Reunited // Finnick Odair

Chapter 44

By the looks of it, Katniss doesn't really know how to lead on. She looks down at the Holo for direction. It's still activated, but it might as well be dead for all the good that it does. "I don't know how to use this. Boggs said you would help me," she looks up at Jackson. "He said I could count on you."

As predicted, Jackson scowls, snatches the Holo from her, and taps in a command. An intersection comes up. "If we go out the kitchen door, there's a small courtyard, then the back side of another corner apartment unit. We're looking at an overview of the four streets that meet at the intersection."

I try to get my bearings as I stare at the cross section of the map blinking with pods in every direction. It's unrecognisable as the Capitol to me now. And those are only the pods that Plutarch is aware of. A nervous lump rises in my throat and lodges itself there. The Holo didn't indicate that the block we just left was mined, had the black geyser, or that the net was made from barbed wire. There could be a thousand more, hidden in plain sight and yet totally invisible to us. Besides that, there may be Peacekeepers to deal with, now that they know our position. That could cost us even more casualties than already.

"Put on your masks. We're going out the way we came in." Katniss suddenly says and then everyone begins to instantly object. She just raises her voice over us. "If the wave was that powerful, then it may have triggered and absorbed other pods in our path."

People stop to consider this. Pollux makes a few quick signs to his brother. "It may have disabled the cameras as well," Castor translates. "Coated the lenses."

Gale props one of his boots on the counter and examines the splatter of black on the toe. Scrapes it with a kitchen knife from a block on the counter. "It's not corrosive. I think it was meant to either suffocate or poison us."

"Probably our best shot," says Leeg 1. Masks go on. Finnick adjusts Peeta's mask over his lifeless face. Cressida and Leeg 1 prop up a woozy Messalla between them.

I watch as Katniss pushes on the kitchen door and is met with no resistance. I take a glance at Finnick before following her in. A half-inch layer of the black goo has spread from the living room about three-quarters of the way down the hall.

"What is it, do you think?" she asks me, frowning. When she gingerly tests it with the toe of her boot, we find it has the consistency of a gel. She looks at me and shrugs then lifts her foot and after stretching slightly, it springs back into place.

I take three steps into the gel and look back - sure enough there's no footprints. It's the first good thing that's happened to us today. "Whatever it is, it doesn't leave footprints." I settle on.

The gel becomes slightly thicker as I cross the living room with Katniss close by my heels. I ease open the front door, bracing myself for gallons of the stuff to pour in, but it holds its form. The pink and orange block seems to have been dipped in glossy black paint and set out to dry. Paving stones, buildings, even the rooftops are coated in the gel. A large teardrop hangs above the street. Two shapes project from it: a gun barrel and a human hand. Mitchell. I avert my eyes away as my stomach churns just looking at it until the entire group has joined us both.

"If anyone needs to go back, for whatever reason, now is the time," Katniss says. "No questions asked, no hard feelings."

No one seems inclined to retreat. Katniss starts moving into the Capitol, knowing we don't have much time. I set off after her, leading by example almost. With Castor, Pollux and Gale watching Peeta, Finnick jogs up to me and walks beside me. We don't hold hands, even though my hand is twitching to reach for his. I know that if I was to hold his hand now, I would never want to let go to shoot my gun or throw my knives at oncoming threats. The risk is simply too high now. Instead, I send him a small, sad smile and continue walking on.

The gel's deeper here, four to six inches, and makes a crude sucking sound each time you pick up your foot, but it still covers our tracks - and we need all the stealth we can get. The wave must have been enormous, with tremendous power behind it, as it's affected several blocks that lie ahead. And though we tread with care, it seems the gel managed to trigger other pods without us having to. One block is sprinkled with the golden bodies of tracker-jackers. They must have been set free only to succumb to the fumes. A little farther along, an entire apartment building has collapsed and lies in a mound under the gel. It makes our journey a little easier. Katniss sprints across the intersections, holding up a hand for us to wait while she looks for trouble, but the wave seems to have dismantled the pods far better than any squad of rebels could.

On the fifth block, I can tell that we've reached the point where the wave began to peter out. The gel's only an inch deep, and I can see baby blue rooftops peeking out across the next intersection. The afternoon light has faded, and we badly need to get under cover and form a plan. Katniss chooses an apartment two-thirds of the way down the block. Homes jimmies the lock, and Katniss orders the others inside. She stays on the street for just a minute, watching the last of our footprints fade away, then closes the door behind her.

Flashlights built into our guns illuminate a large living room with mirrored walls that throw our faces back at us at every turn. Gale checks the windows, which show no damage, and removes his mask. "It's all right. You can smell it, but it's not too strong."

