L O C K E D- Finnick Odair

ELEVEN



《'°•~Chapter Eleven~•°'》

"SO BESIDES BRUTUS and Enobaria, who's left?"

"Maybe Chaff," I say. The rest of us are in a circle on the beach, exhausted and wet. "Just those three.

"They know they're outnumbered, I doubt they'll attack again," Finnick says. "We're safe here on the beach."

"So what do we do? We hunt 'em down?" asks Johanna.

"Or we wait for them to come to us," Peeta suggests. Our conversation ends when a scream, belonging to a little girl, comes from the woods.

"Katniss, help me!"

"Prim? Prim!" Katniss screeches, standing up and darting into the jungle. We all yell at her to wait, but it's no use. I chase after her, and that's when I stop dead in my tracks.

"Em! Please help me!"

It's the voice of my dead brother, only now, his voice is deeper and more mature from the last time I saw him. The fearful manner in his screams pushes me to run further into the jungle. "August!"

I crash into Katniss, still shouting my brother's name. "Emmeline, it's not him! It's just a jabberjay!"

"Jabberjays copy!" I yell at her, and my mind switches from reality to August, alive in the Capitol, being tortured and hurt. More of the mutts surround us, their wings hitting us in the face. Katniss and I begin to run, but the birds follow. The haunting screams yell our names, and just as I'm about to crash into Finnick, a forcefield blocks me.

I fall to the ground, the birds swarming me. I quickly scramble back up to my knees, and Finnick's hands are pressing into the forcefield. He tries to tell me something, to comfort, to assure me that I'll be okay, but his words are silent.

I crumble, becoming a crying mess as the mutts screams fill my ears. The gamemakers were taunting me, but that shouldn't come as a surprise.

I feel hands rub my back comfortingly. "It's over, Em. It's over."

I remove my hands from my ears and lift my head. Finnick kneels over me, moving my hair off my face as he tries to make me feel better. I sit up and immediately hug him, my breathing heavy.

"Shh, it's okay," he whispers in my ear. "I'm here."

"Your brother's dead, right?" Johanna asks. I pull away from Finnick and nod. She turns her attention to Katniss. "The whole country loves your sister. If they tortured her or did anything to her; forget the districts. There would be riots in the damn Capitol."

We all stare at her. "How does that sound, Snow?" she looks up and shouts. "What if we set your backyard on fire? You know, you can't put everybody in here!"

"Johanna, that isn't helping," I mumble dizzily.

"He can't hurt me," her voice grows calmer. "There's no one left that I love. I'll get you guys some water."

She leaves us there, cutting through the terrain with her hatchet. Finnick lifts me to my feet, and we slowly walk back to the beach hand in hand. He goes to the water, plopping down in the sand as the waves crash into him.

I sit against a tree, and after a few minutes, Johanna joins me, handing me a bowl-shaped piece of wood filled with water. "I didn't know Finnick cared about you like that."

I turn to her. "What?"

Johanna laughs as if I'm stupid. "The whole hour you spent screaming, he didn't take his hands off the forcefield once. He was hysterical," she tells me. We both look at him in the water. "When you and Cashmere were underwater, he didn't want to throw the knife in because he was scared she would get it."