I fumbled my way through the under most stories of the mansion that stood over the floors of labs, arsenals and secret meeting rooms until I came upon Beetee's headquarters. It was never lost on me how easily we all moved around now and I wondered if it would ever truly feel safe.
"Finnick. I've been expecting you."
I heard his voice before I even saw him, and he wheeled around the large table in the center of the room and extended his hand to me. I smiled as best I could and shook his hand.
"It's good to see you." I greeted him as I reached up and pulled my cap off, already trying to study the projections he was displaying.
"Johanna said you might come. I'm glad you did. Come, over here, I won't waste your time."
He wheeled towards his display and fired up what looked like a circular graph. I wouldn't pretend to know what I was looking at. I sat down next to him, hesitantly.
"Ok, what am I looking at. And put it in terms a normal human could understand, if you don't mind."
He chuckled at my half-insult.
"This is a graph of brain activity," he gestured to the slopes and peaks as he spoke, "these red points you can see are traumas: stress, fear, paranoia, death...you name it. The green, flatter planes are normal everyday activity and function..."
"Making pancakes, using the bathroom..."
I interrupted him and he gave me a sidelong glance.
"Something like that. Finnick, we have been working with the medical team here to channel this electric current you see here to irradicate the peaks. Erase the fear, if you will. It's been successful. Several of the tributes and survivors have tried it in lesser doses."
I was nodding along. So far he hadn't lost me. He moved his fingers swiftly and pulled up another round graph. It was almost entirely red and spiky. Like a mountainous range of volcanoes. Beetee sighed and watched me watch him.
"This...this is Annie." He whispered.
I studied it again. My stomach ached at the visual interpretation of the chaos that had become her mind. I ran my hands through my hair.
"Jesus, Beetee..."
"I know," he continued slowly, "you see, fear is like a virus. It's spreading in her because it's been left untreated. There's still much fear in her. Her mind isn't adjusting the way the rest of ours' have."
I was racing my eyes across her chart, and landed on a tiny little strip of mellow green...barely noticeable, but there. I raised a finger and pointed to it.
"Here. What's this."
Beetee put his hand on my shoulder and enlarged it slightly with his other hand.
"That's you, Finnick. You're all she has left of District 4. We want to help her clear some of this pain. She if she can slowly regain what she has lost."
I rocked back in my chair. My mind reeling. My hands still on my head. I closed my eyes and pictured Annie in her chair by the window.
"And what if we can't?" I asked what seemed like an obvious question.
"Would she be any worse off than she is now? It's risky. But so is letting her go on the way she is, Finnick." I noticed him eyeballing my cut up jaw and covered it with my hand.
I heard his question but didn't respond. I knew the answer. But couldn't bring myself to say it. I bit my lip as I thought about all the things this could mean for Annie. For me.
"How am I supposed to convince her to do this? Most days lately I can't convince her I'm not trying to kill her."
It was no exaggeration. A few days earlier I was helping her shower and she tried to strangle me with a wash cloth. I was grateful everyday she wasn't stronger than I was.
"You don't have to."
Beetee passed me a clipboard with papers on top. I scanned over them quickly before noting her signature on the bottom of each page. Authorizing Beetee and his team to experiment. On her mind.
"What is this? When was she here?"
I was confused, stunned almost. And fighting off a sting of betrayal.
"Johanna has been coming to see me and last week she brought Annie. You were at the Tribute's Council. Johanna wanted Annie to see. She was very lucid, Finnick. We all agreed that it would be much harder to convince you than it was to convince her."
I stood up and turned my back to him, running my hands over my jacket, grabbing at the string and instinctively tying a knot in my fingers to calm my mind.
"She hardly knows her own name anymore, Beetee. She wouldn't understand all of this."
Beetee wheeled to me and spoke softly.
"She understands, Finnick. She understands the risk. She understands that it will be hard for you. But you are the reason she wants to try."
I hung my head slightly, still fumbling with a knot, unsure of what to say.
"Think it over, Finnick. Take your time. Talk to her. Just know that every day that passes is one day harder than the last."
I think I thanked him as I left but I can't be sure. I was clouded. My mind was racing with the possibility and the fear of something happening to her. There had been a time I had wished her dead, now I needed her alive and I didn't care what state she was in. It was selfish.
I walked slowly back down the Avenue of Tributes towards the building that housed her. I looked towards her window and there she sat. Johanna at her side, they were holding hands. Johanna waved as she saw me approaching and I reciprocated. But Annie just stared. I felt my heart sink a little.
I took the quiet elevator ride to our floor as a moment to just breathe and think. But it wasn't enough, and soon we were dinging at the appropriate floor.
I walked quietly back in the penthouse unsure how I was going to approach the situation. Or Johanna. Or Annie. I felt queasy and scared and angry all at once. Since when was I the last to know about things around here?
"Hey loverboy." Johanna called to me as she left Annie by the window and made her way to me. I didn't react the way she wanted to she eased up a little and her cocksure walk and expression both changed as she reached me.
"I was gonna tell you I just knew you'd need to see it for yourself." She had lowered her voice somewhat and I watched her speak trying to remind myself to be gracious but it wasn't firing.
"Since when do you know what's good for me before I do...since when do you care so much?"
I hadn't even gotten the words all the way out of my mouth before both her hands were on my shoulders and she was shoving me. Hard. I was knocked back on my heels.
"Are you fucking kidding me, Odair? Since when do I care? You know how many other things I could be doing right now? Instead of babysitting your crazy girlfriend or saving your ass again?"
