a crate and stumbles and Annie catches him before he can fall. His sleeve is sticky and the sharp scent of blood is in the air. Human blood, not fish.
“You’re hurt.”
“It’s nothing.”
“Liar. You’re bleeding.” He reaches for the crate, ignoring Annie, but she brushes him away. “Rhys!” she calls to the boy, standing a few feet away with Corin. “Come help me with this!” She turns to Kyle and says, “We’re going to get that taken care of.” Kyle looks around and sees that most of the cargo has already been moved from the pier to the boathouse, but he still hesitates. “Do you want me to call your mother?” Not only is Jenna usually the one who takes care of first aid when there are non-life-threatening injuries, she can put her children in their places with just a look. Annie would like to learn how to do that, someday.
“You don’t play fair, do you?”
“No,” Annie tells him. “I play to win.”
Rhys runs over to Annie and Corin follows. One look at Annie and Kyle and Corin lifts an end of the crate, tells Rhys to grab the other end. Annie can’t see his expression in the darkness, but she can hear the amusement in his voice. She takes Kyle by the hand and leads him up to the house; he doesn’t protest.
The lights are on, but no one else is in the house when they get there. Annie pushes Kyle toward the kitchen, which is where Jenna does all her doctoring. “Take off your shirt,” she tells him as she heads into the downstairs bathroom where Jenna keeps her first aid supplies. She gathers up clean bandages, antiseptic, and a needle and thread. A quick search yields no stronger disinfectant than the antiseptic ointment.
“What happened?” she asks Kyle as she returns to the kitchen.
“Peacekeepers,” he says. He is sitting at the table, shirtless. “We barely got away. We’ll have to wait until daylight to see how badly damaged dad’s boat is.”
Annie sets her supplies down on the table and goes over to the sink, fills a bowl with water, then opens the cupboard that houses the alcohol. Rejecting a couple of bottles - a dark rum and a sweet peach liqueur - the third bottle Annie pulls out is vodka, clear and strong, and she returns with it to the table. She uses a dishtowel to gently wash the blood from Kyle’s shoulder, rinsing it in the bowl of warm water until she can get a better look at the deep slice there.
“Did they identify you?” His shoulder is still oozing blood and Annie threads the needle, then soaks both needle and thread in vodka and knots the end of the thread.
“Looks like you’ve done this before,” Kyle observes.
Annie soaks the end of the dishtowel in the vodka and wipes down Kyle’s shoulder around the cut. He hisses at the sting of it. “I had to stitch up your brother’s leg once,” she tells him as she picks up the needle. Finnick taught her how to sew a wound closed a couple of years ago, when they’d gone out fishing, just the two of them, and he’d managed to lay open his thigh. She can’t even remember anymore just how he’d done it, only that it was bad enough to need stitches and that there was no one else to do it. Annie wouldn’t let him sew it up himself, although he tried.
“Have you heard from him?”
She shakes her head, letting her hair fall around her face, masking her from Kyle’s gaze. “Not for nearly two weeks.”
“That’s unusual, isn’t it? I thought he tries to call you every couple of days?”
“When he can, yes.” Sometimes he can’t really talk to her much at all, but Finnick still tries to call her every few days so she won’t worry. She told him a long time ago that he doesn’t have to, but he said that it’s something he needs to do for his own peace of mind. The fact that he hasn’t called and that he should have been home by now has her more worried than she wants to admit.
“Why the hell did he run off to the Capitol right now, anyway?”
She doesn’t like the criticism in Kyle’s voice, but she can’t answer him. If Finnick never told his family about why he spends so much time in the Capitol, it isn’t up to her to tell them. To change the subject, she asks Kyle again, “Do you think the Peacekeepers indentified you?”
“I don’t know. I hope not. The fact that we aren’t crawling with Peacekeepers is a good sign.” Annie hears voices outside and looks up, sees Thomas and Jenna out on the back porch, the others trailing up after them. She returns her attention to Kyle’s shoulder, pinching the skin together and running the needle through it. He hisses again and grips the edge of the table with his other hand. He watches every move as she pulls the thread through until the knot in the end stops it. She shifts her fingers minutely for a second stitch.
“…see how badly damaged she is once it’s light out.” Thomas steps inside the kitchen and stops at the sight of Annie stitching up his oldest son’s shoulder. “Kyle?”
Kyle tears his gaze away from what Annie’s doing to look over his shoulder at his father. Jenna pushes past Thomas. “What happened?” She hurries over to Annie and Kyle, but stops short, coughing. Annie glances up at her, sees the concern in her eyes.
“It’s not as bad as it looks, Mom,” Kyle assures her. “A bullet must’ve grazed me.”
“If it was just a graze, you wouldn’t need stitches,” Jenna retorts.
Annie continues to sew, seven stitches in all. Jenna watches her from a safe distance, clearly not wanting to get her germs into the wound. Thomas leaves the doorway, which allows the others to file inside: Shandra and Corin followed by Rhys and Rick. Kyle’s crew must have stayed with their boat, Annie thinks. She glances up at the clock over the back door: 3:45 a.m. Corin and Rick will no doubt stay here for what’s left of the night, since their best option for getting home had to be towed into the dock, unable to make it on its own.
