Hunger Games fic: Treading Water (14/30?), PG-13
Title: Treading Water (Part II - The Capitol)
Chapter Title: In the Eye of the Storm
Rating: (this chapter) PG-13
Word count: 6,276
Betas: mrsdrjackson and pinkfinity (all mistakes and missteps are my own)
Focus: Annie Cresta/Finnick Odair
Characters: Finnick Odair, Mags, Seeder, Chaff, Tax, Katniss Everdeen, Annie Cresta, Original Male Character, Gloss, Johanna Mason, Haymitch Abernathy, Coriolanus Snow
Summary: He leans in close and whispers, so that only she can hear, “I’m sure Finnick has taught you well.”
Author's note: The title of this chapter is from "Daniel" by Bat for Lashes, which is on the fic soundtrack you can download here.
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Chapter Fourteen - In the Eye of the Storm
Only about half the tributes are in the huge gymnasium beneath the Training Center when Finnick arrives, which surprises him, since he’s a good forty minutes late. Apparently I’m not the only one with an attitude problem. Mags is long since there, watching Linna and Trayn from District 6, both of them morphling addicts, as they paint each other’s faces with the brightest colors at the camouflage station. They appear to be enjoying themselves and Finnick can’t begrudge them that. In a way, he envies them.
Closing his eyes for a moment, he sees Mags, ten years younger and standing straight, unbowed and strong beside Linna, herself clear-eyed and laughing at something the older woman said. Most years, the tributes and instructors are the only ones in the gym, but the year of his Games, the mentors accompanied their tributes to training, acting as secondary instructors and in some cases sparring partners. Linna was a morphling addict even then, but she kept it under control, the better to coach her tribute, a wiry girl three years Finnick’s elder and a strong contender. He can’t remember the girl’s name, isn’t sure he ever knew it, but he still feels her blood coating his hands, hears her screams in his sleep. He shakes his head, physically shaking off the memory.
Brutus and Enobaria are talking to Cashmere and Gloss at the edged weapons station, Brutus gesturing emphatically with a large hunting knife. It’s pretty clear they’re already in an alliance, one Finnick wants no part of, not this time around. At fourteen, his own desire to show off his skills with a knife and in hand-to-hand combat combined with the strength and confidence of the pack to dazzle him, make him want to be a part of it; at twenty-four, he knows it for the self-centered arrogance and fear that it really is, the selfish desire to live at all costs. He wants to live now just as much as he did then, but ten years of experience have taught him that there are things worth dying for.
The sound of retching grabs his attention and Finnick turns to see Hamilton from 5 lose his breakfast in the corner. He was one of the victors in the lobby the night before, self-medicating with his drug of choice, wine. Brutus jumps away with a sound of disgust and Enobaria calmly tells Hamilton that he’s a dead man if he gets any of it on her shoes. Two men in Training Center uniforms descend on the man, lifting him bodily from the floor while an Avox moves in to clean up the mess. Finnick waits for them to pass and heads over to where Katniss is stuck in an attempt at tying a semi-difficult knot.
When he’s still more than ten feet away, it’s clear that she made a novice mistake, but it’s one that should be easy enough for her to fix. The instructor spots him and Finnick puts a finger to his lips as he changes course to approach Katniss from behind. He slides his arms around her and corrects the lay of the rope in her left hand, then slips the end in her right hand through the loop, which will allow her to finish the knot on her own. If she paid attention, she won’t make the same mistake again.
She thanks him by shrugging him off with an annoyed glare and he steps back, his hands held high in surrender. But then he flashes her a cheesy grin and twitches the rope from her hands. Quickly coiling it into a noose, he slips it over his head and pretends to hang himself, sticking his tongue out at her in the process. The instructor laughs, but Katniss just shakes her head, still annoyed. Finnick figures she’s determined to dislike him, but he doesn’t miss the amusement in her eyes, there and then gone, so he counts it as a minor win and moves on to join Seeder and Chaff where they’re studying a bunch of plants laid out on a table.
“I’m surprised to see you here, Finnick,” Seeder tells him with a smile and a quick kiss on the cheek.
“Here with the plants or here in training?”
“Either. Both. Isn’t it early for you?” She glances at the clock over the door at the far end of the gym.
“Not really,” he responds. It’s well after 11:00, closer to lunch than breakfast. “Now, if I was allowed to leave the compound, you might get a different answer.” He winks at her and grins.
“Hear you’ve got yourself a real pretty mentor, son,” Chaff says. “No need to leave if you’ve got something worth hanging around for.”
Finnick freezes, the grin still pasted on his face even as he feels the blood drain away, leaving him momentarily light-headed. Seeder slaps Chaff on the back of the head. “Stop it, Chaff.”
“Where’d you hear that?” Finnick asks, trying for nonchalance, pretty sure he’s failing miserably.
Chaff laughs. “Oh, man, the look on your face!” But then he sobers, squeezing Finnick’s shoulder with his one hand. “I heard it from Martin last night, son. Your girl’s fine. Martin and Haymitch’ll keep an eye on her.”
Finnick takes a deep breath and Seeder pats him on the arm as she reaches past him to pick up what looks like a palm frond, one with some pretty wicked serrations along the edges of its leaves. The thing looks like it could be easily turned into a weapon, or rather into multiple weapons, an opinion confirmed when Seeder tests the edge of a leaf against her thumb and bright droplets of blood well up in the small but ragged slice it leaves behind.
“Will you look at that?” Chaff says, and at first Finnick thinks he’s talking about the leafy knives Seeder still holds in her hand, but then he looks toward where the older man points. Johanna is stripped down and oiling her body at the wrestling station. Chaff isn’t the only one looking, Finnick sees as he glances around the room. Brutus, Peeta, Cashmere, anyone who still has a pulse is watching her.
“That girl…” Seeder says, shaking her head, and returns to studying the plants.
Beetee, not at all interested in Johanna, drifts over to join Katniss at the fire-making station, which amuses Finnick to no end. Beetee has a pulse, of course, but he’d really only be interested in Johanna if electrical current ran through her veins instead of blood. Wiress trails after Beetee, looking lost for a moment until she focuses on Katniss, then hurries toward her and Beetee.
Past the tributes from 3 and 12, Finnick spots Mags at the archery range and, saying goodbye to Chaff and Seeder, he joins her. While the man running the range explains to Mags how to string the bow she holds in her gnarled hands, Finnick picks up one of the more simple-looking bows from the display table, almost identical to the one Mags holds, and tests the feel of it. Trident, spear, knife, they’re all weapons he understands and has some proficiency with. Even a sword, he could put to good use in a fight, but a bow and arrows are alien things to him.
“That one will have much too light a pull for you,” the instructor tells him, watching from where he still stands with Mags, who lowers her bow. She says something to the instructor, then shoos him toward Finnick.
“I’m Tax.” He holds out his hand and looks at Finnick expectantly, so Finnick transfers the too-light bow to his left hand and shakes Tax’s with his right.
“I’m-”
“Finnick Odair. Yes. I know.” He smiles and doesn’t release Finnick’s hand as he reaches over the table toward a black and red bow, much heavier looking than the one Finnick picked up, but still not one of the monsters with pulleys and multiple strings and laser sights that line the wall behind the table. There’s no way one of those’ll be available in the arena, Finnick thinks as Tax hands him the black and red bow. “Try this one,” Tax says as he pulls a sheath of arrows from a stack at one end of the table and turns Finnick toward the targets.
Finnick raises a brow at Tax’s unnecessary touch, but doesn’t call him on it. He sees from the look in Mags’ eyes that she noticed it, too, and is amused. Raising the bow in his left hand, he takes an arrow from the sheath and sets it to the string, but before he can do anything else, Tax comes up behind him.