She was lashing out at me and this time I just took it. She was right. She was the only one I really trusted to help me, and help me she had. But in that moment I needed to be mad. At someone, something...anything.
"I'm sorry." I whispered to her and my voice shook and barely came. If being emotional about what we were going to do with Annie wasn't going to upset me...the lack of sleep wasn't going to help either. She stopped her verbal assault and cocked her head. She looked sympathetic, which was rare for her.
"Look, I get it. I know. If I had anyone left that I have a shit about, I'd feel the same way." She tried in her self deprication to help me again.
"You give a shit about me. And Annie. Or you wouldn't be here."
She looked at me in silence before giving an exasperated "ugh" and then hugging me. She pulled me in tight and I squeezed her. Hard.
"Thank you. For everything." I whispered to her and she patted my back uneasily before pulling away from me and slipping back out into the hallway, pulling the door behind her.
I took off my hat and ran my hand through my messy hair, hopelessly trying to settle it. I used to resent salty, messy hair. Now I welcomed it as a reminder of who I used to be.
By the time I turned to face Annie, she had turned in her chair to face me and I could tell from her expression that she was with me. Her vacant look was gone, as it occasionally was, and her eyebrows were raised high with concern. I sat on the floor in front of her. She put a hand in my hair and I closed my eyes to her touch. Annie would spend hours weaving her fingers through my mop of hair...she used to tell me that it calmed her the way tying knots did for me. I closed my eyes and enjoyed it for a moment. Then her other hand was on my jaw...fingers tracing the place she had split my skin.
"Finn..."
I opened my eyes.
"Don't, Annie. It wasn't you. I know that."
I let my hand find hers and pressed it to my cheek before turning my mouth towards it and kissing her palm. Gently, several times. I heard her breath hitching as I did.
"You talked to Beetee?" Her voice was shaky and nervous. I turned my face back to meet hers and nodded yes. "I have to try, Finnick. You know I have to try."
The sincerity and exhaustion in her voice brought the tears to my eyes I had hoped wouldn't come.
"No, Annie, you don't. Listen to me. We just got here. Let's make this place our own. We can make the Capitol what we would have had back home. We can give this place...this peace...a chance to work. A chance for you to try and..."
"No, Finnick."
She cut me off hard. He voice raised so much I was afraid that Annie was about to retreat into her own mind again and I braced myself, holding on to her hand and ready to restrain it if I had to.
"See? You're afraid of me. I don't want you to live in fear of what I might do. I don't want you to sleep with a rope under your pillow. I don't want you to look at me the way you're looking at me right now."
I turned my eyes from her, ashamed. I knew she was right. And sometimes I couldn't help but look at her the way everyone else looked at us and I hated myself for it.
"What do you want, then?" I asked her quietly...desperate to have her there with me as long as I could. She slunk out of her chair and joined me on the floor, easing herself softly into my lap and taking my face in her hands.
"I want to be the person you deserve. I want to be who I was. Not this shell. I want to beat the Capitol, too, by taking my life back from them. I want to be the kind of woman you can have babies with and grow old with and be safe with..." she started to cry and I joined her, both of us holding each other as if letting go meant losing the other. She continued speaking the words I know she must have gone over a hundred times, "I don't want to spend my days wishing you away to Katniss Everdeen because I feel like she deserves you and I don't."
I shook my head no in her hands.
"Don't do this just for me Annie. It's risky. I could lose you. I can't lose you..."
"It's for both of us. And if I don't...you've already lost me. We've all already lost."
I pressed my face into hers and shortly thereafter my lips. She wrapped her arms and legs around me and we sat on the floor, crying silently together at all we had lost, and all we were about to risk. I found myself absentmindedly twisting her long red hair into looks knots as she continued to kiss me. We were lost in each other, humming softly against the other as our kiss deepened. I felt a heat in my stomach that was increasingly difficult to ignore and I could feel myself wanting her...needing her. I started to lean back against the floor and she followed, leaning over me and slowly lifting her skirt until her bare legs rested on mine. My fingers shook as I ran them down my stomach and between us, reaching to undo my pants anxiously. My breath was leaving me and all I could think about was being with her.
Three loud bangs at the door.
And just like that, Annie was off of me. Her uncovered legs scurrying wildly as she walked backward in her hands and feet like a terrified crab until she had backed herself against the window. I fastened my pants and rose after her as quickly as I could.
"Annie, you're safe. I'm here. Stay with me." I moved after her, both hands in the air to show I meant her no harm.
"They're here, Finnick. Don't let them take me. I can't go back in that arena. Please, Finnick! Don't let them take me!"
I was hushing her gently, cooing in her ears, asking her to be quiet.
"Guess it sounds like everything's alright then?!" came Johanna's voice sarcastically through the door. Back to check on us.
"We're fine thank you." I called back to her, hissing through gritted teeth, filled with anger at what I had just missed. I turned back to face Annie, whose beauty still took me even as she sat shaking and embarrassed. She mouthed the words 'I'm sorry' and slunk against the window, her hands to her mouth.
I moved to her and took her in my arms, assuring her.
"There will never...ever...be another Hunger Games. That's what we are staying here to see to. I promise you I will never let anyone take you. I shouldn't have let them take you the first time. It was my fault. All of this."
She had no idea how true those words were, and I'm not sure I would ever be able to bring myself to tell her why.
She turned her head into me and grabbed fistfuls of my sweater in her trembling fists.
"Tell me a story, Finnick."
I smiled as I held her, looking down at her small frame pressed to mine. She had always loved for me to tell her stories. Since the day I met her. And hearing her ask never failed to warm and comfort me.
"Which one?" I asked.
"Tell me about the day we met."'
