Annie huddles into the corner of her room, arms wrapped around her knees. It's no more than a niche in a dirt wall, but it's the only privacy she's had since Rudder—since Donn—since Finnick—

Shuddering, Annie tries to forget the events of that night. Hiding with strangers, sleeping below decks with the troops en route to Three, hiding with all the most valuable civilians here in this underground bunker.

The bunker that's being built even as they occupy it. Only a few days ago did private rooms start getting excavated, and Annie got dibs on the first one. Until then, everyone was sleeping in the labs together.

Annie hated it. Every minute of the day and night, clenched up in an effort not to have meltdowns around strangers, and having them anyway. People reacting the way concerned, well-meaning people always do: putting pressure on her to stop. Barely sleeping at night because she couldn't relax. Exhausted all the time from sleep deprivation.

The moment she got her own room, she remembers alternately sleeping and crying in relief for days, the curtain firmly closing her off. Not eating for a whole day because she couldn't bear to leave, then regretting it. Facing down the stares, real or imagined, when she finally dragged herself out to ask for her ration.

Now she's slept, and she's stuck alone in this room with her brain and its unlimited imagination. Where's Grace? Where's Finnick? Does Foam hate her?

Memories are as bad as imagination. Does Finnick hate her, for Mags? Does she hate Finnick, for Mags?

But always, no matter how much she agonizes over anyone else, her fears come back to the same place. Is it safe here? How long before they find her? What is that sound?

Footsteps. Someone's coming down the hallway.

As soon as they open the curtain, she'll have the advantage. There's no light source in here, and the hall light is on. She'll dart around them as fast as she can, try to avoid being grabbed.

Thud. Thud. Footsteps on dirt.

Then what? There's only one way in or out. Why don't we have a secret back way out? Yes, the one entrance is supposed to be well hidden, but what if the enemy finds it anyway? She needs a secret exit, or she won't feel safe.

What is safe?

Thud. The footsteps stop.

Annie holds her breath.

"Annie?"

Annie jerks and squeezes her eyes shut. She claps her hands over her ears, because they're using Finnick's voice to lure her out just like they used hers on him, or worse, she's hallucinating again-

The curtain ripples. Opening her eyes, Annie shifts her weight and rolls forward onto the balls of her feet, ready to bolt.

"Annie, it's just me. I won't come in if you don't want me to, but I'm here."

Annie hesitates. She knows that voice: steady, reassuring, calm when he feels anything but. She hates that he has to use that voice on her, but she knows it. Knows it so well she can't imagine the Capitol mimicking it this convincingly.

All at once, Annie bolts—but not past him, straight at him. Her head barrels into his chest, and her arms go around him. He starts to move, then freezes. Only when she nods does he throw his own arms around her and squeeze the breath out of her right back.

She drags him down onto her bed—which is nothing more than a pile of blankets and rags—and climbs onto his lap, pushing him back against the wall. There's hardly enough room for two people in here, and it's too dark to see anything, but she can smell him, and she's running her hands frantically over his body, checking for damage, while he says her name over and over again.

The smell is unfamiliar, the odors of a man living rough, instead of fish or cologne, but there's a certain rightness to it. Annie knows this is him too.

He doesn't flinch when she touches him, not anywhere, and she has time to silently thank the universe for bringing him home in one piece before her emotions come crashing in on her again.

"Annie. I'm sorry." Finnick's back, and the first thing she hears from him is an apology.

Red-hot anger surges through Annie. "For?"

"For losing my head. For confirming that they wanted you as a hostage."

"What about for Mags?" Annie demands. "You killed her!"

She pulls a deep breath into her lungs, prepared to fight back as soon as he points out that it took both of them. I couldn't have done anything differently. You could have! They released Peeta. In his own district! Mags could have come home.

But Finnick only freezes. He goes as still as if he's Mags and she's killed him too.

He doesn't move for so long that her anger breaks and gives way to fear. "Finnick?"

