Allies (Katniss Everdeen & Finnick Odair)

Chapter 11

Chapter 11

I don't know for how long Finnick and I have been embracing each other but suddenly I feel his breath catch as a pair of hands hold us both. I look up slowly to see Peeta with a slight frown and worried eyes.

"It's okay." He says.

"Prim..." I mumble.

"She's okay, it was just the Jabberjays," he helps me stand up. "Prim is okay."

"But the screams, they copy sounds-" I say.

"Katniss, there's just eight of us left. Us, Chaff, Brutus and Enobaria. You remember what happens when we get to the final eight?" he says softly.

"Seven more die?"

He smiles. "No, they interview our family and friends and they wouldn't be able to do that if they were torturing Prim."

"He's right," Johanna says. "Everyone loves your sister. If they touched her, there would be riots in the damn Capitol."

Johanna begins to shout things at president Snow and all the rest of us do is stare. When she notices us staring, she simply says. "They can't hurt me, there's no one left that I love."

Love.

It has become such a weird confusing word in the last year. I know Johanna means 'no one left she cares about' but I can't help wonder if there was ever someone that she really loved.

It's hard to separate one kind of love from another. I love my family but I also love Gale, and they're different kinds of love, but they're both important. I don't really know if I've ever felt the kind of love that fills your brain and doesn't let you think of anything, anyone else.

After my breathing goes back to normal and I feel more calm Peeta and Beetee engage in conversation. I see Finnick is inside the water, just to his knees, staring towards the other side of the beach.

I have to understand that hearing Annie, his best friend, startled him, just as it did to hear Prim and Gale for me, but I still can't help but think if there might've been something more between him and Annie in the past, or even in the present.

I decide to walk towards him to see if he's okay and also if I want to know more about his relationship with Annie, now's the time it wouldn't look suspicious if I asked him.

"Hey." I say behind him.

"Hey." He repeats.

"Are you okay?"

"Yeah just, a bit shaken." He's not looking at me, he keeps staring forward.

"Annie is really important to you, isn't she?"

"Yes." His word seems final so I begin to walk away from him when I hear him speak again. "She became my friend when I had no one but Mags. Now she's the only person I have left and I might never even see her again."

My chest tightens. For a moment, no, for a long time I've forgotten the circumstances we're in. Peeta has to survive; not me, not Beetee, not Johanna, not Finnick.

What am I supposed to do now? Kill them? Leave them and hope someone else will kill them? I've been kidding myself for so long, playing allies with Finnick and now that there are only a few of us left, realization has dawned on me.

"Are you okay?" Finnick asks, now he is looking at me with a frown.

"Ye- yes," I swallow hard, "just a bit shaken as well."

"You heard your sister and-"

"Gale." I almost whisper.

"Your cousin, right." He smiles. "Small family. Close family."

There's a tone underneath his words that suggests something regarding me and Gale, but I decide to ignore it. Has he forgotten where we are, too? If he ever plans to see Annie again, I will have to be dead, but I'm afraid that if I say it out loud, people might notice something weird going on between us two.

"We're all close in 12. It's a small district." I say in a cold voice.

"Are you sure you're-" He begins to say.

"Hey you two!" Johanna yells. "Come here! Beetee has a plan!"

I walk towards her without waiting for Finnick and sit down next to Peeta.

"So, what's the plan?" Peeta asks.

"Why are the Careers not here on the beach?" he asks as if he's a teacher and we're his students.

"Because we are. We claimed it." Johanna says with an exasperated tone.

"Correct, so if we left, they would come. My plan is: wrap the wire around the tree where the lightning strikes at midnight, drag the other end of the coil to the beach, and when the lightning strikes, it'll electrocute anyone inside the water or on the sand that will be damp from the big wave."

"What if they don't get electrocuted?" Finnick asks.

"Then we lose nothing. Just the seafood." Beetee says.

"Sounds good to me." Says Peeta.

"Yeah, let's do it." I say, and feel Finnick's gaze on me.

We leave Beetee so he can do some calculations and Peeta and I sit by the water.

"Peeta, we need to leave." I whisper.

"This plan is gonna work." He says.

"I know, but I don't want to be the one who shoots first when it's only us left."

"What if they don't either?"

"Then they kill us all. One of us has to survive."

"Katniss, I don't know what kind of deal you have with Haymitch but he made me promises too." He takes the golden locket Effie gave him and opens it, and I find myself staring at pictures of Prim, my mom and Gale.

"You have a family, and they need you." Peeta says.

The gesture tightens my chest even more than it already was. But I can't live. I can't let Peeta die for me. And there's also Finnick. If I lived, it would kill me.

"What about you?" I ask.

"No one needs me."

I realize that there is someone that needs Peeta: Me.

I might not love him as he loves me but I still care for him enough to give my life for him, and that's something you do for a person you need.

"I do." I whisper. "I need you."

Peeta stares at me for a few seconds and then leans forward to kiss me. His soft lips moving against mine, swiftly. The beach has made his lips taste like sea water, just like Finnick's did.

Finnick.

I break apart from him enough to look behind him where Johanna, Beetee and Finnick are. Finnick is looking in our direction but he's not making eye contact with me. Did he see?

"We're gonna start now!" Johanna shouts.

Peeta and I both begin to walk behind them, heading to the 12th hour section to get the wire and the tree ready.

I look down at the locket that now Peeta has placed in my hands, to remind me of the people that need me. But there are two people in this arena that I need, and keeping them both is not an option. I made a promise to myself and I have to keep it, even though it means saving one of those people and leaving the other to die.

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Ally xx