Thomas heads for the liquor cabinet and pulls down a bottle of whiskey and five glasses, both Annie and Jenna shaking their heads “no” when he looks a question at them. Everyone else but Jenna pulls out a chair and sits at the kitchen table, making sure Annie and Kyle aren’t crowded out as Annie moves to bite off the thread. Rick stops her with a light touch on her arm and hands her his pocket knife to use instead. Jenna puts water in the kettle and lights the stove, prepares a mug for hot tea. Thomas pours a finger of whiskey into each glass and slides them across the table to all but Rhys.
“We need to get our stories straight in case Peacekeepers show up,” Thomas says. He takes a swallow of whiskey, drinking down about half of it.
Kyle shoots his down with a grimace. “I don’t think we were recognized or they’d be here already.”
“That may be,” Shandra says as Annie smears antiseptic ointment on Kyle’s newly closed wound. “But someone…” She looks pointedly at Rick. “… keeps shooting off his big mouth about how the Peacekeepers can’t enforce the ban on fishing the open sea.”
“It’s true!” Rick protests.
“Maybe it is,” Shandra snaps, “but that doesn’t mean you have to openly issue a challenge to them! Since they’ve made feeding our children treason, when we do it, we have to show a little discretion, damn it.”
Annie folds a piece of the bandaging into a pad and places it on Kyle’s shoulder, then wraps a longer piece around his arm and chest to hold it in place at about the same time the kettle whistles on the stove. Jenna shuts off the heat and pours the boiling water into her mug, following it with a couple of generous splashes of rum. She blows on the mug to cool the fortified tea within, then takes a sip.
Looking from Shandra to Rick, Jenna says, “That’s enough, from both of you. What’s done is done. It remains to be seen how bad the damage is.”
“If they do come,” Thomas says, “I really don’t have a clue what to tell them if they ask about the damage to the boat.”
“Maybe you could tell them it was vandals?” Annie suggests, unsure of how that might fly, given that she doesn’t know the extent of the damage.
“That could work, I suppose. It’s not perfect, but it might at least be plausible.”
Corin snorts. “It seemed to me like the entire port side was taken out by that grenade, Tom. That kind of damage isn’t usually caused by vandalism, you know?”
Thomas sighs. “Yeah, I know. Give me something better to work with.”
The discussion continues, but Annie doesn’t contribute to it. Instead she busies herself with cleaning up, putting away the first aid supplies she didn’t use, returning the vodka to the liquor cabinet, dumping the bloody water into the sink. She watches the pink water swirl around the drain and her fingers tighten on the edge of the bowl as she gasps, abruptly returned to the arena, the dark, cold water swirling around her, sucking her down after the dam broke.
“Annie?” Jenna’s voice. Then Jenna’s hands on hers, forcing her fingers to release the bowl.
Annie blinks and just as suddenly as the memory came, it fades. She is in the brightly lit kitchen of Finnick’s parents’ home, surrounded by his family. The arena is miles and years distant. “I’m okay, Jenna,” she reassures Finnick’s mother. “It’s nothing.”
“Why don’t you sit down?” Her words are couched as a question, but it has more the force of an order. Annie returns to the table and sits in the chair Rhys vacates. The boy hovers behind her protectively and Annie smiles. He reminds her sometimes of a young Finnick. A moment later, Jenna sets a steaming mug of tea in front of her and Annie smells the sharp sweetness of the rum it’s laced with.
“I don’t know what we’re going to do.” Thomas picks up the thread of conversation and Annie thinks they’re still talking about the Peacekeepers until he says, “We don’t have the money for major repairs.”
“Don’t worry, Tom,” Corin says, “we’ll all pitch in what we can.”
“Yeah, Dad,” Kyle joins in, “I have some planking and things at home from the repairs I had last spring. They’re not ideal, I know, but I’ll swing by with them tomorrow. Use what you can.”
Rick adds, “We’ll get her fixed up even if we have to steal what we need.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of,” Shandra says with a roll of her eyes at her uncle.
Kyle stands. “On that note,” he says with a dry look at his sister, “I’d best get home.” He pulls his bloodstained shirt from the back of his chair and slides it on over the bandage. He winces with the movement, but gets it buttoned.
Jenna finishes her tea. “The rest of us need to find our beds. The sun will rise soon enough and sleep will help us get through whatever needs to be done.”
Annie rises with the rest of them, but where the others do as they’re told and head off to bed, or in Thomas’ case, to get the guest room prepared for Corin and Rick, Annie slips back outside, unable to face Finnick’s bedroom, surrounded by his family, without him.
Chapter Five - Running Out of Time
Chapter Title: Liars and Thieves
Rating (this chapter): PG-13
Word count: ~6,700
Betas: mrsdrjackson and pinkfinity (all mistakes and missteps are my own)
Focus: Annie Cresta/Finnick Odair
Characters: Finnick Odair, Johanna Mason, Plutarch Heavensbee, Annie Cresta, original characters
Summary: Which is easier? Wondering what will happen or knowing exactly what will happen and being helpless to do anything about it?
Warnings: references to situations of dubious consent
Author's note: no music at the end of this one. Instead, go here to download the music for all of Part I - District Four, 20 songs in all to enhance your reading pleasure. And also, if you enjoy this chapter, you may want to read Interlude, which follows Johanna and Finnick after their meeting with Plutarch (rated NC-17 for Johanna/Finnick).
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When Finnick arrives at The Abyss, Johanna is already there. She’s dancing with a very tall, very pale man, her red dress and dark hair a vibrant contrast to the man’s skin, hair, clothes. She reaches up to twist his long hair around one wrist and leads him into the warren of back rooms for which the club is infamous. At the last second, she turns around, the man’s hair still wrapped around her wrist, and winks at Finnick, reminding him of the night he and Johanna first met.
