RENEGADE [THE HUNGER GAMES - FINNICK ODAIR] - DISCONTINUED

CHAPTER 4

Disclaimer: I do not own anything from The Hunger Games trilogy all rights go to Suzanne Collins. I do however own Quinn and her story.

Quinn never slept that night. Instead she stared out of the tall glass window that overlooked the city, slowly feeling the alcohol evaporate out of her system. She had been foolish and she was furious. The only way she could think to describe the feeling that pummelled her chest was how an architect would feel if someone bulldozed their first building, in its entirety, the second they stepped away to view their creation in awe. Except Quinn was both the architect and the bulldozer; her own worst enemy.

The atmosphere around the young woman was tense to say the least and it remained that way as the tributes waited for their individual training assessments. She stared straight ahead, her jaw tightly set; her eyes held a hardened ice cold gaze that accented the dark rings that protruded her cheekbones. Her blonde hair fell out of its elastic cage in messy wisps around her sullen face. Yet even in her stormy unkempt ways, the victor from 5 looked dangerously beautiful.

Quinn was at war with herself, her heart against her head. Her mind against itself. She would break down if she weren't so stubborn. Cry if she weren't so proud. Crave the comfort of another if she weren't so smart. That was what had pushed her into this mess – the lower of inhibition and the way it felt to feel. She had grown so used to barricading her emotions behind her icy walls that she had forgotten what it felt like to feel. Forgotten what it was like to be human. In a perfect world, Quinn would love freely, she would laugh happily but this was not a perfect world, it was President Snow's world. After her drunken confessions, she wondered if she could ever feel like that, after the rebellion, after she slowly tore Snow apart limb by limb and cackled as she crumbled his world both physically and mentally. Quinn Larkin silently wondered, within the torment of her own mind, if she would ever be free; free enough to feel.

As she sat pondering her fate, she felt a pair of eyes vying for her attention. She needn't look up to know it was Finnick. She had left him on the roof and avoided him since, she couldn't slip up again. In her peripheral vision, she could see the hurt that radiated from his green eyes but she could not care. She wouldn't allow it.

Quinn's gaze scanned over the other victors and landed on Peeta Mellark who sat calmly beside Katniss, feeling her gaze, he turned and smiled warmly. The boy from 12 was pleasantly surprised when Quinn returned his smile before continuing her visual assessment of the room, he had grown fond of the girl, in the short time her had known her, despite her frostiness and lack of conversation. He would even go as far as to argue that he understood her; their friendship was an unspoken one, one that Quinn would undoubtedly terminate if she had known he had referred to them in such a nature. She unknowingly put him at ease and he trusted her, regardless of her countless threats. Peeta knew that Quinn was real, she said what she thought and even with her self-preserving nature and icy exterior, Peeta Mellark would trust Quinn Larkin in that arena before anyone else in the waiting room.

As Finnick was called for assessment, Quinn realised that she would be next. Every muscle in her body ached from overexertion, her brain felt fuzzy from exhaustion and every nerve in her body twitched. When she was finally called for her assessment, Quinn decided that she couldn't be bothered.

"Miss Larkin, you have ten minutes to present your chosen skill." Plutarch Heavensbee, the Head Gamemaker spoke.

Smirking tenaciously, Quinn picked up a silver bow and one single arrow. She had no intentions of exerting herself for ten minutes.

The spectators watched keenly, as the girl from District 5 ripped a piece of cloth from the camouflage station, blindfolded herself, spun in a circle and shot an arrow through the heart of target dummy. Having felt like she had shown enough, she ripped the blindfold from her eyes, frowning as her eyes readjusted to the light and bowed in mockery before leaving the room. Quinn would not play their game, she would not stand and be judged for her skill so The Capitol could use her potential to scare her fellow victors. These tributes were seasoned killers, if you were identified as their target then you would die regardless of your pretty little scores in training – it was as simple as that.