Lost at Sea || Finnick Odair x OC (DISCONTINUED)

Forty-Eight: the golden child becomes a lil rusty

PEETA

°•. ✿ .•°

The final day of our training ends with our individual assessment. Frankly, I have no idea what I'm going to do. There's a lot of kidding about it at lunch. What we might do. Sing, dance, strip, tell jokes. Daphne admits that she wants to pull a nice score, since in her first Games, she only scored a six. But, she also says that she might just- and quote; "Blow shit up."

Me? I have no idea what I'm going to do. Last year I threw some weights around and scored an 8, but I don't think that's going to cut it this year. I knew it wasn't, which was why I tried to pick up some different skills, like spears, knife throwing, even setting up nets. But, honestly, I'm not great with a spear, the knives feel too small, and I don't think I can score very high with weaving. I'm okay at it, but slow. Daphne and Finnick can weave a net large enough for a whale in about five minutes. That would get a good score.

As the boy from 12, I'm scheduled to go second to last. The dining room gets quieter and quieter as the tributes file out to go perform. It's easier to keep up the irreverent, invincible manner we've all adopted when there are more of us. As people disappear through the door, all I can think is that they have a matter of days to live. As the numbers dwindle down, people finally show just how exhausted they really are. How sad. Cecelia ends up crying in Woof's arms for a little while, admitting how much she's going to miss her children, how scared she is for them. I have to look away before I start crying, too, wishing that my own mother might have said that about me.

Katniss and I are finally left alone. I take her small, cold holds, and hold them in my own. Maybe for my comfort, maybe for hers. I'm not sure. "Decided what to do for the Gamemakers yet?"

She shakes her head. "I can't really use them for target practice this year, with the force field up and all. Maybe make some nets. What about you?"

"Not a clue. I keep wishing I could bake a cake or something." I say.

"Do some more camouflage." Katniss suggests.

"If the morphlings have left me anything to work with." I say wryly. "They've been glued to that station since training started."

Katniss smiles weakly. "Well, Daphne may have just eaten all of the blueberry pulp. Finnick, too."

I smile. "Maybe."

We sit in silence awhile and then, finally, Katniss blurts out the thing that's on both our minds. "How are we going to kill these people, Peeta?"

"I don't know." I admit, leaning my forehead on our intertwined hands, definitely for my own comfort this time. Over the past days, I've grown close to these tributes. I know the names of Cecelia's children. I know what Seeder's favorite foods are. I know random stories from Gloss and Cashmere's childhoods. How can I kill these people? I had trouble killing the first time around, when I had no friends.

"I don't want them as allies. Why did Haymitch want us to get to know them?" She says. "It'll make it so much harder than last time. Except for Rue maybe. But I guess I never really could've killed her, anyway. She was just too much like Prim."

"Her death was the most despicable, wasn't it?" I murmur.

"None of them were very pretty." Katniss remarks. For some reason, I can't think about the other deaths in our Games. My mind flashes to a young Daphne, covered in blood, holding a little dying girl in her arms.