BOMBSHELL - Finnick Odair

23

Ember

I'm on high alert as we make our way down the sand strip, a knife in each hand as I watch for sight of a career.

But the area's abandoned.

The golden horn and picked over weapons are all that remain.

"Clean it, will you?" Beetee asks Wiress, placing the coil of wire in her hands.

At this, I'm reminded of Johanna's slip up at the beach.

Even if he wouldn't admit it, I know the way she spoke of Mags upset Finnick. We both know Jo only did so in an attempt of covering up her mistake, but it still stung.

Wiress, who sits at the water's edge, begins dunking the wire and singing a song about a mouse running up a clock.

"Oh, not the song again," Johanna says with a roll of her eyes. "That went on for hours before she started tick-tocking."

It sounded like a song made for children.

Suddenly Wiress abruptly stops, stands up, and points to the jungle. "Two," she says.

We all follow her finger to see the wall of fog. "Yes, look, Wiress is right. It's two o'clock and the fog has started," Katniss assures her.

"Like clockwork," Peeta says. "You were very smart to figure that out, Wiress."

The woman smiles at their praise and goes back to singing her song, dunking the coil again.

"Oh, she's more than smart," says Beetee. "She's intuitive."

The five of us turn to look at Beetee who continues, "She can sense things before anyone else."

"Like a canary in one of your coal mines," he directs to the younger girl next to me.

Finnick's face scrunches up in confusion. "What's that?" He asks.

"It's a bird that we take down into the mines to warn us if there's bad air," She explains.

Johanna scoffs as she says, "What's it do, die?"

I elbow her harshly. Something I had been wanting to do since that moment on the beach. Her eyes narrow into slits, but she stays silent.

"It stops singing first," Katniss starts, her face hardening. "That's when you should get out. But if the air's too bad, it dies, yes. And so do you."

I stare at her solemn expression. She appears to be deep in thought, the mention of the songbird brining forward some kind of memory.

A hand falls to my shoulder, gathering my attention elsewhere. And I don't have to look to know who it belongs to.

"Let's get you some new hardware," Finnick smiles cheekily.

We join Johanna in picking through the rest of the weapons.

I strap a machete to my back, and then loop another belt of intricate looking knives around my waist.

Johanna seems pleased at the choice of lethal-looking axes. She tests them all out, throwing them into the side of the cornucopia.