Mags' Weapon

by thankyoufinnick

Mags is plotting treason. Finnick is selling his body in the Capitol to get classified information for her. Annie's struggling to build a life with PTSD. Johanna's fighting back every way she can against the world she lives in. And Cashmere is discovering that Career training in District One is geared toward producing Hunger Games victors, not well-adjusted adults.

1. Chapter 1: Finnick

AN: If you've read this before, chapters 4 and especially 5 have been rewritten. (If you got notifications for chapters 6-9, sorry, I couldn't figure out how to post a new chapter out of order on FFN. It's really 4 and 5 that're new.) If not, welcome! It's the prequel to a canon-divergent AU that ignores everything from Mockingjay: plot, characterization, backstory, everything. It's thus more or less consistent with Catching Fire, but deliberately OOC for Mockingjay.

The AU sequel is finished and coming soon!

---

"You're insane." Rudder's voice is flat, unimpressed. He's lean, hard-nosed, and taciturn. His students, who are uniformly in awe of him, call him Hatchet Face behind his back. He won the Forty-Fifth Hunger Games by spearing everything that got in his way, including his own district partner. Now he gives weapon lessons to the District Four Careers.

"Tell me I'm wrong," Finnick challenges. His fists are on his hips, his head is thrown back, and he radiates confidence.

"Even if you get lucky," Rudder insists. "Even if." He pounds the wall of the training room for emphasis. "If every other Career gets taken out, if you take some out yourself, if you survive all the dangers of the arena and no one else does, why would you take this risk now? In five Games you'll be eighteen and unstoppable."

"No one will see it coming. No one will be paying any attention to me at all."

"I thought that was your worst nightmare," Rudder needles, deadpan.

Humor from his mentor is so rare that Finnick doesn't catch it until it's too late. "It's a good tactic. There hasn't been a fourteen-year-old winner in the history of the Games. I'd have the world on a silver platter after that."

"No one will be paying attention to you because it's the stupidest tactic I've ever heard. Get back to your footwork drills, and I don't want to hear any more about it."

Finnick obeys, but not before he lets a broad smile spread across his face. "Oh, but you will."

---

"Do you know what that crazy boy's after?" Mags says to Rudder during their weekly meeting to go over the trainees' progress. She teaches them strategy.

"Oh, no, he's been talking to you too." Rudder rolls his eyes.

"Same crazy boy?" Mags wonders.

"Only one that crazy. Were you able to shut him down? Because I don't think I was."

Mags gives a noncommittal grunt.

"I think maybe we need to start showing him the most gruesome parts of previous Games. Send him to talk to Octavius," Rudder snorts. Octavius Storm is District Four's most broken victor: still in a wheelchair, raving mad half the time. Being around him gives the trainees the creeps. "Who volunteered at seventeen, I might add. Also the parts where the Gamemakers threw in a wrench that no one could survive except by sheer chance. Combat training is maybe twenty percent of it. It's time he learned that."

Mags is shaking her head vigorously. "Oh, I've been going over every minute of the tapes with Finnick for years. He knows every game by heart. He's talked to Octavius. He's quizzed every victor in Four for every detail they can give until they get sick of it and send him away. And he keeps coming back for more."

Rudder looks impressed and crestfallen at once. "Well, do you have any ideas?"

"Strictly speaking," Mags begins, "we can't stop him from volunteering."

"He doesn't want to volunteer," Rudder reminds her, "he wants to rig the draw."

"If he does, and someone else volunteers, that might solve our problem."

"If," Rudder says, not optimistic. The Sixty-Fourth Hunger Games have just ended, with both District Four tributes dead again. They were lucky they even managed to get two volunteers this year. The draw for most of the Careers is the food provided at the academy. Come Reaping time, there are always seventeen-year-olds who promise themselves they'll do it next year, and eighteen-year-olds who stand with their heads hanging, unable to muster up the courage. Grateful if someone else does.

Mags doesn't allow anyone to shame them, so District Four has a reputation of not always being able to muster two volunteers. Their Careers stand in stark contrast to the eagerness in Districts One and Two, where the Games are glorified.

If Finnick talks to the eighteen-year-olds and convinces them that they got free food for several years and don't have to risk their lives in exchange for it, who's going to fight him, really? Out of the current crop, no one looks likely.

Nor is Finnick especially popular with the other trainees. They may enjoy his antics when he's clowning around, but they don't enjoy being shown up by someone his age, and Finnick is an incorrigible show-off.

So no. If Finnick rigs the draw, he's going in. Mags and Rudder both know it.

Rudder continues trying to pressure Finnick out of this move. Every student of Rudder's that goes through training is one more person in District Four who knows how to use a weapon. Under cover of training Careers for the Hunger Games, Rudder's building a secret militia for future open resistance to the Capitol. Finnick, with all his potential, is one of the trainees Rudder's been hoping doesn't end up in the arena, where the Gamemakers can take you out at will.

Mags has a harder time throwing obstacles in Finnick's path. Paradoxically, because she has a great deal of influence with him, and she's always been a demanding taskmaster. But he trusts her only because she's held nothing back in her support of his goals.

He's living with her because his parents were opposed to his training to kill other children for glory. In the unrelenting battle of wills, Finnick ran away from home more and more often, until at last Mags caught on and took him in. Unlike the other trainees, whose day ends when they leave the academy, Finnick gets continued intensive training at home.

Mags is convinced that if she withdraws her unconditional support now, she will undermine his preparation but not his determination. If she can't convince him to hold off until he's eighteen, all she can do is throw all her weight behind him.

Together, they wear Rudder down into accepting Finnick into the advanced weapons class, though he's neither old enough nor strong enough at thirteen. "I don't care if he goes into the arena at eighteen looking like a god among men," Mags insists. "Someday, somewhere, someone will have the upper hand over him, and he'll have to know how to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. The upper level students are better than he is? Good."

Rudder bows to this logic. By the end of the year, he's come around to Mags' approach: doing everything he can to get Finnick ready. On Reaping morning, he announces to Mags, "I'm going with you. Donn is nice and all, but...I'm not nice."

True enough. Rudder's one of the few people who's been able to drive Finnick hard enough to satisfy the boy. Life comes too easily to Finnick, who has a low tolerance for boredom, and he's tremendously ambitious. He was actually visibly happiest when after three hours of school in the morning, followed by six on a boat, and two in training in the evening, he would arrive half-dead with exhaustion on Mags' doorstep in the evening.

"Rudder gave me that," he said, pointing to a bruise forming by the side of his nose that accompanied flecks of red, "and a bloody nose, but I'm learning. It took him a lot longer this time."

"Cudgels this week?" Mags asked. "Go clean your face and come sit."

Sitting cross-legged on the couch beside Mags, Finnick was quizzed again and again on his reaction to every scenario Mags had seen or could imagine. She didn't let up, even when he started wilting, and he liked it that way. Half the threats to him will come when he's weary from lack of sleep, lack of food, physical effort, or wounds, and he needs to be able to think on his feet in these conditions. He also needs to have internalized a plan for as many situations as possible. It'll keep him from panicking, though he still needs to be adaptable, because neither he nor Mags can possibly plan for everything.

After years of rejection from his parents, Finnick gradually opened up to affection from Mags. They talked sitting side-by-side, until finally, in the middle of a sentence, Finnick trailed off and slumped against her. He sighed in contentment.

Laughing, Mags put her arms around him. "Come on. You know I can't carry you to bed."

"Mmm."

In a fit of sheer self-indulgence, Mags sat like that for a while, holding her boy while he dozed, until finally she shook him. "Up, up. I'm tired too, you know."

Finnick groaned. "You keep watch, I'm sleeping," he joked, but he got obediently to his feet.

"Finnick thrives under demanding teachers," Mags agrees. "You'll come, then."

---

While Finnick is getting a few minutes to say goodbye to people before the train leaves, his parents come to talk to Mags. She's not really surprised. She's had this conversation with them so many times in the last five years that she could have it in her sleep. They're always talking past each other.

Both his parents are tall, but his mother is now hunched over on a pair of crutches, moving with difficulty. Mags digs through her memory for the woman's occupation: loading and unloading cargo. No surprise her injury, then. It's a very accident-prone job.

"Well, if he dies," his father opens, "I hope you're happy."

It almost sounds like they know Finnick rigged the draw, but even if they do, she can't publicly acknowledge it. Officially, he was reaped.

"I could say the same to you," Mags retorts. "Nothing either of you did kept him from being reaped, but I gave him the tools to survive. If he comes home, it will be thanks to me, not you."

"And you think the ones with the tools for killing innocent children are the ones who deserve to live, just because they come from your district."

Mags can't help being condescending in her frustration. "You know, it's great that you have strong feelings, but I don't think they're very practical. The Hunger Games don't go away because you shove your head in the sand."

"All you Careers are doing is escalating the Hunger Games with your academies," Finnick's mother insists. "Who puts out the most victors? District Two, and to guarantee a victory, they're training the bloodthirstiest tributes out there. Eating children, ripping out throats with their teeth, torturing before they kill and laughing while they do it..."

"One tribute out of twenty-four comes out. Nothing I do can affect that. By sending Careers in," Mags begins her familiar defense, "our tributes by and large get to live until they're eighteen; they're less frightened in the arena; and the children who really, really, really don't want to be there are spared, so long as we can muster up a volunteer. I'm sorry Finnick's fourteen and we couldn't get a volunteer, but this is out of my hands. I still have hope for him. He may yet come home."

This is not just what she tells herself at night when she's trying to justify training children to kill, or dragging the unwilling victims of a Reaping into the arena. It's part of the official line for why training should be permitted to continue. It's frustrating that Finnick's parents, with all their burning desire to oppose the Capitol, don't at all see the potential for training the citizens of Four to fight. But if it were obvious to them that a militia is in the making, it would be obvious to everyone, and the academy would be shut down in a heartbeat.

"If he comes back," his father says with a chill in his voice, "it will be as a killer, and I will have no hope. He's yours." With that parting shot, his parents leave.

The worst of it is, Mags doesn't even think they're pacifists. She thinks they'd be in the front lines if it came to open warfare. They're just opposed on principle to having anything to do with the government, and fighting back under cover of cooperating is either not something that would occur to them, or something they consider beneath them.

Either way, they're right about one thing. Finnick is hers.

---

"Three of you," Livia observes challengingly when the train departs the station. She's a tall, big-boned girl, standing with her hands on her hips as she surveys the inhabitants of the compartment: Mags, Donn, and Rudder as mentors; Finnick, the male tribute; and Candy, their Capitol escort. Livia radiates antagonism. "I see."

"Well, yes!" Candy chirps. "The more the merrier."

Candy may be missing the byplay, but Mags, who's been swallowing guilt and fear since the Reaping, catches Livia's meaning immediately. Three mentors is definitely not District Four's usual operating procedure. The rules for victors are twofold: all victors must come to the Capitol at least once per year in conjunction with an event related to the Hunger Games, and tributes must have at least one male and female mentor if their district can produce them.

Districts with an abundance of victors, however, needn't overwhelm their tributes with ten or twenty mentors. In District Four, Mags and Donn are the oldest victors, and they act as mentors nearly every year. Rudder, Octavius, and Brine, the other three surviving victors, come to the Capitol on their own, usually to the Victory Ball.

Livia, knowing all this, is glaring at Mags. Mags is used to being held responsible by all of her tributes for everything they don't like, and she meets her charge's eyes steadily. "You're in good hands."

"Oh," Livia says, extremely skeptical. "That's good to know. I'd hate to think I wasn't." Livia looks around at everyone individually and deliberately goes to sit beside Donn.

Paradoxically, Mags is reassured by Livia's suspicion and ability to assess who her allies are. She's going to need it in the arena.

"I'm beginning to regret volunteering," Livia mutters, just loud enough to be heard clearly. She sounds more resentful than afraid.

"Funny, I don't remember volunteering," is Finnick's contribution. Belying his words, he directs a sharp and bright smile at Livia, daring her to take her anger out on him.

She narrows her eyes at him, but there's no good comeback to a Career who's being sent to the arena prematurely. She sinks back into the couch, folds her arms across her chest, and stares out the window. The wheels turning in her head are almost visible.

Mags watches her tributes' dynamics, making her own calculations. Her hopes of teaming them up are rapidly dying. Livia's convinced her mentors are determined to keep their favorite alive at all costs, and Finnick's returning her distrust, not letting on to her that he rigged the draw to get here.

Later on, after Mags and Donn have encouraged the tributes to retire to their separate compartments, always their practice in case the children want to fall apart in private, the mentors talk strategy in low voices. Candy, excluded, wanders off in search of better entertainment.

As always, everyone defers to Mags to open the discussion.

"Donn, you're in charge of Livia. Squire her around the facilities, give her whatever advice she'll listen to, get her as many sponsors as you can, send her gifts in the arena."

Donn, a grizzled, comfortable-looking man with a large belly, is surprised. "Usually, you handle the female tributes once we get to the Capitol." He looks over at silent Rudder, unsure where he fits in. Donn's not privy to Finnick's scheme, and so Rudder's presence is inexplicable.

"Livia no longer trusts me." Mags is trying to stay as professionally detached as she can, but it's getting harder and harder. Sometimes she's so tired of being the sole pillar of wisdom, the one everyone looks to for guidance. When does she get someone to comfort her and tell her she's doing the right thing? "She's right. I don't want her to die, but I am biased. She deserves a fully committed mentor. Go ahead and throw your full support behind Livia. Don't worry about Finnick."

