Dead in the Water | An Odesta Fanfic

Chapter Twenty-Four

The doorway to the mentor's viewing room was dark. Finnick stopped there as he passed by, looking in at all the empty chairs and blank screens. What were the gamemakers doing that they didn't even want the mentors to see? And what could he possibly do to stop them? He might have given up entirely if they hadn't tried to send him away, pawning him off on Medea for the night. It gave him some strange spark of hope. Snow had tried to get rid of him. He had tried to kill Annie when Finnick wasn't around. It was just another move in his games, to be sure. But Snow had removed Finnick as if he were a threat. As if he were afraid. As if Finnick could do something to help his tribute win.

His pace quickened as he hurried towards the control room. There was a boy standing guard outside the door – the same boy he had spoken to a few days before, when he had missed his interview and begged to be let inside.

Finnick was done begging.

"I need to see the Head Gamemaker." he demanded.

"I'm sorry, I can't just let anyone in –" said the boy.

"Lucky for you I'm not just anyone."

"I've been told that no one besides the gamemakers is allowed in."

"And now I'm telling you something different. Let me in or bring Adonis outside."

"I really can't –" he stammered, but Finnick cut him off.

"I don't need a trident to spear you like a fish." He shoved the guard to the side. "You want to try and kill me? Go ahead."

The boy didn't doubt it, letting Finnick push him aside as he hurried forward through the doors. They burst open with a clang and the room fell silent in his wake. Every eye turned to look at him – technicians sitting at their desks, gamemakers running around in frantic panic, even Adonis Arc, who had been shouting furiously into some small communication device.

But Finnick's attention was fixed at the front of the room, where a figure stood to greet him.

"Mr. Odair." said President Snow. "What a surprise. I thought you had... other plans tonight."

His voice was polite, dripping with a forced cordiality that made Finnick sick. The sight of the president there almost made him falter, fear seizing up in his chest as he faced the man who had made his life a living hell. But no – the feeling wasn't fear. Not all of it, anyway. There was a burning rage shaking through his body as he stared into Snow's eyes. He had come too far to back down now.

"Unfortunately, I had a prior commitment." said Finnick, mirroring the president's perfect manners. "It's a bit of a full-time job, being a mentor." He took another step inside as if he belonged there. "But you knew that, didn't you? You were the one who assigned me this position."

If Snow was surprised that his puppet was taking a stand against him, he didn't show it. In fact, he almost looked as if he had been expecting it. "So I did." he replied.

Finnick had already made quite an entrance, pushing past their guard and forcing his way into the control room. He figured he might as well get to the point. "Where is my tribute?" he asked. "Is she alive?"

He broke his gaze with the president to look around and find out for himself. He had never been in the control room before. It was a jumble of screens, maps, and numbers projected all over the walls, but they were close enough to the information screens in the mentor's room that he could guess what half of them meant. There were diagrams of the arena, charts calculating odds of survival, and dozens of projections detailing the design of muttations and other horrific creations of the gamemakers.

One screen contained a list of all twenty-four tributes, recording vital signs for each. Heart rate, blood pressure, oxygen levels – it was all there. His eyes stopped on the screen, fixing on the only name that was still lit up and beeping.