Impavid

At first, it seemed that the interviews had gone back to normal. The rest of the tributes began to imitate the infuriation they felt at for games, throwing out any ploy they could think of to try and put a stop to the games. When it got to Johanna Mason, all bets were off. Not only did she yell while she was on stage, but she ultimately cursed the capitol, the people in it, and told the entire committee of game makers to ‘go fuck themselves.’ Outside of Finnick, she was the only person who I had ever heard use such strong curse words from before my time in the world.

In quiet interest, I watched the districts. My interested was only piqued when Katniss was called on the stage. Gauging the crowd revealed that most of the audience was crying as she came on stage in her wedding dress. Her presence on stage had an instant effect, people even dropping to their knees.

Finnick and I shared a glance before we turned back to the stage.

At first, her performance was demure enough. Katniss answered questions about what Caesar referred to as the wedding never to be. She didn’t seem angry like the rest of the tributes, but she chose to imitate a sadness that penetrated through the crowd of people, hardly any dry eyes as they looked at her.

“I assume this is your wedding dress?” Katniss nodded to answer Caesar’s question. He gestured for her to step forward. “Would you do us the honor?”

Fire is what I had expected when she spun. At first that’s what happened when she spun, fire igniting the edges of her dress. But as she continued spinning, the fire grew higher and the white of her dressed began changing, shifting to a coal blue, pieces shedding and feathers falling down the back of her dress in blue and obsidian throngs.

My eyes widened as she stopped spinning, for the finished result was Katniss Everdeen, but it was not the girl on fire. She had gone from the girl on fire to the mockingjay, the symbol of revolution and rebellion among the districts. The entire crowd lost it, screaming and cheering, not sure whether they loved it or whether they were terrified.

Leaning back in my chair, I looked at Finnick. His expression mirrored how I felt inside. He knew as well as I did that getting her out alive was going to be even harder. Cinna’s efforts to keep the rebellion as a spark worked, but it made it extremely hard as a job for us to keep alive someone that the capitol so desperately wanted dead.

Quieting the crowd was almost impossible, but when Katniss’ five minutes were up, she began to move up the steps. As she passed me, I gave her an encouraging nod. She returned it with a smile that looked more like a grimace than anything.

“This is going to be interesting,” Finnick whispered to me, leaning over to make it look like he was fixing his shoe. I glanced down at him. “Peeta is the wildcard in interviews. Remember that bomb he dropped last year?”

As usual, Finnick was astoundingly correct. Peeta was charming and smiled, until it got down to talking about his relationship with Katniss. Not only did he reveal that they had their own form of a wedding, but the wedding wasn’t enough for him.

“What do you mean?” Caesar asked, looking puzzled. Watching the back of Peeta’s head, I felt the same confusion that Caesar did. “Being married wasn’t enough, those few months you got?”

“It would have been,” Peeta insisted, drifting off as he looked at Caesar. “It’s just… if it weren’t for the baby-"

Whatever followed the sentence was beyond me. A total riot broke out in the crowd, screaming like I had never seen among capitol dwellers before. People began screaming that the games were an atrocity, that it was illegal. They fainted, cried and screamed like a pack of wild animals.

Control was completely lost. Caesar tried to no avail to reign in the crowd, but his effect was lost on them. Peeta joined Katniss as the anthem blared so loud that it made the stage vibrate. Suddenly the man from five standing next to me grabbed my hand, making me flinch at first before realizing that all the tributes were standing and joining hands. Grabbing Finnick’s I did the same, raising both of my hands in the air.

A chain of unbroken hands rose up. If the crowd could lose it anymore, they did. People were out of order and out of line, which was the perfect distraction from our display on stage. The screens cut out, but not until at least two minutes of the unification among the stage.

Power outages plagued the stage, causing more screams of terror than anything. As the man from district five let go of my hand, Finnick took a hold of my shoulders, carefully attempting to steer me off of the stage without knocking either of us over.

The training room was the only place with light. Instantly, Finnick began pulling me to make a beeline for Katniss and Peeta. Pushing through the crowds of people back stage proved difficult. Right as we reached a few yards away, peacekeepers stepped in the way, blocking our baths.

“You need to return to your quarters.”