Donn looks yet again at Rudder, who still doesn't say anything. Rudder shows no signs of being of two minds about who he's supporting. Livia went through training with him, of course, but she got the same professional detachment from him that ninety-nine trainees out of a hundred get. Nor does Rudder apologize for the effect that his presence is having on her. He pulls the belt knife he always carries from its sheath and holds it up to the light, checking for signs of tarnish. His manifest lack of interest doesn't bother Mags. She's used to him. As long as he does what needs to be done, he doesn't need to waste a lot of words on it.

"She'll have everything I can give her," Donn promises.

It's the best Mags can do. It would kill her not to give Finnick all her support in the arena. And it would certainly kill Finnick.

---

Livia trains with the rest of the Career pack: Trim and Sheer from District One, Junia and Jacquard from District Two. She doesn't talk to Mags any more, not even polite small talk at dinner.

Finnick reports to Mags every night. They sit in her room together and talk for hours.

"I'm not showing them anything I can do. I am checking out the plants and insects stations, at your suggestion. But mostly I'm wandering around watching the other tributes."

He tells her everything he sees of their skills and behavior, and she helps him interpret what he's seeing. Junia's good with knives, Trim and Sheer with swords, and Jacquard favors the spear. Jacquard is the biggest of the Career pack. Not the tallest—that's Trim—but the bulkiest. Sheer's the smallest, and Mags says to keep an eye on her. "If she felt good enough to volunteer, she must have something going for her upstairs. Watch out for Junia too. The girls from Two can be vicious with those knives."

When it comes time for evaluation, Finnick shows off his knot-tying, trap-setting skills. It earns him a seven, since the highest scores are always reserved for the skills of single combat. Since leaving District Four, Finnick has not allowed himself to touch or even so much as look at a spear. There are no tridents in the training facilities, so unless there's one in the arena-unlikely, Mags and Rudder agree—the spear is his best shot.

"Grab one from the Cornucopia if you can," Rudder advises. "If you can't, get a good knife and make one, if there's wood."

"And if there's not?"

Rudder flicks his eyes at Mags. "This is her domain."

Mags and Finnick have gone over every climate and type of terrain that's been seen in the Games. Finnick knows what to do, but it's good that he's not getting contradictory advice from Rudder.

Mags has to resist the urge to start pouring out all the wisdom she's acquired in seventy years. That's just her anxiety talking. If Finnick doesn't have it now, he won't get it in the next few days. But she does sit him down, two days before the Games begin, for a final quiz.

"What would you consider the most important things to remember that are independent of what the arena is like?"

"Don't panic," Finnick begins reciting. "Don't lose your head. Don't let the other tributes provoke you into doing what they want you to do. Stay aware of your surroundings at all times, even-especially-when under attack. Cover your back. Eat when you can. Sleep when you can, but not for very long at one time." He pauses in his recitation. "I'm going it alone, so I won't have anyone to keep watch."

Mags still thinks that's a mistake. No, getting in with the traditional Career pack is not a good move for him if he wants to be ignored. But there are other tributes with a fighting chance.

"The larger a group I'm in," Finnick argues, "the bigger a threat I am to the Career pack, and the faster they come after me. I need time."

"You're reacting from fear, not strategy," Mags warns him. Fear is good, because it's what moves you to avoid death, but if you let it guide you away from a better plan, fear can kill you.

"Strategy," Finnick insists. "Tell me I'll die if I do it my way."

Mags learned the hard way over the years that she has to be careful not to let her desire to be right cripple her tributes. Forcing them into a situation they're less comfortable with, even if it's better from an objective point of view, can prove fatal.

It's still hard not to keep insisting, maybe especially with Finnick, who's usually docile when it comes to advice for surviving. Well, he's usually argumentative, because he wants to be absolutely sure every aspect of the scenario has been considered. Once he's satisfied with the thoroughness of her plan, though, he accepts Mags' evaluation. He rarely presents her with an ultimatum like this.

"I can't say that you'll die. I can say it'll be harder for you to survive the first few days."

"Maybe so," Finnick concedes. "But once the bloodbath is over, the first few are the easiest. It's the last that are hardest."

"You have to survive them all in order to survive," Mags says, tautologically. "Do it your way, then. I'd tell you if I thought it was suicidal."

His Flickerman interview is an unqualified success. Everyone agrees that sex appeal is the best way to go about getting him sponsors without drawing undue attention from the Careers. Finnick plays his part to the hilt, laying on the charm as thick as it comes. He strikes the right balance of looking like he feels good about his chances without coming across as overly threatening to the wrong people, and the sponsors are already lining up to talk to Mags.

Then, suddenly, the last five years are over and she's saying goodbye. She can't afford to show any doubts when she sends him into the arena, so she smiles as confidently as she can. "Come home," Mags tells him, and Finnick bends down to accept one final kiss. Then he's on his own.

Day One

The countdown begins. Mags and Rudder sit forward on the sofa, tense. Like most of the tributes, Finnick's swinging his head around, surveying the terrain, and squinting at the Cornucopia.

The ground is boggy. Good, that means there'll be water. Even if it's not the ocean.

The distribution of goods is tight this year: almost everything is inside the mouth of the Cornucopia. This could mean a bigger bloodbath than usual, or a smaller one.

The gun goes off.

Finnick heads toward the Cornucopia. So do about half the tributes. The other half scatter immediately into the wild.

One tribute gets stuck halfway in a patch of mud. The camera homes in on his struggles for a minute. He's sinking, and he doesn't look like he's going to make it out.

But there are more interesting things going on around the Cornucopia, and the focus quickly jumps. "Both tributes from One, Two, and Four," lists the commentator for the benefit of the audience, who won't know them all well by name yet, "girl from Five, boy from Seven, boy from Eleven."

"Finnick's moving well so far," Rudder observes.

"At least he's avoiding quicksand," Mags says, reluctant to be more optimistic than that.

"He's covering a lot of ground and not struggling with it," Rudder insists. Finnick's only disadvantage is that his legs aren't strong enough yet to match the older Careers, and they're making better time around the patchy ground.

The boy from Seven is too hesitant, trying to watch the ground and avoid stepping on anything dangerous. By the time he makes it within throwing distance of the Cornucopia, he takes a knife in the throat from Junia, the girl from Two. A cannon goes off.

Followed shortly by another cannon, and a quick glimpse of some curls being submerged in a patch of quicksand.

Back to the bloodbath. Five tributes have surrounded the Cornucopia and are standing guard, circling it in a practiced clockwise movement.

"Come on, show Finnick," Rudder pleads.

"You're going to be saying that a lot," promises Mags with dry gallows humor. Under less fatal circumstances, it would be amusing to see Rudder so talkative.

The girl from Five doesn't come in too close, grabs something the audience can't make out from the ground, and shoots out again into the depths of the arena.

The camera now shows Finnick, circling around just on the edge of throwing range. The boy from Eleven is struggling with the terrain but still advancing. He must feel good about his chances in a fight. He's already snatched up a knife. Not a great one, this far out, but he's not unarmed.

The camera switches to his perspective. He sees Finnick approaching from the side. Then in front, the Career pack starts closing ranks.

Now a bird's-eye view, to show that most of the tributes have scattered, and the Cornucopia no longer needs a wide-ranging defense. There are only two tributes still advancing on it. If all five Careers can form a line blocking them, they don't stand a chance.

But the Careers on the opposite side of the circle are still too far away, and still hindered by marshy patches. It's two on two, with a third Career fast approaching, when the boy from Eleven goes for Junia with his knife.

Finnick stays close to his temporary ally, using him as a wedge to open up a weak point in the Career guard. While Junia is occupied with the boy from Eleven, Finnick darts in past them, snatches up a spear he's had his eye on, and darts out again.

A cannon goes off, but the camera stays on Finnick. Trim advances on him, but he only has a sword, and he can't take on Finnick without coming inside the greater range of his spear. Finnick uses his advantage well, wielding the spear to keep his enemy at bay, while running at an angle away from the Cornucopia.

The third Career, now coming up from the other side, might have been able to help, but it's Livia, and she hesitates to approach Finnick. Between her and her district partner are Junia and the boy from Eleven, and she stops to help there instead.

The camera focuses on the trio, and the audience sees why Junia wasn't able to come to Trim's aid. During the knife fight, the much larger and heavier boy from Eleven landed on her. She took him from behind, but she's pinned underneath him and still struggling to get up. It takes both the girls to heave his body aside.

And now the audience knows who the cannon was for. Back to Finnick, now outside the circle of pedestals. Still running, heading for safety.

Surprisingly, unpursued.

Rudder is gasping like a fish on land. "Survived the bloodbath. Why aren't they chasing him?"

"Strategy," says Mags.

The five members of the Career pack have assembled to discuss the next step. "We agreed to hold the Cornucopia and hunt down the others in a pack," Sheer opens. "Not to get caught up in individual vendettas."

"This is very unusual!" enthuses Caesar Flickerman. "Much closer bonds than we usually see in a Career pack during the bloodbath."

"Don't you think it was chilling the way they changed formations in silent communion?" Claudius Templesmith asks, shivering deliciously. "Like a pack of wolves."

"I agree," says Mags grimly. "Your run-of-the-mill Career pack can't plan their way out of a paper bag. They hunt together because it makes them feel safer. Not because they've practiced their moves together. This one is acting like a unit of trained soldiers, not a grab-bag of people who've agreed to wait a few days before killing each other."

"And Livia didn't say anything," Rudder grumbles.

"Why would she? She's smart; she wants to survive. I encourage them to team up with the other tributes. Finnick was determined to go it alone."

Trim, the one who faced Finnick with a sword, is speaking, and Mags and Rudder fall silent to listen.

"Only two dead in the bloodbath, plus one in the quicksand."

"Not the best record for a Career pack," Livia mutters.

Junia, who was responsible for both those kills, shakes her head. "But only one made it out with a weapon, and I think maybe one grabbed something unimportant from the fringes. The rest are helpless. How good is he with that weapon?" she asks Livia. "He's from your district, right?"

Jacquard interrupts. "Or better yet, how long can he survive in the wild with nothing but a spear? Do we even need to bother hunting him down, or should we pick easier prey and let him get himself killed?"

Trim growls at the idea, because he's already faced Finnick in an aborted confrontation and wants to finish what he started, but he subsides, deferring to the greater plan.

Livia shrugs. "Dunno. Girls and boys are trained separately. He got a seven in the evaluation. I wouldn't say he's the strongest or weakest. He can use it, but he was reaped before his time. He's only fourteen." Everyone in this group has pulled off a nine or higher.

"All right, then I say no one confronts him alone, but he's not our top priority either. Any objections?"

There are none.

"As we agreed, then, Trim and Livia on guard at the Cornucopia, the rest on the prowl. The hunting party stay within whistling distance of each other. We meet back at the Cornucopia every four hours if we're able to."

Livia suggests, "I'd start by heading up that river. Not only will it give us water if it's clean enough, and probably food, but it'll draw other tributes as well. It'll mean less ground we have to cover when we're hunting."

"Smart girl," says Mags.

"Finnick will head for water," Rudder warns.

"He's smart too."

Days Two-Three

Slowly, the hunting Career pack is picking off tributes. Their strategy of guarding the Cornucopia and hunting is not an unusual one; it's the obvious one. But they're executing better and with less dissension than Mags has seen in quite some time. Splitting up allows them to cover more ground. Meeting up regularly and shifting the membership of the guard and hunting party keeps them from forming internal alliances. She wonders how much the mentors from One and Two had to do with guiding this plan. Maybe a recent victor has some good ideas.

"What's Finnick doing?" Rudder asks. Finnick's been feeding himself with the spear and some traps and has even acquired three knives that Junia lost, but he has yet to make a cannon go off.

"Reconnoitering the terrain. The Gamemakers can always change it up, but it still gives a tremendous advantage. Most tributes won't be able to, or won't bother. Notice that the Careers are still trying to stay close to the river."

"How's his sponsorship fund looking?" Rudder asks.

"Not too shabby," Mags answers. "It might be time to send some food."

Rudder agrees. "He's finding plenty, but he's covering a lot of ground, and that means he's burning a lot of energy. I don't want him weakened when he meets a Career."

"And maybe some ointment for those blisters."

Rudder shakes his head. "Your call, but I'd save it. I taught him to fight with worse than blisters. If he's not actually wounded, he should be able to ignore it. We may need the money more later."

Mags laughs under her breath. "Tough love indeed. We'll save it, then. I'm glad to see he's been refraining from taking off his boots for a moment, even though he clearly wants to. The moment he does, some threat will hit when he's vulnerable."

"We taught him well."

"Day Three and he's still alive-Ooh, ooh!" Mags leans forward, clutching the nearest object with white knuckles. It happens to be the table that's holding Rudder's drink, which sloshes over. "Did you see that?"

Rudder blinks. "What? Two of the hunting Careers passed by, and they didn't see him, and he didn't ambush them. Nothing happened."

"No, but did you see? He didn't freeze, he didn't rush in, he didn't panic. He shifted position and tightened his grip on his spear, ready to fight but just as glad to let them pass by. Look at his body language, look at his face. He's calm. That's why he's not making any mistakes."