“No, Finnick, like this,” he says as he slips his arms around him and pushes a leg between Finnick’s to correct his stance. Finnick shoots a look toward Mags, who watches with raised brows. Finnick smirks at her with an exaggerated roll of his eyes.
He could step away from Tax, maybe ask him not to get so close, but what would be the point? He would only antagonize the man needlessly and, unfamiliar as he is with anything but the absolute basics of archery, he’d lose a potentially valuable tool in the arena, so instead he lets the man guide him, shooting the first three or four arrows together.
Finnick and Mags spend the next half hour or so at the archery range, by the end of which Finnick is consistently hitting the target, if not actually hitting near the bull’s eye. Mags gives up early, not having the strength to pull the string more than a half dozen times, each pull shakier than the last, but she stays to watch Finnick and to listen to the pointers Tax gives him.
Mags applauds when one of Finnick’s arrows kisses the bull’s eye just a little too far to the left. Finnick grins at her and nocks another arrow. As he adjusts his aim slightly to try to account for that last little bit, Tax steps in close yet again, but it’s one time too many. Finnick steps away and lowers the bow, removes the arrow from the string.
“Look, Tax, I appreciate the instruction,” he begins, but the call for the tributes to break for lunch interrupts him.
“Finn,” Mags says from behind him and he turns. She nods toward Tax and says, “Doesn’t mean ‘thing.” He swallows the rest of what he wants to say to the man, which boils down to “stop touching me,” and without another word, he carefully replaces his bow and the sheath on the table as Tax wishes them an enjoyable meal and walks out onto the range.
“They never mean anything by it, Mags.” He glances at Tax, who retrieves arrows as he moves toward the targets. Finnick has questions, he’d like to get some ideas for improvement, but at the thought of taking more training from Tax, he shudders. “They never fucking do.”
xXx
Annie stays there in the middle of Finnick’s bed for a long time, staring at the closed door, listening to the noise of the prep teams and servants and the other District 4 “team” members coming and going on the other side. When it stops, it takes her a moment for the silence to sink in, for it to hit her that they’re all gone to wherever and whatever is on their agendas for the day. She blinks and looks around the room.
On the surface, it’s the same as Mags’, functional and impersonal. There’s a small table by the door and another beside the bed, a chair in the corner to the left of the dresser and pieces of abstract artwork on the walls, all of it like a room in an expensive hotel. But there are little things - a bit of braided cord beneath the bedside lamp, a shell necklace hanging from the corner of a painting, the mirror that used to be above the dresser shoved behind it instead - that tell her Finnick lives here.
A set of sliding doors is open onto the closet; in Mags’ room it was filled with clothing designed for women, but here, in addition to both generic and flashier things, it contains a few items that belong to Finnick. She smiles when she recognizes the sleeve of a shirt she gave him for his birthday two years before. He wore it all the time, that fall and spring, and then it disappeared, but she never remembered to ask him what happened to it. Now she knows.
With a sigh, she looks down at herself, at Finnick’s brown shirt, then to the dress Rafe draped over the footboard of the bed. Her eyes widen as she remembers the night before, realizes she doesn’t know where her underwear ended up. She sighs again and scoops up the mound she made of bits of orange peel and drops the fragrant pieces into the nearby trash.
Rising from the bed, she drops to her knees beside it to look for her panties and, spotting them, reaches under it to grab them before picking up last night’s dress and heading into the bathroom to shower. Part of her wishes she’d taken Finnick up on his request to join him.
She’s just getting dressed when there’s a knock at the outer door, startling her. Not alone after all.
“Hello?” she calls as she steps from the bathroom to the bedroom, the silky dress settling into place over her hips. Her hair hangs loose down her back, still a little damp since she stepped away from the dryer before it was finished.
“Annie, it’s Martin. I’ve got some clothes for you.” She opens the door and stands aside for him to enter. He has a stack of clothing in his arms and a pair of shoes dangles from his right hand. “Mags sent them. She went wild, ordering up clothes in your size. I thought I was going to be completely buried under women’s clothing.” He shudders as if in horror and lays the clothes on the dresser, dropping the shoes to the floor. “She said she’s pretty sure these’ll fit, and if you don’t like them, you should pester one of the stylists into finding something for you.” He laughs. “According to Mags, either one of ‘em will fall all over themselves to dress you.”
“She said all that?” Annie asks, skeptical.
“I may be extrapolating,” Martin acknowledges.
The stack on the dresser consists of underthings, socks, shirts, pants, skirts, even another dress similar to the one she’s wearing, but in a deep gold color. She looks up at Martin.
“There’s enough here for the entire Games.”
Martin shrugs. “I just brought what she gave me.”
Frowning, Annie tells him, “I was going to order something else to wear from the other suite after I showered. I didn’t want it to look like… I mean I thought that’s where I should be staying while I’m here.” She could have ordered clothes from Finnick’s closet, but didn’t want to draw attention to herself and Finnick. She’s supposed to be Finnick’s mentor, or Mags’, either of which is laughable, but there’s a rule against “inappropriate relationships” between mentors and tributes.
“Mags had something to say about that, too.” Annie raises her brows in question. “It was along the lines of not bothering to pretend you and Finnick’ll have separate sleeping arrangements. I think there was something about a cat and an empty bag…?” She feels the blush creeping up her cheeks.
“You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?”
“I am,” he answers solemnly, but his eyes are full of laughter. Annie decides she likes Martin, is glad of the opportunity to get to know him and hopes she has a chance, under better circumstances, to get to know Angel, too. Watching the two of them throw each other around on the beach was kind of fun and it’s been a long time since Annie had any friends other than Finnick.
Looking at the clothes piled on the dresser, she thinks about what Martin said. Why should she and Finnick hide what they feel for each other? There was a reason for it, once, but under the circumstances…
Without consciously making a decision, Annie starts putting the clothes away in the dresser drawers alongside Finnick’s. As she makes room in the drawers, she pulls out a pair of jeans, some socks, and underthings.
Martin, standing in the doorway watching her, asks, “Have you mentored before, Annie?”
She shakes her head no, contemplating the pros and cons of which of two shirts to change into. Either one of them will look fine with the jeans, but one is short-sleeved and the other long. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.”
“Don’t worry about that. I’ve got enough experience for both of us.”
“Is there something we’re supposed to be doing now?” she asks. She never knew what Finnick did while she was in training for her own Games. At the time, she didn’t much care, her mind on other matters.
Martin nods. “There are really only two things: negotiating possible alliances in the arena and working on a list of potential sponsors.” He winks at Annie and says, “But given that we’re dealing with Finnick, I don’t think sponsors are going to be a problem.”
“No, I suppose they won’t,” she agrees, suddenly cold, reminded again of Finnick’s popularity in the Capitol and the reasons for it. She doesn’t think depressing her was the reaction Martin was going for as she wraps her arms around herself to stop from shivering. She takes the long-sleeved shirt from the drawer.
“I guess I probably shouldn’t joke about that,” Martin says, his tone contrite. “The head doctors call it a ‘coping mechanism,’ but Elena never appreciated it, either.”
“Elena?”
“My wife.”
And then Martin’s words sink in and she looks up sharply. “Martin? Does Snow…?”
He looks away from her. “It wasn’t often and not for a long time.” Finnick told her years ago that he wasn’t the only one, but he never told her who else. Now she knows that Martin was one of them and she can’t help but wonder about the other victors, how many of them Snow has used, still uses. A sudden wave of guilt washes over her, almost crushing in its intensity. How could she have let Finnick shield her from this at his own expense?
Martin claps his hands, startling her. “Come on. I’ll give you a tour of the victors’ lounge and the control room.” He holds out his hand. “That’s where all the magic happens,” he says in a credible imitation of Caesar Flickerman.