We all remove our masks and discard them on the floor; my nose crinkles at the sudden invasion of the strong gel. The apartment seems to be laid out exactly like the first one we took refuge in. The gel blacks out any natural daylight in the front, but some light still slips through the shutters in the kitchen. Along the hallway are two bedrooms with baths. A spiral staircase in the living room leads up to an open space that composes much of the second floor. There are no windows upstairs, but the lights have been left on, probably by someone hastily evacuating. A huge television screen, blank but glowing softly, occupies one wall. Plush chairs and sofas are strewn around the room. This is where we congregate, slump into upholstery, try to catch our breath.

Jackson has her gun trained on Peeta even though he's still cuffed and unconscious, draped across a deep-blue sofa where Homes deposited him.

Finnick sits down on another sofa and instantly takes my hand in his. With his other hand, he turns my cheeks and kisses me gently, softly, savouring each second because who knows when our last kiss will be. He pulls apart and brings me closer into him.

I jump when a distant chain of explosions sends a tremor through the room. "It wasn't close," Jackson assures us. "A good four or five blocks away."

"Where we left Boggs," says Leeg 1. Although no one has made a move toward it, the television flares to life, emitting a high-pitched beeping sound, bringing half our party to its feet.

"It's all right!" calls Cressida. "It's just an emergency broadcast. Every Capitol television is automatically activated for it.

And there we are on-screen, just after the bomb took out Boggs. A voice-over tells the audience what they are viewing as we try to regroup, react to the black gel shooting from the street, lose control of the situation. We watch the chaos that follows until the wave blots out the cameras. The last thing we see is Gale, alone on the street, trying to shoot through the cables that hold Mitchell aloft. The reporter identifies Katniss, Gale, Finnick, Boggs, Peeta, Cressida, and me by name.

"There's no aerial footage. Boggs must have been right about their hovercraft capacity," says Castor. I didn't notice this, but I guess it's the kind of thing a cameraman picks up on.

Coverage continues from the courtyard behind the apartment where we took shelter. Peacekeepers line the roof across from our former hideout. Shells are launched into the row of apartments, setting off the chain of explosions we heard, and the building collapses into rubble and dust. Now we cut to a live feed. A reporter stands on the roof with the Peacekeepers. Behind her, the apartment block burns. Firefighters try to control the blaze with water hoses.

We are pronounced dead.

"So...we're dead," I say and Finnick gives me a deadpan look.

"Finally, a bit of luck," says Homes. And he's right. Certainly it's better than having the Capitol in pursuit of us. But I just keep imagining how this will be playing back in 13. Where Katniss's mother and Prim, Johanna, Effie, Haymitch, and a whole lot of people from 13 think that they have just seen us die.

"My father. He just lost my sister and now..." says Leeg 1.

We watch as they play the footage over and over. Revel in their victory, especially over Katniss. Break away to do a montage of the Mockingjay's rise to rebel power - I think they've had this part prepared for a while, because it seems pretty polished - and then go live so a couple of reporters can discuss her well-deserved violent end. Later, they promise, Snow will make an official statement. The screen fades back to a glow. The rebels made no attempt to break in during the broadcast, which leads me to believe they think it's true. If that's so, we really are on our own.

"So, now that we're dead, what's our next move?" asks Gale.

"Isn't it obvious?" No one even knew Peeta had regained consciousness. I don't know how long he's been watching, but by the look of misery on his face, long enough to see what happened on the street. How he went mad, tried to bash Katniss's head in, and hurled Mitchell into the pod. He painfully pushes himself up to a sitting position and directs his words to Gale.

"Our next move...is to kill me."

"No," I immediately say and Peeta looks at me blankly. "Don't be so ridiculous, Peeta, we're not killing you."

"I just murdered a member of our squad!" shouts Peeta.

"You pushed him off you. You couldn't have known he would trigger the net at that exact spot," says Finnick, trying to calm him.

"Who cares? He's dead, isn't he?" Tears begin to run down Peeta's face. "I didn't know. I've never seen myself like that before. Katniss is right. I'm the monster. I'm the mutt. I'm the one Snow has turned into a weapon!"

"It's not your fault, Peeta," I remind him but he shakes his head violently.

"You can't take me with you. It's only a matter of time before I kill someone else." Peeta looks around at our conflicted faces. "Maybe you think it's kinder to just dump me somewhere. Let me take my chances. But that's the same thing as handing me over to the Capitol. Do you think you'd be doing me a favor by sending me back to Snow?"

"I'll kill you before that happens," says Gale. "I promise."

Peeta hesitates, as if considering the reliability of this offer, and then shakes his head. "It's no good. What if you're not there to do it? I want one of those poison pills like the rest of you have."

