The Hunger Games: Continued

The Disguised Cure

Katniss' POV

It leaves you for a while — the pain, the poison the bearded man pumped into your veins. Days and nights circle, you grow older, you pretend to forget. You love for the sake of loving. You cry for the sake of crying. Never for anything else.

Until the pinprick comes. One pinprick, and it all floods back.

That's what happened to Annie.

Her scream split the hallway. Plutarch vanished. Fin scrambled under the food table. Zeb bent to comfort him. Peeta — where was Peeta? Then I saw him sprinting, his blond hair flying, prosthetic leg pounding the marble. Impossible speed. Instinct makes you do impossible things.

I sat frozen. Then I ran.

My red gown tore against my legs as I bolted down the hall, weaving past the pillars. Peeta had stopped ahead, not staring at the floor, but crouched over Annie. She was curled against the wall, rocking, keening, her head in her hands. Beside her, Johanna — Johanna who never cries — was crying too, clutching Annie like the world was ending.

Annie and Johanna. Johanna and Annie. Locked together in grief.

⸻

We brought Annie back. Johanna wiped her face, waving off Zeb, muttering that her tears were only to help Annie's. I didn't believe her, but I didn't press.

Peeta and I worked together to steady Annie: sit her down, cool cloth, slow breathing. I took her hand, awkward and unsure, but firm.

"What happened?" I asked softly.

"I'm sorry... I didn't mean to cause a scene," Annie whispered, eyes wild. "Seeing you all again — it just brings it all back." Her hand twitched in mine. "I miss him, Katniss. I miss my Finnick. It's been years, but sometimes it's like he died yesterday. I have to be strong for Fin, for myself... but sometimes it's too much."

Her gaze drifted toward Johanna, who stood trembling at the back. "She has Zeb now. You have Peeta. Who do I have? Who tells me it's alright when I'm scared?" Her tears spilled faster, and I feared another spiral.

Plutarch stepped forward with a syringe. No drugs, I thought fiercely. Not for Annie.

⸻

Annie's POV

In the end, there is only darkness. That's what I've come to believe.

But the thought is unbearable — that after everything, all I get is shadow. So I imagine Finnick in the afterlife, watching, smiling, though he can't be here. Still, the truth presses harder: in this world, there is only dark.

Hope was never enough. Not in the Games. Not in the war.

The cure was love.

When the bearded man's poison seared my veins, it wasn't hope that saved me. It was Finnick. Love was the cure.

But when he was torn from me, I felt it. Not in my mind. Not even in my heart. In my chest — like a punch through bone. That's when love itself began to boil, until the cure was the poison.

It was never Snow who destroyed me. It was always him. Finnick. My cure, my poison.