ghosts that we knew: A mockingjay fanfiction

24

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

Chapter 24

Finnick
••••••• FLASHBACK••••••••••
Her fists beat so furiously against my chest that I can practically feel the heat of my stylist's glare, trying to cover up inexplicable bruises from an unknown source. Her body convulses with shivers that even my embrace cannot assuage. She swats away demons that aren't really there.

"Tell me this isn't happening. Tell me I have just misheard you. Tell me we aren't going back into the Games!" Annie sputters through gulps of air. The sounds of her despair fill her empty Victor's Village kitchen and send ripples through the now-chilly tea in the abandoned mug that has been left on the counter.

We? No, I'll never let that happen. I've been told that there is a guarantee that it won't happen, and I cling to it like a lifeline as she adds herself into the equation of what I've just told her.

Me? Well, that's going to happen no matter what.

If the news of the Quarter Quell has not sent her over the edge just yet, my recent confession-conveniently timed a day before the Reaping...well done, Odair- must be doing the job.

"Annie, Annie...please, my love," I urge, grabbing her by her skinny, pale wrists and pinning them at her sides. She cannot cover her ears, cannot seal me and the world out from the terrifying, twisted universe inside of her head, not just yet. I've got to get through to her, help her understand why I must go without actually telling her why, first.

She refuses to relent, however, and her struggle against me stings with a pain that injects itself deep into my bloodstream, shoots into my brain, and nearly stops my heart. It kills me that I've hurt her by agreeing to go back into the Games, no matter what happens tomorrow at the Reaping.

My cryptic set of instructions had been covertly mailed to me a day after the Quell announcement shattered Panem. The author had remained anonymous, but it was easy to tell that this impassioned letter, mirroring hushed conversations between Mentors and angry citizens of outlying Districts, had been delivered to me from the rebels. I wonder if the omniscient being that is Alma Coin herself, the woman I've only heard of through whispers, had these plans out for me:

I will accept my role if reaped, and I will volunteer if my name is not drawn from the bowl.

The less Annie knows, the less likely her chance is at being reaped. She'll be safer this way, they tell me. And if my worst fears are confirmed, if Annie's name is called, someone will certainly take her place.

As the note crinkled and charred as it coiled in the flames of my rarely-used fire place, making ashes out of evidence, a thought continued to flicker through my mind:

The revolution was underway.

None of the secretive reassurances detailed in that letter have eased my crippling fear of Annie's name being called, only to be followed by silence and the sounds of my betrayal to her, in the two months that have spanned since I had received it.

There was something very wrong with not telling her anything, and I knew it the very first instance I had to avert my eyes from her piercing gaze. Simply volunteering without an explanation or a heads up would break her heart, make her feel as though she were not the one whose lips invade my every memory despite the Playboy persona everyone else expects me to peacock about.

So, I told her what my plans for tomorrow are. Not because I am trying to sabotage the rebellion or damage her twenty-four hours ahead of time, but because she needs to know that my duty and my heart lie in very different places.

When her cries have finally subsided, I take a long, hard look into her wide, unfocused eyes, where the torrent of her mind's storms rage on inside of her. Those eyes' color, green like the sea, tell me exactly where we need to go to finish our conversation in peace.