The Nightlock. Interesting that they didn't issue one to Peeta. Perhaps Coin thought he might take it before he had the opportunity to kill Katniss. It's unclear if Peeta means he'd finish himself off now, to spare us having to murder him, or only if the Capitol took him prisoner again. In the state he's in, I expect it would be sooner rather than later. It would certainly make things easier on the rest of us. Not to have to shoot him. It would certainly simplify the problem of dealing with his homicidal episodes. But at the same time, I knew Peeta - not the one the Capitol made. I'd heard his screams of pain and despair in the absence of my own. I knew Peeta the Baker, the Tribute, the Friend. Not the Murderer. And I wasn't prepared to give up on someone like him because of the way the Capitol changed him.

"It's not about you," I say. "We're on a mission. And you're necessary to it." She looks to the rest of the group. "Think we might find some food here?"

Besides the medical kit and cameras, we have nothing but our uniforms and our weapons. Half of us stay to guard Peeta or keep an eye out for Snow's broadcast, while the others hunt for something to eat. Messalla proves most valuable because he lived in a near replica of this apartment and knows where people would be most likely to stash food. Like how there's a storage space concealed by a mirrored panel in the bedroom, or how easy it is to pop out the ventilation screen in the hallway. So even though the kitchen cupboards are bare, we find over thirty canned goods and several boxes of cookies.

The hoarding disgusts the soldiers raised in 13. "Isn't this illegal?" says Leeg 1.

"On the contrary, in the Capitol you'd be considered stupid not to do it," says Messalla. "Even before the Quarter Quell, people were starting to stock up on scarce supplies."

"While others went without," says Leeg 1.

"Right," says Messalla. "That's how it works here."

"Fortunately, or we wouldn't have dinner," says Gale, ever the voice of reason. "Everybody grab a can."

Some of our company seem reluctant to do this, but it's as good a method as any. Finnick and I eat side by side, silent, as close as we can be to each other.

We're passing around a box of fancy cream-filled cookies when the beeping starts again. The seal of Panem lights up on the screen and remains there while the anthem plays. And then they begin to show images of the dead, just as they did with the tributes in the arena. They start with the four faces of our TV crew, followed by Boggs, Gale, Finnick, me, Peeta, and lastly Katniss. Except for Boggs, they don't bother with the soldiers from 13, either because they have no idea who they are or because they know they won't mean anything to the audience. Then the man himself appears, seated at his desk, a flag draped behind him, the fresh white rose gleaming in his lapel. I think he might have recently had more work done, because his lips are puffier than usual. And his prep team really needs to use a lighter hand with his blush.

Snow congratulates the Peacekeepers on a masterful job, honors them for ridding the country of the menace called the Mockingjay. With Katniss's death, he predicts a turning of the tide in the war, since the demoralized rebels have no one left to follow. And what was she, really? A poor, unstable girl with a small talent with a bow and arrow. Not a great thinker, not the mastermind of the rebellion, merely a face plucked from the rabble because she had caught the nation's attention with her antics in the Games. But necessary, so very necessary, because the rebels have no real leader among them.

Somewhere in District 13, Beetee hits a switch, because now it's not President Snow but President Coin who's looking at us. She introduces herself to Panem, identifies herself as the head of the rebellion, and then gives Katniss's eulogy. Praise for the girl who survived the Seam and the Hunger Games, then turned a country of slaves into an army of freedom fighters. "Dead or alive, Katniss Everdeen will remain the face of this rebellion. If ever you waver in your resolve, think of the Mockingjay, and in her you will find the strength you need to rid Panem of its oppressors."

"I had no idea how much I meant to her," Katniss says dryly, which brings a laugh from Gale and I but questioning looks from the others.

Up comes a heavily doctored photo of Katniss looking beautiful and fierce with a bunch of flames flickering behind me. No words. No slogan. Her face is all they need now.

Beetee gives the reins back to a very controlled Snow. I have the feeling the president thought the emergency channel was impenetrable, and someone will end up dead tonight because it was breached. "Tomorrow morning, when we pull Katniss Everdeen's body from the ashes, we will see exactly who the Mockingjay is. A dead girl who could save no one, not even herself." Seal, anthem, and out.

"Except that you won't find her," says Finnick to the empty screen, voicing what we're all probably thinking. The grace period will be brief. Once they dig through those ashes and come up missing eleven bodies, they'll know we escaped.

"We can get a head start on them at least," I say, as an attempt to be positive.

Katniss pulls out the Holo and insists that Jackson talks her through the most basic commands. As the Holo projects our surroundings, I feel my heart sink even further. We must be moving closer to crucial targets, because the number of pods has noticeably increased. How can we possibly move forward into this bouquet of blinking lights without detection? We can't. And if we can't, we are trapped like birds in a net.