The tributes were arriving in the Capitol, district by district, for the 70th Hunger Games. He knew who Annie was, had stood beside her on stage at the reaping, knew that he’d be her mentor, but he hadn’t spoken to her yet. She and the boy from 4 weren’t supposed to arrive until the next morning. Then as now, he had nothing better to do, no one on his schedule, so he went to The Abyss, the closest club to the Training Center.
Johanna was there; she wore red then, too. He recognized her as the girl who won the games the year before and knew that she was probably in the Capitol as a mentor, just like him. She was attempting to lead a guy into the back rooms, but Finnick was close enough to hear him refuse unless his friends could join them. Johanna told him off and grabbed Finnick by the belt, dragged him to the back instead. To make a point, she told him. He was nineteen, she was eighteen, and he was curious, so he went.
They’d never even spoken to each other before, but within minutes, she had him up against the wall, or maybe he had her up against the wall. It was kind of hazy. They never did work out as lovers, but they’ve been friends ever since.
Finnick glances at the clock above the bar. He doesn’t want to head for the back rooms too soon after Jo, so he whistles to get a bartender’s attention. The time it takes to get a drink should be about right. A pretty girl with spiky green hair and glowing green eyes, wearing a skin-tight green skirt and nothing else, smiles at him and dances over to take his order.
“Sex on the Beach, Finnick?” No matter how long it is between visits, Korinna always remembers what he likes.
He reaches out and snags her hand, pulls her toward him over the bar and kisses her wrist. “Ah, if only there was a beach nearby, my love,” he purrs. The pounding music surrounding them vibrates through the bar.
She extracts her hand from his with a laugh and an interesting blush and says, “I’ll take that as a yes.” A couple of minutes later, drink in hand, he weaves his way through dozens of dancers. With a glance around the room for watchful eyes, he slips through the doorway to the back rooms and heads to the third hallway on the left, then the third door on the right.
He knocks and Johanna opens the door, grabs his hand, and jerks him into the room. Her tall and snowy boy-toy is nowhere to be seen.
“Hey!” he protests as a good half of his cocktail sloshes over his hand, splashing his trousers on the way to the floor. “You’re wasting a perfectly good drink!” He shakes some of the spilled liquor from his hand, takes a sip of what remains in his glass and sets it on a low table, then looks around the darkish room for something to dry off with. If his trousers stain, he’ll hear about it from Rafe later, the entire time he’s in prep. Possibly longer.
“That fruity crap you like? If it was a real drink, I might actually care.” She takes his hand, a paper napkin in one of hers, but instead of dabbing at the sticky alcohol, she shoots him an impish look and licks the sweet liquor from his hand.
“Aw, Jo, and here I thought you didn’t care.”
And that’s the moment Plutarch Heavensbee chooses to open the door. He pauses at the sight of Johanna licking Finnick’s hand. “I can come back if you two are, um, busy,” he drawls.
Finnick pulls away from Johanna. “Jo’s just being a brat.”
Heavensbee looks from one to the other and shakes his head, closes the door and walks around the room, a small black cube in his hands. “It’s just the three of us tonight.” He gestures for the other two to sit and Johanna drops into an overstuffed leather chair, her legs over the arm of the chair and one arm across the back. Finnick picks up a pillow from another and slumps into the chair, stretches his legs out in front of him, crossed at the ankles, and puts the pillow under his head on the back of the chair. He closes his eyes and tells himself not to fall asleep. The wet spot on his right leg is cold, distracting. Maybe it’ll help him stay awake.
“How long have you been back?” Johanna asks, kicking Finnick’s hand where it dangles over the arm of his chair.
Finnick doesn’t bother opening his eyes when he answers. “A week? Maybe? I don’t know. I haven’t gotten much sleep so it’s all kind of a blur right now.” All he knows for sure is that he’s had six clients in as many days.
“Bet you’ve had plenty of time in bed though.” Johanna’s snark mirrors his thoughts. Sort of.
Finnick opens one eye and rolls his head toward her to glare at her. He runs through several retorts in his head, but any one of them will elicit a like response from Jo, escalating into something he really isn’t up for, so in the end, he just closes his eye again and settles back into the chair.
“If you two are quite finished?”
“Sorry, Plutarch,” Finnick says and straightens up. He finishes his drink, since there isn’t much left, and places the empty glass back on the table. An employee of the club will clean it up later.
Heavensbee settles into a third chair and places the cube on the table in front of him. He presses a button that glows green and then he waits a couple of seconds before he says, “We can speak freely, but keep your voices low. This will jam any devices I may have missed, but it won’t prevent us being overheard by someone standing outside the door.”
“Great,” Johanna says. “So tell us about the arena, Plutarch.”
“That’s not why we’re here, Johanna,” Heavensbee points out mildly.
“Well why not? I’m intensely interested, since I’m going to be in the damned thing in a few weeks.”
Finnick throws the pillow at her. “You’re not the only one, so stop bitching.” He isn’t sure which is easier, wondering what will happen on Reaping Day or knowing exactly what will happen and being helpless to do anything about it.
“You have a one in five chance at staying home. I have a one in one chance of being reaped. Again.”
