A/N: To the three people that actually are reading and like this story, thanks! This is for you.
Training the next day was somewhat uneventful. Those who had formed alliances, stayed with those alliances. No one did much more training, although Annie chided Maxxie to stop goofing off and try a couple of weapons out like Mags and Finnick had said to. She moved with him station to station, watching how he did. Gleam met eyes with her and waved, sending her a wink too. She waved back, but was a bit perturbed by his wink, and so when she tried to smile it looked a bit more like a grimace.
Gemma and Jac tagged along about halfway. At the station with the trident, Maxxie was undeniably best at it.
"Wow," Gemma exhaled as Maxxie threw the trident and it hit the target with ease. "Fingers crossed there'll be another Finnick Odair situation when we get to the arena."
"Can you teach me how to do that?!" Jac pleaded Maxxie as he reached for another trident. "I'll teach you how to throw an axe!"
"Sure!" Maxxie said excitedly.
Annie tapped Gemma's arm and motioned for her to follow her out of earshot.
"Look," she began. "I think you've got a really good chance of getting into the Career Pack. I saw you with the axe on the first day… actually… everyone did. They were staring. I think if you want to keep Jac alive, you should join them."
Gemma raised an eyebrow. "I'm not seeing your logic…" she trailed off. "And what about you and Maxxie?"
"I've got a plan." Annie promised. "Let's go over to the axe station, both of us. Throw a couple, make it good. Get their attention, and I'll explain from there."
Gemma and Annie walked away from the boys, who were practicing their stances holding the tridents and pretending to look like gods, and made their way over to the axe throwing station.
Gemma picked one up and fingered the handle a bit before twisting her wrist and examining the blade. "You might want to stand back," she told Annie, before reeling back and flinging the axe what seemed like 60feet into the target. It hit the head of the dummy.
She grabbed another off the shelf, and Annie stood by watching silently. Gemma needed only to flick her wrist, and the axe went flying again. The arms in her muscle rippled with the amount of strength she exerted in the throw. The axe lodged itself right in the heart of the dummy. Gemma smirked at Annie and Annie gave her a hidden thumbs up.
Gemma looked straight at the glaring Careers as she went to grab another axe off the shelf. Annie waved at Gleam again, this time, she was the one smirking.
After maybe four more axe throws, the Careers finally came over together. The boy from 2 leading them.
"You do a lot of damage with that thing," He stated the obvious. Annie recalled the Careers never being quite bright when it came to basic education. Their schooling was all about training for the games anyway. "Maybe you want to tag along with us when we get in there." He continued.
"At least in the beginning," The girl from his district went on. "Who knows what'll happen." She looked at Annie standing off the side and shot her a dirty look.
Annie tried to stay unaffected, but she looked away quickly.
"I don't know…" Gemma paused. She was twisting her axe around in her fingers like it was a baton. "Do you think there's room for my friend?" she motioned to Annie.
Annie's eyes grew wide, that hadn't been part of the plan. "I-"
The boy from 2 scoffed, "I don't think so."
"Then I don't know if I-" Gemma's sentence was cut off by a painful yelp that was distinctly belonging to Maxxie. Her eyes widened as she got ready to run over and see the ruckus.
"I'll go," Annie held out a hand to Gemma, begging her to stay where she was. "You should join them." She met eyes with Gemma, hoping she would be able to understand what she was saying through her eyes.
Gemma opened her mouth to say something, but obeyed.
Annie ran off to see what had happened. When she rounded the corner, she found Maxxie clutching his profusely bleeding face whimpering in pain. Jac was freaking out, pacing and asking the surrounding tributes for help, while they all watched unimpressed.
"Hey, hey, what happened?!" Annie bent down and pried Maxxie's hands from his face to see what had happened. There was a deep cut in his cheek that was leaking blood like a crack in a dam.
"He accidentally got cut on the trident blade," Jac explained. Maxxie's tears were flowing into the cut, making him sob in pain even harder.
"Oh god," Annie sucked in a breath. "Listen to me Jac, the kids from District 12 have Mockingjay pins that represent their district. Ask them for one of their pins, use please and thank you. Go now." Jac scampered off with her instructions and she redirected her attention to Maxxie. "Listen Max, you have to stop crying or else its gonna hurt even worse, okay? Here get on my back."
She bent down and Maxxie clung to the back of her neck. She hoisted him up and carried him over to the station where she had been building fish hooks. The blood from his cheek trickled down her neck and wet her shirt. She dropped him on the table, where he righted himself into a sitting position. Annie ripped a piece of her fabric from her shirt, the fabric was used for exercise, in other words it was highly absorbent for sweat. She dabbed his cheek enough that she could clearly find the source of the bleeding, the deep cut.
"Alright, it doesn't look too bad." She lied.
Annie grabbed some of the plastic fishing wire just as Jac ran back up to her with a pin. "They don't want it back." He said.
"Thanks Jac, you're super helpful!" Annie said thankfully.
She broke the needle off of the pin and wound the fishing wire around it. "This is going to hurt a little, Max. You have to be brave, okay?"
He nodded, his eyes still full of tears threatening to flow over.
She began sewing stitches into his cheek. She had to hold the fabric above the cut, or else Maxxie's tears would've kept coming into the wound. When she finished, she cut the wire with her teeth and tied it off neatly. She had only sewn stitches three or four times, and had always had to be creative with her materials, so she was pretty proud of herself. These were neat and tight.
