FAILURE TO COMPLY ┃ f. odair

5.6 love is not a lie

Sleep did not come peacefully for several days. Katniss, Beetee and Monica were still gone and District Thirteen did not feel quite the same without them. Even with Finnick there, it turned from a safe haven to just hollow halls she had endless time to wonder during her sleepless nights.

Calypso found the armoury fairly easily. While she had yet to be allowed in there, she'd followed Finnick and Calypso to one of their training sessions. What shocked her was how easily she was able to slip inside without rousing any passing citizens. The doors were unguarded and, even though the guns and ammunition were locked up tight, several weapons were still laid out on Beetee's large worktable.

They certainly hadn't forgotten her. Laid in the centre of the table was a sleek black spear adorning a twisted deadly point and a flat blade on its other end. The carved fish matching the one on the trident next to it told her well enough that it was made for her and the other weapon for Finnick. It was light to hold, feeling natural in her grip. Moreover, it made her feel more powerful than she had in a long time. Her weapon was not a razorblade or a curling iron or a stolen gun, but something familiar that was well and truly hers.

Calypso aligned herself with one of the targets on the firing range. She worried it would somehow appear in the form of Payton or Vega or - more preferably now - Snow. But it was just a target, and she was just Calypso. There was no blood, no body, no Blood Mutt. Raising the spear, she pulled it back over her soldier and let it loose. The throw was powerful and, combined with the featherlight weight of the weapon, it lodged itself nicely in the target.

She walked down the aisle of the range to retrieve her new spear, twirling it between her hands and around her body on her way back, as Finnick often did with his trident when she'd watched him during their shared games. The spear sailed across the room again, and again and again. Then, it was the removable knife at the end of the weapon coming free and flying. It made her feel free.

Perhaps it was simply holding a familiar weapon that made her feel safe. More likely, Calypso thought, it was fact she'd learned the ways of the spear and the knife from people who had meant so much to her. Her beloved father had taught her to use knives from such a young age that she could not remember a time when she was not throwing them. Maisie, Finnick's late little sister, had shown her the bare bones of spear combat in those few days they'd spent together.

Any amount of time spent with either of them would never have felt like enough. She'd never escaped their ghosts, but it was not the same as having them here really. Some part of her deep down was glad Maisie had not lasted so long as to suffer the way she and Finnick had, that she died with her innocence. But she wished that her father could have seen all of their work finally paying off. District Thirteen might have actually suited him well, better than it suited her.

Calypso twisted the spear around her body once more as she came to stand at the throwing line once more. The air around her felt lighter for its movement, slicing through any tension she held that radiated around her. And, as the air changed once more, a small gust of it brushing past from her left side, she twisted with the weapon in a defensive position.

It stopped just short of Finnick's neck. He let out a shuddering breath, half anxious and half-amused, and held up his hands in mock surrender. Calypso lowered the spear as quickly as she had raised it.

"You could have announced yourself," she gently chided him. "Unless you'd prefer not to have a head on your shoulders."

"I didn't realise I was so quiet," he retorted. "It's you that nearly killed me."

The comment didn't quite sit right with Calypso and Finnick saw as much within a second. He sighed and took the spear from her hands, setting it back down on the table she'd got it from, next to the trident he had yet to even touch. She'd come to her weapon so naturally, without ever being told it was there, and yet he couldn't bear the thought of using his own.