Chapter Twenty-One – Bloodstains on the Carpet
Cameras flash, staccato beats of light that invade Finnick's bloodstream, threaten to take over the beat of his heart. Paparazzi and reporters, grasping Capitolites surround him and Annie, blocking them from moving forward, from retreat. Something – a rock? – flies past Finnick's head and glass shatters. People begin to shout and Peacekeepers in riot gear appear, advance on the crowd. Annie cries out as a man grabs her by the wrist and pulls her away from Finnick and then suddenly he's awake. A crash sounds from the bathroom, something breaks, a brittle snap, a tinkle of glass fragments falling against each other. Sounds straight from his dream, but this is no dream.
"Finnick!" Annie screams as a Peacekeeper drags her from their bed. Finnick reaches for her but another Peacekeeper blocks him as the first one lifts a frantically struggling Annie and literally carries her from the room. She knocks his helmet askew, smashes her fist into the visor, breaking it and tries to scream again, but the man covers her mouth with his hand and keeps heading for the door. She grabs the door jamb with both hands, leaving behind a smear of blood as the Peacekeeper jerks her free.
The violence of her struggle causes the Peacekeeper's grip to slip. Annie bites his hand, draws blood, and the startled man drops her. The second Peacekeeper has some kind of rifle trained on Finnick, who watches the man's eyes, waiting for his chance to take the gun or at least knock it from his grasp and go after Annie. A third Peacekeeper emerges from the bathroom, a plastic bag containing several small bottles in her hand. She shakes it, the pills inside rattling, and heads out of the room, past the first Peacekeeper, who has Annie pinned to the floor in the common room. He holds her, face down, as he fastens her wrists behind her back into gleaming metal cuffs.
Finnick's guard's eyes shift toward the movement in the other room, the tiniest twitch, and Finnick lunges. He succeeds in wresting the weapon away, but not before the man pulls the trigger, sending a pair of electrical leads into Finnick's bare chest. Barbs sink into his skin. He is blinded by pain and his muscles lock. His heart pounds in his chest, feeling as though it will burst. He can't breathe, can't move even to release the rifle he holds in a spastic grip.
But then the Peacekeeper wrenches it from Finnick's hands and with it the leads from Finnick's chest. Suddenly he can move. He pushes through the pain and scrambles from the bed. "Annie!" he shouts, stumbles toward the door, tries to run to her, but as the first Peacekeeper drags Annie, still fighting, to the waiting elevator, the second shoves Finnick backward into the bedroom. He crashes into the bedside table, turns his fall into a roll and charges again for the door, which slams shut as he reaches it. By the time he gets it open again, the elevator doors are closing, cutting off the sight of Annie, terrified, surrounded by Peacekeepers. He runs, but he's too late. He smashes into the doors, tries to wedge his fingers into the seam to pry them open, but ends up pounding on them impotently.
In shock, still short of breath from the electricity, sick from it and from the adrenaline yet pumping through his body, Finnick turns his back to the doors and slides down them to the floor. He can't think straight, his thoughts a jumbled mess, shot through with Annie's terrified voice calling his name along with an unending refrain: they took her, they took her, they took her. Martin finds him there on the floor seconds, minutes, hours later, his head in his hands.
"Finnick? What's going on? I thought I heard glass breaking. Did something…?" Finnick looks up at him and the look on Finnick's face must be pretty bad, because the older man reels back as though struck.
"They took her, Martin." That weak, pitiful croak can't be his voice, but who else can it belong to? Martin looks from Finnick to the open door of the bedroom, at the lamp lying on the floor, still lit. Finnick doesn't remember switching it on, doesn't remember it falling. He forces himself to think, to work through what happened.
The noise and flashes in his dream must have been the Peacekeepers entering the room, turning on the lights, searching the bathroom for the drugs. The lamp fell during the struggle or maybe when he landed against the table. He drags his eyes from the lamp to Martin, who just asked him another question. Finnick doesn't know what he asked, but it doesn't matter. "Peacekeepers," Finnick pushes the word past his teeth. "Peacekeepers took Annie."
"What? Why?" Martin crouches in front of Finnick, staring at his chest and Finnick looks down, sees twin spots, bright red, above his right nipple, bisecting the marks left by Annie's nails. A bruise already rises on Finnick's right side where he struck the table; he doesn't think any ribs are broken. Martin reaches out and forces Finnick's head up. Their eyes meet and Martin studies Finnick's face.
