‹ Prequel: Trust Me
Status: In progress.

Fall Away

Chapter 25

We took off through the dense jungle, pushing past leaves every shade of green as we ran as far away from the shore as possible. Peeta and Katniss kept ahead, though I didn’t miss the way Katniss kept shooting worried glances back over her shoulder as she ran. I told myself that she was just trying to keep an eye out for the Careers, and pretended not to notice the way her gaze quickly slid over Finnick and I every time she looked back.

Finnick held the back line, running a few feet behind me with his trident held tight in his hand. I knew he had placed himself there strategically; if anyone had tried to follow us here from the Cornucopia, they’d have to go through him to get to the rest of us. I selfishly caught myself wishing that he were a bit more preoccupied with self-preservation; that he’d let me or Katniss or Peeta take that responsibility instead. If he died protecting Katniss or Peeta, I knew I’d never forgive them, and I had seen enough Games to know that it was impossible to hold a grudge peacefully in the Arena.

Finnick finally called for us to stop once we reached a small break in the greenery, where a few beams of rich sunlight broke through the canopy of green. We all slowed, happy for a break from the running. I held the blade of my knife between my teeth for a few seconds as I wiped my palms against the fabric of my clothes, not wanting to risk the handle slipping against the layer of slick sweat coating my hands.

We all stood hunched over together for a few seconds, panting and scraping sweat-drenched bits of hair off our faces. Katniss seemed reserved in the way she panted, like she was afraid to let on that she was tired. It would have been suspicious to me – how little she trusted us, how wary she was of each of us – if I didn’t know exactly what she had to be afraid of. Losing Peeta, or dying herself and losing her baby. It was too easy to forget she was apparently pregnant, watching her run through a dense forest after shooting half a dozen arrows at all the Careers.

“God, it’s hot,” Peeta groaned, breaking my train of thought. It was funny how trusting, how…carefree he seemed next to Katniss. “We need to find fresh water.”

I nodded. “Katniss especially. Pretty sure heatstroke and dehydration aren’t good for pregnant women,” I said, trying to watch her expression – to read it.

She shot me a quick glance before looking away, like she knew that I was trying to gauge her reaction, and said nothing.

I was about to press the subject when three cannon blasts broke through the incessant hum and buzz of bugs overhead. I tensed up and instinctively shifted closer to Finnick, though he just looked up at the sky through the break in the trees with a dry smirk.

“Looks like we’re not all holding hands anymore,” was all he said. He must have seemed nonchalant to the others, but not to me; I knew he was thinking about his friends, which ones had died, which ones had been the first to turn on the others.

“You think this is funny?” Katniss snapped.

“Stop it,” I warned, and this time when she met my gaze, she didn’t look away. I saw Peeta shift uncomfortably, trying to catch Katniss’ eye and tell her to stop, but she didn’t dare break her stare. I held the eye contact just long enough to show her I wasn’t afraid, then looked back at Finnick if for no reason other than because I knew he wouldn’t want me to give our allies any reason to feel like they couldn’t trust us. Well, no less than they already did.

“Every time that cannon goes off, it’s music to my ears,” Finnick said, leaning back to lean against the tree behind him. “I don’t care about any of them.”

“Finnick…” I said quietly.

“No, I don’t,” he said abruptly. “And you shouldn’t either. Not anymore, when we’re in here.”

“Good to know,” Katniss said, hoisting a long, gleaming sword out of its holster on her back.

Finnick just smirked. “Do you feel like facing that Career pack alone?” He paused and, with a knowing look on his face, added, “What would Haymitch say?”

I furrowed my brow. What was he talking about?

The name apparently had meaning to Katniss; she stiffened and said, “Haymitch isn’t here.”

Peeta had finally had enough, it seemed. “Let’s keep moving,” he said, nudging Katniss with a warning look on his face. She finally stood up and let Peeta lead the way further into the trees, though she kept her eyes on Finnick until she was comfortable with the amount of distance between them.

