Screams ring out through the air. The voice sounds younger than that of the victors. Katniss drops the spile suddenly and looks up wildly. She rips through vines and branches as she runs. Haymitch and Finnick curse simultaneously and follow her.
"Prim! Prim!" She screams. Haymitch curses again, shaking his head. Finnick stops suddenly, cocking his head and listening. He shakes his head quickly and keeps running, but Haymitch reaches Katniss first.
"Hey!" He grabs her shoulders roughly. "It's not her." He points to the jabberjay that continues to scream in a child's voice. Katniss immediately spins to shoot it out of the tree.
"She's the Capitol's darling. They'd never risk her here." Katniss nods slowly, breathing hard. Finnick rushes into the clearing as Katniss reaches to pull her arrow out of the jabberjay. She throws it away and starts to respond when Annie's voice rings out. Finnick pales and bolts toward the sound.
"Finnick, wait!" Katniss shouts, reaching out to him, but he keeps running. This time, Katniss and Haymitch chase Finnick instead. Katniss pulls ahead, and by the time Haymitch arrives, she is trying to calm Finnick down.
"No, it's not Annie." Finnick responds, voice shaking, "But the voice was hers. Jabberjays mimic what they hear. Where did they get those screams, Katniss?"
"We need to get out of here before we worry about that." Haymitch breaks into the conversation. Katniss sinks to the ground, not seeming to pay attention to anything. Finnick casts a glance deeper in the woods, his thoughts miles away, but both are shook from their stupor when another voice calls out. This time Haymitch recognizes it. Katniss looks up suddenly, but Finnick catches her arm and stops her from running.
"It's not Peeta," Haymitch says. Finnick starts to pull her back toward Johanna.
"We're getting out of here," he says. Katniss continues to struggle against him.
"It's not him, Katniss! It's a mutt!" She fights him for a while longer before giving in.
They start to head back to the tree line. Both of them look slumped and hollow. Absently, Haymitch wonders why there has been no one for him, but figures there must not be anyone they can think to use. Nearly everyone he cared about was either dead or in the arena with him. That's the upside of losing everyone he loves. There's no one they can use against him now.
All three of them run into the wall at the edge of the tree line. Johanna stands on the other side. She's always angry, and this is no different, but this time her expression seems to hold the slightest edge of pity. Beetee shakes his head behind her.
More birds begin to arrive. Finnick sinks to the ground, but Katniss tries to fight them off. Suddenly, a new voice joins the cacophony. He doesn't recognize it at first, not without the annoying bubbliness that usually characterized it. Then he remembers her anxiety in the days before the Quell began, the worry she'd briefly felt in District 11. That fear was only a fraction of the terror that fills her voice now. He turns around without thinking.
"Effie!" The name is pulled from his throat before he can stop it. They have hurt her. He has never had to work hard to push people away. He never had to worry about them finding someone to hurt him. But they always know. They knew before he would even admit it to himself. He cared about her. He didn't know if it was anything more. He wasn't even sure he could stand to be friends with her, with her schedules and her fixation on manners. But he didn't want her to be hurt. She was important to him.
And now he'd let them know. If they hadn't already figured it out, they would have realized by now. They knew that she could be used to hurt him. So, really, it didn't matter if he joined Katniss and Finnick on the ground.