Finnick
"Please…stop," Tilda whispers the next morning, big eyes desperate.
"Doing what?" I ask, flipping my blond hair over my eye.
"Looking at me like, like that. Like I'm the best person in the world and you'd do anything to have me," she says.
"Maybe you are," I say, a tiny spark of hope firing inside me. But she rolls her eyes and moves forward.
"Just stop it."
I bite my lip and force my eyes downward, but then I find myself looking at the way she walks like she's an animal, the way she has one piece of hair that keeps flipping out, and the way her shirt is hugging her like a second skin. I shake my head as if this will help get the thoughts out of my head.
"You know what?" she asks, exasperated, as if she can get inside my head. "Let's just call it a day. I have plenty left over, and you…well, you have money to spare."
I feel a ping of guilt. Sure, my mother and father have enough money to give Tilda's family and still have more than enough left over, but she won't except one cent of it. I usually end up giving her most of the game because I just don't need it.
We head back to her house, a tiny but tall house on the outskirts of the town square. We've been in the woods for almost five hours and we have nothing to show for it due to lack of my carelessness. My eyes have found other places to look instead of the woods, my mind other places to wonder than of the animals I should be catching, and Tilda knows this.
"Finnick! Matilda!" her father, Gale, says, smiling. He's my mother best friend, her only real friend that I know of, and he can hunt just as well as her. They grew up together, both providing for their families when their fathers were blown to bits in a mine accident. He looks like my mom too, with dark hair, olive skin, and the grey Seam eyes. He and Tilda look nothing alike, except she has her father's personality all the way.
Her father pours us lemonade, a real treat in District 12, and we sip on in, the same comfortable silence that we maintain in the woods between us.
"You two catch anything?" Gale asks, peering over a newspaper. Tilda shakes her head, and I think I see a certain understanding and knowing as her father looks at me.
Suddenly, I stand up very suddenly. "I told my mother I'd go to the market with her today. I'll see you later!" Tilda walks me to the door, just as she always has.
"The market?" she asks, quirking an eyebrow.
"I'll tell you later, 'kay? Swing by tonight," I say.
Her lips pull up in a smile and she kisses me on the cheek. "Bye." I leave, head spinning, heart thumping loudly, with a sudden urge to sing.
I arrive home, unable to shake the smile off my face. "Mom, are we going?" I ask her. She looks up from the book she's reading, and for a moment I thought she might've forgotten. "Certainty," she says, and smiles at me. I go to walk upstairs and change but a knock at the door stops me. Mother gets up and goes to answer it.
"AH!" mother screams in delight, and I look over my shoulder, curious. I haven't seen mother this happy since Gale moved back here. She started crying and wouldn't let go of him for half an hour. Father runs down the stairs, limping a little from his fake left leg.
A woman is standing in the doorway. She must've been very beautiful once, with fair skin and dancing eyes, with long, curly, black hair. But sadness and age has made her face look weary, her eyes sad. A young baby boy is on her hip, with her same black hair.
"Annie!" mother screams, and hugs the girl. "Who's this?" mother asks, leaning over and looking at the baby with a smile on her face.
"That's Dominic," Annie says, handing the baby over to my mother. I've never seen mom with a baby, I was her last. It's amazing how different she looks with one. She's smiling and making silly faces at the child, ruffling his hair and making him laugh. She hands the baby to father, who absolutely adores it.
"Where'd he come from?" mother asks Annie. Annie's eyes fill with tears.
"Oh, Katniss. I made such a stupid mistake. I thought I was in love again, I really did. But then he left me for some secretary of his! I was foolish to think I could ever-" but mother is hugging her. When Annie settles down, she greets my father warmly and then sticks her head out the door.
"Ginerva!" she yells. "Come here!"
The girl who walks in radiates beauty. Her straight red hair is long and thick, sharp bangs fall right above her eyebrows. Her eyes are framed with eyeliner, and they are an electric brown. She's tall, only a few inches shorter than I. Her eyes rest on me for a moment and then look away.
"Katniss, I don't think you've met my daughter, Ginerva?"
"Ginnie," Ginerva says quickly, pulling down on the dress she's wearing. Mother smiles slightly.
"The last time I saw you, Annie, you were pregnant!" mother exclaims. "Everything was so crazy…" her smile fades, and father takes her hand.
"Is this your son?" Annie asks, changing the subject and looking at me.
"Finnick," I say, holding out my hand. Annie ignores it and hugs me so tightly, I think she's trying to choke me. She's crying in my shoulder, and I awkwardly standing there, not sure what to do.
"Finnick!" she sobs. Father looks at her sadly. Why is that name so important to her? When Annie gets herself together, she wipes her eyes and tries to for a smile. "I'm sorry dear. Finnick was my husband."
"Your husband?"