Annie forces a weak smile, seeing that he’s determined to lighten the mood. Lifting the clothes, she says, “Let me change first. I’d love to see some magic.”
xXx
Lunch is cafeteria style, set up in a room adjacent to the gym. There are carts along the walls laden with everything from leafy green salad to some kind of heavy, cheesy casserole; Finnick takes a little bit of everything, just because he can. He carries his piled-high tray over to the single huge table Brutus, Peeta, and a couple of the others created, and pulls out a chair between Cecelia and Mags. The others fill in the gaps, leaving only a handful of chairs empty, since their tributes never showed for training or, like Hamilton, were too sick or hung over to continue. Overall, it’s fairly amicable, but there’s lots of trash talking across the table.
“Tax sure seemed attentive, Finnick,” Gloss observes, oh so casually. “What’d you do? Promise him a little one-on-one training later?”
Finnick almost chokes on his dill potatoes. I guess last night’s truce is over. Aloud he says with a smirk, “Jealous, Gloss? I’m sure he’d be almost as happy to give you some… training.”
Johanna tells them, “You’re both pretty, boys. You can sheathe the claws now.”
Cashmere laughs at that, then laughs harder when Finnick throws his butter knife at Jo’s head. She catches it and waggles it at him, then uses it to butter a roll.
After lunch Finnick drifts around the gym, not all that interested in continuing. He could possibly have skipped a few of the lunch offerings, because all he really wants to do is take a nap. Preferably with Annie. But he goes through the motions, wondering, too, how he’s going to make it through two more days of this. He practices a few feints and parries with Brutus at the sword station, which leaves his right arm a little numb from the force of the man’s blows, and then spends some time making fires from next to nothing at the fire-making station, but nothing keeps his attention for long.
He’s at the bug station when Mags steps in beside him and touches him lightly on the arm, then points to the fishing station. “’duce me Kat-niss,” she tells him. He looks across the room to where Katniss sits on the floor opposite the instructor, watching intently as she demonstrates how to tie a makeshift lure. Smiling down at his old mentor, Finnick offers her his arm, matching his pace to her much slower one.
“Katniss.” She looks up at her name. “This is Mags. She wanted to meet you.” The girl starts to get up from her position on the floor, but Mags waves at her to stay where she is.
“Help sit, boy.”
“Anything for you, my love,” he tells her as he puts her cane under his arm and then takes her hand in his, giving her his strength to use as she lowers herself to the floor beside Katniss. He lays the cane on the floor in front of Mags and then takes a step back, watching the two of them as the instructor goes over the different things that can be used to make a hook. Katniss ends up just watching Mags rather than the instructor, who, while she isn’t bad, isn’t nearly the teacher Mags is.
Katniss follows Mags’ moves, studying the old woman herself as much as what she’s doing, and Finnick sees it on the girl’s face and in her body language the minute she makes the decision to ally with Mags. He breathes a sigh of relief; if Katniss accepts Mags, then he can use that to get her into an alliance with both of them.
When Katniss leaves, Finnick thanks Mags for working her magic and she smiles at him and holds out her hands for him to help her up. Standing, leaning on her cane, she pats him on the cheek and stumps off toward Beetee and Wiress at the hammock-making station.
He glances over at the archery range, where Tax tosses some bird-like thing into the air for Katniss to shoot. She takes it down effortlessly, as she does the next half dozen or so that follow. Finnick heads that way. He doesn’t want anything to do with Tax, but Katniss… She’s deadly poetry in motion, mesmerizing, and he’ll be perfectly happy just watching her for a while.
By the time he reaches the range, several others are there as well, forming a semi-circle behind Katniss. Tax sends more of his fake birds up, five or six of them at once, and the girl from 12 takes them all down. Finnick can’t take his eyes off her. She shoots the last clay target and lowers her bow, only then noticing that everyone is watching her.
That’s who I should be taking archery lessons from, Finnick decides.
Not long after that comes the announcement that training is over for the day and everyone disperses to their respective floors for dinner. Joanna and Chaff are already in the elevator when Finnick and Mags board, Chaff pressing the button that holds the doors open, giving Mags extra time. Mags steps to one side of Johanna and Finnick starts to take the space at Jo’s other side, when she whispers urgently, “Kiss me.”
“What?” He looks down at her, startled, sure that he misheard her. But then she reaches up and pulls his head down so she can take his mouth. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Katniss step onto the elevator, quickly followed by Peeta and he realizes Johanna is messing with the too-innocent Katniss.
Pulling back enough to look Johanna in the eye, Finnick shakes his head at her and then slants his mouth over hers. He pushes her back against the glass wall of the elevator and kisses her thoroughly, in full view of not just their fellow passengers, but anyone down in the lobby who might look their way. By the time the elevator stops, they each have a hand at the small of the other’s back, inside their waistbands and Finnick has pushed one leg between Johanna’s. She tastes of licorice and he remembers the last station he saw her spend any time at was the edible plants.
At the sound of the chime for 4, Finnick breaks it off. “This is my floor,” he tells her with a smirk, sounding entirely unaffected. Johanna slowly opens her eyes, looking a little dazed. Katniss, on the side of the elevator by Mags, looks completely scandalized.
“Bastard,” Jo whispers, but he just winks at her and saunters off the elevator, wondering if whistling might push things too far over the top. Mags, following behind, pokes him in the back with her cane.
“Behave, boy,” she tells him.
He laughs as the elevator closes on a grinning Chaff who winks at Finnick while Katniss and Peeta divide their attention between Finnick and Johanna. Katniss still looks a little scandalized, but Peeta looks amused and Finnick thinks he may have yet another avenue toward an alliance.
xXx
The victors’ lounge on the eleventh floor of the Headquarters building is identical in layout to the common rooms for the district floors in the adjoining Training Center, but it’s larger and there’s more furniture, including a couple of cots along one of the walls. When Annie and Martin walk in, there are half a dozen others there, sitting in chairs or on one of the couches, critiquing a television special on the Hunger Games. They all greet Martin with varying degrees of enthusiasm and Annie with curiosity.
“Annie, these are a few of our fellow mentors this year,” he tells her, gesturing toward the group. “First up is Pierce from District Seven.” An unsmiling man with curly brown hair nods at her. “Next is Farro, District Nine.” A man who appears to be in his late fifties waves at Annie. “Lyme from Two.” A hard-looking woman glances up from a magazine and smiles, the expression transforming her. “And last is Haymitch Abernathy from Twelve.”
“So you’re Annie,” Haymitch says, looking up from his place on the couch. “The boy never mentioned you’re drop dead gorgeous.” Annie blinks, unsure how to take his frank appraisal or the tone of gruff affection in his voice.
“Finnick has told me about you.”
“Oh? None of it good, I’ll bet.” His expression doesn’t change, except for a brief flash of amusement.
Annie tilts her head, studies Haymitch’s bloodshot gray eyes and scruffy, unkempt appearance. She stares at him long enough for him to start to fidget before she says, “He told me that you and Chaff helped put him back together more than once.” Behind her, one of the other mentors makes a rude comment about last year’s Head Gamemaker, Seneca Crane, which Annie assumes is prompted by the television special. Haymitch’s gaze flickers away from Annie’s at that, but quickly returns.
“Kid never deserved any of it.”
Lyme tosses her magazine - Modern Arms and Armor - onto the table in front of the couch and says, “None of them do.”
A man walks down a flight of stairs across from where Annie and Martin stand, his head bent toward his shoulder while he jots something down on a pad of paper. “No, no, no. Beetee. He’s the one who developed it,” he says into the phone cradled between his cheek and shoulder.
Annie looks at Martin, who says, “Cold call.” When he sees she doesn’t understand, he clarifies. “Sorry. That’s what we call it when we contact someone we think might be interested in sponsoring a tribute. Some districts make more cold calls than others.” He glances at the man on the phone. “We generally don’t make a lot of them in Four. Neither do the other Career districts.”