"I don't know why," Finnick says, but he does know. He does. "They never said a word." His voice is stronger, recognizable but remote. A staticky white sound fills his ears; if he concentrates on it, he can make out words: they took her, joined by my fault, layered atop each other, deeper and deeper until he drowns in the sound.
Martin stands and holds out his hand. "I am so sorry, Finnick. I thought it was another nightmare." Finnick stares stupidly at Martin's hand. Through the static he hears noise from the hallway as Martin says, "We'll make some calls, see if we can find out what the fuck is going on." His hand still hovers in front of Finnick. What am I supposed to do with that? They took Annie.
Finnick doesn't move and Martin drops his hand back to his side. Finnick's gaze drifts to a red spot in the beige carpet, darker on one end, fading to individual stained fibers toward the other. Blood. It's too far for him to reach from where he sits, he can't touch it. Annie's blood? That of the Peacekeeper she bit? There isn't a lot of it. He can't make himself look away. My fault.
"What in the world was all that noise?" Phineas asks as he pops his head out the door of his room. Martin motions him over and the little man actually clucks at the sight of Finnick on the floor in his underwear. Hysterical laughter wells up inside Finnick, but he chokes it down.
"What the hell are you doing here, LaSalle?" Martin asks. What? Finnick thinks. Isn't he supposed to be here?
Evidently, Phineas has a similar thought. "I live here during the Games, Perch."
"All the Capitol citizens were sent home after the interviews."
"Oh, that." He waves a hand in a dismissive gesture. "I went home, I showered, I came back." He shrugs. "I'm required to be here on Game Day just like the rest of you. No Peacekeeper order can change that."
"Not just like the rest of us," Martin retorts with a glance at Finnick.
Phineas blinks and whispers to Martin, "Was it another nightmare?" A never-ending nightmare, Finnick thinks.
When Martin finishes telling Phineas what happened, he suggests, "As our official representative, I think you might get more answers than I can."
Phineas nods, frowning, and returns to his room as Finnick rolls to his feet. He knows he's moving like an old man; he feels like an old man, older than Mags or Woof, maybe both of them combined. His hands shake and he can't make them stop. He shuffles into his room and he can feel Martin watching him.
Finnick picks up the lamp and sets it back on the bedside table; only then does he see the familiar cream and blue envelope sitting there, a bucket of ice water in the face. Bile rises as he picks it up like he's lifting a viper, tears it open and reads the equally familiar handwriting: You didn't think you could keep her to yourself forever, did you? The drugs were merely a serendipitous pretext, one for which you have only yourself to thank. There's no signature, but then Finnick doesn't need one.
Crushing the note in his fist, Finnick barely makes it to the bathroom in time, vomiting into the sink, already filled with broken glass from the shattered mirror, until there's nothing left inside. He's still retching, dry heaves, when Mags pushes in behind him. He doesn't know how she got there without her cane, but it doesn't matter as she strokes Finnick's back and shoulders. She gently takes the note still clutched in his fist, shoving bits of broken mirror off the counter into the trash, clearing a space to smooth the note out flat.
She reads it and says distinctly, "Fucking Snow." It cuts through the static in his head, clearing it away, and he turns his head toward her, meets her eyes. Mags' are troubled, angry; Finnick doesn't know what she sees in his.
"I can't… I can't stay here." He turns back to the sink, runs cold water into the mess, splashes cold water on his face.
"Finn…"
He shakes his head, stopping whatever she was going to say. He pulls away from her. He doesn't dry his face, just pushes past Mags into the bedroom. Feeling a little steadier if no less sick, he throws on jeans and a shirt, water soaking into it where it touches his neck and shoulders, and heads for the elevator.
"Where are you going?" Phineas asks, returning to the common room, dressed and phone in hand.
"I don't know." When the district rep starts to protest, Finnick shoots him a look filled with loathing. "Don't worry, Phineas. I'll be back in time for the arena. Wouldn't want to miss Game Day." The elevator arrives and he stabs in the code for the gymnasium floor.
When he reaches the gym he finds the doors open, which is good, considering he has no key and nothing with which to pick the lock. He flips on the lights. The boards damaged during training are gone and there's a row of newly stained floor boards on a tarp in the middle of the gym. The smell of the chemicals, no doubt the reason the doors are open, adds to Finnick's light-headed feeling.