Rudder still doesn't look sufficiently impressed, so Mags presses the point. "You train them to fight, so all you can think is, of course he's ready. You don't come here every year to know how rare it is that three days go by without me saying someone's made a mistake. Everyone panics, or else they get sloppy with overconfidence. Livia's not as bad as the rest, because I taught her, but neither did I drill her every single night. Finnick is so calm, and so cautious. That was his 'everything is going according to plan' look you just saw. There may be some who can fight better, but I don't see anyone out there who's thinking as well as he is, and that's with an unusually thoughtful Career pack."

"You think he's going to pull this off," Rudder concludes.

Mags makes a face of doubt and growing hope mingled. "I'm seeing signs in him I haven't seen in anyone in many years."

"Best-taught Career yet." Rudder raises his glass and salutes the unseeing boy on the screen.

---

"Blowing kisses to the cameras and wrapping the audience around his little finger," Rudder observes when the third silver parachute descends. "I didn't teach him that."

"I certainly didn't," Mags chuckles. "He's a natural. Charming the birds right out of the trees."

"Is that how he got us to agree about the Reaping?"

Mags grunts. "As I recall, he got me to agree, and I got you to agree."

Rudder narrows his eyes, but doesn't protest. "It's paying off, anyway. Flirting with the sponsors, I mean."

"Sponsors can't save you from the arena," Mags says cynically. "They can only help you die more comfortably." It's an old saying of hers. "He's got to do this on his own."

"He's doing it."

Day Four

Finnick makes his first kill on Day Four. Or at least, his first direct kill. A couple of tributes have fallen into the traps he's been laying as he goes, and both have been killed and stripped of their supplies by other tributes who happened along later. A few tributes have also been fed by those same traps, but he can't help that.

The boy from Three is kneeling to tie something at the base of a tree, and he never rises. The spear goes through his throat and emerges through the other side.

"Did you see that?"

Rudder sighs. "Whatever it was, I'm sure I didn't. Just tell me."

"In and out, covering his back as soon as the job was done. No vaunting, no stopping to strip his enemy, no running away in fear. He just moved to make sure his back wasn't exposed, took stock of the situation, made sure he was alone, and only then went to retrieve his spear and collect what goods he could. This is a plan in action."

Rudder nods in satisfaction. "I taught him that. Not vaunting, I mean."

"I taught him that. I told him even if he survived it, he'd answer to me for taking that risk. I'm going to use this clip on every future trainee. Always cover your back. Everything in the arena is deadly. I'm-" Mags stops short, choking. She covers her face with her hands.

"What?"

"Damnit." Her voice is thick with unshed tears and frustration. "Why do I find myself thinking that I need to use this when Livia comes out, to show her what she's doing wrong when she lingers over her opponent's body? She's not coming out. You'd think I didn't do this every single year."

"Because the rules don't make any sense. You train them and train them and tell them they're doing it wrong, until one day they do it wrong and they die." Rudder takes the knife he's holding and jams it into the tabletop. "Finnick's coming home. He does anything wrong between now and then, I'll tell him off about it. And then I'll buy him a drink."

Later that day, Finnick gets into his first real trouble. He's catching fish with his bare hands, and suddenly he jerks his hands out of the water, with a cry that he immediately makes to suppress by burying his mouth in his shoulder.

One hand is red and swollen. Several spiny needles protrude from it. Finnick's eyes are closed and leaking tears of pain, but even so, he reacts as he's been trained. He retreats from the bank and puts his back to a tree while he's vulnerable.

"Right hand," Rudder snaps. "Better get him something for it."

Mags is already on her feet. Rudder lets her deal with the vendors while he remains glued.

Finnick has managed to open his watering eyes, spot his spear lying on the ground, and grab it with his left hand before returning to his tree. The knives he's acquired in the last few days are bound to his waist by a makeshift belt of vines, so at least he wasn't wholly unarmed.

The medicine arrives in short order, but Finnick has already had to move deeper into hiding to avoid some tributes that he can hear coming. The whistling sound of the descending parachute alerts them to his hiding place, so while he's crouching in the reeds, he's frantically trying to open the pot of ointment with his damaged right hand while holding the spear in his left.

It's a race against time, and Finnick will not put down his spear.

"That's my boy," Rudder breathes. Then he sighs with exasperation, and Mags realizes with amusement that he's instinctively being quiet because he doesn't want to give the others any more clues to Finnick's location.

"No, put it down," Mags hisses. "Stay calm."

The two tributes from Five find him before he's had a chance to administer any of the medication. In sheer agony, he hurls the pot with his right hand at the face of the girl, buying himself time to drive the spear through the guts of the boy. The act causes Finnick to scream in pain, which may be a mistake if it draws the attention of anyone else, but since he's glaring at both the other tributes as he shrieks, it startles them and causes them to flinch backward, which makes it not a bad mistake. The boy lies on the ground grabbing futilely at the shaft in his belly, gasping and staring in shock at the sky.

The moment the spear is out of Finnick's hand, he grabs a knife from his belt. The odds are now one on one, and the girl, though she's unharmed, decides that discretion is the better part of valor against an opponent who shows every sign of being berserk.

Finnick lets her go and sinks to the ground, feeling around for his pot.

Mags is wrapping her arms around her body and rocking back and forth, because this is not going according to plan. Still, he should be able to keep his head. No plan lasts forever, and he should know better than to fall apart when it does.

He gets the ointment on his hand, finally, and the relief is as immediate as it is obvious.

Being Finnick, aware that he's constantly performing for the benefit of his audience, he paints some on the edge of his lips and blows more kisses to the sky. Thank you, he mouths, with his most delightful smile.

His odds go up, his sponsorship fund more than replenishes itself, and Mags and Rudder heave another sigh of relief at the end of Day Four.

Day Seven

One minute Trim is hunting, and the next he's hanging upside down from a tree. His sword lies on the ground beneath him, and the more he thrashes, the tighter the knots draw.

Livia hears his struggles and comes running even before she hears his whistle signaling for help.

"A little too impetuous," Mags grumbles. "Confidence is good, but..."

Livia cuts her fellow Career down, but she's not strong enough to break his fall effectively from that height, and he lands badly. He rises cursing and clutching his right shoulder.

Trim seizes his sword from the ground and glares at Livia as though he suspects her of wanting to take advantage of him.

She sees it and tosses her head in contempt. "If I wanted to kill you now, why would I save you and arm you first?"

Trim spits in anger on the ground and turns back to the trap that almost felled him. Holding his sword loosely in his right hand, he snatches at the vine with his uninjured left.

"Sloppy, sloppy, sloppy," says Mags.

"Who made this?" He thrusts the knotted end out at Livia. "This from your district?"

Livia refuses to be intimidated. "Could be. Could be from anyone who trained at that station last week. It's not hard. I didn't set it, if that's what you want to know."

Trim's ego doesn't like hearing that something he didn't bother learning isn't hard, and he hurls the vine down. "Fine." But he's seething as they resume hunting.

Mags sucks in her breath between her teeth. "I didn't like the looks of that. He thinks she's covering for Finnick."

"Is she?" Rudder wonders.

"Does it matter? She wants to stay alive, and she'll kill both Trim and Finnick if she can, when the time comes. Will she keep Finnick alive for now in hopes he'll join up with her when the Career alliance breaks down? I can't say."

The next time Livia's on guard and Trim's hunting, though, Mags' suspicions are confirmed. "We're going to need to hunt that kid from Four," Trim opens as soon as they're out of earshot. "The arena isn't killing him for us."

"We're going to need to hunt everyone eventually," Junia says, nonchalant. "You want to start with him now?"

"Not just yet," Trim tells her. "Did you hear Livia say on the first day that he knows how to use that spear?"

"Yeah, so?" Junia scoffs.

"Yeah, so, he's been through training with her," Trim reasons. "If we're hunting him with her, what does that mean for us?"

Mags buries her face in her hands. "Worse than I thought. I thought Trim was getting sloppy because he was too angry to think. Now I see he's thinking after all."

"Well, either that she can tell us a lot about how to find him, or she can betray us," Sheer says when Junia is silent.

"Or even just hesitate," Trim points out.

"She did, in the bloodbath," Junia says. Livia had come to her aid instead, but only after looking at Finnick and then looking away for something else to do. Resent him she might, but the taboo between district partners is strong. Even Rudder only killed his at the very end, when there were only the two of them left. "But I thought they were trained separately."

"We have her word for that," Sheer sneers with a condescending look at Junia. Junia doesn't like it, but she can't argue. "So we take her out. Then we hunt him."

"I've been thinking about it," Trim says, now that everyone is on the same page. "The next time one of the three of us is on guard duty with her. Not hunting: too many chances for her to get away and join him."

Sheer is nodding her agreement. "She's outlived her usefulness. If the four of us can't take on a fourteen-year-old kid, then what are we doing here?"

So it is agreed.

---

Mags and Rudder are staring at the numbers.

"Will it be enough?" Rudder wonders. "I don't know prices in the Capitol."

"Possibly just enough," Mags answers hesitantly. "No food or especially medical supplies for a while."

"If he gets his hands on his own weapon, and gets a chance to show off his skill with it, he'll be set with sponsors for life."

"It's not as easy as you think," Mags says, but she refuses to elaborate. "Let's do it, then."

Taking every last bit of coin in Finnick's sponsorship fund, and all of Mags' experience at haggling, a well-crafted trident is sent into the arena. The only reason they can afford it at all is that everyone watches the Games for the combat, and the sellers are willing to give them thirty percent on credit when Rudder sells Finnick's skill and the resulting entertainment value.

"He's put on a good show so far," the vendor concedes. "You've got yourself a deal."

Finnick knows his end of the deal, and he spends some time twirling his new weapon and showing off his moves as soon as he gets it. Normally it might be a mistake, to risk being distracted from threats, but his mentors know how deliberate this choice is.

Immediately after, he begins hacking at vines with his longest knife.

"If he delays too long," Mag predicts, "if he doesn't encounter a Career soon, they're either going to drive him toward the Cornucopia, or they're going to send a pack of mutts after him. They'll want to see him use it."

"That's what you meant, then," Rudder realizes.

"Yeah. There's a price to pay."

Mags' experience with the Gamemakers is accurate as always. Ripples in the water turn into snouts. Huge alligator-like creatures, but with larger teeth.

"Come on," Rudder urges him.

"The big threat here is wounding," Mags explains. "Watch them attack one or two at a time. They're not trying to take him out here. We all know if the Gamemakers want to eliminate any tribute or all the tributes, they can, no problem. They want to make him fight. That doesn't mean he won't still die of his wounds."

"Or die later, when the Careers find him wounded."

"Exactly."

Finnick in the water, though, is just using the mutts to warm up. His first net is destroyed early on, but his trident stabs right, left, forward. There are only two mutts left when it gets serious. He hasn't slipped yet, but one rises far enough from the water to seize his pack from behind, pulling him down.

Once he's down, the mutt in front of him moves in. They could both have eaten him a long time ago, but they're toying with their prey. The tributes are always given a fighting chance, though never a fair one.

Finnick's hung onto his trident, and it goes into the eyes of the mutt he's facing. His previous victims have already shown him that the eyes are the weak spot in the scaly armor of these beasts. If he drives two points of his trident into the eyes, the middle prong goes into the brain between them.

But behind him, the remaining mutt is reaching for his throat with his jaws. One snap, and Finnick is dead.

To do so, though, the mutt had to release the pack, giving Finnick the chance to lunge forward, trident still in hand. This move buys him a few inches, but he doesn't have time to turn around, nor space with all the corpses floating about him.

He has one risky chance, and he takes it. Going purely by feel, Finnick shoves the shaft of his trident backwards into the creature's mouth. The creature tries to chomp it in half, but it's made of metal, and it doesn't give. Throwing his weight forward and down, Finnick turns the trident into a wedge that's prying the jaws apart, unable to close. The mutt can't shake it loose immediately, because Finnick's secured it by jamming it between the creature's front teeth.

Rudder's shaking his head. "This is still a really bad position to be in. In order to use his weapon, Finnick needs to yank it out of the mutt's mouth, turn himself around, turn his weapon around, and stab, all before the mutt has the opportunity to leap on him. No chance his reflexes are fast enough for that. And no chance he's strong enough to hold this position for long. Maybe in four years, not now. Damn you," he breathes. "You're going to die on us, and I'll never have the chance to tell you what an idiot you are."

Finnick has a different plan. Moving backward along his trident, pressing it down as long as he can, he releases his weapon suddenly. When the mutt clamps its jaws down, Finnick leaps unexpectedly onto the neck, straddling the beast. The mutt now has a stupid metal stick shoved into its throat and a human on top of it. The human is now leaning forward, pressing its upper jaw down with one hand. All it can do is thrash in agony, trying to unseat these annoyances. The trident it manages to dislodge first, instinctively wanting its natural weapon—its jaws—back. The trident sinks to the bottom of the pond.

In this crazy riding act, Finnick manages to reach a knife strapped firmly to his waist that hasn't been lost in the battle, and drive it between the mutt's eyes from behind. That's the killer blow, straight to the tiny brain.

The Capitol viewing facilities erupt in violent cheering. This is a show!

Rudder gives a great involuntary shout with them. Then he looks in shock at Mags, who's nodding wisely to herself.

"You did not see that coming!" he yells at her. "Look more impressed."

"We went over that," Mags says, her voice rich with satisfaction.