“Oh.” Annie nods toward the man in question. “Who is he?”
“That’s Watt, District Three.” Martin walks toward the steps Watt came down. “I’ll show you the control room. That’s where we’ll spend most of our time.” She follows him upstairs into an enormous room. There are no windows because every bit of wall space is taken up by television screens. Farther down the wall is an open door. “There are bathrooms down that way and also another set downstairs in the lounge,” Martin tells her when he sees where she’s looking, but then she spots something else.
“Martin?” She touches his hand and he turns toward her. She points to a pair of legs and their accompanying feet, sticking out beneath the countertop at the far end of the room. The screens at that end are marked with large 3s.
Martin laughs. “That’s probably Rae.” He raises his voice. “Rae? What are you doing under there?”
The feet and legs jerk and a woman’s voice says, loudly, “Ow!” as her head connects with the bottom of the counter. A dark-haired, dark-skinned woman in her sixties pushes herself out from under it. “Oh, hi, Martin! Who is that with you?”
“Rae, this is Annie Cresta, my partner this year. Annie, this is Rae Ericsson, the other mentor for District Three.” Rae rolls to her feet and walks over to Annie, offering her hand, which is cool to the touch and there are calluses on her fingertips. “You didn’t answer my question, Rae,” Martin reminds her.
“I noticed some static in the audio signal, so I’m trying to figure out how to optimize it to get rid of those ghosts.”
“I should have known it was something like that.”
Rae smiles at him. “Yes, you probably should have.” She turns to Annie. “Is this your first time mentoring, dear?”
“Yes,” Annie answers her, but before she has a chance to say more, Rae is already moving on.
“Oh, my goodness! It’s lunchtime. How did it get to be lunchtime? Come.” She takes both Annie and Martin by the hand and leads them to the stairs. “You’re both going to the Training Center lobby with me for lunch - much more comfortable than in here - and you can tell me all about District Four these days. I haven’t been there in, goodness, more than forty years!” She leads them down the steps but then stops cold. “Oh.”
The other victors are all on their feet, facing toward two men in tailored suits. One of the men, tall and blond, holds a clipboard in one hand. The other, white-haired and of medium height, turns toward Annie and her companions: Coriolanus Snow greets then with a smiling mouth, but his eyes are dead. Annie’s breath catches in her throat, her eyes fix on the white rose bud in his dark lapel. Martin moves to inconspicuously place himself between Snow and Annie and push her back upstairs, but he’s too late.
“Ah, Martin. It’s good to see you again. It’s been… what? Ten years? More?” Snow comes toward Martin with his hand outstretched and for a moment, Annie thinks that Martin’s going to refuse to shake the president’s hand, but in the end, he does what Snow expects of him.
With a glance back at Annie, Martin continues down the stairs and Rae steps aside for him. When he shakes Snow’s hand he attempts again to shift the man’s attention away from Annie by trying to physically shift Snow toward the other victors. “It’s been twelve years, Mr. President.” He doesn’t sound like himself.
The president’s dead blue eyes lock on Annie. He licks his lips and says, “This lovely girl can only be Annie Cresta.” He stands at the bottom of the stairs, looking up at her. “Join us, Annie.” Feeling as though she walks through a thick fog, Annie descends.
My name is Annie Cresta. I am twenty-two years old. I am the victor of the 70th Hunger Games. My home is with Finnick Odair in District Four.
“… look at you,” Snow says as he takes her hands. She misses part of what he says, can’t make sense of any of it. His skin is dry like paper, his touch cool as he grips her hands, pulling her inexorably toward him. Annie takes the last step down onto the floor and shivers, suddenly frozen in place. There’s the sharp scent of blood in the air. She can’t take another step forward.
My name is Annie Cresta. I am twenty-two years old. My home is with Finnick Odair. My name is…
“I can see why Finnick has kept you all to himself for so long.” He smiles again, gracious, terrifying.
My name is Annie Cresta… I am… I am… My home is… is… My home is Finnick… I want to go home….
He turns her around, runs a hand lightly down her spine, then turns her again until she’s facing him. He leans in close and whispers, so that only she can hear, “I’m sure Finnick has taught you well.”
Annie falls to her knees, folds in on herself, her hands over her ears, and begins to scream, but no sound comes out. It’s all trapped inside her, drowning out everything, drowning her.
She is drowning, lost in a sea of sound, of ocean waves roaring in her ears, waves breaking in time to the pulse that throbs in her head. Snow’s voice threads through it all, no words, just fear.
A snarl, filled with loathing. “Son of a bitch” and “Get her out of here.”
A woman’s voice. “Annie, he’s gone. It’s okay.”
Hands at her wrists, pulling at her. She locks her muscles down, refuses to move. Can’t touch me. Can’t touch me. Can’t touch.
“Somebody help me get her up.”
no no no no no no
“Oh, for fuck’s sake, Perch, she’s not going to break anymore than she already has.” Harsh voice, but gentle hands, not trying to make her open up, just sliding behind her shoulders, pushing in behind her knees, lifting her. “Get the elevator.”
Warm arms. Stale liquor. Sweat. Soft breath against her hair. “Here we go, sweetheart.” The warm arms leave her. She rolls herself into a ball, tiny, insignificant, unnoticeable. “Finnick’ll be here soon.” Finnick. Home.
“What do I do, Haymitch?”
“Just don’t leave her alone, Perch. Finnick’ll know what to do when he gets here. From what he’s said, this is what she was like right after her Games.”
A door closes. Silence. She shuts her eyes, doesn’t know why they were open. Darkness surrounds her. “I’m sure Finnick has taught you well.”
Her eyes fly open. Blood and roses. She whimpers. Run. Hide. Can’t see me. Can’t touch me.
“ANNIE!”
“Dammit. Finnick, she was here! She couldn’t have gotten past me.”
Warm arms, different from before. “Annie, baby, I’m here. I’m here. Don’t leave me.” Warm arms, warm body surrounding her. Home.
“What happened, Martin?”
“I was showing her around the mentors’ area, introducing her to some of the others. Haymitch. Rae. Lyme. Snow showed up.”
“Fuck.” Finnick’s arms tighten around her. Finnick.
“If I’d known he-”
“Stop it. You couldn’t have known.”
“Finnick, man, as soon as we entered the room, he focused on her. I tried to deflect him, but… He said something, touched her, and she just… She checked out. She was gone. Haymitch helped me get her back here. I didn’t know what else to do.”
“You did fine, Martin. Can you leave us alone, please?” His voice is calm, his muscles trembling.
“Yeah, sure, Finnick.”
The door closes. Darkness surrounds them, but there’s no more fear. She’s home.
Finnick doesn’t say anything, just cradles her in his arms, in his lap. They’re on the floor in the corner of his bedroom; in the dim light, she can see the shape of the chair between them and the bed. He strokes her hair and her muscles begin to loosen, relax. When he feels her start to relax, he relaxes a little himself. He starts to hum, soft, tentative, and when she recognizes the tune, she hums with him, both of their voices growing stronger with each breath until it becomes a duet.
“I’m here, Finnick,” she whispers when it’s over.
He falls silent for a while, just holding her, rocking her, then, “Annie, baby, what did he say to you?” She can hear the fear in the pitch of his voice.
“This lovely girl can only be Annie Cresta.”
“… look at you.”
“I can see why Finnick has kept you all to himself for so long.”
“I’m sure Finnick has taught you well.”
She curls her fingers into the fabric of Finnick’s shirt, buries her face between his arm and his chest. “Nothing. He ran his hand down my back. He didn’t say anything.” Nothing that Finnick needs to hear, nothing that Annie will allow to distract him from what he needs to do. “He didn’t say anything.”