“But we-"

“You need to return to your quarters,” the man repeated, cutting me off. He sounded like a robot. I raised my brow, willing to argue but Finnick pulled my hand, nodding. “Return to your living quarters and do not leave. Thank you.”

Towing me in the other direction, Finnick and I managed to get on an elevator. Leaning against the cold glass, I sighed. “Just because he says ‘thank you’ at the end of his command doesn’t mean he’s being polite.”

“That was complete mayhem out there.”

“I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“That was a good attempt by Peeta to stop the games.” We arrived at our apartment. We walked straight to the windows over looking the capitol streets. The crowds below were going absolutely insane. No one looked like they could get anywhere. In fact, I wasn’t even sure the people below us knew where to go. They didn’t even know what to do much less where to go now. “But it won’t be enough. We’ll go in anyways.”

“We’ll go in anyways,” I agreed.

Finnick, Mags and I ate in silence. Mags kept looking between Finnick and I mournfully. She seemed to have faith that we could get out alive, but the fear of one of us dying must have been weighing on her.

After we ate, we said good bye to her. I hugged her to me tightly, kissing her on both cheeks. She pressed a kiss to my brow as I stepped away from her. I felt the urge to cry but I did not. I had already broken my promise not to cry twice, no matter trying to justify crying for the cameras.

Bringing her in close, Finnick hugged Mags tightly, promising that we would all see each other again. He kissed her on the forehead, lingering for a moment before stepping back. Tributes were not allowed to see mentors from that point on. The only person we were allowed to see were our stylists to help us get dressed, but Finnick and I had both opted out. We didn’t need to see anyone to go back in.

Quietly, we walked to Finnick’s room. I had taken residence the entire time we had been in the capitol simply out of some unspoken agreement. I had never asked to stay in his room and he had not asked me, but we both wanted it that way, to just sleep through the night with the other there.

“I don’t care about any of them,” Finnick said quietly. He was laying flat on his back next to me, eyes closed. “Katniss wants Wiress and Beetee, and Johanna and Blight are in agreement on this. The two from six know, but I don’t have time for them.”

“What do you mean?”

“They aren’t our friends, Lana. So if you have to kill them, do it.”

“I planned on it.”

“Good.” He paused before letting out a harsh laugh. “When did we decide that we were going to kill people that we knew?”

“When it meant changing the world, I guess.”

“Or when it meant saving ourselves. What do you think it’s going to be like out there?”

I shrugged my shoulders. I truly had no idea what tomorrow was going to be like. My gut told me that it was going to be every amount as gruesome as I thought that it was going to be. There was nothing pretty about trained killers from around the districts going into a single space to fight. “I think that the minute that clock counts down, all bets our off. We won’t be holding hands tomorrow, we’ll be burying weapons in one another. You heard what I told you about Enobaria and Cashmere. They want to bring pride to their name before they fall.”

“Do you think everyone is considered a career this time?”

“I don’t follow what you mean.”

Finnick opened his eyes and looked at me, a wolfish grin on his face. “We’re all trained in the art of killing now. Don’t you think any alliances is going to be considered a career alliance at this point?”

It made sense. I hadn’t thought about it that way, but he was right. We were all going to create an alliance, almost a complete split down the middle. And then when our teams were formed, we would hunt for one another. We would hunt for the careers because we needed to get rid of them, and they would hunt for us because we were the most dangerous.

We were silent. I thought Finnick had fallen asleep, his breathing even and deep. I closed my eyes, dozing slightly when I felt him move. My eyes opened as he grabbed me by the waist, dragging me across the bed and into his chest. Though we had shared a bed, he had never held me while we slept, and I was very unaware of what to do. So I pressed my face against his chest, lopping my arms around his neck. He tucked my head under his chin and our legs tangled.

Never in my life had I been held like that. I had boyfriends when I was younger before I went into the games, but never had I been pulled into someone’s chest while laying down. I could hear his heartbeat, just a second off time with my own.

“It’s going to be weird tomorrow, being in there with you? Only a few years ago I was sending you in. Now I’m going in with you.” His words were softer, his voice drifting off. I could hear the exhausted in it. “When did things get so weird?”

“I don’t know.”

“Now, we sleep.”

“We sleep,” I agreed.