Allies (Katniss Everdeen & Finnick Odair)

Chapter 8

Chapter 8

After a few minutes I can hear Finnick breathe deeply, which means he's asleep. There are so many things I wish I could say to him, but with the cameras and the whole me-having-Peeta's- baby situation, it's practically impossible. Also, having him as an ally will work until there's just a few of us left; Peeta has to live so the alliance will have to break at a certain point.

With this on my mind I begin to fall asleep but I jerk up my head, I'm supposed to keep guard. I turn my head to the right looking for a more comfortable position when I see a small cloud of fog coming towards me. I doesn't surprise me because about an hour ago, I saw a lightning hit a tree not far away from here which means it probably rained over there.

The fog begins to grow closer to me. There's just something that makes me want to touch it, and when I do, I feel my hand burn intensely.

I can't keep myself from screaming in pain. I stand up and begin to wake up everyone.

"Wake up, Peeta!" I say as I shake him harshly. "The fog is poison!"

Finnick doesn't need to be shaken, before I realize it, he's on his feet and carrying Mags on his back.

While Peeta is trying to stand up, a little bit of the fog catches up to us. The burning sensation makes my eyes water and I see my hand covered in blisters. I practically begin to drag Peeta along with me and we try to catch up with Finnick.

The fog begins to thicken which makes it even hard to breathe. I feel it burning my throat. I don't realize how many times we turn or where are we heading exactly but we just run. Peeta trips a few times but we manage to keep going, not without the fog touching us and creating the most painful feeling I've ever felt.

After a little bit I start losing control of my arms, which begin to move by themselves. I look down and Peeta can't even stand up. We can't keep going.

"Finnick!" I shout in between coughs. "Finnick!"

He turns around and sees us on the ground. He runs towards us as fast as he can, then he puts Mags on the ground and pulls me up, touching my cheek.

"I can't carry him." I say, and he finally seems to notice Peeta.

"Can you carry Mags?" he asks.

I know Mags doesn't weigh much but having no control over my arms, and soon my legs too, will make it an almost impossible task.

"I don't know. I can't move my arms quite right." We're both breathing heavily, and I see his eyes suggest something: Leave Peeta.

I shake my head slightly, but before he can respond, Mags touches his shoulder. He turns and she grabs his face and kisses him briefly on the lips.

"Mags?" Finnick says when she begins walking towards the fog. "Mags! No, Mags! MAGS!"

Never before had I seen him more desperate than now, but Mags just gave us a chance to live and we cannot waste it.

"Finnick!" I grab his face and make him look at me. "We have to go. Now."

He looks at me with confused, glossy eyes. "Please," I tell him.

"Right." He says. He grabs Peeta and jerks him over his back. We run as fast as we can, trying to put some distance between us and the fog but it doesn't seem to work. It catches up to us and I see Finnick losing control of his arms too. We get to the beach and see that there's nowhere else to go, we won't make it. We fall down on the sand and look back to see the slow and painful death that awaits us but, it never reaches us. The fog stops before it gets to the beach, it looks like it crashes into a glass wall and then it dissipates.

We stay there for a few minutes, catching our breath. After a while I stand up and walk towards the water, but I stop abruptly. Walking into the water would be like putting salt on an open wound, but I try it anyway. It stings but not as much as the fog does when it touches you, and after a little bit, it feels good. I can see through the water that the blisters are disappearing, as if they were just mud.

I turn around and walk towards Peeta first, I can't really look at Finnick in the eye right now, not after what happened to Mags.

I help Peeta get to the water and we scrub off each other. The worst part of it is sinking your head, but once you do it, it feels relaxing. Peeta looks so much better that he did minutes ago.

"I'll go get some water," he says. I give him the spile, which I was keeping inside the parachute I attached to my belt.

He walks back to the jungle and I know I have to face Finnick now. He's lying face down on the sand, the only sign that he's alive is his back rising and falling. I kneel down next to him and stroke his hair but he doesn't move.

"I'm really sorry." My voice is like a whisper. "I wish I could've done something."

His eyes are open. "I knew she wasn't gonna make it." He says, staring blankly towards the jungle.

"Still, I'm really sorry Finnick." I can't stop thinking it's my fault. Of course if you look at the whole picture, it's none other than President Snow's fault but Finnick carried Peeta instead of Mags. What made my District companion more important than his? Nothing, but I was just too selfish to not call Finnick back, to let him keep running with Mags. Maybe he would've noticed but it might have been too late.

"Me too." He says.

"Let's go into the water, it helps to remove the blisters." I say.

He doesn't say anything but stands up. I grab his hand and he squeezes it. I help him clean up and hold his hand when he sinks his head under the water.

Just as we're getting out of the water, Peeta comes back for a knife to open a hole before putting in the spile into the tree, and sees our hands together but doesn't give importance to it. Right now, I could say and do a lot of things that would look like just moral support to everyone but with a different meaning for me and Finnick, and I need to take advantage of it.

And apparently, so does he because he hugs me tightly and lifts my body off the ground. "Thank you." He says next to my ear. When he puts me down I just nod.

We begin to walk towards the jungle and I can see Peeta standing next to a tree. We're just about to reach him when Finnick stops me. I look at him and see him looking above Peeta. I follow his gaze and find myself looking at twenty, no... more than twenty monkeys looking down at us, and something tells me, they're not friendly. I look at Peeta and try to keep my voice as calm as I can.

"Peeta?" I say.

"Yeah?" he asks.

"Can you come over here?"

"I'm almost done," he says. For just a slight second, he looks up, and that's all it takes for the monkeys to explode.

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