Rudder rolls his eyes sarcastically. "Finnick, when an alligator comes up on you from behind, shove your trident into its mouth behind you, ride it like a horse, make sure you have a knife ready for this, don't lose your balance, don't get eaten, make sure there aren't any other mutts around when you do this, and then pretend to be nonchalant when you survive. Yeah, I'm sure that was covered on day one."

"The different pieces. Come on, you don't come up with a plan like that by thinking fast under pressure. Your mind goes blank under pressure. You come up with a plan like that by being ready. I make my students practice fighting from a disadvantaged position. I tell them that's going to make up about ninety percent of the times they have to fight. I think Districts One and Two practice fighting with the upper hand."

"God, no wonder we have so many dropouts." Rudder shakes his head in disbelief. "I must have been playing hooky the day you trained me to fight alligators from behind. I remember having to make shit up on the fly in the arena."

"Come on." Mags elbows him. "Finnick's having to do that too. But the more situations you're prepared for, the less you have to make up, and the better the 'shit' you come up with is. I taught him to look for weak spots in mutts, not to assume they're the same as the animals they resemble but not to ignore what he knows about the animals either, to make sure he practiced fighting an enemy coming up from behind without turning around, and not to panic when he's been brought down and is having to fight from the ground. On different days. And he already knew how to keep his balance on a rocking object in the water."

Rudder grunts. "Well, he lost his trident, anyway."

"Maybe."

Finnick is sitting on the ground by the water, back to a tree, arms wrapped around his knees, convulsing with fear and tension now that it's over.

Mags' need to put her arms around him is a physical ache, but he's beyond her reach.

The bodies of the mutts have vanished below the water. Finnick rises and stares into the murky water, then turns away. He has one knife left. No other supplies. And his fund is empty.

He starts cutting vines. The audience has watched him make more than one net already, and the camera turns to more interesting scenes.

---

Livia's guarding the Cornucopia. Sheer is with her. Trim, Junia, and Jacquard are hunting. Four tributes remain to be hunted down before the Career pack dissolves into the final bloodbath.

Sheer keeps glancing over at Livia, but as they circle, Livia's keeping her back to the Cornucopia and her distance from Sheer. She hasn't acknowledged that she feels threatened, but she's not stupid either.

Does she have a plan if the others come back and she's still alive? She might break loose and head out looking for Finnick, but no one knows.

"Odds?" Mags asks quietly.

Rudder shakes his head. "Livia's bigger, but she's not ready to break the alliance. Sheer is, and she's got good footwork. She might be able to get a killing blow in with her sword, but she's not as strong. I don't know why they didn't leave..."

"One of the boys?" Mags looks undecided. "Size isn't everything. I've seen a lot of tributes get weird about the opposite sex in the arena. Mostly girls getting underestimated, whether that means they get ignored or targeted first. Look at how everyone went for Junia's spot in the perimeter during the bloodbath. But if a boy's going to be reluctant to take out a girl in hand to hand combat, it's usually early in the game. Usually by this point, survival takes over."

Rudder points out, "Trim wants to take on Finnick personally, so he wants to go hunting. That just leaves Jacquard."

"Sheer was the better choice, then," Mags decides. "Jacquard would have given the game away by now. Not sure if they know that, though."

"Why aren't they doing it four on one?" Rudder wonders. "Much easier, you'd think."

"Again, not sure. It's a good idea not to. Once the blood starts flowing, it'll be hard on any of them to put their weapons down first. One on one is safer for the pack. Much more dangerous for Sheer, though. Then if Livia wins and then finds Finnick, they've gone from a Career pack of five to one Career pack of three and one of two."

"Even if she gets away, it's four to two instead of four to one."

"They can do the math as well as we can. If they start infighting now, though, it'll be zero to one, and the one will be Finnick. Maybe they just consider Sheer more expendable, if it comes to losing one of them."

"She thinks she can do it," Rudder observes.

Livia and Sheer circle, backs to the Cornucopia, for what seems an eternity. "Pick up the bow," Mags urges. "Pick up the bow."

She does, but the 'she' is Sheer, not Livia.

They can just barely hear each other from opposite sides of the Cornucopia. Mud sucking at their feet, packs making swishing noises as they brush against the metal. Livia takes the opportunity to duck inside the Cornucopia.

Ambush.

When Sheer comes around to that point of the circle, her bow and arrow are ready.

Livia's waiting at the entrance for her, but Sheer is taking a wider circle this time, hoping to catch Livia with a shot down the length of the Cornucopia. Livia's in bow range, but Sheer's not in sword range. Livia's instincts that she was betrayed were true, but she lost the game of positioning.

"Fish in a barrel," Rudder laments when the cannon goes off.

"She couldn't know how good Sheer is with that bow, if she could hit a running target. We still don't know. And I'm guessing Livia wanted to keep the Career alliance. If she had killed Sheer, she might have convinced the returning Careers that she chose them over Finnick, and that might have been enough to buy her place."

"We'll never know." Rudder lifts his glass in a final salute, as Livia's body is lifted by the hovercraft. "Warrior to the end."

---

"He got it. He got it!" Rudder shouts with glee.

Mags looks at him. "You know, I've heard you utter more words in the last week than in the last twenty-five years. With emotion, no less."

"Shut up," he says amiably. "How many times have you seen me send a crazy fourteen-year-old into the arena?"

She's seen him send many tributes into the arena. Mostly he sends them off from home without bothering to come to the Capitol. When he does come, he watches impassively, and returns after their deaths without a word. She has no idea how he feels about anything connected to the Hunger Games. Now, with growing curiosity, she watches his impassioned support of Finnick arise out of the blue. She's always seen Finnick as hers, and it's news to her that anyone else thinks he's special.

They turn back to their crazy fourteen-year-old. It's just after sunset, and his net has just fished not only his ruined pack but also his trident out of the water. The knives are long gone, probably buried under the mud at the bottom and far too small to fetch up with a net. But the trident is what matters.

"He's not going to dive for the rest?" Rudder asks when Finnick walks away with his trident and his net.

"Not worth it. Too many dangers in the water. You can always get more food."

"I hope he's not counting on it from us."

"The way he fought? There'll be more coming," Mags promises. "If not today, then soon. Plus, he has District Four sponsors, not just Capitol." Normally, Capitol sponsors are much better to have, but Finnick's Capitol funds are still paying off his trident. Only his District Four funds can now be used to send bread into the arena. This separation was one of the conditions Mags set during the negotiations before agreeing to take his trident on credit.

"As long as he keeps entertaining."

They hear an aborted cry, and the camera cuts to Junia. She's taken to the river to shake the mutts that pursue her, noses to the ground like bloodhounds.

It's not a bad idea, but "Get out of the water!" Mags hears someone in the room shout. One of Junia's fans, or possibly her mentors.

"Someone got the memo," a cynical voice says from behind them.

Mags and Rudder turn around. Haymitch Abernathy is leaning over the edge of the couch they're sitting on. More accurately, he's propping himself up against it.

"Your boy going to win this year?" he slurs, bitter. His eyes are bloodshot. It's alcohol, but it's also grief. "I've got a girl out there. But she's thirteen, she can't swim, she can't fight, and she's only alive because they haven't gotten around to hunting her down yet."

"Then she's done well to last this long." Provided herself with food and a good hiding place, at least.

"Well is dead." Haymitch stalks off again when Finnick appears on the screen, watching Junia through the trees.

Mags wants to help everyone, but she can't. She has to hope his thirteen-year-old girl dies. Because he's right: well is dead. Livia did well, and she didn't last even as long as this girl from Twelve.

Junia's instincts, to make for the opposite bank when she hears an unknown tribute sliding into the river, would save her life under most circumstances, but they do her no good against a Career from District Four. She tries to dive when she feels the net closing, but the trident stabs again and again until a cannon goes off. Then like a flash, Finnick is pulling out of the water. The sound of her thrashing will attract anyone nearby.

"He left the net," Rudder observes. "He knows he can make another one."

"It's more than that," Mags says. "Imagine you're fourteen. Everything and everyone is trying to kill you. You have two things that are keeping you alive. You drop one. Do you go back for it? Of course you do. It makes you feel safe. While you're going for it, someone comes up from behind and kills you. I see it every year. Finnick's in the arena with a plan, and a whole lot of training to leave anything behind that he can replace. The trident was worth saving, but even that he didn't dive in instantly for. The net wasn't."

"That's our boy."

Finnick takes longer to emerge than he should, and when he finally hobbles into a standing position, they see why. He's clutching his left hip, and a darkening liquid is spreading over his hand and thigh.

"She got in a blow!" someone cheers. Mags curses when the camera moves from his hand to his face. She needs to see how bad the wound is and what Finnick needs from her.

Finnick lifts his head, hearing cries in the distance. Jacquard is calling Junia's name. He's not too far away, and his carelessness is making him easy to locate. Finnick's carrying his trident, but netless, foodless, and wounded. If Jacquard is alone, now might be a good time to take him, before he meets up with his allies. And possibly before Finnick's condition gets any worse. But there's no knowing how near Trim is, and Jacquard is taller, stronger, and perhaps faster than Finnick.

While he stands there, indecisive, he's still stanching the flow of blood from his hip. Mags can see it slowing. If the knife blade was stopped by bone and didn't hit any major vessels, the cut might be shallow.

"Can we get him anything for that?" Rudder's watching intently.

Mags, who's been keeping track of the funds, shakes her head. "A bandage, but nothing fancier. And he needs to get further away if he wants it. I can't have a repeat of the parachute betraying his location. Jacquard and Trim will not go down as easily as the previous two."

Finnick decides the same thing, for he turns away and heads farther from the Cornucopia and farther from the river, leaving the Career pack behind.

Rudder steals a glance at his partner. She's not looking thrilled.

"You wanted him to fight? He's overmatched and wounded."

"No," Mags says. "But the Gamemakers do. And I'd rather face two eighteen-year-old boys any day than the all-powerful gods of the arena. More depends on skill and less on chance."

"This is why he should have waited a few years."

"I'm more and more convinced he made the right call," Mags says, to his disbelief. "Though maybe not for the right reasons. I've seen too many Careers win on sheer power. If you don't need to rely on your brain by the time you're eighteen, you're not going to develop it later. But if Finnick learns to use his now, then in a few years he'll have brains and brawn, and he'll be set for life."

"If he makes it to fifteen against these odds."

"Well. He'll have a really good brain."

Half an hour's trek away, Finnick stops. He's had no food since mid-day, but he goes for the vines first thing. His gait was awkward, but he's ignoring it to work now, so she has to trust him that it's not life-threatening. She's seen tributes bleed to death without realizing it, but nevertheless she has to choose between sending him bread or a bandage now, and letting him fend for himself while the funds build to a level that can cover critical medical expenses later. He's hanging in there, so she waits.

Mags obsessively claws a hole in the seat of the cushion by her knee, tearing and tearing at the plush fabric. Her nerves communicate themselves to Rudder, who starts shifting anxiously, looking at the screen, looking at her. "More mutts?"

"It's too dark to tell how his wound is doing, but assuming he's all right and he keeps at that net...Fire, I'm guessing. Something to drive him back to the water. We sent him that trident, we committed him to fighting with it."

This is Mags' fifty-fifth year as mentor.

She's not far off. Finnick's only halfway done when lightning splits the tree he's just about to start stripping vines from.

Finnick leaps back, unharmed, but taking the warning to heart. He picks up his trident and stands looking out toward the center of the arena, toward his rivals. It makes a striking pose, and he knows it.

"Hunting time," Finnick announces, with every sign of relish.

Then he sets off, half-finished net in hand. The lightning drives him forward, but he keeps a deliberate pace.

Rudder gasps as the lightning just misses Finnick and he doesn't flinch. "He's walking," he says in shock. The point is so very clearly for him to flee in terror.

Mags voice goes very, very quiet. "He's stalking his prey." They're in the Capitol, where she doesn't dare say what she's thinking. Finnick wants to save his breath and arrive fresh, and to get that he just negotiated with the Gamemakers. He's forcing them to treat him as not as a victim, but as someone who has something they want, in return for something he wants. He must have figured out it can't be real lightning, or surely he'd be dead by now.

The way he moves, like an actor on center stage, he makes the lightning into a sort of accompaniment. Depending on the angle, it throws his grim, ecstatic face into relief or silhouettes his body. Above all, the flashing of power around him makes him look fearless and invincible.

He's gambling, gambling high, and even if the Gamemakers give him what he wants for the sake of the show he's putting on, they can still make him pay for it later.

It's far more reckless than rigging the draw.

Everywhere around her, Mags can hear the viewers cheering on the tributes by name. "Trim!" "Finnick!" "Jacquard!" "Sheer!" A glance at the board shows her that Trim is still the favorite to win, but Finnick's odds have been climbing for a week. No one other than these four is any longer considered to have more than a fluke chance of winning. Sometimes there's a clear underdog by this point, but not this year. Or maybe from the bettors' perspective, Finnick is the underdog. It's hard to keep in mind that very few people know how prepared he is.

---

"A tree. I thought for sure he'd take to the water."

Mags is confused too. "He's in a tree near the water?" she hazards.

"He's mentally in the zone, at least." Rudder's relief is audible. "I doubt his hip conveniently stopped bothering him; I think he narrowed his focus to battle-readiness and tuned it out."

It's true, he hasn't been seen to touch it or to limp since the lightning began. And there's been no further sign of bleeding, so Mags finally relaxed on that front.

