Tear It Apart⇸Finnick Odair [2]

04

Thin arms replace the ones that hold her, straining to keep her upright, and larger, ones come around her thighs hoisting her up to rest against a firm chest. She can hear murmuring as they deliberate what to do and she's lowered onto a soft matress slowly, carefullt, but all the jostling still causes her to arch away, sobbing at each movement.

"It's alright, sunflower, we have you now, everything is going to be okay." Trembling fingers flutter over her cheeks, and Terra can see bleary crystal blue eyes when she barely opens her eyes.

"Peeta, get some water and a rag. We're gonna have to clean her up before we apply any of the salve," she hears Johanna somewhere in the room and she wants to say something to her friend but can only groan.  "You really know how to keep people on their toes, T. I hope I know what you're doing."

None of us know what we're doing, she wants to say. At least I'm doing something instead of just making Snow angry.

"Don't get too close, Annie. Why don't you try to find her something to wear instead?" Johanna suggests softly. "No shirt though. I think she'll understand just this once."

There's a sigh of relief from someone in the room and she can hear Peeta speaking low, the underlying concern making her feel guilty for some reason. The bed dips slightly and she whimpers.

"I've only seen this once so I'm sorry in advance," Peeta tells her, somewhere by her head.

She tenses, her muscles screaming as her back burns with the pain of having water poured slowly onto her back. Someone is pushing down on her shoulders immediately and Terra screams when a cloth is dabbing at the open lashes, her vision flashing with bright dots before it goes black.

"Just take a deep breath. You don't need to be so jerky about it," he laughs, creating waves with his arms, and Terra scowl at him, wiping water from her face.

"That's easy for you to say. I've never been submerged in anything deeper than a bath," she snaps. "I'm allowed to be nervous."

He laughs, shaking his head good naturedly, and she wants to let herself sink instead. How easy it would be to smother the eyes that watched her by simply letting go, but what was the point of surviving if she was just going to waste it?

The question was something that turned in her mind haunting as it returned over and over urging her to do something. She couldn't live with her thoughts anymore, lost in the memories of everything and nothing - drowning in the blood on her hands so thick she could taste it.

"You just need to keep swimming until you find the surface again," he tells her, dragging her towards the deeper end of the water where it was more difficult to stand.

Terra looks up at him, frowning. "What if I run out of breath?"

Finnick grins down at her, helping her float as he pulled back, holding her hand all the while. "Take it one deep breath at a time until you can hold it for as long as you need. Don't worry about that for now though, I won't let you drown."

It was like being slammed back into her body, a fire searing across her back and she sobbed with the sudden intake of air, wanting nothing more than to move but every part of her hurt.

She gasped against the bed, sprawled onto her front and positioned as comfortably as could be expected, and she instantly regret having woken up to begin with.

There was no pain relief, not when you weren't a citizen of the Capitol. She would receive no compassion here.

Painstakingly slow, Terra moved her arms so her hands were pressed flet to the bed, that action alone made the muscles along her back spasm and she bit her tongue against the dizzying dots that danced across her vision, forcing herself to remain conscious as she tried to move. With aching arms and a white-hot flash like lightning shot through the muscles of her back, Terra eased herseld up until she was standing using the bed posts for support. Her legs were weak as she made the exhausting trip to the bathroom and she believed she going to trip over herself as she went, unable to support herself for so long.