Masked Enemies

Chapter 34

Finnick

"A surprise?" I ask her, observing the ash streaks across her face and the burns on her arms. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine." says Katniss, letting out a small giggle. I raise my eyebrows suspiciously, and Katniss grabs my arm and leads me out of the mess hall, even though I am fighting to go back and finish my grain before Johanna took it. Speaking of Johanna, she's looking at Katniss and I right now, her eyes flicking back and forth between the two of us, her mouth twisted into a small smirk. I mouth a small help to her, but Johanna just looks at Katniss, who turns her winks at Johanna. Something was going on, and I didn't think I wanted to be a part of it. Katniss pulls me out anyway, and Johanna jumps on my grain. I groan.

"You've cost me my breakfast." I complain, but Katniss merely rolls her eyes and drags me towards the hospital wing.

"What's the surprise, a surgery?" I ask sarcastically. Katniss giggles again, but doesn't turn her head. This wasn't like her at all.

"No." says Katniss. "You'll see." She pulls me until we are nose to nose, on one side of one of the partitioning curtains, and grabs my shoulders. "What you're about to see is going to blow your mind."

"That'd be pretty hard." I scoff, and Katniss opens the curtains. Someone is buried under the covers, so I can only see her flowing auburn hair, tangled and matted, poking out from under the sheets. Slowly, I step towards her, and take off the covers. She smiles up at me, and I cannot believe my eyes. My heart skips a beat, and I lift her up from under the covers. Her forehead leans against mine, and even over the smell of smoke and tar, I can smell the ocean aroma that I fell in love with.

"Finnick." she whispers.

"Annie." I whisper back, and pull her into an everlasting kiss. Or, at least, I want it to be. "You- you're not dead."

"Finnick. You're alive." She whispers, her lips pressed against my cheek, the warmth of them coursing like electricity through my form. Her head moves away from me, and I look into those sea-green eyes that sparkle like sun-lit water.

And when I do, I know who I love. It was not Cascade. Not Katniss. It was Annie.

And it had always been her.

I set her down on the bed, and sit down next to her. Glancing to my right, I can see Katniss, looking us, and somehow, on her face, I can see happiness and misery on her face, both showing at the same time.

"I'll be back." I tell Annie, and walk over to Katniss. "Are you okay?"

Katniss hesitates, biting her lip. "Yeah... I guess. I love that you and Annie have been reunited, but it pains me, knowing that Peeta used to love me that much, and now he's gone. I really don't have anyone left that loves me."

Lonely. I knew how that felt, especially after the Games. No friends, no family. "You've still got your mother, and Gale, and me. You should probably go get those treated, too." I add, glancing at her limbs, which are red and oozing.

"Yeah. I should." says Katniss, glancing down at her body. "I'll see you at lunch." She walks away, and I rejoin Annie, who still sits on the bed, lost in her own world.

"What happened, after I 'died'?" Annie asks me, taking my hand in hers.

"Well, there's a new president, Offen, who likes the Hunger Games, and continued it. I get picked to play. Victor or not, that was the rule. Katniss got picked too. And Cascade."

"Where is she?" Annie asks. I gulp uncomfortably, and as I see her eyes filling with tears, I feel my own doing the same. Annie does that thing where she bends down and exits reality.