"There, that wasn't so bad, was it?" She asked Maxxie. He was still crying, since she had to do it without a numbing agent. There was a certain plant from district 4 most families grew in their gardens she could use to help numbing, but there was no time or plants here and now.
She licked her fingers and began wiping the area around the stitches carefully to get rid of the drying blood.
"Come on," she helped Maxxie off of the table and took his hand in hers. He reached to touch the stitches, but she slapped his hand away. "You can't touch it, or it'll get infected."
He whimpered softly, but clenched her hand tighter.
Annie looked up to see the careers and Gemma watching her intently. Gemma said something and waved goodbye to them, a couple looked away from Annie, but the District 1 girl and District 2 boy were still staring.
"Did you just give him stitches?" Gemma half laughed half inquired as she walked up to them. "Everyone's impressed."
Annie nodded humbly. "The cut was pretty deep, and no one was helping…" She motioned to the spread out Peacekeepers and guards who had not blinked an eye at Maxxie's injury.
"Okay… well, I did what you said; I'm going to be in the career pack." Gemma crossed her arms over her chest insecurely. "What's your plan, though? Because I think they might off me in the middle of the night while I'm sleeping."
Annie smirked, "Okay, well it's like this…"
Finnick tapped his shoe nervously waiting for Annie and Maxxie to come out of the training center. All of the other tributes' faces were solemn, and the Careers seemed to have added a new member, Annie's friend from district 7. Just as Annie had (sort of) predicted.
Annie and Maxxie exited last, a Peacekeeper was pushing Annie forward by her shoulder, and she was holding Maxxie's hand tightly. Maxxie was clutching his face, and there was a large amount of blood staining Annie's shoulder and neck. There was also a piece of her shirt ripped out at the bottom of it.
"What the hell happened?!" Finnick rushed forward quickly. He pushed the Peacekeeper off Annie aggressively. "What did you do? I could have you detained. What's your name?"
"Finnick," Annie touched his hand softly, and Finnick felt his heart speed up at the sound of his name rolling off her tongue. "It wasn't his fault. Come on," she led him back to where Mags was standing with a worried expression.
A couple of heads that had looked over at the sound of yelling looked away now that the chaos was over. "Maxxie cut himself with a blade, and so I had to take care of him." Annie explained. After I stitched him up, the game makers made the Peacekeeper escort us out. I'm not sure why, though."
"Are you two alright?" Cintia's capitol accent cut the tension as she walked up behind Mags and Finnick. "Oh dear, look at all that blood."
"It's nothing," Finnick said gruffly. "Everything is alright now."
"Well that's good to hear," Cintia chirped. "By the way, Finnick, I was told to give this to you." She passed him a blue note in a familiar stationary. It was one of his clients.
"I have to take this," Finnick grumbled reluctantly. He looked at Annie one more time, his heart rate picking up when her eyes met his. "I'll see you all for dinner, maybe."
He started down the corridor and took the elevator to the ground floor, where he exited the building.
In the front courtyard, his client, a wealthy Capitol woman with purple hair and pink skin was waiting for him patiently. Finnick sighed and pretended he hadn't seen her so she didn't think his frown was directed towards her. She waved towards him, and he looked around the courtyard before looking at her and sending her one of his Panem-famous smiles.
He sauntered over and planted a firm kiss on her mouth. "Hello, Sylvia." He grinned, holding her by the waist. "I've missed you."
She giggled and feigned embarrassment, "Oh, Finnick, not here…" She looked around, trying to see if anyone was watching her with one of the most handsome men in the country.
"Then where?" he pulled her closer and whispered in her ear. "Where can I take you?" he purred seductively.
He felt her shiver in his arms, "I-I- I have my car…" she stuttered. "Let's go back to my place,"
"Drive fast," he mumbled, kissing down her neck.
She gasped and took his hand, leading him towards wherever she had parked. Finnick wiped the glitter off of his tongue while she wasn't looking. Glitter was probably his least favorite Capitol trend from this year, because it affected him directly.
He got into the passenger's seat and she hit the gas pedal with full force. "I've missed you so much, Finny."
Yuck, Finnick thought. That had to be one of the worse nicknames he'd been given.
"I can't wait to be with you," he mumbled, reaching over and sliding his hand down her thigh.
She quivered and moaned under his touch. They all did.
"I've been thinking," Finnick changed his tone. "How about instead of paying me in secrets, you could help me with something else?"
"I'm listening," she chirped. She sounded a bit irritated that he had ruined the mood.
"Well, now that its game season-"
"Oh I am so excited about this year!" she declared. "Your kids look absolutely terrific."
"So, I'd like you to sponsor them." Finnick concluded.
"Hmm… alright." She said quickly. "As long as I can have you all to myself." She smirked, pulling into her apartment complex.
"Of course," Finnick promised. "That was always on the table."
She smiled. Finnick leaned in over the armrest and took her face in both of his hands. He pressed his lips against hers in a quick, chaste kiss. A cold feeling at the pit of his heart was wishing it were someone else.
Its short because the next chapter's gonna be really big and eventful. Protective Finnick is just 3333333333 HONESTLY!
Thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed it! Follow Fave and Review pls!