A small whimper. He's not fighting her. He can't. And now she feels worse than when she took out her pain on Mags right after her Hunger Games, because at least Mags would tell her to cut it out.

Then she's angry again, because if Finnick had just saved Mags, they wouldn't be having this not-quite-fight. He and Mags went as tributes to save Katniss. Not Peeta!

"I was so afraid," he begins, in a deadened voice that sends chills down Annie's spine. "That I wouldn't be able to. She—her picture—that I'd let her down. But I did it. And then I let her down anyway.

"You never lived your whole life trying to make her proud. She would have been so disappointed in me. Running after you without so much as a plan. Come to save you, yes, but not—not like that."

Annie tightens her arms around him and puts her hand on his back, because she can't beat him up if he's doing it himself, even for the wrong reasons. "Come on. You're harder on yourself than she ever was."

Finnick shakes his head, but when he speaks, he sounds a little more normal. "I put you in worse danger. I could have played it cool, done some reconnaissance to see if you were really in the arena, and above all, not sent the message that if my enemies want me to make mistakes, they need to torture you. Now you're here." He runs his fingers through her hair, barely an inch long after Mell buzzed it close to her scalp. "Disguise?" he asks.

"It'll grow," she says reassuringly. "It's growing. And you? No wounds?"

"They've all healed. Skin, electric shock, everything. Two arenas, and nothing to show I was even there. Fortune's golden boy," he spits.

Annie has no scars from hers either, none to show anyway. Scrapes and scratches, from swimming through felled trees to reach the surface. Hunger. Exhaustion. Fear guilt guilt fear panic nightmare fear fear. "You heard about Donn? And Octavius?" Donn, and Evan, and Mags...it's too much. She can't keep living with these memories. Why does everyone keep dying for her?

"Rudder told me," Finnick says. "Donn was my fault. But he said Octavius died with a weapon in his hand and a smile on his face, gunning down Peacekeepers onstage."

"Donn and I barricaded ourselves into the Village, let everyone think we were loyal, like you said, and they didn't come after us. There was fighting everywhere-" Annie shudders, remembering.

"We didn't think they'd spare any resources on you, in the middle of that bloodbath. They had their hands full, and the two of you were very low-profile. Then I as good as told them that you were worth your weight in gold as a hostage."

"Finnick, it's over. I'm safe. No one even knows I'm in District Three, right?"

"I couldn't believe you were here," Finnick says, clutching her to his chest. "I was just on my way through to Four, reported to Rudder that I'd brought a train full of food-"

"You brought food?!" Annie interrupts him. Her stomach growls at the mere mention. "How was this not the first thing you told me?"

Finnick flinches, guilty now. "You've been doing without, then?"

Annie makes an unhappy face. "It's like what I grew up with. There's always food, but never enough."

"Well, I couldn't bring much. One train for the whole district. The other train's going to Four. But it's a start. Have we been shipping food up from Four?"

"Yeah, there's fish," Annie tells him. "But as you know..."

"You can't live on fish." Finnick finishes her sentence. "It'll get better. I'm working on it, I promise. Number one priority. What else? How are you being treated? Do you want a different room?" Finnick turns his head side to side, looking around in the dark. "It's not exactly-"

"No," Annie says firmly. "I chose this one. It's small and dark and deep underground, where no one will find me."

She knows it looks like District Three locking the mad girl into a cell, but she used to hide in the cabinet under the sink back home. Back when she could still fit.

"Does someone bring you food?"

Annie wrinkles her nose. "There's a common area. I have to go collect it. But they ration it out to everyone. We don't fight over it. I'm being treated well, Finnick. I'm just not doing very well."

"If I stay, you'll just be in more danger," Finnick says despondently. "And I'm sorry for that. I was on my way to Four when I found out you were here, and if I spend too much time in Three, everyone's going to wonder why, and they'll start looking for you."

Annie swallows. "I understand." Just be grateful you got him back at all. You don't get to keep him any more than you ever did.

