From Here
The door is black and shiny, slick like oil. I can see our silhouettes reflected in the glossy paint. I stare at the shadow of myself for a second, trying to make out of the features of my face, but the closest I come is pinpointing the flutter of my eyelids when I blink.
Finnick reaches around me and turns the polished brass knob. The door swings open smoothly on its hinges. Cold air pours out from the clean, soundless abyss and pools around my ankles. It smells like plaster and roses in my new home.
"Go on in," says Finnick with a gentle nudge at the small of my back. He knows I won't move otherwise. Even with his encouragement all I can manage is a tiny shuffle forward. Then I shake my head and look down at my feet, where the cold air has raised goosebumps.
Finnick sighs. He probably expected this. I have been nothing but difficult since we left the Capitol. He was among the first to lose his patience with me, the very first to stop coddling me. When Finnick snapped he didn't raised his voice like some of the others on my team, but the horrible things that spilled from his mouth were colder and crueler than the air at my feet, made more so by the heavy leaden truth of them. "You have no idea what's in store for you," he had finished, pinning me down with those terrible green eyes. "It only gets worse from here."
At that point I had begun to cry. I think, out of the entire tirade, that last fact was the only one he regretted forcing me to confront. Since then he hasn't apologized, and I haven't become any less obstinate. Sometimes he is kind, sometimes he is quietly sinister, once he even lost his temper and yelled at me, but he has been by my side every reluctant step of the way.
"They already moved all your things inside," he tells me now. "Your mother's things, too. This is your house now. Your home."
Horror washes over me. I turn around to face him, outraged. "You let them touch everything? You let them put their filthy hands on my property, on my family's property? There's no telling what they did to it, there's no telling—every picture, every book, every crevasse is contaminated. They're probably watching us, listening to us right at this very moment!"
"Your mother was there the entire time," Finnick says.
"And where is she?" I'm screaming now.
Finnick closes his eyes. He walked himself into that hole. He should know better than to mention my mother. "She is going to be fine, Annie. The doctors said she'll be out the hospital in a few days."
Burns. Mysterious burns from a mysterious fire. I can hear the crackling of the flames, the raw crisping of her skin and taste the stinging salt of the ocean that saved her life. Because I didn't do what I was supposed to, I didn't follow the rules. The smell of the roses coming from inside fills my nose and my mouth with the soft sweet petals. My hands are forming fists and I can't look at anything but the weathered wood of the front porch, the glittering sand between every slender gap.
"Finnick," I whisper, finally closing my eyes to everything. "The roses."
I feel the hot breath of his sigh on the top of my head. "He wasn't here, Annie. He had them delivered, but he never came inside. They're sitting on the table in a vase. When you go inside I'll throw them away and I'll pour out the water. We'll open some windows and the smell will go away in a few minutes."
"Break the vase, too."
"Okay. You have to go inside first, though."
"No, you go first and I'll wait out here until they're gone."
"You and I both know you're going to run if I move."
He's right. I've tried to run every chance I get. I suspect that's the main reason he's here instead of patient old Mags, whose only fault is that she can't keep up with me. Finnick has spent hours chasing me, keeping me restrained until I calm down. I don't know why I run, or where I'm running. I'm not running to anything. I'm only running from, running away.
Finnick sighs for a third time when I make no sign of moving. "Don't you want to watch me do it?" he says. I open my eyes and glance up at him. His eyebrows are raised, and when he catches my intrigue the corners of his mouth lift up. He holds out his hand. "Come on, we'll go in together."
Hesitantly, I take the offer. Finnick looks pleased with himself and a little relieved. Only recently have we begun to explore the art of compromise with each other. Bartering has become my new favorite mode of communication. I can spend so long perfecting the deal, nitpicking every tiny detail, that I forget what I was trying accomplish—or prevent from accomplishing—in the first place. Often this works in Finnick's favor, but not without a certain amount of frustration.
His hand is warm and dry, so different from the cold clammy air billowing from the door. I don't think I can pick up my feet in the sludge until he takes the first step forward. He looks back at me, waiting, and with a deep breath of those awful roses to motivate me I manage to raise my foot and put it back down again. The wooden porch creaks, but the polished tile of the foyer only makes a quiet tapping against the bottom of my sandals.
"Take off your shoes," I tell Finnick.
"What?"
"My mother hates shoes in the house, they track in sand." I point at his stylish sandals, dark leather embroidered with white thread. Nothing at all like the soft woven hemp found in District Four. "Take them off."