“One in four and Snow’s not happy with me, so maybe less than that.” There was an unpleasant interview with the President when he arrived a week or so ago, not that any of them are enjoyable. The car Snow sent for him didn’t drop him off at the Training Center, where he usually stays in the Capitol, but instead took him to the President’s mansion. Snow commented on how long Finnick was away this time, reiterated what was written in his summons, that several people asked about when he was coming back and expressed an interest in his company. Finnick snorted at that, almost amused at the euphemism, but Snow shot him a look and asked after Annie, after his parents, after his nephew Rhys, and Finnick was no longer even remotely amused.
Johanna frowns and pulls him out of his reverie by asking, “One in four?”
Finnick looks from her to Heavensbee. “You didn’t hear?” They both shake their heads. “Jackson Hull committed suicide a few weeks ago. It didn’t hit the news here?”
“No,” Heavensbee says. “I wonder what sort of message we should take from that?”
“Probably nothing,” Johanna says. “Hull wasn’t exactly what you’d call a popular victor.”
“Still, I expect something like that to be reported on, especially this close to the Games.”
Finnick agrees with that and can’t help but wonder why it was a big enough deal back home for the Peacekeepers to nearly arrest him just for cutting Jack’s body down, but not important enough here, where the Hunger Games are all-encompassing, for even a passing mention.
“I’ll look into it, if I have the time,” Heavensbee says. “I suppose it could become problematic.” He jots something into a low-tech paper notebook. “Finnick, have you picked up anything we might be able to use?”
“As a matter of fact, yes.” He leans forward and rests his elbows on his knees. “The woman I was with a couple of nights ago was pretty high up in the Peacekeeper hierarchy.” He pauses to give Johanna an opportunity to needle him, but she says nothing. “She told me all about beefing up Peacekeeper forces in the districts, particularly Three, Four, Eight, and Twelve, but also in Six and Eleven. I’ve seen it first hand in Four. Tensions are high and it won’t take much to set things off. Even more helpful, though, she gave me a rough idea of where their weapons caches are located and how lightly they’re guarded.”
“You’re kidding. Why would anyone tell you something like that?” Johanna asks, surprised.
“Why not? Who am I going to tell?” He adopts a broad District 4 drawl. “I’m nothin’ but a pretty boy from the districts with barely a brain in my head.” He drops the accent. “And if I repeat what she told me, who will believe me?” He picks up his glass and then remembers that he already finished his drink, puts it back down. “To be fair, I don’t think she realized just how much she told me.” He smiles. It hadn't been a bad night, really, even if Eshara wasn't someone he would have chosen to be with. “I was keeping her pretty distracted at the time.”
“These people are morons.”
“They can be, yes,” Heavensbee says in rebuke - he is, after all, one of ‘these people’ - “but we can use that to our advantage.” He holds out his notebook and pen to Finnick. “Write down what you remember and I’ll have those locations checked out as well.”
Finnick eyes the notebook. “I’m happy to.” He glances up at Heavensbee. “I hope you can read my writing, though.”
Johanna laughs. “That’s right. You dropped out of school at a younger age than the rest of us. Didn’t quite learn that whole reading and writing thing, did you, Finnick?”
“Shut up. It’s not like that. I just don’t have good handwriting.” And yes, that is probably because I dropped out of school at fourteen, he thinks, but I’m not going to admit that to you.
As Finnick writes carefully in the little book, noting rough troop movements and strengths, weapon types and cache locations, everything he can remember, in each district Eshara mentioned, Heavensbee leans forward and drops his voice even lower, just above a whisper. There’s a barely suppressed excitement in him when he says, “We’ve found our catalyst.”
Jo raises an eloquent eyebrow at that and Finnick pauses in his writing, asks, “And what, or who, might that be?” He pushes the hope that rises inside him back down. Hope and the Games don’t mix, and it’s only a couple of weeks to Reaping Day, a handful of days past that to the Games. It wasn’t apparent during his latest interview with Snow whether the bastard hopes Finnick will be sent back to the arena or whether this particular cash cow will continue to perform.
“Katniss Everdeen of District Twelve,” Heavensbee answers. “The girl is a walking, breathing symbol of rebellion after her performance last year. And with all the drama surrounding the cancellation of her wedding to the Mellark boy, well. Mockingjay tokens are popping up all over the Capitol, more so now that she’s going back into the arena than before, when she was merely a lovely bride to be.”
“Now that just pisses me off,” Johanna says, looking both angry and disgusted.
“Everything pisses you off, Jo,” Finnick comments and continues to write. She shifts until she can kick his chair, causing the pen to jump on the page.
“Shut up, fish boy. Isn’t it bad enough she and her little boyfriend were pushed into that whole wedding farce in the first place? Now the good citizens of the Capitol get even more entertainment out of watching her fight for her life again while we, the supposed good guys, use her as a symbol to what? Start a war?”
“Exactly,” Heavensbee says with a predatory smile. “Katniss Everdeen is our Mockingjay. She’s our best chance to light the districts on fire. Our best chance to light the Capitol on fire at the same time.”
“Does she know that?” Finnick asks.
That seems to give Heavensbee pause. “No, she doesn’t. Haymitch feels it’s safer if neither she nor the boy know about it just yet.”
“Fabulous,” Johanna says. “We get to be just as bad as Snow and his buddies.” Heavensbee glares at her, but Finnick agrees with Jo.
“I’m not happy about using her without her knowledge, Plutarch,” Finnick says.
