A/N: Here is the final chapter my lovelies. Thank you to everyone who reviewed. I also highly recommend you check out my favourite Clove/Foxface fic 'Borrow, Blood and Steel' (s/7987610/) seeing as it is amazing and actually the fic which inspired this one.
CHAPTER EIGHT
FINCH
She had the food from the Feast but she didn't really feel like eating it any more. Death seemed to be everywhere. She had watched the unknown boy die by Cato's sword, when she should have been the one to die, but somehow Clove's death felt different. Unfair. The word sprang to her mind but it was ridiculous. All these deaths were unfair. Not a single person in this Arena deserved to die. But I didn't get to say goodbye. The words wouldn't stop slipping into her mind. She heard the canon and knew Cato must have gotten Thresh. Of course he would. Someone like Cato wouldn't let anyone kill his district partner without seeking revenge. From what she'd seen it would be like anyone touching his sword. Clove was his and no one touched his things.
She waited anxiously for the next move. She had no desire to find any of the others. Her strategy was still to hide, it had worked very well so far, for the most part. But she knew that sooner or later either she was going to run into someone, or Cato was going to find her.
Both of those things happened almost at the same time. She was slipping through the trees looking for fresh water when she heard the noise of someone crunching about ahead of her. She froze but she knew it wasn't Cato. Even though he was big, he moved with more stealth than this person was. It had to be Peeta. He was the only one left who would move like that she thought. She didn't consider him a threat but she still stayed perfectly silent as she crept up until she could see him moving about in the woods. He was collecting berries, placing them on a blanket on the ground. There was no sign of Katniss. Finch went to turn away when she caught a closer look of the berries on the ground. They were Nightlock. And it would kill you. She glanced at him, wondering if she should tell him. It was a conflicting emotion. She didn't like the idea of simply letting him die, even if it wasn't her fault, but there were only a few of them left now. It was probably his life or hers. As she stood there thinking it over she realised she didn't actually mind that. Her eyes lingered on the berries and thoughts slowly began to form in her mind.
She didn't want to die, but she was going to. There was no way she could beat Cato if it came down to the two of them, and she couldn't hide forever. The Game Makers would see to that. They wanted sport and they would push her till they got it. So if death was inevitable...the question was how did she want to die? In her mind there had only been one option before- at the end of Cato's sword. Just like she had watched that other boy die; with her own blood choking her throat and stealing her last breath and his gloating eyes the last thing she saw. But now the Nightlock sitting before her seemed to be offering another option. A quick and painless death. She had lived her entire life by logic, and logic was telling her to take those berries.
She waited until Peeta disappeared through the trees and then crept up to the blanket. She picked up a few of the berries in her hand and looked at them. They almost looked inviting.
A noise behind her made her spin around. She half expected to see a startled Peeta staring back at her but to her horror it was Cato's cold, brilliant blue eyes she met. His sword swung in his right hand, seemingly waiting to slice into her.
He took a step towards her and she was frozen. She couldn't run. She couldn't fight. She was going to make it incredibly easy for him to kill her.
"I'd thought of a very interesting way to kill you little Fox," Cato said almost conversationally, inspecting the tip of his sword. Finch felt her blood go cold. He was going to torture her. But then he looked up at her and she saw his eyes had softened. "But Clove made me promise to kill you quick, quick and painless, right before she...died." Despite the shadow of death next to her Finch's curiosity spiked at the sadness in his voice.
"I'm sorry she died," Finch whispered and received an intense, studying look from Cato, like he was trying to decide if she really meant it. She did. More than he knew.
"I promised her," he said simply, holding the sword before him. Finch eyed it but she didn't feel terror any more. Death had always been coming. It was pain and suffering she had been scared of she realised now. She had actually resigned herself to death a long time ago, she just hadn't known it.
"Please," she said, holding her hand out before her and uncurling her fingers to reveal the berries sitting in her palm. "Let me do it this way." She wouldn't tell him that she had planned to take them even before he had shown up. He looked at the berries critically, but she saw in his eyes that he knew what they were. He nodded once, not meeting her eyes, and lowered his sword.
She didn't hesitate. There was no point prolonging it, it wouldn't change anything, and she was strangely calm anyway. She wanted it this way. She wanted this.
The berries tasted tart on her tongue and left a bitter taste as she swallowed them down. She lowered her hand, looking at the blue stains, almost like blood, on her fingertips. She looked up at Cato but he was gone. He might as well have been a ghost, because now only the wind stirred in the forest around her. Slowly, feeling heaviness start to seep into her limbs, she lay down on the ground and rested her head back against the soft leaves covering the forest floor. She stared up at the rippling emerald leaves above her and felt a slight breeze begin to brush across her skin. She turned her head to the side and saw Clove sitting on the ground next to her. She was brushing her fingertips over the skin of Finch's arm, what she thought had been the breeze.
"Hi," Clove said, giving her a rare smile.
Finch smiled back. "Hi."
