Finnick and Annie

Jabberjays

“Prim!” she cried out. “Prim!”

“It’s not real Katniss!” I called out, but she didn’t seem to hear me. I looked back to see if anybody else was following us, but there was no sign of Peeta, or Jo… which I found odd. Granted, neither of them could run as fast as the two of us, especially Peeta with his bad leg.

I kept running, she was no longer crying out her sister’s name. I crashed through a clearing and found her leaning against a tree, wiping an arrow with some moss. “Katniss?”

“It’s okay. I’m okay,” she said, panting heavily. “I thought I’d heard my sister but-“

Before she could finish her sentence though, I heard her scream. The desperate shriek was so familiar to me, it took me about half a second to recognize the voice. It was Annie, crying out desperately like she had done so many times for so many years after her Games. But there was something different about her voice… she wasn’t scared, the scream wasn’t cause by a nightmare, and her voice was pained, broken. What had they done to her?

I bolted in the direction of the sound, running through bushes, jumping over tree roots as if they weren’t there. Nothing could stop me, not even the climb uphill towards the source of the sound. Was she back in the arena? Had they taken her and brought her here? A small part of me told me that that didn’t make sense, and for a second I wondered what had happened to Prim? Katniss had seemed to calm down. But before I could acknowledge that, though, another scream rang through the forest. “Annie!” I cried, and continued to run. I heard Katniss calling my name behind me, but I couldn’t waste a second. They could hurt her!

I finally ran through some bushes, but I stopped, dead on my tracks because the screams, my Annie… she was somewhere up on a huge tree, that I saw no way to climb. I circled it hopelessly, searching for her but she was well hidden.

“Annie!” I called, desperately. “Hold on, Annie! Annie!!” The voice continued to wail and call my name, begging for help, but I couldn’t… I didn’t know what to do. I felt so lost, so helpless, I didn’t even notice when Katniss broke through the clearing and began to climb.

The screaming finally stopped and I began to panic but then a big, black bird fell from the tree, to my feet. I looked at it bewildered, and then finally realized what was happening. I noticed the arrow that stuck out of the bird’s chest. Katniss had been cleaning an arrow when I had found her.

“Jabberjay,” I muttered. Katniss jumped down from her tree and looked at me.

“It’s all right, Finnick. It’s just a jabberjay,” she said. “They’re playing a trick on us. It’s not real. It’s not your… Annie.” I know she was speaking the truth, but something was still wrong. I’d never faced a jabberjay before but I know that they imitated sounds. They had heard Annie’s screams somewhere and then they had been sent here to torture us. It was brilliantly cruel.

“No, it’s not Annie,” I said. “But the voice was hers. Jabberjays mimic what they hear. Where did they get those scream, Katniss?” Her face pales and she looked at me, terrified.

“Oh, Finnick, you think they…”

“Yes, I do. That’s exactly what I think,” I said. They are holding our loved ones captive and torturing to use their pain as a weapon against us. Suddenly Katniss fell to the ground; her knees gave up on her.

“Katniss, come on, stand up,” I said, but she didn’t seem to listen. Her head snapped to the left as another voice started to scream in that direction. I didn’t recognize it, but Katniss seemed horrified. It sounded like a young man, maybe a friend?

She started to stand up but I gripped her arm tightly to stop her from running. “No, it’s not him,” I said. She stared at me and I sighed then began to pull her behind me, downhill, back towards the beach. “We’re getting out of here!” I yelled, “It’s not him, Katniss! It’s a mutt! Come on!”