“Who’s Haymitch?” I asked Finnick quietly, after she’d finally taken her eyes off us.

“Don’t worry about it. In this case the less you know, the safer you are,” Finnick promised me.

I remembered Rafa’s warning, that Finnick had used countless girls over the years, all to get something for himself. Money, fame, connections – was it that hard to imagine him using me to guarantee something as important as his life?

“No, that’s not good enough. Peoples’ lives are at stake here; I want a real answer.”

“Do you trust me?” Finnick asked, stopping and fixing me with an urgent look.

I paused for just a split second, fumbling for the right words, but this was apparently long enough for Finnick to get his answer. He squeezed his eyes shut and chuckled bitterly to himself.

“I do. At least, I want to, and that’s what scares me. Everyone tells me I’m not supposed to trust anyone in here, but I do; I trust you, and I trust Adri. Everyone tells me not to trust you, and I know I shouldn’t trust Adri anymore now that…after everything. I don’t know what to do anymore, and I can’t make these decisions for myself if you’re hiding things from me.”

Finnick stopped walking abruptly, and I followed his lead, confused. He leaned in close, brushing my hair away from my face, his lips so close to my ear that I could feel the warmth radiating off them even in this tropical heat. “Haymitch is someone Katniss trusts. I need to make her trust me too if I’m going to get all of us out of here. I’m sorry I can’t tell you more, but I mean it when I say that telling you anything more would put you in grave danger.”

I realized then that he had leaned in so close so any cameras or microphones couldn’t pick up on what he’d been saying – it would have looked like nothing more than an intimate moment to those watching at home. Still, I felt my heart skip a beat in its chest at the way his breath washed over my neck. He lingered here a moment before straightening up, though he stayed closer to me than normal.

“I promise you that my main goal – the only thing that really matters to me in here – is to get you out, safe and sound,” he said.

I wanted to ask more questions, but I heard a sudden loud thrash as Katniss burst through the trees, bow poised and arrow ready to fly. Her eyes locked on us, searching either of us for a weapon or any sign that we’d been hanging back to ambush her and Peeta.

“What are you two doing?” Katniss said, not lowering her bow. Peeta broke through the trees after her, his strong build leaving him slower than Katniss, and he placed his hand on her arm to try and signal her to stand down. She paid him no mind.

“Winnie thought she dropped a knife. Don’t exactly want to leave a trail behind us – especially not a trail of weapons the Careers could make use of,” Finnick explained, pulling a knife from one of the back sheaths, where it was most plausible that one would fall out.

Katniss lingered a moment longer, still uncertain, and Peeta took the opportunity to speak up. “Running back and forth through the jungle isn’t helping our hydration.”

“He’s right. Until we find water we need to stick together; we’re weakened by dehydration, and if the Careers have already found fresh water then they’ll have yet another advantage over us. We’ll need the numbers to try and hold them off,” I pointed out.

Katniss mulled it over for a moment before deciding that my point was a good one. “I’ll hold the back line this time; you two stay in the middle. Peeta, you stay at the front. Keep checking the soil to see if it takes us to fresh water.”

I felt more than a little uncomfortable with the thought of Katniss trailing right behind me, given she hadn’t even properly unloaded her arrow through our whole conversation, but Finnick followed her instruction, and so I did too.

-x-

We’d been walking for another couple of hours at least before I dared speak to Katniss. If I had been sound of mind – that is, not dehydrated, hot, and exhausted – I probably would have stayed out of her path as much as possible, but I felt like I would go crazy if I didn’t hear any noise other than the thick buzzing of insects around us, and I knew that talking to Finnick so much would only increase her suspicion that we were planning something.

“You really love him, don’t you?” I said, falling far enough back that neither Finnick nor Peeta could hear us talk.

Katniss eyed me warily. “Peeta? Of course. That’s why we got married before the Games.”