Chapter Fifteen - Long Way Home
Chapter Title: In the Eye of the Storm
Rating: (this chapter) PG-13
Word count: 6,276
Betas: mrsdrjackson and pinkfinity (all mistakes and missteps are my own)
Focus: Annie Cresta/Finnick Odair
Characters: Finnick Odair, Mags, Seeder, Chaff, Tax, Katniss Everdeen, Annie Cresta, Original Male Character, Gloss, Johanna Mason, Haymitch Abernathy, Coriolanus Snow
Summary: He leans in close and whispers, so that only she can hear, “I’m sure Finnick has taught you well.”
Author's note: The title of this chapter is from "Daniel" by Bat for Lashes, which is on the fic soundtrack you can download here.
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Chapter Fourteen - In the Eye of the Storm
Only about half the tributes are in the huge gymnasium beneath the Training Center when Finnick arrives, which surprises him, since he’s a good forty minutes late. Apparently I’m not the only one with an attitude problem. Mags is long since there, watching Linna and Trayn from District 6, both of them morphling addicts, as they paint each other’s faces with the brightest colors at the camouflage station. They appear to be enjoying themselves and Finnick can’t begrudge them that. In a way, he envies them.
Closing his eyes for a moment, he sees Mags, ten years younger and standing straight, unbowed and strong beside Linna, herself clear-eyed and laughing at something the older woman said. Most years, the tributes and instructors are the only ones in the gym, but the year of his Games, the mentors accompanied their tributes to training, acting as secondary instructors and in some cases sparring partners. Linna was a morphling addict even then, but she kept it under control, the better to coach her tribute, a wiry girl three years Finnick’s elder and a strong contender. He can’t remember the girl’s name, isn’t sure he ever knew it, but he still feels her blood coating his hands, hears her screams in his sleep. He shakes his head, physically shaking off the memory.
Brutus and Enobaria are talking to Cashmere and Gloss at the edged weapons station, Brutus gesturing emphatically with a large hunting knife. It’s pretty clear they’re already in an alliance, one Finnick wants no part of, not this time around. At fourteen, his own desire to show off his skills with a knife and in hand-to-hand combat combined with the strength and confidence of the pack to dazzle him, make him want to be a part of it; at twenty-four, he knows it for the self-centered arrogance and fear that it really is, the selfish desire to live at all costs. He wants to live now just as much as he did then, but ten years of experience have taught him that there are things worth dying for.
The sound of retching grabs his attention and Finnick turns to see Hamilton from 5 lose his breakfast in the corner. He was one of the victors in the lobby the night before, self-medicating with his drug of choice, wine. Brutus jumps away with a sound of disgust and Enobaria calmly tells Hamilton that he’s a dead man if he gets any of it on her shoes. Two men in Training Center uniforms descend on the man, lifting him bodily from the floor while an Avox moves in to clean up the mess. Finnick waits for them to pass and heads over to where Katniss is stuck in an attempt at tying a semi-difficult knot.
When he’s still more than ten feet away, it’s clear that she made a novice mistake, but it’s one that should be easy enough for her to fix. The instructor spots him and Finnick puts a finger to his lips as he changes course to approach Katniss from behind. He slides his arms around her and corrects the lay of the rope in her left hand, then slips the end in her right hand through the loop, which will allow her to finish the knot on her own. If she paid attention, she won’t make the same mistake again.
She thanks him by shrugging him off with an annoyed glare and he steps back, his hands held high in surrender. But then he flashes her a cheesy grin and twitches the rope from her hands. Quickly coiling it into a noose, he slips it over his head and pretends to hang himself, sticking his tongue out at her in the process. The instructor laughs, but Katniss just shakes her head, still annoyed. Finnick figures she’s determined to dislike him, but he doesn’t miss the amusement in her eyes, there and then gone, so he counts it as a minor win and moves on to join Seeder and Chaff where they’re studying a bunch of plants laid out on a table.
“I’m surprised to see you here, Finnick,” Seeder tells him with a smile and a quick kiss on the cheek.
“Here with the plants or here in training?”
“Either. Both. Isn’t it early for you?” She glances at the clock over the door at the far end of the gym.
“Not really,” he responds. It’s well after 11:00, closer to lunch than breakfast. “Now, if I was allowed to leave the compound, you might get a different answer.” He winks at her and grins.
“Hear you’ve got yourself a real pretty mentor, son,” Chaff says. “No need to leave if you’ve got something worth hanging around for.”
Finnick freezes, the grin still pasted on his face even as he feels the blood drain away, leaving him momentarily light-headed. Seeder slaps Chaff on the back of the head. “Stop it, Chaff.”
“Where’d you hear that?” Finnick asks, trying for nonchalance, pretty sure he’s failing miserably.
Chaff laughs. “Oh, man, the look on your face!” But then he sobers, squeezing Finnick’s shoulder with his one hand. “I heard it from Martin last night, son. Your girl’s fine. Martin and Haymitch’ll keep an eye on her.”
Finnick takes a deep breath and Seeder pats him on the arm as she reaches past him to pick up what looks like a palm frond, one with some pretty wicked serrations along the edges of its leaves. The thing looks like it could be easily turned into a weapon, or rather into multiple weapons, an opinion confirmed when Seeder tests the edge of a leaf against her thumb and bright droplets of blood well up in the small but ragged slice it leaves behind.
“Will you look at that?” Chaff says, and at first Finnick thinks he’s talking about the leafy knives Seeder still holds in her hand, but then he looks toward where the older man points. Johanna is stripped down and oiling her body at the wrestling station. Chaff isn’t the only one looking, Finnick sees as he glances around the room. Brutus, Peeta, Cashmere, anyone who still has a pulse is watching her.
“That girl…” Seeder says, shaking her head, and returns to studying the plants.
Beetee, not at all interested in Johanna, drifts over to join Katniss at the fire-making station, which amuses Finnick to no end. Beetee has a pulse, of course, but he’d really only be interested in Johanna if electrical current ran through her veins instead of blood. Wiress trails after Beetee, looking lost for a moment until she focuses on Katniss, then hurries toward her and Beetee.
Past the tributes from 3 and 12, Finnick spots Mags at the archery range and, saying goodbye to Chaff and Seeder, he joins her. While the man running the range explains to Mags how to string the bow she holds in her gnarled hands, Finnick picks up one of the more simple-looking bows from the display table, almost identical to the one Mags holds, and tests the feel of it. Trident, spear, knife, they’re all weapons he understands and has some proficiency with. Even a sword, he could put to good use in a fight, but a bow and arrows are alien things to him.
“That one will have much too light a pull for you,” the instructor tells him, watching from where he still stands with Mags, who lowers her bow. She says something to the instructor, then shoos him toward Finnick.
“I’m Tax.” He holds out his hand and looks at Finnick expectantly, so Finnick transfers the too-light bow to his left hand and shakes Tax’s with his right.
“I’m-”
“Finnick Odair. Yes. I know.” He smiles and doesn’t release Finnick’s hand as he reaches over the table toward a black and red bow, much heavier looking than the one Finnick picked up, but still not one of the monsters with pulleys and multiple strings and laser sights that line the wall behind the table. There’s no way one of those’ll be available in the arena, Finnick thinks as Tax hands him the black and red bow. “Try this one,” Tax says as he pulls a sheath of arrows from a stack at one end of the table and turns Finnick toward the targets.
Finnick raises a brow at Tax’s unnecessary touch, but doesn’t call him on it. He sees from the look in Mags’ eyes that she noticed it, too, and is amused. Raising the bow in his left hand, he takes an arrow from the sheath and sets it to the string, but before he can do anything else, Tax comes up behind him.
