Fall Away

With the Mutts having retreated, the four of us managed to slowly find some comfort on the beach as the sun rose. Finnick and I went into the shallows to fish while Peeta scoured the shoal for oysters; Katniss started a small fire as soon as there was enough daylight that the flames wouldn’t give us away. Peeta took charge of roasting fish and shucking oysters, even finding a beautiful black pearl in one of them and giving it to Katniss with a wolfy grin.

After our bellies were full, we laid out on the beach along the treeline; Katniss and Peeta had wandered a little ways down, no doubt Katniss’s idea, but I didn’t mind the time alone with Finnick.

“You’re still not going to tell me anything, are you?” I asked. My question was vague — no one on the other side of the cameras would know what I was asking about — but Finnick knew exactly what I meant.

He shrugged and offered me an apologetic smile. I squinted at him, partly in suspicion and partly against the blinding midday sun. He looked even more beautiful than usual here, like he belonged. The warm rays beamed off his bronze hair, wild and messy from the salt water, and the tiny glints of stubble across his sharp jawline caught the light just enough to keep my eyes drawn to his lips. Without thinking I reached out and gently brushed a few grains of sand off his chin with my fingertips.

Finnick’s eyes darkened and I felt the air shift. His gaze was locked on me, like he was piecing something together. My breath caught in my throat, my heart pounding under the intensity of his eyes, and I bit my lip to stop myself from doing anything stupid.

“Fuck it,” he muttered, and in an instant he was on top of me, against me, all over me. His lips met mine, warm and demanding and tasting of salt from the sea under my tongue. His arm wrapped around my lower back, pulling me on top of him as he rolled onto his back in one smooth movement, and I let myself sink into him with my palms pressed against the firm muscles of his torso, feeling his heartbeat under my hands. I moved them up, letting my thumb trace along his jaw and feeling the way it moved as he kissed me, greedy and indulgent and so full of need, before snaking them back behind his neck to tangle in his hair.

His hands wandered just as much as mine; I felt them brush up my legs as they sat on either side of him, straddling him; they ghosted alongside my knees, up the sides of my thighs, pausing at my back to pull me tight against him as if there were any space left between us to close. I arched my back under his touch and he took advantage of the angle, his lips leaving mine to kiss their way across my jaw and down my neck. The stubble on his chin scratched lightly at the skin of my throat, soothed by the softness of his lips and teasing laps of his tongue, and I tightened my hands in his hair with a whimper, collapsing back on top of him and melting into his touch.

Finnick rolled us both over again, this time onto our sides; my leg was still hitched over his hip, holding me tight against him and wrapping myself up in him, and he rested his forehead against mine with the tips of our noses barely brushing one another as we caught our breath. His scent, sweet and cool and clean, seemed to take me over, clouding my brain.

“Okay. Okay, that’s enough for now,” he said through gritted teeth, though it sounded like he meant that more for himself.

“I wasn’t done,” I muttered. My cheeks flushed red when I realized what I’d said, and I ducked my head into Finnick’s chest to hide my face while I waited for the heat to fade from my face.

He laughed, wrapping his arm tighter around me and pulling me into him, though he made a point to carefully angle our hips away from each other. “If we were anywhere else,” was all he said.

“Then?” I prompted, once he didn’t finish.

“Then you’d be mine.”

I heard myself gasp quietly, which made him laugh, and I blushed deeper. Something about the dark tone to his voice, the unrelenting need, made my stomach flutter. His words echoed through my head over and over, and I didn’t want them to stop; ‘Then you’d be mine’, over and over.

I stayed hidden in his chest for so long that I drifted off into a light sleep, lost in the rhythm of his breathing. It still wasn’t familiar, still wasn’t Adri, but after the night we’d had, I found myself too tired to care. I couldn’t remember anything good anymore outside of Finnick; even if he had felt like Adri, smelled like Adri, sounded like Adri — it would have been too painful. The difference was growing comforting. In the middle of all the running and hunting and fighting for our lives, it was easy to forget my life outside of the arena, to completely forget I loved anyone else or that my heart was broken.

And laying here in Finnick’s arms, our bodies weary from a night of poison and blisters and beasts, it was also easy to forget.

Our respite was shattered by the sharp sound of a distant scream. We were at our feet instantly, and Katniss and Peeta quickly appeared as well.

“Where did it come from?” I asked, scanning the beach.

Katniss shrugged, but froze as her eyes locked into a patch of trees in the distance. There was the loud roar of destruction as a massive wave broke at the top of the arena opposite our side of the beach; the wave rushed down the length of the forest, the water as high as the tops of the trees, crashing through them as easily as if they were blades of grass, and flooded its way to the beach. There was the loud boom of a cannon just as the wave came and crashed up against the cornucopia in the centre of the bay, the water rising up against the sides of the rock as if breaking against invisible walls and soaring flat into the air.

