The Black Widow- A Hunger Games Fanfic

Night 2

I awoke to the sound of voices around me. I kept my eyes closed, listening.
"Why would you rescue her?" Katniss accused,
"She's my friend," Finnick replied,
"She's a career!" Katniss exclaimed, "And I thought you said you don't care about anyone else." Had he really said that? Did he really not care if I lived or died? That hurt more than I'd expected it to.
"Well obviously that was a lie," Johanna cut in scathingly, "You heard the jabberjays."
"Then what else is he lying about?" Katniss asked angrily.
"Katniss_" Beetee reasoned, "these games are hard on all of us. None of us were expecting to be sent back into the arena to kill our friends. Finnick just_"
"Saved someone who's trying to kill us?! The careers just killed Wiress. Finnick she threw a knife at your head. She only just missed. If we let her live now, she'll just try kill us later. These are the hunger games. There's only one victor and I don't want to waste that on her."
"Katniss," Peeta intervened, "she's defenceless, do you really want to kill her now?"
"Better now than when she can fight back." I heard the sound of an arrow rubbing against a bowstring. Then the sound of metal hitting metal,
"Katniss, no," Finnick said, "Just give her one more day. At least so Johanna and I can say goodbye to our friend."
"She volunteered. She's here to win. Don't think for a minute you can trust her."
"Mags volunteered," Beetee pointed out, "Peeta volunteered. Gloss was reaped. Think about who Rose volunteered for: Cashmere. Her mentor." No-one spoke for a few seconds; then Johanna shouted,
"Cashmere, if you want Rose to live a bit longer, use some of her sponsor money to send us a rope. We'll tie her up for a day, then give her a merciful death." Not even a minute passed before I heard the chime of a parachute.
Then, I felt the hands seize my arms and my legs. My breathing quickened at the memories that it brought back. My breathing quickened and I began to thrash, my eyes flying open. But I couldn't move from the hands that gripped me firmly in place. I saw Finnick's eyes widen in pity at the memory of why I was reacting like this. He hurried the others along, setting me against the first tree they got to and tying me up as quickly as possible.
"What about her weapons?" Peeta asked, indicating towards the knives strapped to my torso and legs. I froze. To take those, someone would have to get very close to me. And there was no way they would let me take them off myself.
"We'll have to take them off her," Beetee agreed, "Distribute them between us," Clearly Katniss still didn't trust their alliance. I wondered what they'd said or done to convince her to join.
Finnick moved slowly towards me and reached to take a knife. Uncontrollably, I flinched away,
"Johanna," he said, "Please can you help me." Johanna nodded; I tensed every muscle as she approached to stop myself lashing out at her. She reached for a knife, trying to take it while making as little contact with her as possible. She discarded the knife behind her on the floor and did it again.
"Well you don't need to watch," she said scathingly. Finnick, Beetee and Peeta dispersed but Katniss stayed. "You can go too," Johanna told her.
"You seem keen to let her live. I'm just making sure you don't accidentally set her free." In the end, nothing Johanna said could persuade Katniss to go and she just gave up and turned her attention back to me.
"Would you prefer I did this slow or fast?"
"Fast," I managed to get out through gritted teeth, "Just get it over with." She nodded and began to take my knives from the various sheaths and holsters discarding them in an ever-growing pile by her feet. It was a struggle to keep still and not flinch every time her fingers brushed my skin or my clothes. Every time, she would look at me apologetically and Katniss would look at me judgementally.
"Why are you wearing that?" Katniss asked,
"It was a gift," I gritted out.
"It's the hunger games not a fashion show." If I my hands weren't tied, I might've thrown a knife at her throat and enjoyed watching her bleed out.
"Just go sit with your boyfriend," Johanna told her harshly, "you're not helpful." Sensing that Johanna wasn't going to a retort, Katniss grudgingly obeyed.

"Why didn't you kill me?" I asked Johanna once she had finished removing my knives and I could relax slightly.
"I never even got to say goodbye. You left so quickly after the interviews and my apartment's door was locked as soon as I got there."
"But you went out of your way to save me. Twisted your axe before it hit me." Johanna shook her head,
"Do you know how hard it is to twist an axe in midair because I do: it's impossible. I tried, I really did but even I can't do that. The blade hit you. Right there." She pointed to the centre of my chest where a bruise was already forming. I flinched as she made contact; Johanna drew back and apologised.
"Do you know what that means?" she asked me. I nodded,
"That's expensive, even on the first day. That's more than one sponsors' money right there. That means people really want you alive." I grimaced,
"That doesn't mean they care about me: there's a very specific reason people want me alive." Johanna looked at me sadly, knowing I was right.

We sat in silence for a while before Johanna was called over and Finnick came to sit with me.
"Johanna told me about your gift," he stated. I nodded, not accepting his pity.
"Is that the arena?" I asked, gesturing with my head towards the crudely drawn map in the sand. He hesitated before confirming my suspicions.
"What were the other traps?" I asked, my curiosity getting the better of me. Once again he hesitated. I had given him no reason not to trust me but I wondered if that was it. Hopefully it was just him worrying about maintaining the ruse. But he was a good actor- good at hiding what he was really thinking- so I could never really be sure.
"I'll tell you the ones I found if it helps," I said.
"The arena is a clock. A new trap starts in the next zone every hour. At midnight, lightning strikes the tree. Then there's a blood rain. Then a fog. That... that was what got Mags."
"I'm sorry," I said,
"It wasn't your fault. Um... then there were monkey muttations and after that, jabberjays. We don't really know what came after that except we think 6 till 7 might be some sort of beast. Then there's the 10 o'clock wave and we heard insects from the 11o'clock zone."
"Well it seems I got the other ones," I told him, "in the one after the beast, we had black widow spiders. The others left me there and they said that after there were trees that tried to grab you and in the next, there were children."
"Children? What were the children doing?"
"Begging for help, trying to kill them: I don't really remember," I said, "I made a comment that the others found inappropriate and the focus kinda shifted to that."
"What was the comment?"
"I just said they shouldn't have qualms about killing children since they've all done it before." Finnick went silent. Why was he finding it so wrong as well? I still didn't get it.
I decided to change the subject,
"Don't you think it's strange that all the segments seem to relate to one district?"
"What do you mean?" Finnick asked, turning back to face me,
"Just that the lightning could be district 5, Cecelia from 8 had 3 kids, a paralysing fog seems to describe the effects of morphling pretty well, jabberjays are obviously for 12, a wave is for 4, the spiders that I found were black widows. The trees are for 7. The beast could be for Brutus and Enobaria_" Finnick chuckled at that. "Oh," I added, only just remembering, "and the insects you heard were actually bugs- technology."
"Bugs? How are they tech?"
"Oh, right, they're robot ones. I have one in my bag." He walked over to grab my bag, digging around in it for the bug and finally pulling it out. He looked at the bug and the cut in it from my knife.
"How far away were you when you hit this? It's tiny."
"About 20 metres. I didn't want to get too close after the incident with the black widows." He smiled,
"You never miss, do you?" I knew he was thinking about the knife I had thrown in warning.
"No," I replied with a sad smile, "never."