“No, Finnick, like this,” he says as he slips his arms around him and pushes a leg between Finnick’s to correct his stance. Finnick shoots a look toward Mags, who watches with raised brows. Finnick smirks at her with an exaggerated roll of his eyes.
He could step away from Tax, maybe ask him not to get so close, but what would be the point? He would only antagonize the man needlessly and, unfamiliar as he is with anything but the absolute basics of archery, he’d lose a potentially valuable tool in the arena, so instead he lets the man guide him, shooting the first three or four arrows together.
Finnick and Mags spend the next half hour or so at the archery range, by the end of which Finnick is consistently hitting the target, if not actually hitting near the bull’s eye. Mags gives up early, not having the strength to pull the string more than a half dozen times, each pull shakier than the last, but she stays to watch Finnick and to listen to the pointers Tax gives him.
Mags applauds when one of Finnick’s arrows kisses the bull’s eye just a little too far to the left. Finnick grins at her and nocks another arrow. As he adjusts his aim slightly to try to account for that last little bit, Tax steps in close yet again, but it’s one time too many. Finnick steps away and lowers the bow, removes the arrow from the string.
“Look, Tax, I appreciate the instruction,” he begins, but the call for the tributes to break for lunch interrupts him.
“Finn,” Mags says from behind him and he turns. She nods toward Tax and says, “Doesn’t mean ‘thing.” He swallows the rest of what he wants to say to the man, which boils down to “stop touching me,” and without another word, he carefully replaces his bow and the sheath on the table as Tax wishes them an enjoyable meal and walks out onto the range.
“They never mean anything by it, Mags.” He glances at Tax, who retrieves arrows as he moves toward the targets. Finnick has questions, he’d like to get some ideas for improvement, but at the thought of taking more training from Tax, he shudders. “They never fucking do.”
xXx
Annie stays there in the middle of Finnick’s bed for a long time, staring at the closed door, listening to the noise of the prep teams and servants and the other District 4 “team” members coming and going on the other side. When it stops, it takes her a moment for the silence to sink in, for it to hit her that they’re all gone to wherever and whatever is on their agendas for the day. She blinks and looks around the room.
On the surface, it’s the same as Mags’, functional and impersonal. There’s a small table by the door and another beside the bed, a chair in the corner to the left of the dresser and pieces of abstract artwork on the walls, all of it like a room in an expensive hotel. But there are little things - a bit of braided cord beneath the bedside lamp, a shell necklace hanging from the corner of a painting, the mirror that used to be above the dresser shoved behind it instead - that tell her Finnick lives here.
A set of sliding doors is open onto the closet; in Mags’ room it was filled with clothing designed for women, but here, in addition to both generic and flashier things, it contains a few items that belong to Finnick. She smiles when she recognizes the sleeve of a shirt she gave him for his birthday two years before. He wore it all the time, that fall and spring, and then it disappeared, but she never remembered to ask him what happened to it. Now she knows.
With a sigh, she looks down at herself, at Finnick’s brown shirt, then to the dress Rafe draped over the footboard of the bed. Her eyes widen as she remembers the night before, realizes she doesn’t know where her underwear ended up. She sighs again and scoops up the mound she made of bits of orange peel and drops the fragrant pieces into the nearby trash.
Rising from the bed, she drops to her knees beside it to look for her panties and, spotting them, reaches under it to grab them before picking up last night’s dress and heading into the bathroom to shower. Part of her wishes she’d taken Finnick up on his request to join him.
She’s just getting dressed when there’s a knock at the outer door, startling her. Not alone after all.
“Hello?” she calls as she steps from the bathroom to the bedroom, the silky dress settling into place over her hips. Her hair hangs loose down her back, still a little damp since she stepped away from the dryer before it was finished.
“Annie, it’s Martin. I’ve got some clothes for you.” She opens the door and stands aside for him to enter. He has a stack of clothing in his arms and a pair of shoes dangles from his right hand. “Mags sent them. She went wild, ordering up clothes in your size. I thought I was going to be completely buried under women’s clothing.” He shudders as if in horror and lays the clothes on the dresser, dropping the shoes to the floor. “She said she’s pretty sure these’ll fit, and if you don’t like them, you should pester one of the stylists into finding something for you.” He laughs. “According to Mags, either one of ‘em will fall all over themselves to dress you.”
“She said all that?” Annie asks, skeptical.
“I may be extrapolating,” Martin acknowledges.
The stack on the dresser consists of underthings, socks, shirts, pants, skirts, even another dress similar to the one she’s wearing, but in a deep gold color. She looks up at Martin.
“There’s enough here for the entire Games.”
Martin shrugs. “I just brought what she gave me.”
Frowning, Annie tells him, “I was going to order something else to wear from the other suite after I showered. I didn’t want it to look like… I mean I thought that’s where I should be staying while I’m here.” She could have ordered clothes from Finnick’s closet, but didn’t want to draw attention to herself and Finnick. She’s supposed to be Finnick’s mentor, or Mags’, either of which is laughable, but there’s a rule against “inappropriate relationships” between mentors and tributes.
“Mags had something to say about that, too.” Annie raises her brows in question. “It was along the lines of not bothering to pretend you and Finnick’ll have separate sleeping arrangements. I think there was something about a cat and an empty bag…?” She feels the blush creeping up her cheeks.
“You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?”
“I am,” he answers solemnly, but his eyes are full of laughter. Annie decides she likes Martin, is glad of the opportunity to get to know him and hopes she has a chance, under better circumstances, to get to know Angel, too. Watching the two of them throw each other around on the beach was kind of fun and it’s been a long time since Annie had any friends other than Finnick.
Looking at the clothes piled on the dresser, she thinks about what Martin said. Why should she and Finnick hide what they feel for each other? There was a reason for it, once, but under the circumstances…
Without consciously making a decision, Annie starts putting the clothes away in the dresser drawers alongside Finnick’s. As she makes room in the drawers, she pulls out a pair of jeans, some socks, and underthings.
Martin, standing in the doorway watching her, asks, “Have you mentored before, Annie?”
She shakes her head no, contemplating the pros and cons of which of two shirts to change into. Either one of them will look fine with the jeans, but one is short-sleeved and the other long. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.”
“Don’t worry about that. I’ve got enough experience for both of us.”
“Is there something we’re supposed to be doing now?” she asks. She never knew what Finnick did while she was in training for her own Games. At the time, she didn’t much care, her mind on other matters.
Martin nods. “There are really only two things: negotiating possible alliances in the arena and working on a list of potential sponsors.” He winks at Annie and says, “But given that we’re dealing with Finnick, I don’t think sponsors are going to be a problem.”
“No, I suppose they won’t,” she agrees, suddenly cold, reminded again of Finnick’s popularity in the Capitol and the reasons for it. She doesn’t think depressing her was the reaction Martin was going for as she wraps her arms around herself to stop from shivering. She takes the long-sleeved shirt from the drawer.
“I guess I probably shouldn’t joke about that,” Martin says, his tone contrite. “The head doctors call it a ‘coping mechanism,’ but Elena never appreciated it, either.”
“Elena?”
“My wife.”
And then Martin’s words sink in and she looks up sharply. “Martin? Does Snow…?”
He looks away from her. “It wasn’t often and not for a long time.” Finnick told her years ago that he wasn’t the only one, but he never told her who else. Now she knows that Martin was one of them and she can’t help but wonder about the other victors, how many of them Snow has used, still uses. A sudden wave of guilt washes over her, almost crushing in its intensity. How could she have let Finnick shield her from this at his own expense?
Martin claps his hands, startling her. “Come on. I’ll give you a tour of the victors’ lounge and the control room.” He holds out his hand. “That’s where all the magic happens,” he says in a credible imitation of Caesar Flickerman.