Finnick clutched my hand tighter in his as we watched the hovercraft pick up the body. It was too far away to tell who it was. It couldn’t be Adri, I told myself; it was only one death. He was with the Careers, and there was only one body. It couldn’t be him. I refused to even think it.

“Someone’s here,” Katniss breathed, and in an instant she was crouched on the ground with Peeta, her bow drawn and pressed against her cheek.

My hand twitched for my knife, but Finnick barely moved; he cast a glance over his shoulder, peering between the leaves that shielded us from view, and his eyes widened. “Johanna?” He started towards the beach, pausing when he felt my resistance. “It’s okay, I promise,” he murmured in my ear. I could feel the distrust rippling off Katniss in waves, but it was getting harder and harder to remember why I shouldn’t be so quick to trust Finnick, and I found myself following him down the beach towards the others.

Johanna was cursing and spluttering to herself as she ran down the beach; her whole body was covered in a deep crimson; it matted in her hair and stained her skin and even sank in between her teeth. Behind her, the two tributes from District 3 stood huddled together, just as drenched in red, but she paid them no mind as she flung herself into the water with a frustrated growl, frantically trying to scrub herself clean.

“I got em out,” she yelled before dunking her head under water briefly, emerging and shaking her head like a dog. Droplets of red shook out from hair like a sprinkler. “We were all the way deep into the jungle, where I thought it was gonna be safe. That’s when the rain started.”

The tributes from 3 followed her into the water, each helping each other rinse themselves clean with a kind of quiet care that felt out of place in the arena.

“Rain…?” Peeta murmured quietly to Katniss.

“I thought it was water,” Johanna said, her eyes wild. She walked right up to Finnick, just inches away from him. Too close. “It turned out to be blood. Hot, thick blood.” She turned her head and spat a glob of red onto the sand.

“Tick tock. Tick tock.” The woman from 3 waded out of the water, murmuring ‘tick tock’ over and over again in Johanna’s ear with an incessant desperation.

“It was going down, and it was choking us. We were stumbling around, gagging on it, blind.” Johanna said, completely ignoring the woman next to her — Wiress, I think was her name. Without even looking at her, Johanna put her hand on Wiress’s shoulder and pushed her back.

“Tick tock. Tick tock.”

Katniss’s brow furrowed; for all Johanna’s ignorance of Wiress, Katniss seemed captivated.

“That’s when Blight hit the force field,” Johanna continued, pausing to grit her teeth against the memory. “He wasn’t much, but he was from home.”

“Tick tock. Tick tock.” Wiress’s tone grew shaky, almost frightened; she pressed a hand against Johanna’s shoulder and glanced around at the trees, as if seeing something that none of us could.

“What’s wrong with her?” Katniss asked finally.

“She’s in shock,” said the man from 3 — Beetee, I think. “Dehydration isn’t helping. Do you have fresh water?”

“We can get some,” I answered, casting a cautious glance to Finnick. He nodded.

“Tick tock. Tick tock. Tick tock!” Wiress said, almost as if she were begging; she grabbed both of Johannas’s shoulders and shook them gently in her hands, trying to force Johanna to meet her eyes.

Johanna gave a snarl. “Get off!” She shook her arm free of Wiress’s grasp; Wiress reached out to grab her again, but Johanna caught her arm and shoved it, pushing her down onto the sand.

“Just stop it!” Katniss yelled, flying to Johanna and pulling her back before any of us knew what was happening.

“What are you doing?!” Johanna screeched, pulling herself free of Katniss’s grasp and clenching her hands into fists. Katniss reached out again — whether to grab her or to swing the first punch, I wasn’t sure, but Johanna acted first and shoved Katniss back with a growl. “I got them out for you!”

“Hey! Hey, hey!” Finnick snapped, grabbing Johanna and pulling her away from Katniss.

“Ungrateful little…” Johanna continued, fighting against Finnick as pulled her into the waves, trying to help her wash the blood off as a distraction.

“For me? What does that even mean?” Katniss asked, turning to me expectantly.

My mouth went dry and all I could do was blink stupidly at her, unanswering. “I don’t know,” I said finally, once I realized she wasn’t going to speak until I at least said something.

Her mouth pressed into a tight line, and I could tell she didn’t believe me.

“Let me go! Finnick, let go!” Johanna yelled. “I’m fine, okay? I’m not gonna do anything stupid.”

Finnick finally stepped away, holding his hands up as if to prove he wouldn’t grab her again. He said something to her, too quiet for the rest of us to hear, and she rolled her eyes and stormed further out into the water, dunking her head under the waves again and resuming her attempt to scrub herself clean.

“Finnick, please. Tell me something,” I whispered as soon as he had rejoined me on the beach.

He cast a cautious glance at Wiress, who was sitting in the water letting Katniss gingerly wash the blood off of her; then over at Beetee, who was sitting in the sand with a large coil of copper wire, tightening it around the spool. A crooked smile spread itself across his face, though it was one I’d never seen before. “Everything is fine. That’s all you need to know.”