"Any ideas?" Katniss asks.

"Why don't we start by ruling out possibilities," says Finnick. "The street is not a possibility."

"The rooftops are just as bad as the street," says Leeg 1.

"We still might have a chance to withdraw, go back the way we came," says Homes. "But that would mean a failed mission."

"It was never intended for all of us to go forward. You just had the misfortune to be with me." Katniss says,

"Well, that's a moot point. We're with you now," says Jackson. "So, we can't stay put. We can't move up. We can't move laterally. I think that just leaves one option."

"Underground," says Gale.

The Holo can show subterranean as well as street-level pods. I see that when we go underground the clean, dependable lines of the street plan are interlaced with a twisting, turning mess of tunnels. The pods look less numerous, though.

Two doors down, a vertical tube connects our row of apartments to the tunnels. To reach the tube apartment, we will need to squeeze through a maintenance shaft that runs the length of the building. We can enter the shaft through the back of a closet space on the upper floor.

"Okay, then. Let's make it look like we've never been here," Katniss tells us. We erase all signs of our stay. Send the empty cans down a trash chute, pocket the full ones for later, flip sofa cushions smeared with blood, wipe traces of gel from the tiles. There's no fixing the latch on the front door, but we lock a second bolt, which will at least keep the door from swinging open on contact.

Finally, there's only Peeta to contend with. He plants himself on the blue sofa, refusing to budge. "I'm not going. I'll either disclose your position or hurt someone else."

"Snow's people will find you," says Finnick.

"Then leave me a pill. I'll only take it if I have to," says Peeta.

"That's not an option. Come along," says Jackson.

"Or you'll what? Shoot me?" asks Peeta.

"We'll knock you out and drag you with us," says Homes. "Which will both slow us down and endanger us."

"Stop being noble! I don't care if I die!" He turns to Katniss, pleading now. "Katniss, please. Don't you see, I want to be out of this?"

She's silent for a few moments. "We're wasting time. Are you coming voluntarily or do we knock you out?"

Peeta buries his face in his hands for a few moments, then rises to join us.

"Should we free his hands?" asks Leeg 1.

"No!" Peeta growls at her, drawing his cuffs in close to his body.

"No," I echo.

"I want the key." Jackson passes it over to Katniss without a word. She slips it into her pocket.

When Homes pries open the small metal door to the maintenance shaft, we encounter another problem. There's no way the insect shells will be able to fit through the narrow passage. Castor and Pollux remove them and detach emergency backup cameras. Each is the size of a shoe box and probably works about as well. Messalla can't think of anywhere better to hide the bulky shells, so we end up dumping them in the closet. Leaving such an easy trail to follow frustrates me, but what else can we do?

Even going single file, holding our packs and gear out to the side, it's a tight fit. We sidestep our way past the first apartment, and break into the second. In this apartment, one of the bedrooms has a door marked utility instead of a bathroom. Behind the door is the room with the entrance to the tube.

Messalla frowns at the wide circular cover, for a moment returning to his own fussy world. "It's why no one ever wants the center unit. Workmen coming and going whenever and no second bath. But the rent's considerably cheaper." Then he notices Finnick's amused expression and my raised eyebrows and adds, "Never mind."

The tube cover's simple to unlatch. A wide ladder with rubber treads on the steps allows for a swift, easy descent into the bowels of the city. We gather at the foot of the ladder, waiting for our eyes to adjust to the dim strips of lights, breathing in the mixture of chemicals, mildew, and sewage.

Pollux, pale and sweaty, reaches out and latches on to Castor's wrist. Like he might fall over if there isn't someone to steady him.

"My brother worked down here after he became an Avox," says Castor. Of course. Who else would they get to maintain these dank, evil-smelling passages mined with pods? "Took five years before we were able to buy his way up to ground level. Didn't see the sun once."

Under better conditions, on a day with fewer horrors and more rest, someone would surely know what to say. Instead we all stand there for a long time trying to formulate a response.

Finally, Peeta turns to Pollux. "Well, then you just became our most valuable asset." Castor laughs and Pollux manages a smile.

We're halfway down the first tunnel when I realise what was so remarkable about the exchange. Peeta sounded like his old self, the one who could always think of the right thing to say when nobody else could. Ironic, encouraging, a little funny, but not at anyone's expense. I glance back at him as he trudges along under his guards, Gale and Jackson, his eyes fixed on the ground, his shoulders hunched forward. So dispirited. But for a moment, he was really here.

But I have hope, at least for Peeta. I turn back around and train my eyes on Finnick. He notices me looking and a quick 'I love you,' and I mouth one back before we continue on.