Annie forces a weak smile, seeing that he’s determined to lighten the mood. Lifting the clothes, she says, “Let me change first. I’d love to see some magic.”
xXx
Lunch is cafeteria style, set up in a room adjacent to the gym. There are carts along the walls laden with everything from leafy green salad to some kind of heavy, cheesy casserole; Finnick takes a little bit of everything, just because he can. He carries his piled-high tray over to the single huge table Brutus, Peeta, and a couple of the others created, and pulls out a chair between Cecelia and Mags. The others fill in the gaps, leaving only a handful of chairs empty, since their tributes never showed for training or, like Hamilton, were too sick or hung over to continue. Overall, it’s fairly amicable, but there’s lots of trash talking across the table.
“Tax sure seemed attentive, Finnick,” Gloss observes, oh so casually. “What’d you do? Promise him a little one-on-one training later?”
Finnick almost chokes on his dill potatoes. I guess last night’s truce is over. Aloud he says with a smirk, “Jealous, Gloss? I’m sure he’d be almost as happy to give you some… training.”
Johanna tells them, “You’re both pretty, boys. You can sheathe the claws now.”
Cashmere laughs at that, then laughs harder when Finnick throws his butter knife at Jo’s head. She catches it and waggles it at him, then uses it to butter a roll.
After lunch Finnick drifts around the gym, not all that interested in continuing. He could possibly have skipped a few of the lunch offerings, because all he really wants to do is take a nap. Preferably with Annie. But he goes through the motions, wondering, too, how he’s going to make it through two more days of this. He practices a few feints and parries with Brutus at the sword station, which leaves his right arm a little numb from the force of the man’s blows, and then spends some time making fires from next to nothing at the fire-making station, but nothing keeps his attention for long.
He’s at the bug station when Mags steps in beside him and touches him lightly on the arm, then points to the fishing station. “’duce me Kat-niss,” she tells him. He looks across the room to where Katniss sits on the floor opposite the instructor, watching intently as she demonstrates how to tie a makeshift lure. Smiling down at his old mentor, Finnick offers her his arm, matching his pace to her much slower one.
“Katniss.” She looks up at her name. “This is Mags. She wanted to meet you.” The girl starts to get up from her position on the floor, but Mags waves at her to stay where she is.
“Help sit, boy.”
“Anything for you, my love,” he tells her as he puts her cane under his arm and then takes her hand in his, giving her his strength to use as she lowers herself to the floor beside Katniss. He lays the cane on the floor in front of Mags and then takes a step back, watching the two of them as the instructor goes over the different things that can be used to make a hook. Katniss ends up just watching Mags rather than the instructor, who, while she isn’t bad, isn’t nearly the teacher Mags is.
Katniss follows Mags’ moves, studying the old woman herself as much as what she’s doing, and Finnick sees it on the girl’s face and in her body language the minute she makes the decision to ally with Mags. He breathes a sigh of relief; if Katniss accepts Mags, then he can use that to get her into an alliance with both of them.
When Katniss leaves, Finnick thanks Mags for working her magic and she smiles at him and holds out her hands for him to help her up. Standing, leaning on her cane, she pats him on the cheek and stumps off toward Beetee and Wiress at the hammock-making station.
He glances over at the archery range, where Tax tosses some bird-like thing into the air for Katniss to shoot. She takes it down effortlessly, as she does the next half dozen or so that follow. Finnick heads that way. He doesn’t want anything to do with Tax, but Katniss… She’s deadly poetry in motion, mesmerizing, and he’ll be perfectly happy just watching her for a while.
By the time he reaches the range, several others are there as well, forming a semi-circle behind Katniss. Tax sends more of his fake birds up, five or six of them at once, and the girl from 12 takes them all down. Finnick can’t take his eyes off her. She shoots the last clay target and lowers her bow, only then noticing that everyone is watching her.
That’s who I should be taking archery lessons from, Finnick decides.
Not long after that comes the announcement that training is over for the day and everyone disperses to their respective floors for dinner. Joanna and Chaff are already in the elevator when Finnick and Mags board, Chaff pressing the button that holds the doors open, giving Mags extra time. Mags steps to one side of Johanna and Finnick starts to take the space at Jo’s other side, when she whispers urgently, “Kiss me.”
“What?” He looks down at her, startled, sure that he misheard her. But then she reaches up and pulls his head down so she can take his mouth. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Katniss step onto the elevator, quickly followed by Peeta and he realizes Johanna is messing with the too-innocent Katniss.
Pulling back enough to look Johanna in the eye, Finnick shakes his head at her and then slants his mouth over hers. He pushes her back against the glass wall of the elevator and kisses her thoroughly, in full view of not just their fellow passengers, but anyone down in the lobby who might look their way. By the time the elevator stops, they each have a hand at the small of the other’s back, inside their waistbands and Finnick has pushed one leg between Johanna’s. She tastes of licorice and he remembers the last station he saw her spend any time at was the edible plants.
At the sound of the chime for 4, Finnick breaks it off. “This is my floor,” he tells her with a smirk, sounding entirely unaffected. Johanna slowly opens her eyes, looking a little dazed. Katniss, on the side of the elevator by Mags, looks completely scandalized.
“Bastard,” Jo whispers, but he just winks at her and saunters off the elevator, wondering if whistling might push things too far over the top. Mags, following behind, pokes him in the back with her cane.
“Behave, boy,” she tells him.
He laughs as the elevator closes on a grinning Chaff who winks at Finnick while Katniss and Peeta divide their attention between Finnick and Johanna. Katniss still looks a little scandalized, but Peeta looks amused and Finnick thinks he may have yet another avenue toward an alliance.
xXx
The victors’ lounge on the eleventh floor of the Headquarters building is identical in layout to the common rooms for the district floors in the adjoining Training Center, but it’s larger and there’s more furniture, including a couple of cots along one of the walls. When Annie and Martin walk in, there are half a dozen others there, sitting in chairs or on one of the couches, critiquing a television special on the Hunger Games. They all greet Martin with varying degrees of enthusiasm and Annie with curiosity.
“Annie, these are a few of our fellow mentors this year,” he tells her, gesturing toward the group. “First up is Pierce from District Seven.” An unsmiling man with curly brown hair nods at her. “Next is Farro, District Nine.” A man who appears to be in his late fifties waves at Annie. “Lyme from Two.” A hard-looking woman glances up from a magazine and smiles, the expression transforming her. “And last is Haymitch Abernathy from Twelve.”
“So you’re Annie,” Haymitch says, looking up from his place on the couch. “The boy never mentioned you’re drop dead gorgeous.” Annie blinks, unsure how to take his frank appraisal or the tone of gruff affection in his voice.
“Finnick has told me about you.”
“Oh? None of it good, I’ll bet.” His expression doesn’t change, except for a brief flash of amusement.
Annie tilts her head, studies Haymitch’s bloodshot gray eyes and scruffy, unkempt appearance. She stares at him long enough for him to start to fidget before she says, “He told me that you and Chaff helped put him back together more than once.” Behind her, one of the other mentors makes a rude comment about last year’s Head Gamemaker, Seneca Crane, which Annie assumes is prompted by the television special. Haymitch’s gaze flickers away from Annie’s at that, but quickly returns.
“Kid never deserved any of it.”
Lyme tosses her magazine - Modern Arms and Armor - onto the table in front of the couch and says, “None of them do.”
A man walks down a flight of stairs across from where Annie and Martin stand, his head bent toward his shoulder while he jots something down on a pad of paper. “No, no, no. Beetee. He’s the one who developed it,” he says into the phone cradled between his cheek and shoulder.
Annie looks at Martin, who says, “Cold call.” When he sees she doesn’t understand, he clarifies. “Sorry. That’s what we call it when we contact someone we think might be interested in sponsoring a tribute. Some districts make more cold calls than others.” He glances at the man on the phone. “We generally don’t make a lot of them in Four. Neither do the other Career districts.”
