Fall Away

Katniss and Peeta gathered our weapons and hammered the spile into a new tree; we all quenched our thirst and I ferried banana leaves full of water over to Finnick until he was strong enough to stand and quench his own thirst. We sat in silence, taking turns between drinking and scrubbing off patches of blisters in the water. I watched Katniss carefully; had she seen Finnick push Peeta’s arm off my shoulder? Did she know he was going to abandon them? It had all happened so fast; we were all blinded by pain and by panic.

When she finally spoke, it was quiet. “Thank you,” she said, casting an uncomfortable glance between Finnick and I. “For saving Peeta.”

“Again,” Finnick said wryly.

I shot him a dark glance and he met my gaze, though his expression didn’t change.

Katniss’s jaw twitched. “Again,” she admitted. “Thank you.”

So she hadn’t noticed. What was Finnick’s plan? Why wouldn’t he tell me anything? My stomach churned; was this like Adri’s plan? Was I some kind of bait here, a social aid or distraction to help him get close to Katniss so that he could turn around and kill her when she least expected it? Or was he genuinely trying to help them both?

I stared deep into Finnick’s eyes, trying desperately to read them, but all I saw was a sudden look of panic and dread as his eyes locked onto something behind me. “Winnie,” he said as a soft warning, but he didn’t need to.

Electricity shivered down my spine, sending a wave of goosebumps across my flesh in its wake. Instinctively I knew to move slowly, imperceptibly, as I lifted my head up. I didn’t even need to turn around; I could see what he was looking at. The trees around us were littered with Muttations, large angry monkeys with yellowing sharp fangs that hung from their gaping cavernous jaws like stalactites as they circled us. Dozens of them all appeared around us, creeping out of the shadows like they had appeared out of thin air, their eyes ravenous and unblinking.

“Peeta,” Katniss said, her voice breaking as if she were braced for the monkeys to attack at the slightest sound. “Walk over here slowly.”

Peeta glanced over his shoulder and his eyes widened as a large monkey Mutt snarled angrily in his face, strings of spittle dripping from its fangs. He fumbled for the spile and shoved it in his pocket, creeping backwards towards Katniss without taking his eyes off the monkey.

The other Mutts echoed the snarling growls of the first one, all of them screeching out as if in excitement. The spell was broken; they swung down from higher branches to get closer, and the bigger Mutts crawled across the ground, perched with clear tension in their powerful legs, just waiting to spring and pounce.

“Get to the beach,” Finnick breathed, his hand catching my wrist and gently moving me towards the clearing that led back to the bay. His hand tightened on his trident, eyes never leaving the Mutts. I twisted my arm in his hand to grab his wrist, making it clear that I was not going anywhere without him in pursuit, and I saw him nod out of the corner of my eye, though neither of us looked away from the Mutts.

Katniss took a step towards the clearing, her bow readied with an arrow ready to fly. In one bound, one of the Mutts behind her sprung into action, flinging itself off the branch towards her back; I was barely even aware of what was happening before there was the metallic, wet ‘thunk’ of Peeta’s machete slicing the Mutt down in midair.

The Mutts began shrieking even louder, jelly-like strands of spittle flying from their mouths as they shook the branches beneath them with anticipation. The largest of the Mutts leaned forward on his perch, howling in Katniss’s face, and like a General commanding his army, the Mutts began to swing down from the branches above.

Katniss’s arrow flew freely into the Mutt who still stood snarling at her; she didn’t even pause to watch him fall before she had spun around, another arrow already poised to fly at the first Mutt who dove from overhead towards her.

None of us had time to help her; we were all under siege all at once. I felt the prickle of danger dance down my spine and turned around, blindly firing a knife at the first sign of motion and struck a Mutt down just as he dove towards me. The air was filled with screeching, with the splashes of limp Mutt bodies falling into the water, with the heavy, squelching sounds of Peeta’s machete and Finnick’s trident striking them down. I felt the knives fit naturally into my hand like an extension of my body for the split second that I held them before firing them off; the Mutts’ great, gaping mouths at least made it easy to hit the backs of their throats between their open jaws and sever their brainstem instantly, but it made it difficult to pull the knife back out and retrieve it. I cast a glance at Katniss and saw her grappling desperately for arrows as well, and was painfully aware that we could not afford to lose all our weapons and ammunition here on night one.