He walks past the work zone and heads for the punching bag hanging in the far corner of the gym. He thinks he should maybe wrap his hands or put on gloves or something, but decides against it. He wants the pain, needs it to drown out Annie screaming his name, to drown out his failure. His sheer, arrogant stupidity.
"Why" – punch – "didn't I flush" – punch – "the fucking" – punch – "things" – punch punch – "down the toilet?" He slams his arm into the bag, sets it swinging. Catches it and pummels it viciously. "Why did I" – punch – "keep them?" Now Snow has both Annie and a legitimate reason to keep her.
The sky outside the windows high on the east wall is beginning to lighten with the dawn when he hits the bag with a series of rapid blows that set it swinging again. He jabs at it, misses and overbalances, falls to his knees and drops further, folds himself until his forehead touches the floor and he begins to howl. He doesn't know how long he screams, long enough that someone should probably have come to investigate, given how raw his throat feels when he finally stops. Only then, knuckles skinned and sticky with drying blood but nothing broken, does Finnick return to the fourth floor.
There is food laid out in the dining room, kept warm or cold, as appropriate. No one else is around. He controls the impulse to smash everything and instead forces himself to eat, although he has no idea what. He rinses the food down with as much water as he can handle, remembering his first time in the arena – the Gamemakers love to make the tributes dry up, starve. Why should Plutarch Heavensbee be any different, just because he's theoretically on their side?
Finnick is slumped back in his chair and staring at the ceiling, feeling numb, when Phineas comes in. Finnick focuses on the feathery little man. "Anything?"
"Not much. She was arrested for illegal drug use, but that's all I could get out of anyone." He pours himself some water and sits down at the end of the table. "I was told there's surveillance footage of her taking a highly illegal substance. And they found half a dozen different types of pills and powders, all illegal." He frowns. "I don't understand how she could have gotten them."
Finnick closes his eyes. He thinks he might lose his breakfast. "They were mine."
"What? Yours?"
He opens his eyes and rolls his head along the back of the chair until he's facing Phineas. "Sometimes you need a little help to face the day." He looks away again, stares up at the ceiling. "Or the night." My fault, my fault, my fault… "It's not like they're going to take me into custody. What would be the point? No punishment could be worse than the arena." But you know that isn't true, don't you, Finnick?
Finnick surges up from his chair and shoves away from the table, the chair toppling behind him. He stares down at his mostly empty plate and in a fit of rage, at himself, at Snow, sends everything on the table in front of him flying. His plate and his glass shatter against the wall and water drips down the ugly greenish wallpaper, mingling with the spicy red sauce that remains from the shrimp he must have eaten. Phineas stares after him as Finnick stalks to his room, but as soon as he closes the door, he deflates, the rage dissipating, leaving in its wake only despair.
He feels like the frightened boy he was ten years ago as he strips and heads into the shower. While he was in the gym, or maybe while he ate, someone cleared away the broken glass and tidied up the mess in the bathroom. The hot water of the shower stings his knuckles, the scratches on his chest and back.
Finnick pulls on underwear and a new shirt and the same jeans he wore to the gym, adds socks and shoes. He knows there'll be something else waiting for him to change into at the Stockyard, so what he puts on now doesn't matter. When he leaves his room, everyone else is already gone. He calls out once, just to be sure, but receives no answer. Alone, he heads up to the roof and the waiting hovercraft.
Most of the others are already on board when he gets there, only 11 and 12 still wait. He follows Peeta, takes the empty seat beside Mags; she briefly lays her hand on his forearm. No one questions why he's late. When a technician approaches him to inject the tracker into his left arm, one of the other techs waves her off and Finnick laughs, pokes at the tracker Officer Leto planted in his right arm when he was home the last time. Home for the last time. He stops laughing.
Mags disappears with Rialla when they arrive in the staging area. Rafe appears with a blue jumpsuit and a fat yellow belt. He precedes Finnick into a tiny room with his name on the door and a stylized number 4. Finnick quickly changes and takes his place on the platform. He waits, trying not to think about what's happening to Annie, hoping his family heeded his warnings and that he can keep the promises he made to Heavensbee.
