Reunited // Finnick Odair

Chapter 45

 Peeta called it right. Pollux turns out to be worth ten Holos, at least. There is a simple network of wide tunnels that directly corresponds to the main street plan above, underlying the major avenues and cross streets. I learn that it's called the Transfer, since small trucks use it to deliver goods around the city. During the day, the many pods that lurk there are deactivated, but at night it becomes, essentially, a minefield. However, hundreds of additional passages, utility shafts, train tracks, and drainage tubes form a multilevel maze. Pollux knows details that would lead to disaster for a newcomer, like which offshoots might require gas masks or have live wires or rats the size of beavers. He alerts us to the gush of water that sweeps through the sewers periodically, anticipates the time the Avoxes will be changing shifts, leads us into damp, obscure pipes to dodge the nearly silent passage of cargo trains. Most importantly, he has knowledge of the cameras. There aren't many down in this gloomy, misty place, except in the Transfer. But we keep well out of their way. If the world believes we are dead, better to keep it that way.

Under Pollux's guidance we make good time compared to our above ground travel. After about six hours, fatigue takes over. It's three in the morning, so I figure we still have a few hours before our bodies are discovered missing, they search through the rubble of the whole block of apartments in case we tried to escape through the shafts, and the hunt begins. I have the sudden memory of being hunted down in my first Games, but I shake the discomfort and push the memory from my mind; I need to be focused now.

Katniss suggests that we rest and no one objects. Pollux finds a small, warm room humming with machines loaded with levers and dials. He holds up his fingers to indicate we must be gone in four hours. Jackson works out a guard schedule, and, since I'm not on the first shift, and neither is Finnick, we find our own space on the floor, wrap our arms around each other and don't say a word as we fall straight to sleep.

It only feels like mere minutes since I fell asleep that Katniss is pushing my arm with her boot and telling me to wake up, and to wake up Finnick. I nod before turning to look at him. It feels almost cruel to wake him while he rests, his usual perfectly styled bronze hair now falling against his face in tendrils and his lips are parted slightly. I resist the urge to kiss him and instead shake him into reality. He grins, then grimaces before standing.

There are the usual yawns and sighs that indicate everyone else's waking. But my ears are picking up something else, too. Almost like a hissing. Perhaps it's only steam escaping a pipe or the far-off whoosh of one of the trains....Katniss notices too as she hushes the group to get a better read on it. There's a hissing, yes, but it's not one extended sound. More like multiple exhalations that form words. A single word. Echoing throughout the tunnels. One word. One name. Repeated over and over again.

"Katniss."

My blood runs cold. Our safety net of being dead has been taken from us. Perhaps Snow had them digging through the night for our bodies. As soon as the fire died down, anyway. They found Boggs's remains, briefly felt reassured, and then, as the hours went by without further trophies, began to suspect. At some point, they realised that they had been tricked. And President Snow can't tolerate being made to look like a fool. It doesn't matter whether they tracked us to the second apartment or assumed we went directly underground. They know we are down here now and they've unleashed something, a pack of mutts probably, bent on finding us.

Another Games.

"Katniss." We all jump at the proximity of the sound. Katniss looks frantically for its source, bow loaded, seeking a target to hit. "Katniss." Peeta's lips are barely moving, but there's no doubt, the name came out of him. Just when I thought he seemed a little better, here is proof of how deep Snow's poison went. "Katniss." Peeta's programmed to respond to the hissing chorus, to join in the hunt. He's beginning to stir.