I heard the splash of a body too large to be a Mutt and turned to see Finnick with a Mutt hovering over him, every muscle in his body rolling with the effort of holding the monkey away from his throat. My hand tightened on the blade of the knife in my hand as I dove forward, plunging the knife into the Mutt’s belly and pulling it as hard as I could in one long slice. My fingers slipped against each other in the sudden warm wetness of blood and the Mutt’s innards slid into the water with a gurgling splash.

Finnick’s wide eyes, bright with adrenaline, found mine in the moonlight. He cast the Mutt’s hollow body aside and fetched his trident from the water, grabbing me and spinning me around so my back was pressed firmly against his. “I’ll cover you,” he said.

Our bodies bumped against each other roughly, lurching forward in attack but always blindly slamming back towards the safety of togetherness in the dark. There was a great commotion that I vaguely registered as Katniss being pinned underwater by a great Mutt and Peeta killing it with one heavy blow of his machete, but I could do nothing except listen on helplessly, keeping my eyes glued to the motion in the trees and the silver glint of my knives catching moonlight as they flew through the air.

“We have to get to the beach!” Peeta cried.

I cast the scarcest glance towards the clearing and saw that the coast to the shore was clear; it was now or never. Grabbing Finnick’s free hand with mine, I took off as fast as my feet could carry me, unable to think about anything except the sound of Mutts swinging through the branches after us. Peeta hoisted Katniss to her feet and the two of them flew through the trees alongside us, eyes locked on the beach as it grew closer and closer through the trees, when I suddenly heard the heavy thud of a body hitting ground. I turned to see Peeta laying helplessly on his back as a Mutt galloped across the ground towards him; Katniss dove towards him and, her feet tangled in the vines underfoot, fell to her stomach, her arm and bow pinned underneath her body. The Mutts dove through the clearing, gaining on all of us and eyeing Katniss as she writhed on the ground, and suddenly I didn’t have a clear firing line on the Mutt headed for Peeta. I squeezed my knife tighter in my hand, trying desperately to shift around the trees and monkeys for a clear shot, but I couldn’t find one.

Just as my body tensed against the sight of Peeta being torn to shreds, another animal flew out of the bushes behind Peeta. No, not an animal…a person. How was that possible? She dove forward, wrenching the Mutt off of Peeta, and in an instant I flew to his side. I let my knife fly into its chest, but it didn’t stop; Peeta grabbed the Mutt and pried it to the ground, kicking its head.

With a firm yank I pulled the knife out to the now-lifeless monkey’s body and spun back to face Katniss only to see Finnick killing the Mutt over her with a swift flurry of his trident before pulling her to her feet. She didn’t even look at him; her eyes were glued to Peeta, with one question clear on her face; ‘what happened’?

“Who is she?” Katniss asked, cautiously stepping towards the limp woman’s body.

“A Morphling! Help me get her!” Peeta cried. Katniss gave him an unsure look, just for a second, before nodding and hitching her arm under the woman’s elbow. The two of them dragged her, limp and gurgling, through the trees towards the beach.

I let fly a knife towards a Mutt that charged towards them and turned to see Finnick fighting off half a dozen Mutts with such expert swings of his trident, it looked almost like one continuous movement. He flung their bodies back, hitting the oncoming Mutts with them, buying us enough time to turn and run after Peeta and Katniss together.

We finally reached the sandy shores of the beach with the safety of the bay at our backs; Finnick and I spun back around, ready to fend the Mutts back, but they all stopped short at the edge of the trees, snarling and shaking with frustration. Finnick jabbed at them with his trident, daring them to step forward, but they simply sat and watched us.

“What’s happening?” I breathed. With them seemingly halted, I dared look away for a split second to look at Finnick, whose expression was one of helpless confusion. His grip tightened on his trident as he jabbed it threateningly towards them again, not answering me.

There was the sudden boom of a cannon in the air, and with one last begrudging grunt the Mutts turned back, disappearing into the trees. Finnick and I exchanged quizzical glances before turning back to see Katniss and Peeta holding the Morphling’s limp body in the water. Peeta, who had been quietly murmuring reassurances to her since he had picked her up in the forest, suddenly grew quiet, and he let her go.

The four of us silently watched her body drift out across the water until a hovercraft broke the skyline, lowering its metal jaws to scoop the body out of the water. She had sacrificed herself for Peeta. Why? Why was Finnick trying so hard to protect him, too? And Katniss? What was going on?