Made of Ashes

Chapter 9

I stop trying to sleep after my first few attempts are interrupted by unspeakable nightmares. After that, I just lie still and do fake breathing whenever someone checks on me. In the morning, I'm released from the hospital and instructed to take it easy. Cressida asks me to record a few lines for a new Mockingjay propo. At lunch, I keep waiting for people to bring up Peeta's appearance, but no one does. Instead of the usual attention my presence brings, there's an eerie, unsettling quiet that tells me exactly what nobody else will—that it's not just Finnick and me who saw Peeta's interview.

I have training, but Gale's scheduled to work with Beetee on weapons or something, so I get permission to take Finnick to the woods. We wander around awhile and then ditch our communicators under a bush. When we're a safe distance away, we sit and discuss Peeta's broadcast.

"I haven't heard one word about it. No one's told you anything?" Finnick says. I shake my head. He pauses before he asks, "Not even Gale?"

"Nope," I say, staring blankly at a spot in the treeline.

"Maybe he's trying to find a time to tell you privately."

"Maybe," I say, finally returning my attention to Finnick. I'm clinging to a shred of hope that Gale honestly knows nothing about Peeta's message, but I know he does. Whatever loyalty he has to me as a friend is apparently trumped by his newfound duty to Coin. I sigh loudly, leaning back on one hand while the other settles on my abdomen. "Sometimes I feel like we don't even know each other anymore. He's changed so much."

"And you haven't?"

I shoot him a glare. "I mean, we used to tell each other everything," I say, shuffling my feet in the dirt. "Now I can't even tell him I'm having a girl without worrying about how he'll react."

Finnick's eyes go wide in shock. "He doesn't know?"

"No." I shake my head. "It's not really a secret that he still has feelings for me; he's never really gotten over the fact that I chose Peeta, that I was always going to choose Peeta. Sharing that part of my life with him just feels like kicking a man who's already down, y'know? And the baby is just a constant reminder of that."

"Katniss... that's not healthy."

"I'm not saying it is, but he's my best friend, Finnick."

Finnick's silent for a long time before replying. "What you needed in a best friend at one point in your life is not necessarily what you need now." He gives me a friendly nudge. "You were kids when you met, now you're having a kid of your own—if he's not ready to accept the changes that come along with that, it's his loss. I mean, c'mon—who wouldn't want to hang out in the woods of District 13 with a pregnant Katniss Everdeen and her crazy friend from District 4?"

I start to laugh, but almost immediately double over at a movement in my stomach.

Finnick's kneeling in front of me in an instant, his face a mask of concern. "Are you okay? What's wrong?"

I turn my chin up again, grinning wide. "She's kicking again," I say. "She hasn't kicked since District 8."

"But you're okay?" he asks.

"I'm fine," I promise him with a smile, just as the familiar fluttering sensation starts up again. "Do you want to feel?"

"Can I?"

"Of course," I say, taking his hand and placing it on my belly. We both fall silent, waiting for her next movement.

"I don't feel any—oh wait!" Finnick's mouth is open in awe, his eyes glittering in excitement as he stares at where his hand lays on my swollen belly. "I feel it!" He lowers his voice soothingly. "Hey there, mini-Katniss, it's your Uncle Finnick here," he says. "I can't wait to meet you." As if in return, she responds with a particularly hard kick, which makes Finnick chuckle. "She's a fighter, just like her mother."