She knows better than to even suggest he stay here, in hiding. He'd be safe, yes, but safe will kill him from the inside out. He has to be in the middle of the action, and she reminds herself that this is what she signed up for. Finnick Odair. He warned her from the beginning that it wouldn't be easy, and she said she was up for it.

"Well, you'll be home soon," she says, enviously.

Irony twists Finnick's mouth. "Where I'm so popular, I'm sure. Maybe food will make up for losing Mags."

"They're calling it 'Mags' War' there, you know," Annie tells him. People talk around her when they think she doesn't understand.

"Are they?" Finnick is shaken. "I thought...so few people knew of her decades of plotting, and then she died just as it was starting."

"Pearleye knew. And Mags is our martyr."

Finnick's silent, and Annie holds him tight until his shoulders stop quivering.

"We'll keep you as safe as we can here," he promises. "The good news is that Rudder tells me they're building a fortified bunker for you. It's going to have a force field and everything. Not," he laughs, "that I don't know how to bring down a force field. But on top of all the other defenses, it does make me feel better about you being here."

Finnick leans back, settling more comfortably against the wall behind him. Annie shifts position to settle in with him, envying the relaxation she can feel seeping into his body. "You know, I just had an idea," Finnick says thoughtfully. "I can't stay, but I'd feel better if you had someone who could. A full-time bodyguard that I trusted. And I think you'd feel better too."

Cautiously, Annie nods.

"It might be a good solution for her situation, as well. I'd have to ask if she's willing, but I think I'm going to. If she agrees, it'll work out for everyone."

Annie feels like another one of Finnick's ideas is getting away from her. "Finnick, I don't even know anything about this person." It's got to be someone he knows from the academy, and she doesn't want him trading favors for her safety, even if—especially because—the last few years of her safety from the Capitol have been bought at the price of his good behavior.

Finnick is sounding more enthusiastic by the minute. "Okay, you're not immediately going to like it when I tell you her name, but hear me out-"

Suddenly Annie knows. She was watching the Hunger Games this year, after all. "Finnick, no, she's a Career-"

"I'm going to tell you her life story-"

"Finnick," she argues desperately, "I'm still scared of Rudder!"

"Annie, she's more damaged than you!"

That gets Annie's attention, if only to argue. "No, how can she be-" Well, she watched her brother die, and Annie will be the last one to deny that that can break you.

"I know you both, and I say she is," Finnick insists. "You know what happened to make you like this, you know it was wrong, and you know what you want in life. She—Listen."

Slowly, with growing horror, Annie finds herself feeling for the girl she can see all too easily in her imagination. And she finds herself making comparison after comparison, holding Finnick's claim up to scrutiny.

Annie was afraid of making her adopted family angry enough to stop feeding her, but she wasn't forbidden to ever have a normal conversation. She was the outsider at home, but she had friends at school, affairs as a teenager. She was unprepared when she entered the arena, but for sixteen years before that, she had choices, and she made the choice not to train. She had a boy call her a prude and a slut in the same sentence when she told him not to kiss her again, but she didn't think she was letting her district down if she said no.

"And you know how I got my sponsorship record," Finnick finishes, echoing her thoughts. "But I wasn't having sex with my mentors at nine."

"No, you just started selling your body at fourteen," Annie reminds him. He likes to downplay his own experiences.

"Yeah," he says, promptly downplaying right on cue, "and I signed up for it, and I got something out of it. I had the upper hand. Cashmere has never once had the upper hand. The moment she looked like she might get it, Snow crushed her down again, because that's what he does. That's what he was trying to do to me; I was just able to dodge, because I had warning. She was forced into real sex slavery, her partners picked and prices set for her."

"You had-"

"I had some set," Finnick says firmly. Annie stops pushing, because she knows how important this is to him. She doesn't want him acting like what Snow did to him was acceptable, but this conversation never gets her anywhere. Finnick always insists if he wants to keep himself going, he has to focus on how he gamed the system. So she lets him finish what he's saying.