At least the lightning has stopped, now that he's deemed close enough for the battle to begin. Finnick spent a long time choosing this tree, and its merits become obvious when the camera shows that there are two forked branches close enough to the ground that he's able to store his now awkward trident there and begin climbing. He stops maybe seven feet from the ground, which makes sense if he's planning an ambush rather than a hiding place. Then he removes the half-woven net that he's hung round his shoulders, and begins hastily working it.

It's too dark to make out the details of what he's doing, but whoever's managing the cameras does a good job of building the suspense, cutting back and forth between Finnick's perch and the two hunting Careers.

The scene changes when Finnick throws something from his perch, making just enough noise to draw their attention.

"Did you hear that?"

"Yeah! Could be anything, be careful."

Slowly Finnick draws them in, misleading them all the way. They hear the objects he throws where they land, not where they originate, and he has a good range. He may even have a slingshot; he's too well hidden among the leaves, in the dark of night, to tell what he's been making.

Everything comes together when Jacquard steps directly under Finnick's tree. There's a loud hissing sound, and it takes Mags a minute to realize it's the simultaneously in-drawn breath of everyone watching.

The attack happens too fast. It's only a few seconds later that anyone can piece together what happened. Jacquard is hanging from the branch, scrabbling at a noose around his neck, trying to shove his fingers underneath and buy his airway a precious inch of slackness. Finnick has dropped from the other side of the branch, using his weight to make the pulley work. He's chosen his branch well. Both it and the rope he made hold Jacquard's dangling, kicking body. Beneath the body lies the spear Jacquard dropped.

Finnick, who's not strong enough to keep him hanging—only his quickly falling body has been enough to raise burly Jacquard off the ground—hastens to make a knot fast around another branch, this one low to the ground. Jacquard is sinking as the braided vine stretches, while Finnick races to get the knot in place. It's taking longer because Finnick is doing it at an awkward angle, with his back pressed to the tree. Trim is out there somewhere, and if Finnick turns his back to work this knot, he'll die tying it.

Just as Jacquard's toes touch the ground, Finnick is shaking his trident free of the branches. He doesn't have time to make certain of his hanged enemy before a rustling tells him someone is coming through the underbrush.

"That was too risky!" Mags shouts. "That depended on perfect aim in the dark and Jacquard not grabbing him on the way down. He's stronger, and if he hadn't been obsessed with the noose, he could have taken out Finnick on his way down and freed himself. Or he could have had a knife. No, I do not approve."

"You mean Jacquard failed to think of that plan in that half second he had in which he was airborne and asphyxiating? I think it was safe to assume he'd be obsessed with getting air." Rudder considers. "As for perfect aim, I agree with you. There was a lot of chance involved in getting that noose around that neck."

Trim breaks through into the clearing and sees his hunting partner dangling, with his eyes bugging out, tongue protruding, and fingertips turning black under the noose. Jacquard's cannon finally goes off. Trim looks away from him without the slightest sign of empathy or fear. "So. It was you."

"Most things were," Finnick answers. He can't know Trim fell into one of his traps, but it's probably not hard to guess that he means either that or Junia's death.

Sword and trident, they go at it. They're not far into it when the anthem starts to play. Mags has never seen the Gamemakers not let the tributes look to see who's been killed. It's a sadistic disadvantage: Finnick can't know about Livia, Trim probably doesn't know about Junia, and neither of them knows about the girl from Eight, so they can imagine her cannon as anyone's.

"Oh, I got your partner at the Cornucopia," Finnick lies casually. "Sheen? Sheer?"

"No!" Trim shouts in denial. He's smart enough not to glance up at the sky, but the effort it takes to resist opens a hole in his defense wide enough for Finnick to break through.

The audience screams when the metal points of the trident only slide harmlessly off his chest. Finnick doesn't know it, but underneath his jumpsuit, Trim's wearing body armor from the Cornucopia. It's light and strong, and it protects him without hindering his movement.

Mags jumps in fear and for the first time, involuntary tears fill her eyes just when she most needs to not miss a moment. "Why hasn't he won? If Finnick can't hurt him."

"Sssh," warns Rudder. He's almost in a trance, watching a battle in which every move means far more to him than to his partner. "Defense..." he says to himself, dream-like.

The mishap helped Trim regain his confidence, but not his balance. Finnick's still on the offense, relentlessly driving Trim with jabs at his unprotected face. They dance over the ground, avoiding trees, rocks, and above all, treacherous patches of mud, with equal facility.

"Finnick's moving them somewhere," Rudder concludes. "It's the only thing that makes sense of his footwork."

"I told you, he knows the terrain better."

"Closer to the water," Rudder guesses. He's the only one not surprised-Trim is flabbergasted-when out of the blue, Finnick takes a flying leap to the side. They hear a splash.

Mags hopes whatever he's done has been enough to satisfy the Gamemakers that they should continue letting him live.

Night Seven

The anthem plays again, so the tape must be flashing back in time to show something recorded. Sheer is shown guarding the Cornucopia and watching the sky. The first to flash are Junia and Jacquard from Two. Trim has still not returned to trade guard duty with her.

"Finnick," Sheer whispers, staring in shock at the sky. Livia's face goes by, but Sheer doesn't react.

After the girl from Eight is shown, and the pictures fade from the sky, Sheer takes up the bow and arrows from the ground, and along with her sword, abandons the Cornucopia.

"Fleeing or hunting?" Rudder wonders.

Mags can only shake her head. "If only I could tell whether Finnick is upstream or downstream of the Cornucopia, and whether Trim has to cross the river to reach it or he's already on the right side. The cameras' constant cutting around makes it impossible to tell."

"Finnick will know."

"Three favorites to win, down in one day!" Caesar exults, when things are calm again.

"Finnick wanted to wait," Mags mutters. He's trying to play a cautious game, but he isn't being allowed. "They drove him to challenge Trim and Jacquard before he was ready."

"Two at the hand of Finnick Odair," Claudius summarizes. "One at the hand of Sheer. Both still alive, as is Trim, whose failure to take an overmatched Finnick is deemed inexplicable by some."

"It's not inexplicable," Rudder says. "Finnick has a brilliant offense, and his defense is unconventional, but it works. He wasn't strong enough to block most blows from the eighteen-year-olds with his trident when he was in training, so he tended to, in the first place, avoid letting them strike, and in the second, use the terrain as his defense. He'd trip his opponents over their own feet when he couldn't overwhelm them. I'm not surprised Trim couldn't land a blow, though I wish Finnick had been able to bring him down."

Mags finds this all very interesting. She's heard it before, of course, during their weekly reviews of the trainees' progress, but seeing Finnick in action is different. She's never cared much about weapons technique before this, but Finnick is her boy. "What would you say about his defense against the mutts? I'm not the expert, but it looked like he was blocking with his trident there."

"Creatively," Rudder points out. "I had Brine put him through some serious strength training, so he's better off than he was a year ago, but he's still only fourteen. If he'd waited four years, he'd have been unbeatable, but as it is, he's having to get creative. Besides, I thought you taught him that, with the alligators."

Mags only looks modest.

"And not to vaunt," he accuses. "What was that with Trim?"

She shakes her head. "No, no, vaunting's okay against a stronger opponent. I tell my students if they're feeling good about the way the fight is going, it's a sign they need not to get overconfident. If they're desperate and need to get away, anything they can do to make their enemy slip is fair game."

Mags looks at the screen. "Right now the odds are still in Trim's favor."

---

The object of their discussion has been calculating his own odds and finding them wanting against Finnick in the water. He could follow Finnick on foot along the bank and wait for him to emerge, but there are two problems with that idea. One is that all Finnick has to do is emerge on the other side. If Trim tries to swim across to catch him, Finnick has him where he wants him. The other is that Finnick might be leading him along the bank to another of his vine traps.

Actually, there's only one problem with Trim following Finnick: Finnick obviously wants him to. Trim's confident he has the upper hand in any single combat, so he heads back toward the Cornucopia.

On his way, he encounters Sheer, who's ranging in search of him.

"You kill the bitch?" Trim demands.

"You're asking if I completed my assignment?" she challenges him. "Yeah, I got assigned to take out one Career, and so she's out. But it takes three of you to get yourselves killed by one half-trained boy. Or maybe you finally got him, and that's why I heard a cannon go off after the anthem. Oh, wait," Sheer's voice rises in crescendo, "I haven't heard any cannons!"

"If you know what's good for you, you'll shut up," Trim growls. "He's out there somewhere."

"Which way did he go, did you see?"

Trim points down the river and strides off. She nocks an arrow in her bowstring and falls in behind, letting Trim lead the way.

Before they reach the bank, she's silently raised her bow and drawn the arrow back, and she takes her own district partner out with a shot to the unprotected back of his head. At this close range, she can't miss. With no armor proof against treachery, he can only half turn, gasp, and fall.

"You've become a liability," Sheer tells his body. She turns around and heads back in the direction she came.

There is outrage and shock in the crowd. Bad enough they were cheated of a fight to the death between Trim and Finnick, but taking out your own partner in an alliance is something of a taboo, until you're the last two left. That's partly sentiment and partly practicality. If you don't make it home but your partner does, your district still gets the food.

It happens more often than people care to admit, though.

"I'm guessing she's not that great with the bow, but she is spectacular at positioning," Mags grudgingly admires. "She uses it because she feels safest with a distance advantage. When it comes to raw strength, she's even more outmatched than Finnick, even by Livia. She's actually extremely interesting. Trained with a sword and comfortable with it, based on what Finnick saw in the training room. But once she got into the arena, too overwhelmed with fear to get in close, choosing instead a weapon she's weaker with. Yet thinking through her fear and using her weapon extremely effectively. I'm betting I know who came up with the Cornucopia maneuvers. Why do they have to die, Rudder?" she sighs deeply.

---

Sheer finds Finnick at the Cornucopia, because she knows where he must have headed. No need to waste time tracking him and stumbling into his traps.

He sees her coming in the moonlight. She stops some distance away, and raises her bow to show him that she's armed. In return, Finnick shows her his trident. His back is to the Cornucopia.

Livia died like that, so Sheer must be feeling okay about her odds. However, she knows Finnick has taken out two Careers and gotten away from the third, and she doesn't know how, so she's playing cautious.

As is he, tired, hungry, and moving his left leg stiffly.

"In your esteemed strategic opinion, is it worth fighting for the Cornucopia?" Rudder asks her. "Or should he leave it to her and go hunting the remaining tributes?"

Mags is considering, but all coherent thought flees at the next words she hears.

"You want to fight?" Sheer calls. "Or do you maybe want not to die a virgin?"

Finnick knows when he's supposed to be caught off guard, so he doesn't lower his trident an inch or take his eyes from her. But he does grin. "Do you make this offer to all your victims?"

"There's no rule against it," Sheer points out. Technically, she's right, but there's a reason no one lets down their guard long enough to have sex in the arena. Even rape is too risky, never mind what Sheer is pretending to propose.

"No rule against killing your district partner as soon as you heard I had a longer spear?" He can't be sure she killed Trim, but he heard the cannon, and there has to be a reason Sheer's here alone.

"Teenagers." Mags has been dealing with them her whole life. "Every tired joke is new to them and hilarious."

"I think he's doing pretty well with the quips," Rudder defends him, "considering she's got a bow trained on him and she's the only one out there who has as many kills as he does."

"Your spear man enough for me?" she challenges, not denying the accusation about Trim.

"You wearing body armor?" Finnick wants to know in return. "Chastity belt?"

"Come find out!" Sheer invites him.

"Striptease, if you don't mind!" The banter is all very amusing, but it's not getting them anywhere.

"Why didn't she take Trim's body armor?" Mags suddenly wonders.

"Wouldn't fit her," Rudder answers. "Might still have given her some advantage, but she'd be vulnerable while putting it on and trying to adjust it. Too bad Finnick didn't get it. Not that he's a whole lot taller, but..."

"I'd take anything right now," Mags agrees.

"What would you do about the Cornucopia?" Rudder asks. The flirtatious standoff is continuing, but Finnick is starting to shift position gradually.

"I think I'd let her have it. She has no one to guard her, and she's unlikely to leave it after this. Better to stick to his plan of not getting tied down by anything he doesn't need. He's had enough time to rifle it."

Sheer is following Finnick with her arrow as he moves side to side, but he's not close enough for her comfort, and she's doesn't want to risk her ammunition on a moving target. She's trying to chase him off so she gets the spoils, not kill him. She prefers to take her opponents by surprise.

Meanwhile, the banter flies back and forth.

"I killed your district partner!"

"And yours." Finnick sounds admiring. "Did you let them die virgins?"

"I'm not big on necrophilia!"

"Maybe not, but you seem interested in doing the penetration yourself. So am I, so I think I'll have to pass. Nothing personal, maybe next time!"

While they're riposting back and forth, each trying to get the last word, they're testing each other's will to open the battle. Step by step, Finnick is pulling back and Sheer is advancing, but never closing the distance enough to risk shooting.

"The other tributes are exhibiting a strange reluctance to kill this boy," Claudius marvels.

"One wonders how serious that sex offer was," Caesar adds.

"For fuck's sake." Rudder is disgusted. "It's like the commentators have never been in an arena. Oh, right, they haven't. She's got four arrows left, and that is not her weapon of choice. As long as she has it, the playing field is level. Once she wastes her ammunition, Finnick can run her down, no problem. She was the last of the Careers to reach the Cornucopia, and the only reason she didn't get taken out in the bloodbath was that she was on the far side of the circle from Finnick and the guy from Eleven."