“You of all people, Finnick, should know that we sometimes must do things we find distasteful for the greater good.”
“Oh, don’t even go there,” Johanna says, eyes flashing, voice raised. Her hands are gripped tightly on the arms of her chair and her feet are on the floor. She looks as though she’s ready to launch herself at Heavensbee.
“Jo.” That’s all Finnick says, just her name, but she settles back into the chair, loosens her grip on the arms.
Heavensbee looks at her as though he’s never seen her before and subtly shifts in his chair, closer to Finnick, further from Johanna. He clears his throat before speaking. “With a pool of sixty-” He glances at Finnick before starting again. “With a pool of fifty-nine victors to choose from, at least half of whom are well over fifty, we need to make sure there’s someone in the arena we can depend on, physically and mentally, to protect Katniss.” He looks back and forth between Finnick and Johanna, but when he continues, he looks only at Finnick. “I’m sorry to ask this of you, Finnick, but if your name isn’t called, we’d like you to volunteer.”
Finnick sits back in his chair, feeling as though he’s just been punched. He blinks and the room comes back into focus, although he doesn’t remember it losing focus in the first place.
“What the ever-loving fuck?” Johanna exclaims. “Are you joking? Are you seriously asking him to throw away his life for Katniss Everdeen?”
“Johanna, please…” Heavensbee begins, but Johanna doesn’t let him talk as she stands and takes the two steps necessary to reach his chair. Little Johanna Mason looming over Plutarch Heavensbee, Head Gamemaker of the 75th Hunger Games, would be funny if Finnick didn’t think she might actually choke him to death.
“Don’t you ‘Johanna, please’ me, Plutarch Heavensbee. You may design the fucking things, but you have never been in that arena. You have no clue what it’s like.” Her voice breaks at the end and Finnick sees the glitter of tears in her eyes. Angry. Frightened. It doesn’t matter which.
“Don’t hurt him, Jo,” he tells her. “If we’re going to end the Games, end all of it, we kind of need him alive.” He looks at Heavensbee then, but the man won’t meet Finnick’s eyes. Finnick returns his pen and notebook. “I’ll think about it, Plutarch,” he tells him quietly, but all he can think about is Annie.
The first time he saw Annie was the day she was reaped, although if anyone were to ask her, she might tell a different story. He didn’t notice her right away, blending in with the other girls in the enclosure. He didn’t want to be there, but since he was mentoring that year, he had no choice. Story of his life. Hers wasn’t the name called, but the girl chosen first was only thirteen. The entire crowd in the square seemed to hold its collective breath, Finnick along with them, and then a pretty girl in a sea green dress, nearly the same color as her eyes, stepped forward. “I’ll go. I’ll take her place.” Everyone could breathe again, except maybe the older girl’s family. Phineas LaSalle, the Capitol representative for the district, asked her to come forward, up onto the stage, as the family of the little girl who’d just gotten a reprieve cried and called out “thank you” over and over. LaSalle said something to her and then had her stand next to Finnick as the man announced, “Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you the female tribute for District 4 to the 70th Hunger Games, Anwyn Cresta.”
Finnick doesn’t know how long he’s lost in that memory, but he blinks and Johanna is standing by the door. Heavensbee is still in his chair, but he doesn’t seem to be damaged at all, their voices are no longer raised, and Jo’s anger has faded.
“I’m out of here,” she says. “I need a drink. Or something.” With that, she’s out the door. Finnick is sure she won’t leave without talking to him first, so he’s not in a rush. He doesn’t have anywhere to be for a few hours yet, so maybe he and Jo can stay for a while, maybe dance, enjoy themselves a little.
“Finnick.” Heavensbee stands, looks down at him. “I apologize. I didn’t mean to sound so cavalier about your life. You are not expendable, anymore than Johanna is, but there are so few we can trust with this. We can’t afford for Johanna to be the only protection our Mockingjay has.”
“It’s okay, Plutarch. I understand.” He doesn’t bother to mention that Katniss’ district partner will be protecting her, too, given that it’ll be either Peeta or Haymitch.
“Can we count on you, Finnick?”
He looks up at the Gamemaker, a man whose sole purpose for existing, as far as the Capitol is concerned, is to create death for the entertainment of its citizens. The work of his fellow Gamemakers still haunts Finnick every night in his dreams.
“It’s a lot to ask, Plutarch. I can’t give you an answer right now.”
Heavensbee nods. “I suppose the fact you’re considering it has to be enough for now.” He collects the device from the table, but doesn’t turn it off, pauses at the door. “For what it’s worth, Finnick, our hope is to get as many of you out of the arena alive as we can.” Then he deactivates the box, turns and walks out of the room, closing the door behind him. Finnick waits a few more minutes before he follows, trying hard to keep his mind a blank, his memories of the arena at bay.
xXx
Annie sits on the beach, a blanket around her shoulders, watching the sea for any sign of movement. She doesn’t expect to see anything - the moon is in its dark phase and the stars, though beautiful to look at, aren’t bright enough to see by - but still she watches. It’s well past midnight and Thomas and Shandra should have been back by now. They took Thomas’ seiner out right after the sun dropped below the horizon, heading first to pick up Rick and Corin and then for the open sea past Victors’ Island.
