Impavid

“Hey.” We turned to look at Johanna. She was standing ankle deep in the water, looking at us. Her axe was in hand as she looked at us warily, as if concerned she was intruding on something. I was pressed against Finnick’s side. “Beetee has a plan. We need you guys to listen to it.”

Neither one of us said anything. I was the first to stand up, holding my hand out to Finnick. He took it, pulling himself up and walking with me. He didn’t let go of my hand, winding our fingers tightly together as we walked to the beach where the others were sitting, crouched and ready to go over a plan.

Crouching Finnick and I let go of our hands. It was going to be hard, but we had to retain a certain amount of distance. Outdoing Peeta and Katniss was a threat we couldn’t afford, not as long as we were in the arena. If we ever got out of the arena… it was hard to think about it.

“Where are the careers the safest?” Beetee asked, adjusting his glasses. He had his hands rested on the coil that he had to get, the coil that was supposed to help us get out of the arena. I didn’t know the specifics, but I was trying to get my head wrapped around it.

“The jungle?” Johanna offered, then shook her head, knowing that answer wasn’t right. She sunk her axe in the sand with a solid sound. “No, the jungle is a nightmare.”

Katniss nodded. “Probably here on the beach.”

“Then why are they not here?” Beetee sounded like he was giving a schooling lesson. I didn’t know why he wouldn’t just get to the point. I kept my mouth sealed shut. I was too tired to talk and I was barely able to listen. “Why aren’t they were it’s safe?”

Peeta shrugged. “We’re here. We claimed it.”

“And if we left, they would come?”

“Or stay in the tree line.”

Beetee was nodding already, excited that everyone seemed to be following along with what he was doing. I sat down finally, my knees cramping from squatting. Finnick glanced at me, a small twist to his lips that told me he thought it was amusing. “Which in just over four hours is soaked by from the water at the ten o’clock wave.”

“What happens at midnight?”

Finnick perked up. “Lightning strikes the tree. If lightning strikes the tree and we run that coil down from the tree to the beach, it’ll electrocute everything that is damp. Meaning, everything in the water and everything on the beach.”

I raised my brows. So that’s how they wanted to break the arena. They wanted to use a combination of the coil and the lightning to break the force field. It wouldn’t be hard, with how glitchy the arena was. Just like the barriers in the training areas, the force field was set for failure.

“How do we know the wire won’t burn up?” Johanna asked, even though she already knew the answer to it. I continued to sit silently. I had nothing to offer to the conversation. I wasn’t a smart scientist like Beetee, or own a big mouth like Johanna. I was there to be a body guard.

“Because I invented it. I assure you it won’t.”

Katniss sighed. “Well it’s better than hunting them down.”

I stood up. “We’ve got a little bit of a wait ahead of us. I’m going to see if I can get us some foot before we go out. Might as well. If we fry the entire ocean, everything is going to die, by the way.” I began walking away. “You better hope you kill more than the fish.”

It didn’t take long for Finnick and I to spear a few fish, pull out a few clams and grab a few crabs. The crabs had pinched me when I grabbed them, earning a hiss or two from me. I sucked the blood of my finger from one before grabbing the claw firmly and twisting, cracking it off.

Afterwards, Finnick and I boiled water, boiling the crab claws and toasting the fish and the clams over an open flame. Finnick and I worked silently together. Every once in a while, he would smile at me and look down at the ground and blush. I knew it was his weird way of reminding me that we had told one another we loved each other. We didn’t say it again, but I saw it every time he looked at me.

My nerves piqued as the day went on. We all sat down on the beach, eating together. I realized it could be the last meal that we ever had. Either we were going to break the force field and get Katniss out, or we were going to fail and be slaughtered at our attempt of treason.

Our plan relied on too much faith. I knew that. I didn’t have a higher power that I believed in like they did in the old days, and I didn’t know anything about religion other than touching on it briefly in my schooling, saying that religion and spiritual practice was the reason for war and the fights that ripped our nation in half. But I hope that someone somewhere maybe would pull a string for us.

Dinner was light hearted. There was some sort of excitement among us. Peeta and Katniss had drawn in themselves almost. They sat close together, a little bit away from us. They smiled and laughed with us, but it was different. They didn’t seem the same. I wondered if they were planning on trying on running off. That couldn’t happen. We needed them both near us.

“Alright,” Beetee said, looking up at the sky. “It’s time to go.”

Finnick and I stood up. I touched him once on the cheek, just staring at him. He gave me a smile, reassuring me. “Alright,” I agreed. “Let’s go kill these bastards.”