"She is a genius at positioning," Mags says as Sheer reaches the Cornucopia and Finnick pulls out of the center, still moving backwards and watching her. "I think she was standing in front of a patch of quicksand just now, trying to draw him in closer by making him prove his manhood."

"Sheer's the genius?" Rudder says. "I was just wondering, you ever think Finnick has a seventy-year-old brain inside that fourteen-year-old head? Letting the insults go and giving her the Cornucopia without a fight, just because you're sitting out here thinking it's a good idea?"

Mags chuckles. "It is eerie. He does borrow my brain from time to time, but he's not consistent with it, either. I'm not surprised he didn't let himself be provoked, since I did train him for that, but I am surprised he's not feeling confident enough to challenge her on his own terms. Maybe more tired than he's letting on."

"Well, he doesn't need anything from the Cornucopia badly enough to risk his life for it. Though he's out of the zone now and his hip's back to bothering him."

Day Eight

There are only five tributes left on Day Eight. Sheer holds the Cornucopia unchallenged. The girl from Twelve is still in hiding. The boy from Six is hovering around the Cornucopia, weak with hunger and waiting for Sheer to sleep unguarded. The boy from Ten is foraging successfully, but avoiding the other tributes.

Finnick is sound asleep beneath a pile of greenery. It's not especially impressive camouflaging, but there's no one left to hunt him.

Every year, Mags tells her tributes to eat when they can and sleep when they can, because they never know when another chance will come. She can't always follow her own advice, though. Even once Finnick fell asleep, she was too tense to join him, alert for any sound that he's in danger. Logically, he's probably bought himself some breathing room, but the part of herself that would need to let down her guard can't quite believe it.

Rudder looks like he snatched a couple hours, but it's hard to say.

Barring any interference from the Gamemakers, this morning is likely to be quiet. "So about that genius of positioning," Rudder opens. "Two strategies made sense to me: staying put at the most desirable location in the arena, or hunting your enemy in a pair. How is throwing away your supplies and then your ally a genius move? Finnick could have taken anything from the Cornucopia. He could maybe even have held it, if he'd had a bit more time and been in a bit better shape."

"I can't tell you for certain what was going through her head. But I can put a few things together. The Careers of other districts are trained to attack, not defend, as you noticed. Girls, on the other hand, are usually, not always, at a physical disadvantage that they have to compensate for."

"So she was fleeing and hunting?"

"I think so," Mags says. "Fleeing because she was afraid, hunting because that's how she was trained and because action is an antidote to fear. Fear must have played a huge role in her taking out Trim, as well. She had the opportunity, it was getting close to the time when she was going to have to anyway, and now there are only two Careers left, her and Finnick. Believe me, Trim did not make her feel that safe. Less so with each passing day. It was Trim's idea to start dissolving the pack, remember. In everything she's done, she's been both afraid and trying to keep the upper hand. She's kept from panicking, and nothing she's done has been as risky as Finnick's attack on Jacquard, so I can't criticize her choices. I wish she were mine in a different year."

Finnick wakes to find some seaweed-tinted bread beside him. The fact that the parachute didn't wake him isn't great, but he woke up after sleeping long and deeply, unguarded, so he got away with it.

He lets himself eat a single piece, then goes to the river. The fish here are much too small to be effectively speared with something as large as his trident, so he constructs a weir from the wood and stones he finds. As the swimming fish and eels run afoul of his obstacle, he snatches them up in his net and tosses them ashore to thrash wildly until they die.

Finnick's able to get quite a catch with relatively little effort this way, which is good, because once he's gutted and deboned the fish, he shoves the meat inside the rolls and wolfs them down, starving.

"Mm, fish sandwiches," he says, with a delighted twinkle in his eye. "This place is just like home. But where's the sauce?"

He keeps up a light and silly monologue, knowing the cameras will catch his quiet voice and amplify it for the viewers.

"Although, it will really only be like home once a shark leaps out onto my trident." That's a gamble, making suggestions to the Gamemakers, who might actually be itching to take him out at a moment's notice, but it's meant to make him look ready for anything. Like he does this all the time, and fighting mutts is nothing. "Like that one time..."

It's an interesting ploy, putting on a show in hopes of earning a day of rest. Finnick's aware that if things get too boring, the Gamemakers like to start livening them up. He knows he's a good storyteller, and so he's going to entertain the audience.

The boy from Ten comes close enough to hear him. Finnick's got his back protected, as always, and his trident in hand, so Mags isn't too bothered. Here's a chance to take out another opponent.

The boy stops and conceals himself behind a bush, where Finnick can't see him even if he turns in that direction. He half closes his eyes and listens intently. Then suddenly his eyes widen, and he shakes his head.

"He was hoping it was Six," is Mags' interpretation. "He's not taking on Finnick and his trident near the water."

Slowly and as quietly as he can manage, the boy from Ten withdraws out of earshot.

Finnick never heard him, so he's allowed an uninterrupted retreat. No fights on Day Eight.

Day Nine

An acidic rain starts falling in the late afternoon. The first tribute to feel the burning drops screams. The viewers aren't shown at first who's screaming, just a shot of the deadly wetlands, and the echoing sounds of a child being tortured.

"Show Finnick!"

"No, don't," hisses Mags. "If they're not showing him, then nothing's happening to him. That's not him screaming."

"I know it's not!" Rudder mirrors her frustration.

Sheer has taken refuge inside the Cornucopia with her supplies, and she's tense, but fine. The camera covers her for half a second before showing the boy from Six running through the forest, maddened by pain. His face is melting from the bone. Then he crashes suddenly to the ground.

He appears at first just to have tripped, but then the camera angle changes, shooting straight down at the ground. He can now be seen lying at the bottom of a hole that's been dug and covered with leaves. With him is the girl from Twelve, who's been subsisting on a diet of bugs.

It's a good hole, braced inside by pieces of wood to keep it from collapsing, and boasting a small air vent separately dug out the side, but the realism of its camouflage proved to be her demise. The acid rain now falls unchecked into her shelter.

With nowhere to run and no strength to escape, the two children huddle at the bottom. In theory, they should start trying to kill each other, but instead they cling together, seeking comfort in their final moments.

A cannon goes off to indicate that one of them hasn't made it. But no hovercraft arrives yet, because there's a living tribute entangled with the dead. Whoever is still alive is left in the muddy hole with the body of the other, while the merciless rain continues to fall.

The boy from Ten has abandoned the trees and headed for the refuge of the Cornucopia. He's lucky enough to be approaching from the closed end, so Sheer can't see him coming. But he's gasping in pain, running with his head down, and so she hears him. She grasps her sword and moves just to the edge of the metal roof sheltering her. He can't have much of a weapon.

"I know where the kid from Four is!" he shouts as he approaches. "We can kill him."

"Where?" Sheer calls.

"Let me in!"

She tries peering around the edge, but she can't see without exposing herself to the rain. She takes the risk of withdrawing the point of her sword. "Come in."

No sooner is he in, unarmed, than the sword slides through his throat.

"He's in or near the water," Sheer tells his dying body. "And why would I go there, when sooner or later he'll to have to come here?"

The camera takes advantage of that moment to cut to the sluggish river. No Finnick in sight. Just the small ripples of the rain falling onto the surface. Then, in slow motion, it zooms in on a metal object protruding at an angle from the water. Some sort of a tube, it looks like, wide enough for breathing through. Just beneath the surface, something floats that looks very much like a human body. He's not safe from hunters, but the other tributes are not the biggest threat right now.

"Did he get that from the Cornucopia?!" Rudder shouts.

"Must have. It was hard to see what he was doing in there." They watch the tube drift downstream. "The water's getting more contaminated by the minute."

"I'm more worried about what's falling into that tube," Rudder frets. "He's had the sense to angle it, but...he's going to ingest some of that rain."

"I honestly can't think of a better plan. Look at all the plant material in the arena. It's being shredded. We'll see what state he's in when he emerges."

Just after sunset, a cannon goes off. The girl from Twelve, sheltered first by her leaves and then by the body of the boy who landed on her, has lasted longer than he did, but beaten away by the acid, whatever injuries might have been inflicted by the falling boy, and nine days and a lifetime of hunger, her body at last gives out.

Much to Mags' dismay, the odds on Finnick are falling again. It's down to him and Sheer, and hers are higher than they've ever been. She's uninjured, holds the Cornucopia and all its supplies, and she still has her bow and arrows if he approaches.

No one is surprised when a heavy parachute drifts from the sky, holding a bundle of four arrows. District One always gets a lot of sponsors. Not as many as Finnick, if that's the best they could do, but even a few arrows that aren't top of the line should be enough to kill one boy.

The boy is now tentatively emerging from the water. He starts by letting his left hand poke free, then immediately pulls it under to evaluate. Then he lets it breech again and remain above water, fingers waggling. When he doesn't feel anything, he slowly pulls his head above water and removes the pipe.

The killing rain has stopped.

"He didn't start with his face," Rudder approves.

As soon as he realizes he's free, Finnick throws his trident onto the bank and crawls up after it. His eyes are closed and running tears, and his fingers sink deep into the mud as he tries to drag his body onto land.

The sheer will to survive must have been keeping him still all this time, because now that the emergency has passed, Finnick curls in on himself in the mud. He's pressing his hands to his face in the urge one has to touch a source of pain. His mouth is wide open and no sound is coming out other than labored breathing. Either he simply can't cry out, or it would hurt too much.

"Tree," Mags pleads urgently. "Tree." How can she go deal with sponsors when he could die any minute?

As though he can hear her, Finnick slowly and painfully drags himself and his trident away from the exposed bank and into some kind of brush cover. He stays within easy reach of the water, though.

All the official Games vendors say that no medication can be bought for the amount that he's bringing in from District Four. Bread, maybe, but there's no way Finnick can swallow food right now, even if he were faint with hunger.

Capitol sponsorship money is coming in, albeit at a reduced rate since the standoff with Sheer, but it's still automatically being redirected to pay off the trident. And there's no more credit to be found. His showings against Trim and Sheer, while impressive in that he's still alive, have not inspired enough confidence to offset his injuries from the rain. He's back to being the underdog in everyone's mind except his mentors'. And even Mags fears that he might have provoked the Gamemakers to push him past his ability to survive.

The mentors, of course, are not allowed to use their winnings to support their tributes, and that's one of the rules that doesn't get bent. There are systems in place to flag suspicious activity that suggests a mentor giving away prize money to someone willing to act as a sponsor during the Games.

Mags is talking to everyone she can, trying every line of persuasion she can think of, but she isn't getting much help from Finnick. At one point, Rudder nudges her and wordlessly directs her attention to the nearest screen. He's been hovering by in case she needs him, letting her do the talking, while he keeps an eye on the screen.

Finnick is looking up to the sky for salvation, blinking through the tears. She sees his lips move in an agonizing 'M'. He's trying to call her name for help, and he can't even do that.

I have nothing for you! He must know she wouldn't let him suffer a moment longer than necessary.

Irrelevantly, Mags finds herself wishing she had gone to sleep last night. At least those nightmares she could have woken up from.

"He can't fight like that," Rudder says as a toneless fact.

"We'll have to see what we can do with what we have," Mags concludes.

While Rudder keeps a watchful eye on the arena, she argues at length with the official Games medical consultant, trying to find something they can afford. The consultant keeps insisting there's no way to know what the nature of the toxic rain was and how it would interact with any medicine topically applied, where exactly the damage to Finnick's body is, whether his lungs are affected, whether swallowing would be dangerous, whether he could even stand a topical application, and so on until she wonders aloud in frustration whether even the supposedly neutral Games staff are secretly betting on Sheer.

"That's enough from you," the consultant says, advancing on her with his hand raised.

She hears someone step up behind her and loom over them both, and she knows it's Rudder, silent and deadly. It's an unfortunate fact of life that Mags' size and gender open her up to physical threats like these, but at least the other victors of Four are fierce and reliable allies.

The consultant instantly flinches and tries to hide it.

"Just a painkiller?" Rudder tries. "Something simple you'd take for a headache? Just so he can fight for an hour. We can fix him up as soon as he gets out."

"I've been working on that," Mags says, exasperated. "We're still arguing method of application, and whether his fund can afford anything that doesn't involve aggravating the wounds."

She glances up at the screen, as she speaks. It's now split vertically between the two remaining tributes. Sheer is eating, keeping watch, pacing around the Cornucopia, stretching and staying limber, and staring piercingly into the distance to try to see what the trees and other plants conceal. Finnick is sitting with his arms around his knees, looking up at the sky, rocking quietly in pain. He's waiting as patiently as he can.

"There is one thing," the consultant says, talking over Mags' head to Rudder. Rudder dwarfs them both, so she doesn't really see the point to this, but Finnick's life keeps her from asking the consultant if it will involve her putting a boot up his ass. "But it will risk making him sleep, so I didn't want to suggest it."

"For how long?" She's getting desperate.

He looks at her, annoyed. "You can't predict these things. Age, size, weight...something as simple as an adrenaline rush can throw off all the calculations. How much has he been eating?"

"Nothing since last night," she answers. He slept all day and woke up to rain. "Some bread and fish yesterday, nothing the day of the fight with the Careers."

"Then I wouldn't risk it, not if you don't want him collapsing in the middle of this fight. You're going to have get him some more funds for the oral injection, and even then, if his lungs are damaged, there's nothing short of surgery that will help him."

