Stay with me? [Finnick Odair]

74

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Chapter seventy four
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Bright and early the next morning, Finnick and I are called up to the meeting with the brains team after our very early morning walk — considering neither of us could sleep the previous night, so Finnick suggested we take a slow walk around the district; clear our minds in the best places we've found during the two weeks we've been here. We took our time, just enjoying each other's company, and obviously getting in some much needed alone time.

Finnick and I don't exactly have a lot to contribute to the meeting, but their reasons are they want us to know what the team have planned for the Nut.

We arrive just on time for the meeting, standing near the back, Finnick slips his hand in mine while the commander from District Two, a middle aged woman named Lyme, gives us a detailed tour of the mountain in question and recounts all other failed attempts at taking it over. She makes sure to give us every little detail of how the plans were supposed to go down and what exactly went wrong. She doesn't miss one detail or note. She's very thorough.

Once the presentation is over and the questions come pouring in from the brains, they begin to try and create a brand new better plan with the knowledge of what went wrong before. They try to come up with a realistic plan for the Nut. The afternoon draws on longer and longer, Finnick quickly becomes restless, and — although Finnick tries to distract me with sweet whisperings and kissing me on the neck whenever nobody was looking — I still manage to keep a good ear on what was being planned. Obviously, Beetee thinks he can override certain systems easily and there's some discussion of internal spies. It's clear Lyme is growing frustrated as well.

Finally, she snaps. "The next person who suggests we take the entrances better have a brilliant way to do it, because you're going to be the one leading that mission!" She shouts, making everyone shut their mouths in seconds, and Gale — who has been alternating between pacing the floor and sitting with Katniss at the windowsill, right now he is at the windowsill — turns to Lyme.

"Is it really so necessary that we take the Nut?" He suggests. "Or would it be enough to disable it?"

"That would be a step in the right direction," Beetee says from his seat at the table, nodding his head approvingly. "What do you have in mind?"

"Think of it as a wild dog den," Gale explains. "You're not going to fight your way in. So you have two choices. Trap the dogs inside or flush them out."

"We've tried bombing the entrances," Lyme says with a shake of her head. "They're set too far inside the stone for any real damage to be done."

Gale turns to look at her for a second. His eyes have a certain look behind them, they're brewing with ideas, but they're also dark and there's something about them and his idea that unsettles me. "I wasn't thinking of that," Gale replies. "I was thinking of using the mountain." Beetee moves to join Gale at the window and the two stare out at the mountain. "See? Running down the sides?"

"Avalanche paths," Beetee whispers under his breath, it's pretty clear what Gale is suggesting at this point, he wants to trap everyone inside — cut off their supplies and possibly starve them out of existence. "It'd be tricky. We'd have to design the detonation sequence with great care, and once it's in motion, we couldn't hope to control it."

"We don't need to control it if we give up the idea that we have to possess the Nut," Gale says dismissively. "Only shut it down."

"So, you're suggesting we start avalanches and block the entrances?" Lyme questions and Gale quickly nods his head.

"That's it." He takes a second to absorb everybody's reaction to what he has suggested. "Trap the enemy inside, cut off from supplies, make it impossible for them to send out their hovercraft."

Everyone takes a moment to contemplate his plan, what it could cost if it didn't work, or even what it could do to the people inside, while Boggs flips through a stack of blueprints of the Nut and frowns deeply. "You risk killing everyone inside. Look at the ventilation system. It's rudimentary at best. Nothing like what we have in Thirteen. It depends entirely on pumping in air from the mountainsides. Block those vents and you'll suffocate whoever is trapped."

"They could still escape through the train tunnel to the square," Beetee says.

"Not if we blow it up," Gale replies and the darkness in his eyes returns, it's clear he doesn't want to be careful in this mission of his, it's clear he doesn't want to preserve the lives of those in the Nut for later use, he wants to kill everyone inside.

"So, you're suggesting a death sentence?" I speak up, making Gale turn to me, and it's clear he can see the confusion in my face. "Not everyone in there is guilty, Gale."

"The majority of the workers are citizens from Two," Beetee adds to my comment, his face completely neutral, and Gale's brows furrow deeply in aggravation.

"So what?" He snaps. "We'll never be able to trust them again."

"So that means they should die?" Finnick says, his grip at my waist tightening, I shuffle myself closer to him and allow myself to lean into his embrace; watching Gale explain himself at the same time.

"They should at least have a chance to surrender," Lyme suggests.

"Well, that's a luxury we weren't given when they fire-bombed Twelve, but you're all so much cozier with the Capitol here," Gale retorts with anger dripping off of his tongue, frustration swirling in his expression, and his comment seems to anger Lyme as well. It looks as though she might shoot him, or at the very least take a swing at him. This reaction only seems to infuriate Gale more. "We watched children burn to death and there was nothing we could do!" He yells and the image he plants in everyone's mind makes the room go quiet once more.