.The Trackjacker & The Mockingjay (Katniss Everdeen X F.OC).

-Traps-

Deserted streets.

Adandoned homes.

Bombed shops.

Smoking parks.

Buzzing TVs that only transmitted static

A dead body peaking out from under a collapsed archway.

The smell of calcinated flesh so deeply etched into marble that not even the shadow of a once-human could be washed out of it.

The discarded plush of a bear looking up at the sky with eyes more dead than the tiny hand limp next to it.

The Capitol was the sandbox of a cruel god that stopped playing games. 

Death and decay embraced the city, encroaching on the living walking its pavement and streets, licking at their skin through fetid winds and ghastly breaths through the ever-tall skyscrapers that still stood.

But death was patient, for all living are faced with it, for nothing can outrun it, nothing can avoid it, nothing can be it.

Be is in sickness, weakness, or murder, of the strongest to the most shrouded human, all will face death with more certainty than their birth ever was, and so death could wait.

Death could watch.

Death could laugh.

And death would be there, waiting until this little group would inevitably stumble off the edge, starting with--

"Great place to film a scene, Katniss walks under the arches, Castor, to the left." A voice broke Katniss from her thoughts.

She did as told, for once able to act as needed in front of the cameras, as it was just walking around and looking around, not actually giving speeches, and that didn't take meticulous acting, just being herself. 

It is just... She had a bad feeling...

Ever since she entered this city, it had felt like a trap.

Even the holo showing them the actual traps so they could disable them and move forward didn't make the feeling leave.

"Everyone, hide, bogey up ahead."

Pressing against the wall and waiting until everyone was in place before leaning out and shooting an arrow through the seemingly empty streets.

Flame throwers sprayed the street full of their deadly orange and yellows as the titular flames scorched concrete and marble black before two machineguns came out of the wall and sprayed bullets out in the burnt alley.

Katniss looked to the other side, the other building against which members of their teams were hiding against.

Percy, eyes tightly shut, hands tightly pressed over her ears, and crouching down, Finnick near and rubbing her back, locking out the world when it forced you to be part of it was seemingly impossible.

"She'll be fine, we'll keep an eye out." Peeta grabbed Katniss' shoulder with what would, in any other circumstances, be a reassuring smile if it was not for the explosion that followed.

"BOGGS!!" She ran ahead, almost sliding to the man's side, to her horror, legs clean blown off.

"The... Holo..." He gasped out, but his voice was still firm enough that Katniss moved before she could think, as Peeta tried to staunch the blood flow with his hands, but even Boggs himself knew it would be for nothing.

Grabbing it quickly from Katniss' hands, entering digits only he knew, and scanning his palm in.

"Primary command override, now primary leader designated. Say your name."

"B-Bo--" "Do it." "Katniss Everdeen.

"New leader registered."

In his last strength, he grabbed her hand.

"Kill Percy if needed, do what you came to do."

"But Boggs." She expected more, but he didn't speak and never would speak anymore, eyes staring but inert.

"He's... Gone..." Peeta said, in shock, that it was so fast, grabbing the holo from the dead man's arms.

Katniss, through some unknown reason, felt the strength and calmness needed to stand up as she looked over; other soldiers caught in the blast were still alive.

Crossing the few meters distance between her and a man screaming about his arm tho... That proved to be her worst mistake yet.

The ground made a sound equal to someone pulling the pin on a grenade and letting go, all in the same movement as the tile of marble sank into the ground.

(Fun fact, in this chapter, there's something I never do for HG. The one and only time the word god is mentioned in a Hunger Games fanfic of mine, any other time it is a mistake, but here it was just so fitting.)