"I hate people," Mags mutters as they walk away. "Around this time of year I hate all people." Except that Rudder has, without saying anything, suddenly turned into a friend over the last ten days. She's not even sure if it'll last, but watching him disintegrate into a bundle of nerves over the boy she's always thought of as hers, ask her constantly for commentary, and give her his unquestioning support, has been an experience she won't forget. The only thing that could make this year's Games less unbearable.

Having failed to acquire any medicine, she and Rudder send him as much uncontaminated water as they can afford. She knows when the parachute descends he'll think she's found something for his throat, and her heart will break at the disappointment on his face, but survival comes first. Dehydration can kill. The note, with the two words that are all she's allowed, reads

Clean water.

-M.

"He'll drink through the pain," Rudder assures her.

"I've heard about that part of training," Mags agrees.

When the anthem starts, marking the end of Day Nine, Finnick frantically rubs his eyes clear of tears and watches. When the three victims of the acid rain have been shown, he raises a single finger. Whether he means that the tribute from One stands between him and home, or that only one tribute does, he's saying that he knows what he needs to do.

Day Ten

Since the encounter with Finnick, Sheer has been sleeping sitting up in the Cornucopia. But she's also been going into the Cornucopia sometimes when she's not sleeping, just so her movements don't become predictable. She puts on her night vision goggles as soon as it gets dark, hoping Finnick decides he has the advantage at night. She spends most of her time outside, though, so that she doesn't get taken by surprise. And last night, she didn't sleep at all. Both she and Finnick have to know that time is on her side, and so he will come to her.

The situation has given Finnick one advantage: he slept last night. Restlessly, true, while he tossed in feverish dreams, but when he rises in the morning, it's done him some good. At least, it looked last night like he had no choice but to spend the night where he was, and this morning like he has the option of moving.

"Surely that means his lungs are fine," Mags prays, without confidence. She's no doctor to weigh specific likelihoods, but even she knows in general that people collapse and die for no apparent reason, from internal injuries.

Finnick looks like he barely has the strength to lift his trident, between hunger, fever, and pain, but his hand closes around the shaft. He gets to his knees and then his feet. He leans against a tree briefly to steady himself, and he looks ahead to his destination.

Judging by the direction he's facing, he's put the river between himself and Sheer, forcing her to cross it if she wants to come to him. Mags is past nodding in approval. All she can do is watch, helplessly.

He raises his left hand to his damaged mouth, and presses the lightest of touches from his lips toward the sky.

This time, he's not asking or thanking. He's telling Mags he understands.

Rudder looks away, giving her a semblance of privacy.

Standing on the far bank of the river, Finnick hurls his trident across, spearing a tree. He doesn't want to swim with it this time, and he must be almost entirely certain Sheer is standing with her back to the Cornucopia, not lurking nearby, ready to take him at a moment's notice. On the off chance that she is, she'll first have to yank it out of the tree if she wants it. And he's showing off his aim and the last of his strength to the audience. Performer to the end.

"He's in the zone?" Mags wants to know.

"Not enough." Donn might have said yes, but Rudder's like her: brutally honest.

On the other side of the river, Finnick has more trouble retrieving it than he should, but he doesn't look dismayed by his weakness.

"I thought he'd at least have the strength advantage when he faced her," Mags laments.

"Do you think she's smarter?" Rudder asks, indignant.

"On her own, probably. But he's had me." Honesty trumps modesty.

Finnick stops on the way to the Cornucopia to check his traps. Most are rotted by the acid rain, but he finds one that was advantageously positioned below some thick foliage that took the brunt of the onslaught from the heavens. It's still intact, and after he makes a few adjustments, he has a net again.

His mentors breathe a little easier. Mags is too tired to give detailed commentary aloud any more, and Rudder respects that. But she's glad to see Finnick's wide-ranging reconnaissance and baiting of the terrain in the first few days paying dividends.

Sheer, of course, hasn't slept since the anthem. If Finnick was hoping to catch her napping when he stepped from cover into the center of the arena, he has no such luck. He advances on stealthy and quick-moving feet while she's on the far side of the Cornucopia, but his advance is hindered by yesterday evening's rain. The ground is far boggier and the wet patches far more dangerous than on the first day. He hasn't gotten in very close before her course brings him into her line of sight, and she raises her bow at him.

So neither of them benefits from the element of surprise.

With eight arrows, she can afford to try a shot at this distance. If she misses, she might hold her fire for a time, but if she makes it, she's just given herself an easy win. Her sword is belted to her waist, but if she has to use it, she'd better hope his fever is high indeed.

Finnick's net, swiped quickly to the side, deflects her first arrow, buying him only a few seconds to continue his advance. He's doing his best to weave side to side, trying to present a difficult target, but both his own weakness and the state of the ground are against him.

Two. Three. Four. They come rapid-fire, but the swinging net and Finnick's dodging defeat them all. She can't draw fast enough to break through this unorthodox shield that everyone is surprised is even working.

But surely, by eight he'll have wearied enough or his net torn enough that one gets through. She just has to keep up the pressure.

Knowing this, Finnick pulls back slightly, to boos from those in the crowd who like a quick, bloody finale. The ones who like a slow buildup of tension, some display of intellect on both sides, are shifting eagerly in their seats.

The retreat gives them both a breathing space. Finnick lowers the arm holding his net aloft, and Sheer relaxes the string of her bow and lowers her arms as well. She rests her left hand briefly on the hilt of her sword, probably just for reassurance, as she's right-handed and makes no move to draw it.

Rudder glances at Mags, wanting to ask if she has any ideas. She sees the movement out of the corner of her eye and shakes her head slightly. If any mutts come charging out of the trees into the clearing, Finnick is dead. If he gets in too close, he's dead, unless Sheer's completely incompetent. If he pulls out now or even stays put too long, he will be killed by the Gamemakers, no question. Mags is just waiting for the mutts to appear to drive Finnick into shooting range. He won't be able to play chicken with them the way he did with the lightning bolts.

What are Sheer's weaknesses? Hand-to-hand combat, but she's winning the game of positioning. Lack of sleep, but they're both running on adrenaline. Fear. Fear, but how to use it? He can't even talk. He can probably barely think through the pain, and if he's not also afraid, he doesn't have the sense of a goose.

Can he lure her into trident range, or drive her away from the Cornucopia? Can he get her to waste enough of her ammunition to level the playing field? He can't know how many arrows she has in store.

He's gathering up the handful of arrows he does have. He uses his trident to sweep them along the ground, while keeping his net at the ready and his eyes on her.

It's making her nervous, because she doesn't know what he's up to. Does he have a bow or the ability to make one? She raises her bow again and takes aim.

Finnick's damaged mouth can't grin very well, but Mags knows that look when he crooks his finger at Sheer, inviting her to send more arrows over. Sheer hesitates. Is he bluffing? Surely he's bluffing.

Five. Six. Sheer's not going to hold her fire because someone's playing reverse psychology on her. But he's too far from her, and it's a mistake. They go flying past him, one on either side.

Finnick now puts the back of his wrist to his trident and cuts a long, shallow line in the flesh. Using the blood that oozes from it, he paints six tally marks on his forehead. Deliberately, eyes on her the whole time.

"Definitely in the zone now," Mags says.

"He can't feel that," Rudder agrees.

It's so bizarre Sheer can only stare. What is this, blood as war paint? A notch in his belt-or on his face-for each arrow she wastes?

But now she's getting indecisive. He wants her to shoot, but he wants her not to shoot. Shooting hasn't gotten her anywhere so far, but not shooting will get her killed even faster. Unless she can hold this standoff until the Gamemakers intervene, but then she's gambling on being able to handle whatever they throw in better than he can.

The audience is shooting contradictory advice that most likely echoes the thoughts racing through Sheer's head. "Shoot!" "Don't shoot! Use your sword, you're better with it!"

"I could shoot better than that!" one person yells, and he's seconded by jeers.

Sheer breaks the tension with, "Are you actually insane, or just pretending?" The last time they bantered, she drove him off, so she reverts to what worked before. She has to know, though, that this is the final showdown of the Sixty-Fifth Hunger Games, and the participants will not be permitted to withdraw.

He signs at her with one finger.

"The first one?" She stares in disbelief. "Yeah. I can see that. Okay, I'll keep sending you arrows, and you keep wounding yourself. Deal?"

Finnick gives her a thumbs up.

Sheer glances down at the ground. The action signals to Finnick that she means to advance, and before she can look up, he's bounded forward over two puddles of acid before he comes to a stop. He knows the terrain directly in front of him, because he's just retreated back over it a couple minutes ago, and so he doesn't need to plan his course.

The movement startles her into looking up. Her body language shows that she'd planned her own advance, but now she has to rethink the distances involved. Why is he moving forward into arrow range? Her advance was meant to push him into a retreat.

"He's psyching her out" is Mags' interpretation.

"Out-crazying her" is Rudder's. "I always knew he had it in him. She couldn't faze him with that crazy sex stunt."

Eight arrows at the same time, Finnick could never survive. Against one at a time from an inexpert archer, with only two left, he has a chance at reaching her before she gets a hit, but not a great chance.

Since Sheer hesitated, her back is still to the Cornucopia when Finnick bears down in earnest, and so she has nowhere to run. She fires, but fumbles the first shot from nerves. Seven. Eight. The final arrow would have made contact, but he's thrown himself to the ground mid-flight and in the same move, hurled his trident at her. He couldn't have thrown it after landing, because he lands with a cry of pain, unable to even roll properly.

Against the incoming trident, she should dodge sideways, but every instinct tells her to leap backwards as she reaches for her sword. The Cornucopia doesn't give her the leeway she needs, and the trident pierces her belly, slamming her up against the metal surface that she trusted to protect her. Finnick's hauling himself onto his hands and knees, readying himself to come in close for a second strike, but it's not necessary. She's already crumpling to the ground, waiting for death. Death will come slowly, so Finnick draws his knife and administers a mercy kill.

"How the hell did she lose that?" The mentors of the other districts are lining up to shake hands with District Four. "She had every advantage."

They're both supposed to stand up and accept the congratulations, but Mags is still frozen in her seat, staring in shock at the screen. Her mind is completely blank. Rudder steps up for her.

"She didn't, really," Rudder tells them. "She only seemed to. She had the tactical advantage, but not psychological. If she'd had more experience with that bow, that would never have worked on her. She only took up the bow because she was more nervous than she expected when someone tried to kill her for the first time in her life, and her nerves were what got her in the end. She very nearly pulled off a victory with a weapon she was relatively weak at, and that is impressive."

"What she did has never been done," says Mags, who's finally gathered herself together a little.

"Well, fourteen-year-old victor, that's never been done either," says Blight, of District Seven. Finnick didn't get either of his tributes, so he's willing to chat.

"I'm sure Mags taught him how to psych out your opponents with your own blood." Rudder's proving to have a deadpan humor that's all the more wicked for being so well-hidden.

Mags fails to respond at all. She's shaking hands mechanically, nodding at whatever congratulations anyone gives.

"Oh, you mean he was making shit up?" Rudder queries innocently, with a sidelong look at his partner. "Someone must have told him that no one ever wins the Games except by the fluke of crazy shit that works versus crazy shit that doesn't."

---

Finnick's miraculously in one piece when he lands at the Capitol and saunters into the viewing area.

Mags grabs him before anyone else can get in close. Rudder shadows her, but he hangs back until she's ready to share.

"I promised myself," Finnick says into the hair on the top of her head, the words tumbling out so fast that she can barely make them out. "The first words out of the arena I said to you would be 'I told you so.' Stop crying. I told you so."

She's feeling his forehead with the back of her hand, touching his cheek questioningly, frantically checking his wrist and hip for signs of injury.

"No, no, I'm fine. They fixed everything up on the hovercraft on the way here, even fed me. Everything was easy to treat, they said, though it wouldn't have been if it had gone on much longer. Still hurt like hell-I'm so sorry about the last day. I couldn't plan, I couldn't think, I couldn't move after my mouth and throat were injured, and then when I woke up, I knew I had to move or I'd never move again." He's babbling. "I'm sorry, I knew I could take her, I just had to scare her into shooting badly-"

"You're sorry!" Mags finally gets something past the lump in her throat. "I couldn't send you anything. You're not accountable to me for anything you did in there, you hear me?"

"Oh, I knew you couldn't." Finnick's arms tighten around her. "The trident, right? I knew I had to use it. None of the tributes wanted to be there as much as I did. I promise you. That's why I won." He releases Mags to look around at the crowd forming behind her.

Stepping up to them, Rudder claps Finnick on the shoulder. "Nothing fazed you."

Mags laughs shakily. "Not that the same can be said of him. You should have seen your arms teacher. He was a nervous wreck, I tell you."

Finnick looks up at Rudder. He stares back down at his student, impassive as ever.

"I don't believe it." He winks at Rudder. "Mags is such a liar, isn't she?"

Trapped, Rudder can hardly agree with an outrageous statement like that without betraying himself. He chooses instead not to react at all, turning away and leaving them to their embarrassing emotional displays.

Finnick can't stop grinning while he talks and shakes hands, and he's shifting endlessly from foot to foot, unable to contain this energy. Mags, for her part, can't take her hands from him. She keeps cupping her hands around his face, as though she can hold that smile. Every time she starts to let go, she brings them back.

Again and again she opens her mouth to say something, but no words come.

"You're so serious," Finnick teases her. "I think I know who the nervous wreck was."

