When Finnick woke up from what felt like a dream, he had a hard time remembering what had happened prior to the darkness.
He remembered bits and pieces, like running after the girls with Peeta, only to be separated when he looked over his shoulder and noticed he had left Peeta somewhere far behind him. He returned back to the tree, thinking that maybe, just maybe, they had all made it back, but he found only Katniss kneeling over an unconscious Beetee.
She looked over at him and nocked an arrow as he put up his hands and said, "Katniss, I'm not here to hurt you. What happened to Johanna and Camille?"
"They turned on me, just like I expect you're here to do," Katniss said as she kept her string taut. Finnick stepped closer to her and she said, "Finnick, I'll shoot you if I have to."
Finnick scrambled in his brain for anything, anything at all that would make Katniss point her arrow away from him. He moved into a patch of sunlight, and the golden band on his arm caught the light. He pointed to it with his other hand and said, "Just remember who the real enemy is."
Blinking at him, Katniss turned her look to the floor. Finnick followed her eyes and saw she was staring at some crude looking arrow that presumably Beetee had created and failed in using. She then looked to the sky, and Finnick relaxed somewhat, seeing she now understood.
She looked over at Finnick, and he smiled sadly at her, saying, "Don't waste an arrow. I'm going to die anyway."
The clocks in Beetee and Finnick's pockets raced as it came closer and closer to midnight. With only ticks left to spare, Katniss wound a wire around the end of one of her arrows and sent it flying into the sky, allowing the electricity to spread over the force field and finally, finally break it down.
But the electricity also broke down Katniss, Finnick, and Beetee.
Finnick's eyes flew open as he left the memory, and he could hear his heart rate machine going off as a nurse ran in to calm him. He looked over at her and asked angrily, "Where is she?"
"Katniss is in the other room, rehabilitating. You're safe, Mr. Odair, you're in District 13," the nurse said as a few more nurses came into help her. Finnick still struggled and she yelled at him now, "Mr. Odair, please calm down!"
"Where is she?!" he still yelled as the door flew open and Georgia rolled in. He met her eyes and asked, "Where is she?"
"She's in the Capitol," Georgia said calmly as Finnick grew still, then struggled harder. They shot an anti-anxiety drug into his veins as he calmed down, but didn't pass out as he looked over at Georgia, tears in his eyes. She rolled to his bedside and took his hand in hers, telling him, "She was taken, along with Enobaria, Johanna, and Peeta."
"Peeta?" Finnick asked, having a hard time forming his words. The name was all he could manage to get out, although five hundred questions were racing in his mind.
Georgia nodded and said, "None of them had their trackers out, and, according to our sources, they were all right by each other. We don't know what's happening to them, but we do know that they are still all alive, due to their vitals attached to the tracker."
"Vitals good?" Finnick asked, sitting up and gaining more control of his tongue. Georgia gave him a grave look and Finnick stared at her, saying, "What?"
"Their vitals support our belief that they're being tortured." Finnick's heart raced, but his muscles didn't budge. Whatever medicine they had given him had delayed that part of his body for the time being. Georgie continued by saying, "The one going through the most immense pain, by our readings, is Peeta. Camille wasn't tortured for a very long while. In fact, her vitals improved at first, so we're assuming she was being hospitalized or something of the sort."
"Why?" Finnick said, forcing the word out. Georgia gave Finnick a sad look.
"You know why," she said softly. The nurse, a District Thirteener who had probably never thought twice about what happened to the victors after the Games, gave them a curious look as the bar code on Finnick's arm burned. He shut his eyes as tears pooled behind them, and he felt Georgia's soft fingers on his arm, the first soft touch he had since Camille said goodbye to him.
"Please hold on for her," Georgia said, getting choked up. "She's holding on for you."
Finnick could hear her wheel herself out, and after checking his vitals and making sure his anxiety was under control, the nurse let him leave his room for the first time. He was led by guards to the Control Room, where he was greeted by several pairs of eyes. He recognized Plutarch Heavensbee, the Gamemaker who had crafted the botched arena escape; his assistant, Fulvia; Haymitch Abernathy, who was sober and didn't smell like alcohol for once in his life; Gale Hawthorne, Katniss' best friend, and finally...
"Katniss," Finnick breathed out, finally seeing a face he trusted. She put a hand over his which, for her, seemed to be a big gesture. He sat down in the chair next to her and asked, "What's going on?"
"Mr. Odair," the woman at the head of the table called to him. He met her eyes, and she told him, "It's been a while since the force field fell down. I'm assuming Ms. Trace filled you in?"
