Hey there! Thanks for clicking & hopefully reading!

Well, not to delay you any longer - here's chapter 2!

Disclaimer: Everything belongs to Suzanne Collins.


Finnick's POV

She's bait. They're all bait.

They won't kill her because I'm still alive, Haymitch tells me.

But what is the point of me living if she's tortured? She's all I have left – the only bit of happiness I have in my life.

The images of her being tortured, the very idea of her hurting, kills me.

I promised to protect her. I promised to keep her safe. I promised, and I failed. She is taken for torture while I am sitting here, safe and sound.

I trust you. You are the only here that could possibly understand, could possibly keep this a secret. I trust you with her, and you have promised me to protect her. That is all I ask of you.

How can I live with myself? How can I possibly forgive myself if she dies?

In the arena, when she left my sight, I knew it was going to be bad. When Beetee announced that the wire was cut, I almost had a heart attack. I searched for her, looked for her, but found nothing. Nothing but trees and leaves and humidity. There was no beautiful white figure that was Anxol. My Angelfish was nowhere to be found.

One cannon sounded. In that moment, my heart had stopped. No one knew whose cannon it was, whose death it signified.

It could have been her.

I ran into Enobaria. I tried to fight her, but all I could think of was, what if she's dead?

And then she screamed.

It was distant, far away, but I still knew it was her.

She was hurting. She was in pain. I was not there next to her, not there to defend her, protect her.

A cannon rings shortly after the scream, a terrible silence in the air afterwards. It hangs heavy in the air, like a weight that crashed onto me.

I thought it was her cannon. I thought she had died, left without me.

I thought I had failed.

But when the hovercraft had picked me up, Haymitch tells me that it was Brutus' and Chaff's cannon. She was still alive. Her heart beating. Her eyes seeing. Alive, even after all she's been through.

And for a second, I was relieved. She was alive. She didn't leave me. She was alive and breathing and blinking and hoping, and my Angelfish will swim back to me. She was alive and she will come back to me; she is just in the hospital and she will wake up and smile her beautiful smile and tell me how silly I was to think she would leave me.

But then Haymitch tells me that she was taken for torture, along with Peeta and Johanna, at the Capitol. With Snow. Their hovercraft managed to pick them up, and Haymitch did not settle his part of his bargain. We protected the Mockingjay. We even thought of a way to break the force field of the arena and get the tracker out of Katniss. But yet, Johanna, Peeta, and Anxol are at the Capitol, suffering and dying. Haymitch had said we would all be at District 13, planning the rebellion. Together on our path to victory.

But three of our team members are bleeding and screaming. I knew, right from the very start, whatever District 13 shows to the Capitol about the soaring Mockingjay Katniss, showing about the rebellion, about our defiance, Snow will only torture them more. With every move we make, we are endangering them more. Haymitch knows this fact, crystal clear, but he says we have to go on with our plans. When Katniss steps into her role as the Mockingjay, they will have to show propos to the Capitol, show the injustice and the unfairness of his rule, and how we will burn him down. And when we do, Snow will only take out his anger on the three of them. On Anxol. I know this. Haymitch knows this. He says the show must go on, but I say that his lover isn't being tortured by the monster we call our ruler.

And again, I have that vertigo feeling. That nasty feeling in my stomach that churns whenever I try to imagine what they're doing to her right this very second while I sit and do nothing.

Snow is a monster, an unforgiving, heartless man who has the power and the authority to torture her in every way possible. She is a traitor in his eyes, and he will punish whoever comes in his way. My own imagination cannot even create a vision terrible enough, and my heart twinges when I realize that she is living in a nightmare right this very moment, without me to protect her, without me to hold her, to wake her up and tell her everything is okay.

To be the wall she needs. To keep her safe. To protect her. She is alone and with a monster, and he will kill her when he is satisfied, or bored. She will die and I will have to deal with the guilt of not being strong enough to be there for her. To rescue her. She will die by the hands of Snow, right after suffering, being tortured, in front of the person who took everything away from her.

Keep her safe. Protect her, please.

I have failed.


Thanks for reading!

Ah, yes. Another short chapter.

I ONLY BEG THAT YOU MAKE MY DEATH QUICK.

Just kidding. Well, hopefully you guys won't be coming over to my house to spear me alive, but, well, you never know. The second short chapter in a row! Argh. I am so sorry. Really - two short chapters in a row? That's pretty terrible, in my opinion. I promise, promise, promise that the next chapter will not be as short.

Sorry ):

Well, at least I don't have any bad news accompanying this short chapter, like I normally do when I post a sucky chapter.

So in this chapter, you see the first glimpse of Finnick and how he's dealing with it all - what did you think of that?

Any questions? Comments? Feedback? Suggestions? Feel free to leave it as a review! And remember, if you want your opinion on the ending of Mockingjay and how it will affect this fanfiction, please submit it as a review or even leave me a private message - your idea/opinion/suggestion will most definitely be taken into consideration. So in a way, you get to pick how this story ends (:

I think that's all I have to say.

Next chapter up tomorrow!