He folds her into a second embrace, which she gratefully steps into. "Stay with me," Mags finally whispers. It's the only thing she can put into words now. "Stay with me, Finnick."

"I'm not going anywhere," Finnick assures her, still laughing.

"Today," she insists, taking a step back. "Promise me."

"So serious." When she frowns, he looks put out but gives in. "I promise, if that's what you want."

His smile fades, but she's bought herself some time to warn him. Of what, she's not certain. Only that every hair on her neck prickled when Finnick defied the Gamemakers and walked toward the Cornucopia at his own pace, ignoring the lightning. They wouldn't have hesitated to take out most tributes, but Finnick had his trident in hand and had announced his intention to take on the Careers in combat. He's still soaring high on his own feelings of invincibility, and Mags is determined to catch him before he crashes mid-flight.

If she wants to warn him, she needs to get him in a very receptive mood, and his current ego trip is not exactly conducive to that. So she needs to build it into the ego trip.

Then she has an idea. "Rudder!" she calls, but he's too far away and the room is too loud.

Mags glances at Finnick, who's louder and a natural at getting people's attention. He laughs.

"Don't you owe Finnick a drink?" she reminds Rudder, when he comes over to see what Finnick wants. "Didn't I hear something to that effect?"

Rudder raises his eyebrow. "Now?"

"Well, we're hardly going to see him once the media blitz starts," she excuses. "I've already had to beat off his prep team with sticks to get them to leave us alone together for twenty minutes."

Already it's difficult to talk. The bar in the viewing area is far too exclusive to be swarming with admirers, and half of the people in it are affiliated with other districts, but everyone's having to come over and pay their respects at least once, grudgingly or enthusiastically. Finnick's showing a natural facility for carrying on several conversations at once, while looking equally delighted to be in all of them.

Fortunately, no one's paying any attention to Mags. "Let's go find a table."

The first thing Mags has to do when they sit down is grab Finnick's attention away from Rudder, who, you never know, might actually start talking. As unlikely as that is, she's seen unlikelier from him in the past week.

"You did a very good job of keeping them underestimating you in the arena," Mags begins.

Finnick glows, and Mags holds up a finger to say she isn't done yet.

There are two sides of Finnick's personality: the one that's gloriously, heedlessly self-confident, and the one that she trained to pay attention to his environment and be on the lookout for danger at all times. The part that's fourteen, in other words, and the part that's had to grow up rather faster.

She holds his eyes significantly, and speaks slowly, with emphasis. "As your mentor, I'm telling you that you might continue to find that a useful talent as long as you're being watched. How you do it, I leave up to you. You're a better performer than I am. You might want to play up your youth for the next few days. It's worked well so far."

Finnick glances away from her and around the bar, where half the occupants are hovering and waiting for a chance to talk to him. "I mean to be watched for the rest of my life!" he protests.

"How long do you want the rest of your life to be?" Mags asks him. "You just won yourself the chance to turn fifteen, but the perils for victors are different, and you haven't been trained for them."

"And why is that?" he demands.

Mags has to communicate that she is not free to talk openly. "The media is going to descend on you in a few minutes, so you'll have to do this on your own before we get home and I can explain everything. But if ever you trusted me, trust that I wouldn't make anything more difficult for you without a reason. And remember why Livia didn't trust me." A reminder that Mags is fully, one hundred percent, devoted to Finnick.

Finally, finally, the need for caution is dawning on Finnick. "Am I safe?" he mouths.

Mags won't lie to him. She just makes a face.

"No more or less than usual, then," Finnick translates. "Okay." His voice is shaky. There was no way he could have seen this coming. Like a change of clothes, he slips out of celebration and back into survival mode, pumping his mentor for all the advice he can get. "What do you want me to do?"

"Party. Talk to Caesar this evening. Meet a lot of people. Don't drink too much or give too much away. Above all, remember that you are very, very young."

Staring into her face, trying to read every nuance of expression, Finnick nods slightly. "Okay. Young and what?" Young and vulnerable, he looks right now.

In a gesture that will be read simply as affection by anyone watching, Mags reaches out and places her hand on his right arm. "You didn't win with this." Then she lifts her hand to his face and taps his temple. "You won with this. Don't let them see this." She taps again for emphasis.

Finnick takes her hand as she withdraws it and squeezes his understanding. He puts his smile back on, looking once again like he can handle anything in the world. Whether it's real confidence or bravado is impossible even for Mags to tell.

"Oh, and one other thing." Mags almost chokes with fear as it occurs to her. "You know you can't tell Caesar or anyone how you really got reaped? Even if they let you get away with it."

Finnick rolls his eyes, seeing more of his ego trip vanish with each word from her mouth. "You're kidding. Why on earth not? It's like we have to pretend we don't train when everyone knows we do?"

Her eyes widen in dismay. "What will happen the next time District Four can't get a volunteer? Every single time we can't get a volunteer. Think."

"So...when does the fun begin?" he demands in frustration.

"I mean it, Finnick. The fun begins now, but if you're asking when you stop having to watch your back, the answer is never. Think!"

"Fine," Finnick groans. "One and Two will hunt them down first thing. They're dead anyway."

"One and Two not hunting you down first thing saved your life! You want to be a mentor, rule one is you don't endanger your own tributes."

"You have anything you want to add to this?" Finnick turns on Rudder, who's been sitting with his arms folded, watching. Mags had all but forgotten he was there.

"I have no idea what she's going on about. Except for that last bit, which should have been obvious to you. But otherwise, I haven't had any idea what she's been going on about since you stepped into the arena, and she's predicted practically every single thing that happened."

In another mercurial flash, Finnick re-adopts his good mood. "Well, I'd love to hear these predictions. But just now, I think I see my prep team bearing down on us." He pushes back his chair from the table. "If that's all?"

Mags sets aside her worry and takes her own advice. She's going to trust him. Raising her fingers to her lips, she sends Finnick a kiss. "Come home."

---

Always relegated to the position of observer and mostly glad of it, Mags watches Finnick's post-victory interview with Caesar Flickerman. She's alone in her room after second-guessing her decision to stick to him all day. He's pretty tractable if handled right, but handling him involves a lot of praise at key moments. Leaving him on his own to navigate the aftermath like an adult is, hopefully, the right kind of praise for now.

"I've always been completely impulsive," she watches Finnick admit to Caesar gaily. "I'm sure if they hadn't called me, I'd have volunteered eventually."

Well, young and innocent is hardly going to fly. Young and irresponsible, then, may just be enough to save him.

"So you're not a big planner, is what you're telling us?" Caesar asks. "More of a live-for-the-moment kind of guy?"

"I usually find myself doing whatever seems like a good idea at the time. Worked so far, right?" Finnick turns to the audience and spreads his hands wide, asking. They cheer their agreement.

To Mags, he looked extremely calculating in the arena, but she knows how many years of planning went into every decision he made. Even Rudder overlooked the significance of a lot of those decisions. So maybe it won't be hard at all to convince the powers of the Capitol.

"So, do tell," Caesar begins. "I think we're all dying to know...What were you thinking when you were advancing on the tributes from Districts One and Two?" The television projects Finnick mid-stride, lightning flashing in the background. A surge of appreciation rises from the live audience.

"You want the truth?" Finnick asks, grinning ear to ear. He's in his element.

"Please," Caesar encourages him.

Finnick again looks away from Caesar and out at the audience, inviting them to share in his laughter. "Oh, shit!" The crowd goes wild. "Now what am I going to do?"

Mags silently thanks Caesar for giving Finnick a chance to interpret his actions in a favorable light. Negotiating is not acceptable. Dragging your feet certainly is.

"See, when you're me," Finnick touches his chest, "you spend all your life alternating between 'I can do anything,' and, ten minutes later, 'What have I gotten myself into and how do I get out?'"

Finnick's laughing at himself so outrageously is absolutely endearing him to the audience. The crowd in Caesar's studio isn't, ultimately, what matters, but it definitely helps. You can't tell anything from Caesar, who shows equal enthusiasm for all his guests, no matter how unlikely, but he's not having to work very hard tonight to make Finnick look good.

"We did see you master your impulses at least once," Caesar reminds Finnick.

"Oh yes," Finnick acknowledges. "Sheer, lethal and seductive. But I promised myself I'd make up for my self-restraint after I left the arena alive." He spreads his arms wide. "Here I am!"

There's no holding the audience back after that. Mags laughs and lets go of her dread.

A few minutes later, very unintentionally, she falls asleep in her bed watching television. She's woken by a voice intruding into what had been a dreamless sleep.

"Oh, darling, I'd love nothing better, but Mags is a worrier. I think it'll be a few days before it really sinks in that I'm in one piece. And she's getting older. I'm going to check in on her, and then if I get the chance, I'll come down again later."

The automatic doors to her rooms are halfway open, and Finnick is slowly retreating inside them, expressing his reluctance and giving his regrets with every step.

If he believes he's humoring an old lady, then she's annoyed with him, but she'll take what she can get. If he's coming up with a story to cover the fact that he's consulting with his mentor, then he's a brilliant actor, and she may never need to worry about him again.

The bed bounces when Finnick lands on it. "Well?"

Mags stops grinding the sleep out of her eyes and looks at him. To the casual observer, he looks like he's had a long night, with bloodshot eyes and makeup a bit smudged. To her, he looks ragged and on edge, running on adrenaline and waiting for the crash.

"I'm not the judge, Finnick," Mags tells him. "I wasn't there, and I couldn't watch the people who matter. But from what I saw, I'm cautiously optimistic. Besides, I trust you on your own with just a few hints beforehand. You're good at what you do."

Finnick's shoulders visibly go down a notch. "I only had one drink, plus the one Rudder bought me earlier," he tells her, eager for more praise and reassurance. "I got the server to slip me something a little less alcoholic after that. Claiming my age, of course."

Mags shakes her head in admiration. "How do you always get people to do things for you?"

"What do you mean?" Finnick throws a pillow in her direction. "Are you kidding me? Everyone does everything you say."

"No, three victors and sometimes Rudder do everything I say. Not strangers. You just think so because they're the four people you spend the most time with. Though I'm starting to realize I don't know Rudder at all."

"Yeah, you said-"

"And I will tell you," Mags promises, "but not tonight. It's too long and I'm too tired to relive your time in the arena."

"I hear you made some pretty spot-on predictions, so maybe I should ask someone who was watching both of you. I'll ask Donn." Finnick jerks in surprise. "Where is Donn?"

"He went home after Livia died. He wasn't sitting with us. I had him supporting her so I could give you my full attention." In theory, the mentors are supposed to remain until a victor is crowned, but it's another benefit of the flexibility that goes to One, Two, and Four. With two mentors from Four here today, one male and one female, no one's going to complain if there aren't three, or five.

Finnick has the grace to look regretful and touched for all of one second, before he repays her full attention with his. "Tired? Was it a long ten days?" Then he takes in the crumpled pillow and bedcovers. "Were you sleeping? I wanted to talk to you."

"Well, I'm not going anywhere, so lie down." Mags pats the bed beside her.

Finnick stretches out and pulls a pillow down under his head. He's silent a minute. "Did they show immediately after the mutts?"

Mags nods, but when he doesn't react, she opens her eyes and looks over to him, to find that his eyes are closed too. "When you were shaking because it was all over and you'd survived?" she says instead.

"That. I feel like that now, but I can't seem to fall apart this time. And I'm not sure if it's over?"

"It's not. But we'll talk more when we're home." She puts her hand on his head and runs her fingers through his hair. It's stiffer than usual with gel. "Meanwhile, sleep as much as you can. You're going to have a long few days before we leave, and you won't have much time to let down your hair and fall apart."

"I want to, but I can't." Then the mattress rocks, and by half lifting her eyelids, Mags can see he's shifted up on one elbow. "Speaking of hair. My prep team was very insistent on a pretty boy presentation. I wanted to go for rugged and manly. Normally I can get them to do what I want, but this time it was like they had orders from higher up. I don't know which higher-up cares about fashion," he says very pointedly, "but I thought I'd ask."

"Well, if you're young, thoughtless, and vain," Mags says blandly, in case the room is bugged, "it goes well with those traits. I think it's a good self-presentation for you, and you know I wouldn't meddle in anything except with your best interests in mind."

"You're going to have to explain this whole mentor thing to me when we get home," Finnick grumbles in a tone that promises that the confrontation is only delayed, not averted. "So I have to be like Brine? Rudder's much cooler."

Mags strokes his hair again. Do I deserve you trusting me this much? Shouldn't you be rebelling more? But he's never known a world except the one in which everyone wants him dead and his life depends on only a handful of protectors who've been through the same thing. She wishes he felt safe enough to rebel.

"Is Brine putting on an act?" he mumbles into the bedspread. He's now slumped down again.

"No, I don't think he's smart enough. But I do think you are. I think you enjoy outwitting everyone around you," she teases.

"I resemble that remark." Finnick pauses, and then jumps in, "And before you say anything, no, I won't underestimate anyone, no matter how air-headed they seem. If I can act, so can someone else."

"You act better than I do. I just count on being the very quiet, five-foot short old lady everyone overlooks. It works, except when I'm trying to get you medication."

"I'm going to be tall," Finnick announces. "I'm going to be six three." Rudder is six foot three. "And then I'm going to be rugged and manly."

"You do that," she tells him gently, amused. As fast as that, he's sound asleep, not disturbed even when she pulls a blanket up to his shoulders.

He'll always be her child.