Godforsaken

My fingers are curled into fists at my side and my jaw is clenched so tightly that the muscles there have begun to ache. Inside my chest, my heart is pounding out a rhythm I’m sure can be heard by the two guards waiting at the exit. I try not to think about that so my cheeks won’t flame up.

There are no distractions in this room, though. It’s dull and filled to the brim with the usual bareness that I’ve become accustomed to while staying in Thirteen. However, sitting across from me, eyeing me carefully, is Finnick. Every once in a while he’ll shift his position in the chair and I’ll allow my gaze to flit over to him. It’s only a miniscule second later that I draw them back to the plain tiles of the floor.

In the end, it had been Beetee who finally helped persuade me into having this meeting. Gale had kept his word and hadn’t said anything more about the Games or Finnick. Obviously that had left the only other person in my life to try and help me patch up the nasty shambles that was Finnick and I’s relationship. It had taken an entire week before I’d let rationality win.

I draw in a steady breath while tightening my fists. In my mind, I tell myself that this will be good. At the very least I’ll get some sort of release. It’ll help me let him go. I needed to let him go. By nature I was a rather miserable person, but add being used by something else, namely something else that I’d quite cared for, and I was too depressed to function remotely right. Getting rid of that sorrow would make me feel lighter, thus allowing me to perform rather normally.

He clears his throat abruptly, but I just furrow my brows. I want to talk… I want to clear the air and cut all ties, but I don’t know how. Communication was never something I’d been very good at.

“Are you even going to look at me, Kara?” he asks softly.

My reply is stiff. “I don’t want to attack you again.”

A beat of silence drifts in between us again. The guards at the doors move at my words, but I ignore them. I don’t plan to attack him. It wouldn’t be smart.

“I’ll talk, then. You just listen.” He clears his throat again. “Is that alright?”

I just nod.

Before he begins, he shifts his chair. I can imagine him angling his body closer to the table that was separating us.

“We wouldn’t have been able to get out of there if it wasn’t for you. Beetee did a considerably amount, of course. If you hadn’t been helping him, though, I don’t think he would have been so successful.”

There’s another short gap of silence and I think he’s waiting for me to say something. I just stare at the floor and try to not pummel him for having Beetee’s name in his mouth.

He scoots his chair closer again. I feel the table jiggle when he bumps into it.

“I saw you when Katniss was aiming at me, right before the thunder storm. You were going to kill her in order to save me, weren’t you?”

This time, I feel like I have to answer. “I couldn’t let her do that to you. You’d done too much to help her.”

“You’re not going to believe me. It’s ridiculous for me to expect you to, I know that.” He pauses and when he draws in a steady breathe, I glance up at him. I swallow hard so tears won’t pool in my eyes. “I did what I did because I wanted to save you too.”

Scowling, I nearly lurch over the table for him. One of the guards is quickly at my shoulder and sitting me back down in the chair. Finnick’s expression transforms from one of grief, to one of startling realization. I wonder if I wore that same look when he’d tried to stab me to death.

“Don’t say that! You weren’t trying to save me! You were going to murder me, but Beetee stopped you!”

I pause and draw in a few deep breathes. The guard grips my shoulder tighter. A warning to calm down, or else. I unclench my fists and dig my nails into my thighs.

“Don’t try and take the noble way out. Admit that you double crossed me—that you fucked me because you knew no other way to get me to ally with you and Katniss. Be honest.”

He scoffs and I nearly yank myself towards him again.

“Is that what you think?” He asks.

“That’s what I know!”

Finnick leans halfway over the table, banging his palm down on top of it. The other guard rushes over and takes position behind him. He readies to grab him. I welcome the thought of him attacking me, though. The idea to calmly talk this out is long gone and now I just want to jab my nails into his throat.

“I was looking for your tracker! You wouldn’t have been able to get out of the arena with that in you and I couldn’t leave you behind. The plan was that those who were getting out had to have that removed and we had to wait to the last minute to do that.”

He takes a deep breath in and sits back in his chair. Crossing his arms over his chest, he adverts his eyes to the floor.

“I didn’t fuck you, Kara. I made love to you… I was trying to save you because I love you.”

My mind blanks at that.