Finnick blinked in confusion, before he heard Haymitch whisper to him, "Georgia Trace."
Nodding, the woman stood up, continuing to speak to only Finnick. "Good. My name is Alma Coin. I am the president of District 13, and the leader of the rebellion."
Out of the corner of his eye, Finnick could see Plutarch looking uncomfortable and Fulvia looking furiously embarrassed. Obviously there had been some lack of communication between Plutarch and Coin regarding who was the real leader of the rebellion, and Plutarch had lost that argument, much to the pain of his slowly waning ego.
"Soldier Everdeen requested that you be on her team," Coin said simply, seeming to think that was enough information for Finnick.
Instead, his eyebrows shot up at Katniss in confusion, who rolled her eyes with her head turned away from Coin. Finnick cleared his throat as he met Coin's eyes again and said, "Excuse me, but her team for what exactly?"
Now, it was Coin's turn to blink at him in confusion. "For the rebellion, of course. We'll be sending in a small team to the Capitol to carry out our more... delicate missions."
Finnick read through Coin immediately. "You mean to execute Snow."
"Amongst other things, yes," Coin said, giving Finnick a look of distaste that he knew stemmed from the fact that he understood her double meanings that were meant to be covert. Coin regained his attention by telling him, "You will start training immediately. Your coma has allowed for your vitals to reach full capacity in a shorter amount of time."
"You finally going to teach me how to shoot an arrow?" he asked Katniss light-heartedly.
"Soldier Everdeen will be practicing a different skill set," Coin cut in before Katniss could respond. Coin turned back to Finnick, capturing his eyes again as she told him, "You will be training with some of my soldiers, including your team leader, Boggs."
As if Coin had blown into an imaginary dog whistle, a burly soldier stepped through the door to her left, and, after a curt nod, Finnick thought it was safe to assume that this was the aforementioned Boggs. Finnick nodded back in response as he asked Coin, "What kind of training?"
"For the battlefield, of course," Coin said as she turned back to her screens, essentially dismissing Finnick as she finished with, "You may go down to see Beetee now."
Finnick followed Boggs down, making the silent trip to the arsenal, where Beetee sat in his own little technological arsenal. The moment that Finnick cleared his throat, Beetee had whirled around in his chair and grabbed Finnick in a hug, apologizing profusely for his inability to act out the plan.
Cracking a smile, Finnick hugged him back and said, "It's alright, Beetee. What you got here?"
In an attempt to distract him from the awkward embrace, Finnick pointed to the screens Beetee was looking at it. It looked as if it were a map of the Capitol, but four dots were on it. He thought they were possible future targets, but Beetee surprised him by saying, "Those are our rebels."
"Like, soldiers?" Finnick asked. The moment Beetee looked at him, he knew that it wasn't District Thirteeners who had been sent to the Capitol willingly. He gripped the chair and said, "Where is she?"
Beetee zoomed in on where the dots were clustered. Each was colored differently, and Beetee pointed to the gray dot.
"This is Camille. We're assuming this is her cell, considering this is where she spends the majority of her time," Beetee said. Just as he finished speaking, a small alarm began going off. Finnick grabbed his trident and readied himself for an oncoming enemy, but Beetee said, "Put that away! It's just the vitals."
"Vitals?" Finnick asked, getting closer to the screen again. Beetee pulled up a new page and he saw four columns with various moving bars. One way was going haywire, and Beetee swallowed loud enough that Finnick could hear him. When he moved his eyes up the page, he saw why.
The vitals were Camille's.
"What does this mean?" Finnick asked in a panicked voice, as if knowing how it worked would change what he knew, instinctively, what was happening to her. Beetee, in fear of how Finnick would react, kept his mouth shut. Finnick asked again, "Beetee, what's going on!?"
"She's being tortured!" Beetee finally shouted back. "Whenever it gets all haywire like that, it means that she's in serious pain!"
Finnick watched for what felt like forever, seeing only the levels of Camille's body go out of whack before they fell back to slightly normal, albeit a bit elevated, levels. Beetee was covering his face with shame and frustration, the same frustration that Finnick felt, being on the other side of the country and having no immediate way to help her.
"Don't worry, Cam," Finnick promised her, touching the screen. Beetee didn't even correct him when he did so, watching the golden boy, who had for so long been nothing but arrogant, break down. A single tear slipped down his cheek as he focused on her levels as they finally calmed. No matter what happened with the rebellion or at home or in District 13, he said the only promise he intended to keep.
"I'm coming for you, Camille. I promise."