Haymitch's girl on fire lit the spark; now it's up to him and the others to fan the flames into a conflagration that the fucking Capitol can't control.
xXx
Annie is loaded into the back seat of a black car with black windows. She is flanked by two Peacekeepers, the one who carried her from the Training Center and the one who hurt Finnick. There are two more in front, one of them driving. Through her terror, all she can think of is how very little threat she poses to these four well-armed guards, all of whom are larger than she is. A laugh, somewhat hysterical, bubbles out of her fear. She laughs until she can't laugh anymore and ends up choking back a sob.
The Peacekeeper in the front passenger seat stares at Annie when she starts laughing, keeps staring, her eyes drifting from Annie's face down to her bare legs, lingering for a moment at her breasts and Annie wishes they had let her get dressed, wishes she had on more than just Finnick's thin silk shirt.
It's still dark outside, still a long time before dawn. The car winds through the streets of the Capitol and Annie counts the ones they cross, the ones they turn onto. When she reaches twenty-seven, the car stops in front of a large white mansion, both the building and grounds lit up by what seem like a million white lights. It's a familiar sight, the presidential mansion, and it's just as dazzling now as it was the night before. She feels the water pressing in on her.
The Peacekeepers take her, hands still cuffed behind her back, to an interior room on the ground floor and lock her in by herself. It's an office, lined with dark wooden bookshelves and well-lit display cases that she would normally want to explore, but not like this. There is a large desk near one wall and behind it, nearly overwhelming in its size, is the presidential seal of Panem. To the right of the seal is another door. A faint coppery-sweet scent permeates everything but is much stronger near the desk, a combination of blood and roses. She's in President Snow's office in the heart of the Capitol.
There is a large, comfortable-looking leather couch along one wall, but Annie doesn't want to touch that couch. She doesn't want to touch anything and so she drops down to sit on the floor, leaning her shoulder against the wall opposite the door she came through. She has no desire to learn where the other door leads. The clock on the desk says 4:43. She wishes there was a window. Even when they forgot her on the train, there was at least a window so she could see the sun and clouds, see the stars. But maybe here in the heart of the Capitol, the garish lights of the city overwhelm the stars' more subtle light.
Annie shivers and brings her knees up toward her chest, wishes she had a blanket or a sweater. She's cold. Her shoulders are starting to hurt from the constant, awkward pressure inflicted by the cuffs. She can feel them cutting into her wrists, cutting off her circulation, but there's nothing she can do about it.
To distract herself, Annie thinks about the first time she ever saw Finnick. It wasn't on television. She told him about it once, but he didn't remember it at all. She was thirteen and it was her second time in the reaping pool, waiting for them to call her name. Not that it happened then; her reaping was still four years away, but every year was the same. Always, she was sure this was the time. And as it turned out, they never called her name until just a few days ago – she volunteered for the Games that made her a victor.
That day in the square, the reaping for the 66th Games, she was nervous, not frightened, exactly, but she wanted them to just get it over with. She distracted herself then from her unpleasant reality by watching a gull, just as she distracts herself now with memories.
The gull settled on the tower of the Justice Building for a moment, then flew down looking for scraps of food in the crowd until someone chased it off, only to settle again on the spire and start the cycle over again. About the third or fourth time the gull launched itself in search of food, she looked up and saw Finnick Odair, the previous year's victor and not much older than she was, watching her from the stage. When he noticed her noticing him, he smiled and winked at her and then pulled his attention back to whatever the mayor was saying.
The door beside the presidential seal opens, interrupting her reverie, and Annie freezes. The clock says 9:37; she must have fallen asleep at some point. She can't feel her hands. When she looks up past the clock, President Snow is standing there, looking down at her.
"Good morning, Miss Cresta," Snow says cheerfully, sounding almost surprised to see her. "I see you've recovered from our encounter a few days ago." He closes the door and takes a step into his office, a step closer to Annie. "I hope you haven't been waiting long." She blinks.
"Liar," she whispers, and the water closes in over her head, taking her beyond fear.
"Pardon me?"
Still huddled on the floor, still leaning against the wall, she says, louder, "You're a liar. You had them bring me here hours ago."
He crosses to his desk, shuffles some papers, then circles to sit on the front edge. "I'll allow you that, Miss Cresta, but only once. Stand up." With him actually in the room, only a few feet from her, the smell of blood and roses is nauseating and she's glad she hasn't eaten since dinner the night before.
She unfolds herself with some difficulty; her knees are stiff and her feet are all pins and needles from sitting in one position too long, but she finally steps away from the wall to stand in front of him, forcing herself to hold her head high. She shivers again when he shifts away from the desk and circles around her.