"But she had none of my playboy-lifestyle-covering-for-espionage strategies. None of my reporting back to Mags and Pearleye what I'd found. Just constant, daily humiliation. She had none of my conviction that this was something Snow did to everyone, instead of something she'd done wrong.

"And that's another reason I'd like to leave her with you." Finnick sighs. "I started having sex with her, and I don't know why or whether it was the right decision."

Annie's eyebrows fly up. This is new. Finnick's sex life has always been more complicated than he'll admit, but it's the first time he's brought a dilemma to her. "You don't know why?" Annie echoes gently.

"Well, I'd like to think it was because I thought it was the right thing for her, even if I was wrong about that. But then we turned out to be so damn compatible that I can't help wondering if I'm somehow justifying my own desires..."

"I highly doubt that," Annie says, almost amused. "How many partners have you had since the last time I saw you? How many because it was what they wanted?"

"Aside from her? Just the—well, two. Wait, are we talking friendship sex, or transactions? Because there were the sponsors and the one Gamemaker-"

"Right. Thank you for making my point." Annie elbows him, and Finnick huffs and stops arguing. "I can't see you doing that to anyone else."

"All right," he admits, "but I still don't know if it was the right call for her."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, should I have avoided sex with her because she obviously has no way of knowing what she really wants? Or was giving her something with kindness and respect the only way she was ever going to get a healthy experience so she could figure it out? Because as far as I could tell, as long as I didn't want her, she was going to be convinced that there was something wrong with her. Maybe I should have waited anyway, talked to her until she understood, but...I don't know. She just relaxed so much once she wasn't confused about why I didn't want her. I don't know."

"Wow." Annie flounders, with no answer to give him. And here she thought she had it rough trying to make sure Finnick never felt used. "You don't think the same thing would happen with me? She never had women pay for her?"

"She did, but she might not expect it in the same way. She'll probably offer at some point, but I don't think she'll agonize over how she failed if you say you've never been interested in women. I could be wrong.

"Look, if you say no, I won't bring it up to her. I just want to get her into a position where she isn't dependent on me, and she has someone else she can rely on, without all these fucked-up dynamics. It doesn't have to be with you. I think I can get her a place in the militia, and she'll get some respect there."

When Annie doesn't say anything, Finnick ventures, "I do think you'd be safe with her. She keeps her head in a crisis, follows orders and takes initiative as the situation calls for. She doesn't think she's smart, but she picks new skills up very quickly, and she has an impressive array of skills already.

"We hijacked those trains together, and we had so many emergencies getting them here—one thing after another went wrong—but Cashmere was amazing through it all. I wouldn't have been able to get any food through without her. And it should go without saying that I would trust her not to hurt you, or I wouldn't have brought this up."

"I know, but she's a Career." Annie wants to help whenever she thinks about a girl who didn't choose to kill for glory or money, for whom training was just the only way she had to please the adults around her. But the moment Annie summons up an image of that deadly warrior on screen, she quails inside.

"You have a good track record with us Careers," Finnick teases. "And I think you'll find her easier to deal with than me, even. She's a sweetheart, but beyond that, she's very quiet, painfully shy, and passive, when she's not drawing on her training for performing socially. I somehow ended up in the position of being the only one she has left, and what she wants from me is to make decisions for her. She wants me to lay out rules so she knows where she stands."

"Well, that's what she'd be used to, from the academy," Annie guesses.

Finnick buries his face in his hands. "I know, and I'm trying. But it's a hell of a lot of responsibility, and I have no idea if I got anything right. I'd feel safer if she were with you. And you with her."

"Can I just...meet her?" Annie tries. It's the best she can do. "With you here?"

"Sure, yes," Finnick says eagerly. "And if the two of you don't hit it off, she can stay here and join the militia, or come back with me to Four, whatever she chooses."

Annie thinks they both know which one she'll choose. "How long are you staying?"