"Yes." She sniffles. "He was with your parents in their second Hunger Games. During the war, we got married in District 13."
"I wouldn't remember," father grumbles. He looks embarrassed at what he said and looks down. So many questions run through my head, like angry wasps stinging me.
"No you wouldn't," Annie says, smiling sadly. "You were out to kill Katniss."
"So, Annie, why did you come all this way?" mother asks eventually.
Annie looks around nervously. Dominic is sleeping in a chair, drooling. Ginnie hasn't touched her tea, her eyes keep flitting around nervously. Mother seems to understand something I don't, because the color drains from her face and she bites her lip. Father seems confused. "Finn, why don't you show Ginnie around town?" Awkwardly, we both stand up and head for the door.
"We aren't really going to walk into town, are we?" Ginnie asks.
I laugh. "No of course not, come on." We walk to the side of the house, where the kitchen window is open, and listen.
"Is that why the Capitol has been silent for a while?" mother asks in a strained voice.
"Yes. President Pivett thinks the Districts are getting a little too relaxed and lacking. It was only because I am a victor that they let me come here, and I need to go back the day before the reaping," Annie says.
Ginnie and I look at each other, eyes wide.
Father says grimly, "And they'll pick our children." He sounds defeated, deflated.
"Most likely..."
"Why didn't they inform us?" mother demands.
"You two are the faces of rebellion! Well, you two and that charming friend of ours, Katniss." Gale. "What sweeter revenge than to see your reaction when your children die on national television?"
Tilda. No. Not Matilda. Anybody but her.
"Why don't they just kill us?" mother asks, and by the way she says it, it sounds like something she's said before.
"They have no reason to, and it'd be a lot less entertaining."
Father says something, but I'm not listening, I'm sprinting towards the Hawthorne's house, heart racing. I think Ginnie might be behind me but I don't look back.
"Tilda! Tilda!" I bellow, knocking on the door. I just go to open it when it flies open, revealing a wild looking Gale.
"What? What's wrong?"
"Mr. Hawthorne I don't have time to explain. Where's Matilda?" I ask urgently.
"What's wrong, Finnick?" Tilda asks, appearing out from behind a hallway. Her eyes rest on Ginnie for a moment, and she narrows her eyes before walking over to me and placing her hand on my shoulder. "What?"
"Tilda, they're having another Hunger Games," I say. Her eyes widen, and I sigh with relief that she believes me.
"What?" she whispers, ghostly pale like I confirmed her worst fear.
"President Pivett is bringing back the Hunger Games," I say.
She looks up at me, and I've never seen her more scared. Gale is behind her, looking at me like he's not believing what he's hearing. I'm not sure I do either. Very quickly, with one blink of an eye, Tilda composes herself to her old self. She does it so quickly, in fact, that I think maybe the fear in her eyes was just a trick of the light.
Running her fingers through her hair, she asks, "Why…why would he do that?"
"He thinks the Districts are becoming a little too relaxed, and not doing the jobs they are supposed to be doing," Ginnie answers for me. Matilda ignores her, and sudden realization swoops into her eyes.
"They're going to put us in the Games. We're going in the arena, Finnick," she whispers so softly, I barely hear her.
"No!" Gale bellows, clearly outraged. "They're going to have a reaping, right? Right?"
"I don't know," I admit.
"Well, they have to! If they're just picking the tributes themselves, won't that make the Districts even angrier?"
"We're still weak from the War, Gale," Tilda says suddenly. She looks tired, like she's been expecting this. "They know we can't possibly fight back. We've had to work for the food on our tables." She gestures to me. "Meanwhile, they've gotten everything handed to them from us. They get their food, their fuel, from us. If we rebel, sure they'll be cut short from supplies, but who knows how long that'll last? The Capitol will take us down in a second, without even second guessing themselves, and then we'd have eleven Districts."
We all fall silent at her logic. She's obviously thought this through very thoroughly. "But they're obviously going to pick the children of those they hate and fear the most," Tilda says, repeating what Annie said. "Katniss is number one, they'd love to see her breakdown when her child just so happens to be reaped. They hate you too," she says, looking at her father. He looks like he's in pain.
'They won't send you or Hazelle in the arena," I say. "They'll send me and my sister."
"They can't," Gale says grimly. "Primrose just turned eighteen."
"Who's to say they can't bend the rules?" Ginny asks. It surprises me who openly she's taking to this stranger.
"Finnick is right. They'd want another love story. Another couple to drool over," he says. "Only this time, they'll only let one person out. And they will most definitely make one watch the other die. You two will be protected until the end, when there's only two of you, and then you'll have to kill each other." I'm surprised by his words, but they make sense. "What's more entertaining than a young couple being torn apart at the hands of the Capitol?" he asks dryly.
"No berries this time," I murmur.