I raised my eyebrows at her, knowing full well that Snow could easily have forced their marriage – assuming it hadn’t just been something Peeta had said to upset the audience in his interview with Caesar Flickerman.

Something in her expression softened a bit when she saw my expression, as if she finally realized how much of our experiences matched up – hers with Peeta, and mine with Adri. “He’s the best person I know. He didn’t deserve to come back here, so I’ll do everything I can to get him out.”

I opened my mouth to ask why she didn’t care about her own life, her baby’s life, before I realized that there wasn’t a baby. Of course not. “I understand,” I said simply.

Katniss seemed to relax a little, and for the first time since we left the beach she let her bow fall to her side. The peace was short-lived, however; something in her face suddenly changed as she glanced up ahead at Peeta. I saw her face cloud over with something dark – concern, confusion, dread – before she suddenly cried out, “No, Peeta!”

I barely had time to whip my head in his direction to see him swing his machete forward, ready to slice another throng of leaves and branches out of the way, but something went terribly wrong. There was a horrible, loud electric noise, and where Peeta’s knife should have met leaf suddenly lit up in electrical sparks and pixelated shimmers. Peeta went flying back from the force of the current, knocking Finnick and I over and landing a few feet away from Katniss. My head bounced off the soil, cushioned from blunt damage but still swimming from the force of the blow, leaving my vision clouded with stars and my hearing muffled.

I glanced up dizzily, too dazed to tell how quickly I was moving – how quickly anything was moving – and saw Finnick scramble to his feet, eyes never leaving my face. What got my attention the most, though, was what was behind him; where Peeta had been standing a moment ago no longer looked like a lush rainforest, but instead revealed itself to be nothing more than dark electrical panels all patched together. The system malfunction from Peeta’s blow quickly corrected itself, though, and just as quickly as the panels had appeared, they quickly re-activated and blended back into the jungle scenery as if nothing had happened.

I felt Finnick’s hands on my face before I even realized he’d reached me. His hands ran across my face and scalp, searching for blood or any sign of injury as he cradled my neck in his lap.

“I…ugh,” I groaned, squeezing my eyes against the head rush as I forced myself to sit up. “I’m okay. Where’s…” I began, about to ask about Peeta, when I saw him.

His body was sprawled, unmoving, right where it had landed. Katniss sat hunched over him, desperately nudging for him to wake up while she hovered her ear over his mouth. “No, no, Peeta. Peeta, please! He’s not breathing,” she sobbed, repeating the same things over and over.

Finnick gave me one final glance to make sure I was okay before running forward, gently pushing Katniss out of the way to get to Peeta. Katniss’s face twisted in horror and in an instant she had her bow readied, arrow aimed for Finnick. I could see a difference in her expression this time – she had no hesitation, no thought to asking questions first – and I lunged forward, putting myself between her and Finnick.

“Don’t,” I snarled, surprising even myself with the venom in my voice. Katniss faltered for a second before her expression hardened again, but something behind me made her lower her bow. I turned to see Finnick pinching the bridge of Peeta’s nose and blowing air into his lungs before pumping at his chest with his bare hands. CPR was common knowledge in District 4, but there was a certainty to the way Finnick moved through the steps. He’d done this before.

The seconds passed by agonizingly slowly, all of us on edge, Katniss and I not even daring to breathe. I waited for the cannon, the sign that Finnick had failed, that Katniss would turn on us – something to break the sound of bugs and birds and Finnick gulping air to force through Peeta’s lungs.

All of a sudden, though, there was another – two gasps. Peeta’s eyes flew open and, like a bullet, Katniss was at his side, unable to hold back her sobs of relief. Peeta’s eyes fluttered groggily for a moment as he tried to collect himself, and we all waited uncertainly for him to say something, give us some sign that he was okay.

“Be careful, there’s a force field ahead,” he joked weakly.

I couldn’t help but laugh. He was okay.
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hi remember me?