Finnick slumps. "Just tonight. I'm sorry. Rudder said he has orders from Pearleye to send me on to Four the moment he saw me. He didn't say so, but I think he's stretching it just to give me a night here with you."

That doesn't leave Annie much time to make this decision. "Is she here?" That thought alone, Cashmere the Career in Annie's underground sanctuary, is enough to start up a flutter of panic, but she forces it down. Do you trust Finnick or not? she asks her stomach impatiently.

"If not yet, she should be on her way. I left her guarding the trains, found Rudder, made my report, and asked him to send her here. I told him I didn't want any bullshit about being at war with District One. She's with me."

"Okay." All she has to do is meet Cashmere, tell Finnick she's still terrified of Careers, and then she'll be alone in her room again. "Are you coming back?" She knew she couldn't keep him, but one night is less than she hoped. Better than never again. Be grateful.

"I will when I can. I don't want to come so often I endanger you again. I'm too recognizable, and I don't want anyone tracking me to find you. I've considered having my face recreated, but short of that...But Rudder did say that once Pearleye's done with me, he can make a big stink about being short-handed and needing me here. In other words, be my cover for visiting you. And he is short-handed, so it's true."

Annie takes a deep breath. Better than nothing.

Finnick cups his hand around the curve of her head. "Do you have any pills here?"

Annie shakes her head. "I was sedated when Rudder evacuated me, and even if I'd been able to grab them, I'd have run out by now."

"I'll see what I can do," Finnick promises. Annie immediately starts to worry about what he'll do to get her medication after his last, unsuccessful attempt, but paradoxically, with the war on, she thinks it might be less dangerous than smuggling out of the Capitol. Chaos and freedom now, instead of order and surveillance.

Finnick rubs his cheek over her hair. "Hang in there, Annie, love."

"I have the fur coat you gave me," Annie tells him. "Which we both know is magic. And I didn't mean to yell at you earlier. Forgive?"

"If you can forgive me for having to be here, I can forgive you for anything." He hesitates. "I guess I'll go see if Cashmere's turned up yet."


Fighting off a bout of light-headedness at how sure she is that the next few minutes are going to be humiliating, Cashmere follows Finnick through the shelter to meet his fiancée. The one who's smart and nice and very good with her hands, and that Finnick decided he wanted to spend the rest of his life with. The one he couldn't stop talking about all the time they spent together in Thirteen.

Cashmere's searched through her mental list of templates, but she doesn't really have a good script for this encounter. She'll have to do it unscripted, then, and she just knows she's going to be too stupid to make a good impression.

To distract herself from her nerves, Cashmere forces herself to focus on memorizing her surroundings. After all, if she's going to be a bodyguard, she needs to know the lay of the land.

This underground shelter is in some ways nicer than the ones Cashmere left behind in Thirteen, in some ways not so nice. It's very much under construction, so she has to pick her way over and around rubbish as she follows Finnick, and the floor is unleveled dirt. But the place is wired to the gills, and they've begun to mount screens on the walls.

It's actually amazing, even with the work still in progress, that they've managed to dig this much space out, reinforce the walls, and wire it in a period of several weeks, but they must have had enough hands and engineering know-how.

The rooms toward the front of the shelter are larger, with tables and chairs. They're to be shared by everyone. As Cashmere moves toward the back, she sees the rooms getting smaller, for personal use.

"Furthest back on the right," Finnick announces as they turn down a corridor. One fluorescent bulb lights the hallway, but no light comes from behind any of the rooms opening onto the corridor.

There are no doors, only privacy curtains. Annie's is pulled shut.

Finnick doesn't go in, but stops outside and just touches his hand to the edge of the curtain. "Annie? It's Finnick. Cashmere's here. Do you want to meet her?"

Silence, then a murmur too soft for Cashmere to catch. It must have been favorable, because Finnick pulls open the curtain. "How do you want us to sit, Annie? There's not a lot of room in there."

