𝐀𝐌𝐄𝐑𝐈𝐂𝐀𝐍 𝐏𝐈𝐄 ━━ finnick odair ✓

𝐭𝐰𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐲-𝐨𝐧𝐞. ( the importance of a good stylist )

           When I finally wake, I find that I'm the last one up. The seven remaining members of our team all sit up on their piles of pelts, speaking in low tones. A backdrop of water dripping from a pipe casts the whole room into a frame of desolation. Katniss nods to me in greeting when she clocks that I'm awake and then her head dips very low. Whispers fade out into silence, leaving only the steady pattern of drops echoing across concrete walls.

"I lied." Katniss does not lift her head as she says it. "There was no special assignment from President Coin."

Silence, then, "we know," Cressida answers. "We all knew."

"But Jackson and Homes-"

"They knew." Gloss cuts her off. "You're a decent liar but we all knew."

"It was always your main goal, we heard your demands to Coin. You get to kill Snow. It's never been a secret," Gale says.

"But not like this," Katniss argues. "Not at the cost of so many lives."

"It's war, we were going to lose people whether we followed your lead or not," I say. "All of us signed up knowing there was a decent chance we wouldn't be living past our mission."

"We've far surpassed our goal for the propos," Finnick adds, voice much weaker than I'd like to hear. "We beat the enemy on their home turf."

Still, Katniss will not be quelled in her guilt. Cressida and Gale continue to comfort her, but their words have no impact. It's not until Peeta delivers a few carefully worded lines that she calms herself enough to drop it. She leans heavily against the concrete wall behind her, eyes fixed on the stained ceiling above.

She's only eighteen. In reality, she's just a kid who has been forced to grow up fast enough to wear the armor of a figurehead on her back. The illusion of responsibility has been grafted onto her for much longer than she's ever been in the public eye. The formula of creation for Katniss Everdeen makes it impossible for her to shirk the guilt of things that were never her fault to begin with.

I see her story mirrored in Gloss and Finnick and myself. Stunted childhoods carried into abrupt adulthood that stretched us far too thin too quickly. We grew up to fit the circumstances, not to create our own. I put my face into my hands and mourn for the lives we never could have known. The atmosphere of the room is irreparably despondent. Pollux weeps for the brother he lost in the setting of his greatest oppression. Our wounded rest and our unwounded carry different types of wounds, ones made of guilt. They will last much longer than blood and gore. The silence is thick and hot.

But maybe our Mockingjay is much more capable than I give her credit for, because she changes the atmosphere of the room with a few short words.

"Where are we, Cressida?"

She's moved us almost instantly from grief to planning, which is about the best possible move for a group of washed up victors.

We're only five blocks from the Presidential Mansion, a straightforward walk through territory completely safe from pods. People mill about in the day, so moving around in disguises won't seem all that unusual. The biggest obstacle is the mansion itself, which is an impenetrable fortress as far as we're concerned. This fact is complicated by the realization that Snow has made zero public appearances since Finnick aired out his multitude of crimes on national television.

The problem at hand is luring him out. Katniss, ever willing to self-sacrifice for the cause, suggests that she turns herself over in hopes of a public execution so that we can make a sharp shot from a rooftop. The idea is quickly vetoed. When I ask Pollux if any of the tunnels lead directly into the mansion, he shakes his head vehemently. Nobody would have been keen on the idea of going back underground anyway.