Another filler chapter. Sorry! Also, Annie won't find out about the Quell until the actual reaping. Sorry again! Thanks for reading/putting up with this!

The Plan

There's a loud clunk as I accidentally break off a chunk of the cruiser's motor. "Damn it!" I take a long drag of my cigarette and try to reconnect the broken pieces. "I'm not built for this kind of physical labor, Mags," I say over my shoulder.

Mags laughs and says something like, "What are you built for?"

"Not this." I wipe the grease off my hands with a red dishtowel.

"You ain't built for a lot a-things," says Dodge. He tightens something on the motor with a wrench. "There. All fixed." Then something makes a crashing noise. "Stupid ruddy boat!" he shouts.

I snicker. "Not so easy, is it?"

"Oh, shut it."

Annie – having fully recovered from the flu – walks over. She hands me her glass of lemonade and takes the wrench from Dodge's hand. Then she bends over the motor, fiddles with a few things, and stands up. She hands the wrench back to Dodge then turns the key in the boat's ignition. It starts up easily.

"Goddamn . . ." Dodge says.

"I'm not totally useless," Annie says. She takes the lemonade from my hand. "Thanks."

"You fix Mags's boat after two seconds while Dodge and I have been trying for hours," I say. "Infuriating."

"Oy!" Broadsea shouts. He's crossing the courtyard towards us. "I just got off the phone with Plutarch Heaven –"

I silence him with a glare. I look over at Annie; she doesn't say anything, but I can practically see the question marks swirling around in her head. She looks at me, pursing her lips and raising her eyebrows. She's giving me that look of hers.

An awkward silence has fallen over us. Annie is the first to break it. "I'm going to go." She turns to me. "We've got dinner with Britton at four."

"Okay," I say. "I'll see you there?" She nods, and I give her a peck on the lips. "Love you."

She musters up a grin. "Love you too." She waves to the others and walks off.

As soon as she's out of earshot, I turn on Broadsea. "You moron!"

"Chill out," says Broadsea. "This is important."

"Inside," Mags says. And so we head into her house.

"So, Plutarch called me," Broadsea says. "He thinks he's got a plan."

It became clear almost immediately that the victors would be busted out of the arena. We're too important to the rebellion. But we have yet to perfect the plan.

"Keep going, hoss," says Dodge.

"Like I said, Beetee's gonna be the one actually carrying out the plan," he reminds us. "But there'll be signals about when it'll happen. There will be bread sent. And whatever district the bread is from will represent the day of the rescue. Number of rolls is the hour."

"How're we supposed to know what time it is?" I ask. "The days can be counted, but the hours . . . I mean, you can judge by the sun, but –"

"Plutarch said we'd know," Broadsea says, shrugging.

"You'll excuse me if I have trouble putting my life in the hands of a fat Capitol –"

Mags says something like, "We don't know if you're going in."

Everyone else scoffs. It's a virtual guarantee that I'm going in.

"So Finnick's just gonna make sure that Mags don't get killed, and either me or Broadsea's gotta keep Annie from . . ." Dodge trails off.

"Oh, yeah," I say. "Somebody's gotta be the mentor." This isn't good because out of the four of us, only Mags and I have been mentors. And if we're going into the arena . . .

"There is one more thing," Broadsea says.

"What else could there possibly be?" I ask.

"You remember that Katniss chick from last year?" he asks. We all nod. "The rebellion sort of needs her . . . alive."

"You lost me." Dodge crosses his arms over his chest.

Broadsea mumbles something. I only pick up: "Willing to die . . . protect them . . . take too kindly . . ."

"What?"

Broadsea shakes his head. "Forget I brought it up. We'll cross that bridge when we come to it."

Mags heaves a great sigh and sits. We all turn to her.

I sit down beside her. "You all right?"

Mags shakes her head. I realize that there are tears in her eyes. This is the first time I've ever seen her cry. I immediately pull her into a hug. Broadsea sits on her other side and Dodge kneels before her. We're all trying to soothe her.

This woman is basically our mother. In the past two weeks she's had a stroke, her old mentor abandoned her, and her worst fears have been realized.

We let her cry herself out.

I can't let Mags die. If Annie's name is called, she's going in. And I'm going to thank her by bringing her home.

[LATER]

"It's staring at me."

"Yes it is."

I move from side to side, but its giant eyes just follow me. "Doesn't it blink?"

"No, Finnick," Britton says. "She never blinks."

Callie giggles and smashes her fists together.

"It's laughing at me!"

Britton reaches down and scoops up his daughter. "You're terrible with children, you know that?" He turns back to his baby, whom he and Io named after Calliope. "Uncle Finnick is weird," he croons. "Yes, he is. Yes, he is!"

They're training baby Callie to call me "Uncle Finnick." Because Annie is her aunt. And for all intents and purposes, Annie and I are married. Ergo.

I don't mind it.

But the baby . . . I don't get it. What compels people to create a tiny, screaming, crying fat being that looks exactly like you and will grow up to resent you? There is no good answer. Yeah, there's love and the urge to procreate, but still.

Needless to say, I've never wanted kids. Annie told me she used to want them, but changed her mind after the Games.

"She really does look like Cal," Annie says. She takes the baby from her brother.

"Doesn't she?" Io says.

"Finnick, come help me with dinner," says Britton. So I follow him into the kitchen. "She still doesn't know?" he whispers.

"No," I say.

He nods. "Good."

"'Good'?" I say. "Shouldn't you be pissed off?"

"Annie's not suicidal," he says. "But . . ."

"I know."

"Well, do you have something you can do? To try and get out, I mean."

"We've got a plan," I say reluctantly. "But I don't know how well it'll work."