"You were a lovely girl five years ago, Annie. May I call you Annie? Miss Cresta seems so formal." He doesn't wait for her to respond to that, not that she believes he cares what her response might have been. "But you've grown into a beautiful young woman. Your time with Finnick has agreed with you." She blinks rapidly at the mention of Finnick, curls her fingers into fists, her nails digging into her palms.
"Why am I here?"
"You're here because you broke the law."
"What law?" she asks, but she knows. "It's called Oblivion… It'll make you forget, at least for a little while… It's addictive and it's highly illegal." Finnick's voice, the tiny blue pill she willingly took from his hand.
"Are you telling me that you were unaware that the drug known as Oblivion is illegal?" Snow tilts his head a little to the left as he studies her.
There is nothing she can say to that. He obviously knows she took it, that Finnick gave it to her. There are cameras everywhere in the Training Center, microphones. Do snakes toy with their prey? Annie thinks and quashes more hysterical laughter.
"I am told, as well, Annie, that there have been quite a few instances of inappropriate contact between you and your tribute. You have broken the rules of the Hunger Games as well as the laws of Panem."
"But that rule applies to adult mentors and underage tributes." Annie wants to take the words back as soon as she says them, doesn't want to give him any more power over her than he already has.
"Does it? I don't recall seeing that wording in the rulebook." He takes a seat behind his desk and Annie breathes a tiny bit easier, if only because there's more space between her and Snow. "I'm sure the Games Commission's legal team will look into that and if that is indeed the case, no sanctions will be imposed."
"Sanctions?"
He leans his elbows on his desk, steeples his fingers in front of his face. "Yes, Annie. That kind of abuse of power brings with it stiff penalties." She thought she was beyond fear, but she feels it growing inside her again now as Snow continues, "Of course, if they decide age has no bearing, the evidence against you is rather… significant." There is a click behind her and then the sound of a breathy laugh ending on a moan, her own voice saying, "They could call it 'the Hunger Games After Dark,'" Finnick's laughing comment about pay per view.
She whirls and there on a screen in the wall is herself and Finnick, moving together in surprisingly clear detail and lighting. She wants to cover her ears, her eyes, to shut out the sight and sound, but the handcuffs prevent her from moving her hands. She turns away from the screen, but the sight of Coriolanus Snow watching her is no improvement. Maybe the water rushing in to drown her will take it all away.
"That was quite clever of you, Annie. You've a delightful sense of humor." Snow smiles, tinged with red, and Annie shudders. "I had of course heard the rumors that your Games had broken your mind, but, your episode in the victors' lounge a few days ago notwithstanding, you seem quite sane to me."
Behind her, the video begins to replay and the volume increases. "Please stop." Snow allows it to play for a moment more, but then there is another click and the room falls silent save for her own harsh breathing.
"You will be very popular with the Capitol's citizens, Annie, once this Quarter Quell is over." She closes her eyes, clenches her fists even tighter, feels her nails break the skin.
"Please…"
"'Please' what, Annie?"
"Please… Please, let me go." Tumbling free, the waves buffet her. "I want to go home," she whispers.
"Home? I'm afraid the Capitol is your home now, Annie. for the foreseeable future. Even if the Games Commission's legal team allows that you and your tribute were both consenting adults, there is still the matter of your illegal drug use." There's a knock at the door and a young man with dark greenish hair and a matching suit opens the door.
"Doctor Muhti is here to see you, Mr. President."
"Show her in, please." He glances again at Annie. "We're done here, for now. And I believe you have a job you should be doing." He looks at his desk clock and Annie's eyes follow. 10:03. "Oh, dear. I'm afraid the Games have already begun. I do hope Finnick is still alive."
All the air is sucked from Annie's lungs; she can't breathe. Her knees begin to buckle as the water drags her down and the green man ushers in a tall woman with very long black hair; she stares at Annie, her gaze lingering on her bare legs and feet. "Please take Miss Cresta back to the Training Center," Snow orders. "And find someone to remove those handcuffs."
"Yes, sir." The president's assistant takes Annie's elbow, prevents her from falling. "Please come with me, Miss Cresta." He sounds almost sympathetic.
She still can't breathe as she follows the man from the room. Behind her, Dr. Muhti asks, "Is that Annie Cresta? Henrik and I would dearly love to meet her, once the Games are over…"