Rhys approaches her from behind. She knows it’s him, no one else kicks so much sand when he walks. He drops down beside her with a dramatic sigh and she hides a smile in the crook of her arm, resting on her upraised knees. “I still don’t understand why I couldn’t go, too,” Rhys says. “I could’ve helped.” He’s only thirteen, full of dreams and with no understanding of his own limitations, his own mortality. She wonders if she was ever really that young.
“Of course you could have, Rhys, but it’s dangerous, what they’re doing, and it’s easier for your mother to do what she needs to do if she knows you’re safe.” Annie knows how Rhys feels; she would’ve liked to be out there helping, too, but she knows she’d be more of a liability than an asset. She doesn’t do well under pressure and there are times when she can’t bear even the thought of being surrounded by all that deep, deep water. It would’ve been the same for Rhys, although in his case his unreliability is due more to his age and inexperience than being prone to panic attacks. And the Odairs aren’t alone, they don’t need her help. Half a dozen boats fish in Capitol waters tonight, while the commercial trawlers contracted to the Capitol drop anchor near the public wharf. There simply are no more viable fish to be had close to shore.
It’s only been a couple of weeks since the President issued his edict, but the people of the district, including the Odairs, already feel the pinch. Shandra told Annie just that morning that she saw a man harvesting barnacles from the concrete footers of the public wharf. He collected them in buckets to take home to his family. At least the barnacles don’t belong to the Capitol, he’d told Shandra.
“I wonder if the Peacekeepers caught them.”
“Don’t say that, Rhys.” Annie shivers and pulls the blanket closer around her. The heat of the day has long since leached from the sand and she thinks that maybe she should go inside and change into something warmer than shorts and a thin shirt, at least grab a sweater.
“Do you think they’d send them to jail?” Rhys sounds excited by the prospect.
“They’d do worse than just send them to jail,” Annie responds, but she isn’t sure Rhys, caught up in his fantasy, hears her.
“We could break them out. You and me.” He shifts a little, turns more toward Annie. “They’d probably put ‘em into the cells in the Justice Building. You could distract the guards while I steal the key and-”
“Rhys.” Jenna’s hoarse voice behind them stops the boy in his tracks. She’s fought a summer cold for two days now or she’d be out on that boat beside her husband. “It’s not a game,” she tells her grandson. “What they’re doing is a crime against the government. Treason. If they’re caught, they’ll be shot, not jailed.”
Annie covers her ears, not wanting to hear anything more. She burrows deeper into the blanket, starts to hum a song, just something Finnick sings for her sometimes. He wrote it years ago, a few months after she moved to Victors’ Island and they’d run into each other walking along the beach occasionally, and then later, more than just occasionally.
Finnick’s mother sits down beside Annie and pulls her into her arms. “Hush, child,” she tells her. Annie stops humming. “Things went so smoothly the first two times, they were bound to run into a snag this time around.” Jenna pulls abruptly away from Annie and coughs, the sound rough and painful.
“Yeah, Annie,” Rhys chimes in from her other side. “They’re not even all that late, really. I’m sorry I worried you.”
The three of them sit for a few more minutes in silence until a strong coughing attack strikes Jenna again. Annie says, “You should go back inside, Jenna. Rhys and I will watch. He’ll come get you when they’re back.”
“You know I’d rather be out here.” Jenna sneezes.
“I know. But your cough is getting worse.”
Jenna releases a breathy sigh. “I suppose you’re right. I should at least take something for it. If they’re in any kind of trouble, I’ll be better able to help if I’m not falling over from coughing.” She laughs and ends up fighting yet another cough. “I hate taking my own medicine.”
She stands, using Annie’s shoulder for support. She takes only a couple of steps toward the house when Rhys jumps to his feet. “There!” he shouts, pointing out beyond the end of the pier. “Two boats!” He sprints across the sand, leaving Annie and Jenna where they are on the beach. Annie sees a darker shadow on the water, still a good way out, but there isn’t enough light to discern any details.
“They’re moving too slowly,” Jenna says. Annie hears the worry in her voice.
Annie rolls to her feet and throws the blanket around Jenna’s shoulders. The two women walk across the beach to the pier. Rhys is already up the ladder and pounding across the wood planks to the end; Annie half expects him to dive off and swim out to meet them. When she and Jenna reach the pier, Annie waits at the bottom while Jenna climbs the ladder, the older woman’s movements much slower than they normally would be. She pauses halfway up to cough.
By the time Annie and Jenna join Rhys at the end of the pier, Annie can hear the low thrum of an engine and voices calling to each other, though she can’t make out the words. “There’s only one engine,” she says to Jenna. The older woman takes Annie’s hand, her grip tight. They both know the fishers ran into more than just a snag.
They wait for what seems like forever, but the sky is still dark, the stars still sparkling overhead, dawn not yet lightening the horizon. The waves of the two boats’ quiet passage break against the footers and the single engine grows louder as they draw near. It soon becomes apparent from the labored sound of the engine and the almost jerky motion, that one of the boats tows the other along behind it.
Finally they draw up alongside the pier. A man Annie doesn’t immediately recognize in the darkness jumps from the larger boat and begins to haul it against the pier, tying it off to the cleats. Rhys runs to help and when Annie makes a move to follow, Jenna’s grip tightens, holding her there. Annie looks over at Jenna and even in the darkness, she can see her fear. The smaller boat, the one that was towed, belongs to Thomas and Jenna. Instead of helping to tie the boat off, Annie puts her arm around Jenna.