“Oh.” Annie nods toward the man in question. “Who is he?”
“That’s Watt, District Three.” Martin walks toward the steps Watt came down. “I’ll show you the control room. That’s where we’ll spend most of our time.” She follows him upstairs into an enormous room. There are no windows because every bit of wall space is taken up by television screens. Farther down the wall is an open door. “There are bathrooms down that way and also another set downstairs in the lounge,” Martin tells her when he sees where she’s looking, but then she spots something else.
“Martin?” She touches his hand and he turns toward her. She points to a pair of legs and their accompanying feet, sticking out beneath the countertop at the far end of the room. The screens at that end are marked with large 3s.
Martin laughs. “That’s probably Rae.” He raises his voice. “Rae? What are you doing under there?”
The feet and legs jerk and a woman’s voice says, loudly, “Ow!” as her head connects with the bottom of the counter. A dark-haired, dark-skinned woman in her sixties pushes herself out from under it. “Oh, hi, Martin! Who is that with you?”
“Rae, this is Annie Cresta, my partner this year. Annie, this is Rae Ericsson, the other mentor for District Three.” Rae rolls to her feet and walks over to Annie, offering her hand, which is cool to the touch and there are calluses on her fingertips. “You didn’t answer my question, Rae,” Martin reminds her.
“I noticed some static in the audio signal, so I’m trying to figure out how to optimize it to get rid of those ghosts.”
“I should have known it was something like that.”
Rae smiles at him. “Yes, you probably should have.” She turns to Annie. “Is this your first time mentoring, dear?”
“Yes,” Annie answers her, but before she has a chance to say more, Rae is already moving on.
“Oh, my goodness! It’s lunchtime. How did it get to be lunchtime? Come.” She takes both Annie and Martin by the hand and leads them to the stairs. “You’re both going to the Training Center lobby with me for lunch - much more comfortable than in here - and you can tell me all about District Four these days. I haven’t been there in, goodness, more than forty years!” She leads them down the steps but then stops cold. “Oh.”
The other victors are all on their feet, facing toward two men in tailored suits. One of the men, tall and blond, holds a clipboard in one hand. The other, white-haired and of medium height, turns toward Annie and her companions: Coriolanus Snow greets then with a smiling mouth, but his eyes are dead. Annie’s breath catches in her throat, her eyes fix on the white rose bud in his dark lapel. Martin moves to inconspicuously place himself between Snow and Annie and push her back upstairs, but he’s too late.
“Ah, Martin. It’s good to see you again. It’s been… what? Ten years? More?” Snow comes toward Martin with his hand outstretched and for a moment, Annie thinks that Martin’s going to refuse to shake the president’s hand, but in the end, he does what Snow expects of him.
With a glance back at Annie, Martin continues down the stairs and Rae steps aside for him. When he shakes Snow’s hand he attempts again to shift the man’s attention away from Annie by trying to physically shift Snow toward the other victors. “It’s been twelve years, Mr. President.” He doesn’t sound like himself.
The president’s dead blue eyes lock on Annie. He licks his lips and says, “This lovely girl can only be Annie Cresta.” He stands at the bottom of the stairs, looking up at her. “Join us, Annie.” Feeling as though she walks through a thick fog, Annie descends.
My name is Annie Cresta. I am twenty-two years old. I am the victor of the 70th Hunger Games. My home is with Finnick Odair in District Four.
“… look at you,” Snow says as he takes her hands. She misses part of what he says, can’t make sense of any of it. His skin is dry like paper, his touch cool as he grips her hands, pulling her inexorably toward him. Annie takes the last step down onto the floor and shivers, suddenly frozen in place. There’s the sharp scent of blood in the air. She can’t take another step forward.
My name is Annie Cresta. I am twenty-two years old. My home is with Finnick Odair. My name is…
“I can see why Finnick has kept you all to himself for so long.” He smiles again, gracious, terrifying.
My name is Annie Cresta… I am… I am… My home is… is… My home is Finnick… I want to go home….
He turns her around, runs a hand lightly down her spine, then turns her again until she’s facing him. He leans in close and whispers, so that only she can hear, “I’m sure Finnick has taught you well.”
Annie falls to her knees, folds in on herself, her hands over her ears, and begins to scream, but no sound comes out. It’s all trapped inside her, drowning out everything, drowning her.
She is drowning, lost in a sea of sound, of ocean waves roaring in her ears, waves breaking in time to the pulse that throbs in her head. Snow’s voice threads through it all, no words, just fear.
A snarl, filled with loathing. “Son of a bitch” and “Get her out of here.”
A woman’s voice. “Annie, he’s gone. It’s okay.”
Hands at her wrists, pulling at her. She locks her muscles down, refuses to move. Can’t touch me. Can’t touch me. Can’t touch.
“Somebody help me get her up.”
no no no no no no
“Oh, for fuck’s sake, Perch, she’s not going to break anymore than she already has.” Harsh voice, but gentle hands, not trying to make her open up, just sliding behind her shoulders, pushing in behind her knees, lifting her. “Get the elevator.”
Warm arms. Stale liquor. Sweat. Soft breath against her hair. “Here we go, sweetheart.” The warm arms leave her. She rolls herself into a ball, tiny, insignificant, unnoticeable. “Finnick’ll be here soon.” Finnick. Home.
“What do I do, Haymitch?”
“Just don’t leave her alone, Perch. Finnick’ll know what to do when he gets here. From what he’s said, this is what she was like right after her Games.”
A door closes. Silence. She shuts her eyes, doesn’t know why they were open. Darkness surrounds her. “I’m sure Finnick has taught you well.”
Her eyes fly open. Blood and roses. She whimpers. Run. Hide. Can’t see me. Can’t touch me.
“ANNIE!”
“Dammit. Finnick, she was here! She couldn’t have gotten past me.”
Warm arms, different from before. “Annie, baby, I’m here. I’m here. Don’t leave me.” Warm arms, warm body surrounding her. Home.
“What happened, Martin?”
“I was showing her around the mentors’ area, introducing her to some of the others. Haymitch. Rae. Lyme. Snow showed up.”
“Fuck.” Finnick’s arms tighten around her. Finnick.
“If I’d known he-”
“Stop it. You couldn’t have known.”
“Finnick, man, as soon as we entered the room, he focused on her. I tried to deflect him, but… He said something, touched her, and she just… She checked out. She was gone. Haymitch helped me get her back here. I didn’t know what else to do.”
“You did fine, Martin. Can you leave us alone, please?” His voice is calm, his muscles trembling.
“Yeah, sure, Finnick.”
The door closes. Darkness surrounds them, but there’s no more fear. She’s home.
Finnick doesn’t say anything, just cradles her in his arms, in his lap. They’re on the floor in the corner of his bedroom; in the dim light, she can see the shape of the chair between them and the bed. He strokes her hair and her muscles begin to loosen, relax. When he feels her start to relax, he relaxes a little himself. He starts to hum, soft, tentative, and when she recognizes the tune, she hums with him, both of their voices growing stronger with each breath until it becomes a duet.
“I’m here, Finnick,” she whispers when it’s over.
He falls silent for a while, just holding her, rocking her, then, “Annie, baby, what did he say to you?” She can hear the fear in the pitch of his voice.
“This lovely girl can only be Annie Cresta.”
“… look at you.”
“I can see why Finnick has kept you all to himself for so long.”
“I’m sure Finnick has taught you well.”
She curls her fingers into the fabric of Finnick’s shirt, buries her face between his arm and his chest. “Nothing. He ran his hand down my back. He didn’t say anything.” Nothing that Finnick needs to hear, nothing that Annie will allow to distract him from what he needs to do. “He didn’t say anything.”
Chapter Fifteen - Long Way Home