While they're getting in place, waiting for Annie to scoot to the far end of the room, then Finnick to take up position next to her, and finally Cashmere to sit closest to the outside, it dawns on Cashmere that Annie may actually be more nervous than she is. Annie who spent her Games terrified of the pack and couldn't get through her interviews afterward, or her Victory Tour.

More unsure of how to behave, but less worried about being despised, Cashmere greets Annie with a warm, tremulous smile when Finnick introduces them.

The room is too dim to really make out Annie's features without openly gawking, but the whole space is hardly larger than a good-sized bed, so Cashmere manages to get an impression of Annie's silhouette. She's curled up against the opposite wall, knees against her chest and arms around her knees.

While Cashmere is trying to figure out how to put Annie at ease and be worthy of Finnick's trust, Annie speaks up, unexpectedly.

"I saw you in the arena," is the first thing she says. "I'm sorry about your brother. I'm sorry about everything they did to you. I wanted to thank you—I saw you had Finnick's back when District Two attacked."

"I-thank you." Cashmere hardly knows what to respond to first. "He saved my life."

"I'm glad," Annie says. She looks like she means it. She lifts her chin and looks directly at Cashmere, letting her smile show. It feels more genuine than if the smile had been there from the beginning for politeness' sake. It's getting harder for Cashmere to be afraid of her. "You won't be terribly bored here? There's not a lot to do unless you're an engineer, and we're only allowed to move in and out by dark."

"But I'll have a job," Cashmere tells her. If no one expects anything of her except neutralizing any threats she can't ward off in advance, Annie doesn't know how much of a relief that will be. "That's what being a bodyguard is all about: keeping everything boring."

She didn't think it was especially funny, but Annie gives a tiny laugh. Cashmere's nerves settle just that little bit more.

Finnick slides an arm around Cashmere's shoulders. "I think we could all use a little boredom these days."

Cashmere nods, and Annie nods harder.

"All right, if this is where you want to be...I feel selfish saying it, and I don't know why my life is more important than yours, but they are hunting for me, and I can't fight them myself. I suppose you can't go home?"

"Not any more," Cashmere says quietly. How could she go home without her brother, anyway? And she owes Finnick for her life, and for all the kindness.

"Annie," Finnick interjects, "it's not that your life is more important. They're hunting for her too."

"I hadn't thought of that," Annie says. "Yes, stay, then. Maybe they won't find us down here."

"That's what I'm hoping," Finnick says. "But if they did, I'm not saying that your job would be to protect her at the cost of your life, Cashmere. Just that you have the training to hopefully get both of you out alive, more than Annie by herself."

"Maybe it won't come to that." Annie reaches past Finnick for Cashmere's hand. Surprised, Cashmere lets her take it. "I hope we can be friends in time," Annie continues, "maybe even sisters."

"I never had a sister." No one can ever replace Gloss, but maybe a sister will turn out to be what she needs right now.

"I miss mine."

With that, all of Cashmere's fear melts. For a moment, Annie becomes just another one of her students, lonely at the academy and missing her family. Cashmere gives her the same impulsive hug she gives all of them.

Finnick is beaming in relief. "I know you both, and I think sisters is not out of the question. But if you give it a try, and you're unhappy, Cashmere, let me know. We'll work out another arrangement."

"I'll tell you if she seems unhappy, even if she doesn't," Annie promises.

"Annie's very observant," Finnick says with a wink to Cashmere.

Cashmere smiles politely back. "I'm sure everything will work out. Oh, Rudder said to tell you-"

"I know, he wants me to report to him first thing in the morning, and it's almost dawn. I have to leave before daylight. I'm going, I'm going. I don't know when I'll be coming back..."

He glances at Annie, who smiles reassuringly. "We'll be fine. We're going to get to know each other."

Cashmere's stomach seizes up with a chill. Everyone always thinks there's something to get to know. But she keeps her smiling mask on, because underneath there's only emptiness, and no one wants to see that.