Someone calls out instructions. A second person jumps onto the pier. Within minutes, both boats are secured and everyone aboard disembarks. “Thomas?” Jenna calls, but his name quickly devolves into another cough.
One of the shadows breaks away from the others and hurries to where Annie and Jenna stand at the end, out of the way. Annie steps away from Jenna as Thomas pulls his wife into his arms, holds her as she coughs while Annie joins those unloading the boats. There isn’t much talk and Annie is just fine with that.
Finnick’s brother Kyle struggles to haul up a heavy sack that missed its mark and nearly fell between boat and dock into the water. Annie gets a grip on the canvas and between the two of them, the sack is saved. The two crews make quick work of unloading and carting the catch to a large storage shed attached to the boathouse. Unlike a normal fishing trip, this cargo was never meant to be sold. Before dawn lightens the sky, roughly half of it will be divided up between the dozen men and women who harvested it from the sea, and the remainder, as soon as arrangements can be made, will be distributed to those in the town most in need.
As she works alongside Kyle, Annie becomes aware that he’s favoring his right arm. He loses his grip on a crate and stumbles and Annie catches him before he can fall. His sleeve is sticky and the sharp scent of blood is in the air. Human blood, not fish.
“You’re hurt.”
“It’s nothing.”
“Liar. You’re bleeding.” He reaches for the crate, ignoring Annie, but she brushes him away. “Rhys!” she calls to the boy, standing a few feet away with Corin. “Come help me with this!” She turns to Kyle and says, “We’re going to get that taken care of.” Kyle looks around and sees that most of the cargo has already been moved from the pier to the boathouse, but he still hesitates. “Do you want me to call your mother?” Not only is Jenna usually the one who takes care of first aid when there are non-life-threatening injuries, she can put her children in their places with just a look. Annie would like to learn how to do that, someday.
“You don’t play fair, do you?”
“No,” Annie tells him. “I play to win.”
Rhys runs over to Annie and Corin follows. One look at Annie and Kyle and Corin lifts an end of the crate, tells Rhys to grab the other end. Annie can’t see his expression in the darkness, but she can hear the amusement in his voice. She takes Kyle by the hand and leads him up to the house; he doesn’t protest.
The lights are on, but no one else is in the house when they get there. Annie pushes Kyle toward the kitchen, which is where Jenna does all her doctoring. “Take off your shirt,” she tells him as she heads into the downstairs bathroom where Jenna keeps her first aid supplies. She gathers up clean bandages, antiseptic, and a needle and thread. A quick search yields no stronger disinfectant than the antiseptic ointment.
“What happened?” she asks Kyle as she returns to the kitchen.
“Peacekeepers,” he says. He is sitting at the table, shirtless. “We barely got away. We’ll have to wait until daylight to see how badly damaged dad’s boat is.”
Annie sets her supplies down on the table and goes over to the sink, fills a bowl with water, then opens the cupboard that houses the alcohol. Rejecting a couple of bottles - a dark rum and a sweet peach liqueur - the third bottle Annie pulls out is vodka, clear and strong, and she returns with it to the table. She uses a dishtowel to gently wash the blood from Kyle’s shoulder, rinsing it in the bowl of warm water until she can get a better look at the deep slice there.
“Did they identify you?” His shoulder is still oozing blood and Annie threads the needle, then soaks both needle and thread in vodka and knots the end of the thread.
“Looks like you’ve done this before,” Kyle observes.
Annie soaks the end of the dishtowel in the vodka and wipes down Kyle’s shoulder around the cut. He hisses at the sting of it. “I had to stitch up your brother’s leg once,” she tells him as she picks up the needle. Finnick taught her how to sew a wound closed a couple of years ago, when they’d gone out fishing, just the two of them, and he’d managed to lay open his thigh. She can’t even remember anymore just how he’d done it, only that it was bad enough to need stitches and that there was no one else to do it. Annie wouldn’t let him sew it up himself, although he tried.
“Have you heard from him?”
She shakes her head, letting her hair fall around her face, masking her from Kyle’s gaze. “Not for nearly two weeks.”
“That’s unusual, isn’t it? I thought he tries to call you every couple of days?”
“When he can, yes.” Sometimes he can’t really talk to her much at all, but Finnick still tries to call her every few days so she won’t worry. She told him a long time ago that he doesn’t have to, but he said that it’s something he needs to do for his own peace of mind. The fact that he hasn’t called and that he should have been home by now has her more worried than she wants to admit.
“Why the hell did he run off to the Capitol right now, anyway?”
She doesn’t like the criticism in Kyle’s voice, but she can’t answer him. If Finnick never told his family about why he spends so much time in the Capitol, it isn’t up to her to tell them. To change the subject, she asks Kyle again, “Do you think the Peacekeepers indentified you?”
“I don’t know. I hope not. The fact that we aren’t crawling with Peacekeepers is a good sign.” Annie hears voices outside and looks up, sees Thomas and Jenna out on the back porch, the others trailing up after them. She returns her attention to Kyle’s shoulder, pinching the skin together and running the needle through it. He hisses again and grips the edge of the table with his other hand. He watches every move as she pulls the thread through until the knot in the end stops it. She shifts her fingers minutely for a second stitch.
“…see how badly damaged she is once it’s light out.” Thomas steps inside the kitchen and stops at the sight of Annie stitching up his oldest son’s shoulder. “Kyle?”