He seems shocked, but nods and acquiesces, kicking off his expensive shoes and neatly placing them against the creamy paint of the wall. I look down at my own ratty sandals, still protecting my soles from the chilly tile. I don't want to touch anything in this place, but my mother will be furious if she learns that I let sand scratch the shiny surface of this floor. She always had a taste for aesthetics, for art. She probably loves this egregious house. The thought fills my gorge with a bitter flavor, but the least I can do for my mother is to make sure she's surrounded by what she loves, by perfection and beauty, to make up for the disappointment she'll surely feel when she realizes how broken I am and how ugly I made her.
The tile is like ice on my skin. It chills my bones to the core, freezes my marrow. The instinct to run is overwhelming. I can feel every hand that built this house, every Peacekeeper's boot that trod through the foyer, the smack of my mother's bare feet on the floor, the scraping and grinding and the echoes of their voices as they shout back and forth, put this here, leave this there, nail, hammer, screw…
Finnick squeezes my hand. "Let's go find those roses," he recommends. Slowly I nod and he guides me deeper into the cold haunt.
The house is beautiful. I can't deny that. Everything is gleaming white tile and creamy white walls and white linen curtains that are going to dance in the pale sunlight when we open the huge, magnificent windows. New furniture fills these rooms, polished wooden tables inlaid with gorgeous sea glass mosaics. There is a carpet, not loom rug but a real, plush blue carpet cradling the legs of the sleek leather couches. I can't wait to take my feet off of this wretched tile and wiggle my toes around in that blue carpet.
Some of the old furniture is here, too, looking dreadfully sad and dirty against the clean white walls. Mother saved our old table, the one my grandfather carved as a wedding present for her and my father. It's too small for the dining space, it would look ridiculous, and so she's set it in the kitchen with the four matching chairs, a crowded little breakfast niche.
On my grandfather's table are the roses.
A dozen of them, a big beautiful bouquet, as white and pristine as the new house, lounging in the glittering vase of cut crystal. I know they're inherently harmless, but I'm rooted to the spot. Not even the light tug of Finnick's hand can get me to move. Not even the unbearable urge to run can get me to move. Nothing can move me.
Finnick seems to realize this, so he lets go of my hand and strides into the kitchen as though it's the easiest thing in the world, as though the fragrance of the roses isn't invoking a very primal instinct to flee, isn't putting every one of his hairs on end. He stops when he reaches the table.
"Are you sure you don't want to do this?" he asks, turning around to look at me. The very thought of touching the roses sends my nerves into overdrive. I can't breathe, all I can smell and taste and hear are the petals and the leaves. I shake my head until the room is spinning, the word "no" circling all around me. It's all I can seem to say.
"Okay, alright, that's fine," Finnick croons until I'm still again. He makes sure I'm watching as he takes the roses out of the vase, one by one, and methodically rips them to pieces. He starts with the petals, dropping each one onto the table like a fat snowflake. Then he tears off the leaves and snaps the stems. Each rose is more mangled than the last by the time he's finished. He sweeps the carnage into his arms and carries it deeper into the kitchen, around the corner. My heart misses a beat when he disappears behind the wall, and like a planet in orbit I inch forward to keep him in my sight. He dumps the debris into the sink and flips a light switch, eliciting a horrific grinding gurgling noise from the appliance. "Garbage disposal," he shouts over the din, moving the flowers around. "It's a bunch of blades in the plumbing that pulverize food waste. You'll learn to appreciate it, once you get past the noise."
Finnick turns the faucet on and runs the water for a few seconds, then he flips the switch again and stops the loud garbage disposal. "Come see," he says, ushering me over.
I point to the vase. He brushes by me on his way to the table, picks up the vase. The briars from the roses have bloodied his hands, and his fingers leave scarlet smears on the spotless crystal. He dumps the water in the sink to wash down the flowers. Then he pulls a waste basket from the cabinet underneath and with one quick, powerful movement smashes the vase into its depths, a contained explosion.
"Come see," he says again. And this time I obey, curiously peering into the sink to find only wet stainless steel, into the waste basket to see a billion sparkling stars. Finnick hoists the garbage bag out of the basket and ties it up. "I'll bring this outside. Open up some windows, if you want."
Then he leaves me. Alone.
