An Extra Tribute

-he's in the group-

And personally, I agree. I admit that Peeta has made heaps of progress... with me. Him and I are completely fine; I'm able to calm him down after some time, he talks to me about what he thinks, I talk to him about what I think, we work on figuring out the real memories. It's all fine and dandy. However, he still has episodes that make me scared to even go into the room. He still is pissed with Katniss. The Capitol still has a hold over some part of his mind. And putting him without cuffs, without guards, without restraints in a high-stress environment with the one person who makes him go mad with murderous rage is certainly not helping that.

Boggs is pissed with Coin. Like, full on fuming. He tells me to organize a watch over Peeta, but Jackson takes it upon herself to do so. She creates a system where two people watch him in four hour increments. I get put on with Finnick from 2000 hours to midnight. Holmes is on with Mitchell and Leeg 1 with Gale. Katniss is given a shift with Jackson after instruction from Boggs from midnight to 400 hours.

She hasn't been particularly nice to the boy since he's gotten here. She's openly called him nothing more than a Capitol mutt and said she would have no problem with shooting him. Yeah, not very nice. Some people have been shooting her dirty looks because of it. By being, very obviously, rude to him, it's almost like she's asking him to fall out of line. To attack her. And potentially kill her or get killed himself. I also think we all silently agree that it's not very fair to Peeta. He has little understanding of what is actually happening. He doesn't know that Coin sent him here to kill her. From what he's told me, he's actually glad to be on the battlefield. Unfortunately, it's for the reason that he might finally get killed out here.

I get pulled with Boggs to the Commanders' unit for some reason as we go over battle plans. Boggs said that he brought me as his #2 to fight for the Star Squad actually being able to do something. It reminds me of a press conference more than a war meeting, which is odd because I've been to way more war meetings than I have press conferences while in 13. So, I say my part but they still insist that we do nothing. Great. I'm planning on sneaking out with Katniss anyways. She hasn't told me about her plans to kill Snow, but it's easy for me to figure that out, knowing her so well. I miss my shift to watch Peeta and we come back about two hours into Katniss' watch. Peeta sits in the middle of our camp, knotting Finnick's rope together in odd ways. There's the muffled noise of Leeg 1 sobbing over her sister's death and I silently sympathize with her. Katniss and Jackson are sitting up closer to the heater than others and I see the camera crew sprawled out on the floor under the night sky. I scan the area and find Finnick in the mess of blankets spread about the area. I sit next to him and find that he is in fact awake.

"Hey," I murmur quietly. "Sorry I missed our shift." He shrugs from his lying position.

"It's fine. Gale took it for you," he replies. I nod.

"If we're being honest, you'll probably be by his side the whole time we're in the Capitol anyways," Jackson chimes in from a few feet away. "It's just that you're the only one who won't be able to kill him."

"I'm also the only one who will be able to; a) calm him down, b) disarm him, or c) injure him enough to stop him but not kill him," I reply with a snarky smile. "So, I think I'll be fine." She nods.

"Right." I elbow Finnick softly before standing up and crossing to Gale, who's laying with his eyes to the few stars above us. All the light pollution from the Capitol has made it near impossible to see more than a few dozen of them, but it's still gorgeous. I just miss the stars from when we went out on the boat at night. I sit with my legs crossed next to him.

"Thanks for taking my shift," I say softly. He shrugs.

"You had to be with Boggs. It was no big deal," he replies.