Kyle tears his gaze away from what Annie’s doing to look over his shoulder at his father. Jenna pushes past Thomas. “What happened?” She hurries over to Annie and Kyle, but stops short, coughing. Annie glances up at her, sees the concern in her eyes.
“It’s not as bad as it looks, Mom,” Kyle assures her. “A bullet must’ve grazed me.”
“If it was just a graze, you wouldn’t need stitches,” Jenna retorts.
Annie continues to sew, seven stitches in all. Jenna watches her from a safe distance, clearly not wanting to get her germs into the wound. Thomas leaves the doorway, which allows the others to file inside: Shandra and Corin followed by Rhys and Rick. Kyle’s crew must have stayed with their boat, Annie thinks. She glances up at the clock over the back door: 3:45 a.m. Corin and Rick will no doubt stay here for what’s left of the night, since their best option for getting home had to be towed into the dock, unable to make it on its own.
Thomas heads for the liquor cabinet and pulls down a bottle of whiskey and five glasses, both Annie and Jenna shaking their heads “no” when he looks a question at them. Everyone else but Jenna pulls out a chair and sits at the kitchen table, making sure Annie and Kyle aren’t crowded out as Annie moves to bite off the thread. Rick stops her with a light touch on her arm and hands her his pocket knife to use instead. Jenna puts water in the kettle and lights the stove, prepares a mug for hot tea. Thomas pours a finger of whiskey into each glass and slides them across the table to all but Rhys.
“We need to get our stories straight in case Peacekeepers show up,” Thomas says. He takes a swallow of whiskey, drinking down about half of it.
Kyle shoots his down with a grimace. “I don’t think we were recognized or they’d be here already.”
“That may be,” Shandra says as Annie smears antiseptic ointment on Kyle’s newly closed wound. “But someone…” She looks pointedly at Rick. “… keeps shooting off his big mouth about how the Peacekeepers can’t enforce the ban on fishing the open sea.”
“It’s true!” Rick protests.
“Maybe it is,” Shandra snaps, “but that doesn’t mean you have to openly issue a challenge to them! Since they’ve made feeding our children treason, when we do it, we have to show a little discretion, damn it.”
Annie folds a piece of the bandaging into a pad and places it on Kyle’s shoulder, then wraps a longer piece around his arm and chest to hold it in place at about the same time the kettle whistles on the stove. Jenna shuts off the heat and pours the boiling water into her mug, following it with a couple of generous splashes of rum. She blows on the mug to cool the fortified tea within, then takes a sip.
Looking from Shandra to Rick, Jenna says, “That’s enough, from both of you. What’s done is done. It remains to be seen how bad the damage is.”
“If they do come,” Thomas says, “I really don’t have a clue what to tell them if they ask about the damage to the boat.”
“Maybe you could tell them it was vandals?” Annie suggests, unsure of how that might fly, given that she doesn’t know the extent of the damage.
“That could work, I suppose. It’s not perfect, but it might at least be plausible.”
Corin snorts. “It seemed to me like the entire port side was taken out by that grenade, Tom. That kind of damage isn’t usually caused by vandalism, you know?”
Thomas sighs. “Yeah, I know. Give me something better to work with.”
The discussion continues, but Annie doesn’t contribute to it. Instead she busies herself with cleaning up, putting away the first aid supplies she didn’t use, returning the vodka to the liquor cabinet, dumping the bloody water into the sink. She watches the pink water swirl around the drain and her fingers tighten on the edge of the bowl as she gasps, abruptly returned to the arena, the dark, cold water swirling around her, sucking her down after the dam broke.
“Annie?” Jenna’s voice. Then Jenna’s hands on hers, forcing her fingers to release the bowl.
Annie blinks and just as suddenly as the memory came, it fades. She is in the brightly lit kitchen of Finnick’s parents’ home, surrounded by his family. The arena is miles and years distant. “I’m okay, Jenna,” she reassures Finnick’s mother. “It’s nothing.”
“Why don’t you sit down?” Her words are couched as a question, but it has more the force of an order. Annie returns to the table and sits in the chair Rhys vacates. The boy hovers behind her protectively and Annie smiles. He reminds her sometimes of a young Finnick. A moment later, Jenna sets a steaming mug of tea in front of her and Annie smells the sharp sweetness of the rum it’s laced with.
“I don’t know what we’re going to do.” Thomas picks up the thread of conversation and Annie thinks they’re still talking about the Peacekeepers until he says, “We don’t have the money for major repairs.”
“Don’t worry, Tom,” Corin says, “we’ll all pitch in what we can.”
“Yeah, Dad,” Kyle joins in, “I have some planking and things at home from the repairs I had last spring. They’re not ideal, I know, but I’ll swing by with them tomorrow. Use what you can.”
Rick adds, “We’ll get her fixed up even if we have to steal what we need.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of,” Shandra says with a roll of her eyes at her uncle.
Kyle stands. “On that note,” he says with a dry look at his sister, “I’d best get home.” He pulls his bloodstained shirt from the back of his chair and slides it on over the bandage. He winces with the movement, but gets it buttoned.
Jenna finishes her tea. “The rest of us need to find our beds. The sun will rise soon enough and sleep will help us get through whatever needs to be done.”
Annie rises with the rest of them, but where the others do as they’re told and head off to bed, or in Thomas’ case, to get the guest room prepared for Corin and Rick, Annie slips back outside, unable to face Finnick’s bedroom, surrounded by his family, without him.
Chapter Five - Running Out of Time