I walk over to the window and watch him swagger barefoot through the sand until he disappears behind the driftwood fence. The house has a stunning oceanfront view, but there is no one else on the beach. Victor's Village has a private beach.
The window squeaks in protest when I lift it open, letting in the balmy ocean breeze. It knocks some of the cold out of the house, wrestles the odor of the roses out the door. I sit down on one of my grandfather's hand-carved chairs and watch the waves hit the surf. If I close my eyes and take a deep breath, I can almost pretend I'm home and that nothing has changed.
"I guess this is home now," I murmur to myself, opening my eyes. The sterile mansion doesn't seem like home, not like the worn stones of the shack I grew up in. I feel very much like my grandfather's table, a shabby slab of nostalgia trying inadequately to fill the new spaces.
The scraping of the sliding door signals Finnick's arrival. "I knew you'd like the view," he says, as though he cares about what I like or dislike. "Do you want to look around? See the rest of it?"
It isn't until I've turned to face him do I realize that the tears welling up in my eyes have spilled down my cheeks and are dripping down my chin. This isn't hysterical sobbing induced by the panic of an interview or by Finnick's temper. It's just sad, pitiful weeping. Finnick looks alarmed. He knows by now how to deal with my tantrums and my attacks, with my bouts of stubborn willfulness and sleepy sick obedience, but not with the kind of subdued human emotion quietly concealed behind the madness.
Resigned, he pulls up a chair next to me. I jerk away when he reaches out his hand, so he lets it fall into his lap. He doesn't know what to do now. He sits there while I cry, silently. I don't let a sound escape.
"I'm sorry you have to stay here," he says eventually. And his sincerity is so absurd that for the first time since the Reaping I burst into laughter, an uncontrollable fit that has me doubled over by the time I can catch my breath. Finnick is smiling, too. Anyone else in our district would kill to live here.
The laughter fades. The smile falls.
My tears are dry. I wipe the remnants away with the back of my hand and look at Finnick. I don't think I've really looked at him before, looked into those famous green eyes. I wonder if they break so many hearts because they're so sad.
"Did you mean what you said to me that time, after I couldn't do the interview?" I ask, refusing to look away. "Does it only get worse from here?"
"I didn't mean it," he says after a long pause. "Not the way it came out. It doesn't get worse, it just…it never disappears. It stays with you."
After I look away I can still see green. "This is the first time you've lied to me, Finnick."
"I'm not lying," he objects with urgency, cupping my chin so that I'm looking at him again. He keeps his thumb there when I don't pull away. His eyes are burning now, burning with an intense green fire that I extinguish with my frank blank stare. "I'm not lying," he repeats, calmer now. Hesitantly he tucks a piece of my hair behind my ear and smooths the frazzled curls. "It won't get worse. Not for you, okay? It's not going to be like that for you."
The hitch in his voice makes my skin crawl with suspicion, because never have I heard Finnick falter like that. I recognize it, I'm intimately familiar with it. Panic. "Be like what?" I ask him, not sure if want to know the answer, not sure if I'm ready.
"It doesn't matter," Finnick says, shaking his head. "You're mine, you're my first victor, and I'm not going to let…I'm not going to let them bother you anymore."
"Finnick, you don't have any control over him," I say. I can feel the tears crawling back up my throat, Finnick's uncharacteristic panic winding me up like a child's toy. "He'll do whatever he wants with me."
"No, no he won't," Finnick declares with absolute composure. He stands up, nearly sending the chair toppling to the floor, and offers me his hand. I don't take it because it's still covered in dried blood. He lets it fall to his side in a fist. "Annie Cresta, he won't touch you. I promise."
President Snow has already touched me, touched my life in ways that no one can ever take back, in ways that I will never forget and that he will never let me forget. The promise of shelter from future abuse is so alluring that I want to believe him, I want to believe Finnick as much as he believes in himself. I can't believe him, not really, but I also can't bring myself to confront the idea that whatever horror he is living in, whatever he's decided to protect me from, is worse than the Hunger Games.
So I have no choice.
"Okay," I say. The oath is sworn.
Finnick nods. "Okay," he agrees. He meditates on this for a moment, drawing himself back in. "Do you want to take a look at the rest of your house?"
"The carpet. I want to put my feet on the carpet."
"The carpet it is, then." He smiles, and offers me his hand in a gallant gesture, only pausing when he finally notices all the blood. But this time, I don't care about the lacerations, I don't care about his injuries. I slide my fingers into his and let him lift me from my seat.