Masked Enemies

Chapter 28

Finnick

"RUN!" Katniss yells. "Run, it's a trap! It's a fire!"

I turn around and sprint in the other direction, bursting through the grasses, which were now shrinking, and stopped at my waist. I could hear the others barrelling through the terrain behind me. The smoke began to fill up my lungs. I cough, and stumble a little. Cascade catches me.

"Thanks." I am able to muster out.

Cascade smiles and takes the lead, but I quickly take it back. I turn for a second. Katniss is right next to Cascade, and Cassia is trailing behind them. I stop, so I am in line with Cassia. The smoke is getting into her, because she is coughing now. I slip my hands under Cassia's arms, and lift her into the air. She was competing at only fourteen, the same age as I was when I won the games.

I carry her to the front of the crowd, but not before the flickering flames lap my legs. I yell in pain, stumble and eventually regain my balance. Looking behind me, I can see that the flames are starting to die out. We must have reached the edge of the territory.

We stumble and fall at the base of the mountains. I hear a cannon sound, and look around me, making sure that my team was still whole. After knowing that everyone was safe, the pain begins to set in. My leg feels as if it had been plunged straight into a pit of radioactive chili-peppers.

"Finnick." Katniss crawls over to me, glancing worriedly at my leg. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah." I tell her. "I got burnt a little bit. Check if Cassia is okay. She took a good bit of smoke in."

Katniss crawls over to Cassia, who refuses to be treated. Cassia looks my way and mouths the words, sorry, this is all my fault. I shake my head, because it wasn't her fault she was small and couldn't run fast.

Katniss insists on treating my leg with the water that she had taken from the pool before we had left. It doesn't help heal the wound, but it does kill the pain.

"I did this during my first games." She tells me as she repeatedly pours water over my burn.

"I know." I tell her. "I was watching that games. You were great."

Katniss smiles serenely, and then continues to treat my wound.

"Anywhere else?" She asks. "Until we can obtain sponsor medicine, we don't have anything to treat it with."

"Uh..." I touch every part of my body, feeling for pain. When I reach my back, I wince, and slip off my jacket. My shirt is in tatters, but I don't remember tearing it anywhere. In the heat of things, I really didn't remember much from the last few days except that I was still alive.

"My back." I finally say. I turn so she can see the burn, and I laugh in relief as Katniss pours the cooling water over the burn. The water stops, and the hand that pours it over me moves away.

"That's all that's in the bottle. Actually, there's a little more, but I don't want to waste it." Katniss tells me.

"Okay, looking at the source of the fire was a bad idea." Cascade says to herself loudly. "That was my fault. Sorry 'bout that."

"That cannon." Cassia says, her voice hoarse. "Who was that?"

Katniss shrugs. "I guess we'll find out tonight. It was definitely girl's scream I heard, though."

"Someone screamed?" I ask her, confused. "I didn't hear that."

"You must not have been listening carefully enough." Cascade says. "I heard it too."

"Who do you think it was?" asks Cassia.

"It might have been the girl from Three. Or maybe a Career?" I say.