Dead in the Water | An Odesta Fanfic

Chapter Eighteen

Finnick thought he was ready to go back in.

After all, he already knew what he was walking into. That alone should have prepared him for anything he'd see on the screen. He was Finnick Odair. He could handle it. He was ready. Annie talking to Kai's body had just startled him at first. He swallowed down the nausea that he could feel bubbling in the back of his throat. She'd just caught him off guard, that's all. He was fine. Besides, it wasn't like their situation could get any worse.

He couldn't have been more wrong.

The second Finnick stepped into the room and his eyes found the screen, it took everything in him to stay put and not flee the room again. The nausea that had been tucked away beneath the surface came back in full force and Finnick was forced to look away before he vomited all over the floor of the mentor's room. There was a reason the Gamemakers always removed the bodies of the dead tributes.

The last time Finnick had been in the viewing room, it had been mere minutes after Kai's death. His body - though dead - still held signs of life. But as grotesque and disturbing as Annie's antics had been then, the hours that had passed since had made them ten times worse. Now, Annie was hidden in one of the abandoned houses on the edge of the arena, crouched protectively in front of Kai's deteriorating body.

If the sight had been bad before, it was downright repulsive now.

Before, when Annie first reattached Kai's head, it had been a sickening pale color, but now? Now, it was a milky white mesh of sagging skin that hung in all the wrong places and starkly contrasted with his empty blue eyes. The bandage holding his head in place, which had once been a comforting cream, was now stained a dark rust from the drying blood that had all drained out of the small boy's head. His arms and legs jutted out in sharp positions as though Annie had tried to pose his body comfortably despite the stiffness of his hardening muscles. Not to mention the dark blueish-purple color that Kai's fingers and ankles had turned from where the blood in the lower half of his body began to settle.

Finnick was going to puke. The sight was repulsive. He couldn't watch.

He couldn't look away.

It was as though Finnick staring at the young boy's blue fingers had caused Annie to notice them too. She began pulling off her socks and shoes as she spoke to Kai.

"It's ok." She was saying, "I know it's cold, but we can use my socks as mittens." Gently she pulled her socks over Kai's stiff fingers and rubbed her hands back and forth over his while gently blowing gusts of warm air over his fingers. "How's that?" she asked.

Kai didn't respond.

Finnick held his breath.

But Annie didn't seem to mind. Instead, she just scooted closer to her brother's corpse and wrapped the bed mat that had been in her backpack closer around the two. Gently, she laid her head on top of her brother's. "It's ok." She said again quietly. "We're safe here. They can't find us. I'm not leaving you alone."

"Quite the show, am I right?"

Finnick nearly jumped out of his skin as the man's slurred words broke him out of his trance. "I'm sorry?" Finnick said, turning around.

Haymitch Abernathy gave him a knowing look before soberly raising his glass in mock toast and throwing it back. "Can't wait to see how you spun this one in your interview, kid." He said in a sarcastic tone, frowning at his now empty glass.

The interviews.

Panic flooded through Finnick. His eyes went to the board, counting the remaining faces.

One, two three, four, five, six, seven, eight.

His tribute was in the top eight. They were going to want to interview him. When only eight tributes were left, the Capitol usually started running television specials on each of the tributes, interviewing their mentors as well as their families and friends back home. It made the games more exciting and gave the mentors a chance to talk up their tribute in front of a large audience now that gifts were exponentially more expensive.