Finch McCarthy

Day 7

04:37

As she struggles to try to get to sleep again after waking up Finch sometimes wonders what her grandmother would be thinking about her right now.

Her Grandmother who was always so proud of the big sister who had died over sixty years earlier and nearly won the hunger games against a career.

In Finch's home when she was younger the name Electra Dent was spoken about with pride.

The girl who nearly came home in the 10th games.

The girl who cut down four people while scoring a four that in hindsight was nowhere near accurate.

The girl who had inflicted a wound that would have killed her final opponent, the Victor of the 10th games, stone dead in only a few minutes more had he not made a desperate final lunge that skewered her through the heart.

None of Finch's family had ever been to The Capitol but they knew Electra was still remembered.

Every year the specials are on television. The second places who could have won the games if the final duel had gone just a little differently.

Every year footage of her clever great aunt is plastered all over the screens. Caesar Flickerman and Claudius Templesmith whisper in awe about the 5 girl who pulled off a Gilbert Oxford or Johanna Mason before such a concept properly existed.

Electra Dent was the original black sheep of the games. The surprise low scorer that no one anywhere saw coming until the moment she nearly killed the eventual victor with a throwing star on the second day. She was the one tribute that the heartless first Victor of 5, who won the 2nd games and managed to become the First Lady of Panem within 5 years of her victory, might have had a twinge of regret about failing to get out if rumours were true.

Electra loomed large over Finch's childhood.

But that was then. Before the first event that led to the chain of misery that followed and shaped Finch's path forward in life.

The death of her mother in an accident at work.

The spiral of her father into drinking that eventually resulted in a fall into a reservoir.

The slow demise of her grandmother struck down by cancer so developed and aggressive that even The Capitol would have struggled to do more than delay the inevitable.

The death of her older brother in a bar fight after he succumbed to the same vice as her father from grief after all the deaths.

The fatal accident that befell her younger brother, killed playing on the train tracks, while she tried to sell what little items they had remaining for food.

Finch was twelve years old by the time the last event in the chain happened.

Finch has no one now. No one talks to her but the acquaintances she has in the underbelly of 5 who think highly of the girl with a knack for stealing things.

Expensive things.

The peacekeeper crackdown came swiftly and they needed a scapegoat.

McCarthy is still eligible for The Games she imagined they said.

Why not put her name forward?

Get the rest of us out of it.

Never mind that it was a death sentence in 5 even though the peacekeepers didn't officially punish her. No whipping in District 5 for minors… not with "The System" in place. The Districts guilty little secret would see the girl punished properly as it had so many others.

No random event would save the top candidate this time and she was it.

The most optimistic, or cruel, of Finch's associates might have even have laughed that Finch was so good at stealing she might very well avoid what her punishment was truly meant to be and come home a Victor.

They probably didn't think that was a real possibility.

Only now it is.

They were arseholes for putting her on the path to get here but Finch knows now she can win.

She's known it since last night.

The Career pack she should have seen coming.

Never, ever forget a 3 is a danger when they're still alive in the arena. The technology district does not have nine Victors by a fluke even if they do die in the bloodbath more often than not. Give a 3 an inch and they'll take a mile. Physical frailty does not always equal absolute weakness. The fact the idiots who constituted The Career Pack forgot that means they just weren't victor material.

As the boy from 3 cut their throats, while humming a jaunty tune, she felt more than a little vindication to her prior thoughts that the weak 3 boy might be a danger. As she watched from her hiding place she thought he might be the big surprise of the games.

She now thinks she might have been wrong.

The writhing forms of the career pack before the 3 finished them had brought to mind that somewhere else in the arena others might be suffering from tracker jacker venom as well.

Finch knows the signs of that. Most of 5 would not.

When she finds the little girl from 11 near Everdeen, who was still writhing and hallucinating from stings, at sunset just before the cannons, she dismisses the little girl's presence immediately.

Right up until 11 smothers the life out of Everdeen shortly after the face of Cato fades from the sky.

Finch's laugh that follows is partly out of humour.

Alright mostly out of humour.

The 12 girl had been arrogant, self-centred and in actuality more than a little disappointing in her actual games performance than a score of 11 warranted from what Finch has seen so far.

To see The Capitol favourite die to a little girl was undeniably amusing.

Although the girl from 11 is hardly a hunchbacked king of old lusting for power, Finch can't help but remember the history books she possesses of the time before, the rumour always whispered that Richard the 3rd had killed his vulnerable nephews in a similar way to how 11 killed Everdeen.

It's the expression on 11s face that brings the scenario to mind.

The regret painted on 11's face marred with a steely determination to get the deed done had sent a shiver down Finch's spine.

It seems 11 wants a crown just like Richard of House York.

The crown of a Victor.

It's at that point that Finch feel's 11 has earned the right to be called by her proper name in Finch's head.

Just as Everdeen in many respects loses the same right by dying to a twelve year old.

Although the Rue that kills the 12 girl seems drastically different from anything Finch could have expected from the Rue in training although in hindsight the warning signs were there:

A stolen knife Finch observed out of the corner of her eye.

A scamper up the ropes.

An enraged career.

An outlier that is targeted for a crime he didn't commit having been framed by the true thief.

The eventual repercussion being one less tribute making it out of the bloodbath after being targeted personally by Cato and less focus spent on the little girl from 11 by The Careers.

Perhaps it was amusing to the other tributes who saw. Most of them probably forgot it even happened.

Finch didn't though and with that in mind little Rue seems far more vicious than first appears. All Finch can think of once she's realised that are the infamous mutts of the 30th games that looked cuddly and sweet at first as well.

There was nothing of the tributes left that those mutts got their many sharp teeth into in those games.

Not their clothes.

Not their flesh.

Not their bones.

Not even their district tokens.

Maybe it was a fluke though and perhaps Rue isn't a monster yet.

Because if the twelve year old girl who's meant to be dead by now is truly a threat then Finch might well be fucked.

07:49

She is well and truly fucked.

Finch realises it at seven forty-eight that morning as another cannon went and Mellark died in front of her eyes.

Little Rue had an early start to the day, at about six forty-five, and Finch was camped close enough to hear the quiet beeping of the silver parachute that came down.

If 11 was hungry before she certainly wasn't after the parachutes arrival.

It was a breakfast full of things Finch can only dream about. Things that will keep for days like cheese, dried meat and nuts. Calorific but long lasting. A meal sent by a mentor who thinks their tributes is in it for the long haul.

It's a large meal as well. A meal sent to a tribute who made an excellent kill.

A meal that was the result of a Capitol favourite dying.

A meal for a front runner.

Finch doesn't know why, and she knows it's irrational, but the sponsorship gift scares her more than she'd like to think about.

If people are investing money in the little girl they think she has a chance of winning now. Given the size of the breakfast it was also a lot of money as well.

It isn't long after finishing off some of the cheese that little Rue takes to the trees and Finch goes from very concerned of the tiny 11 to downright terrified.

In the trees Rue is fast. Very, very fast. She shimmy's up the tree quickly, and this doesn't surprise Finch too much from watching the girl in training, but it is when Rue is in the branches themselves that Finch finally figures out how the girl scored a 7.

Rue begins going from tree to tree above like a bird quickly flying from branch to branch.

She can barely keep up on the ground trying to follow Rue and Finch has always been quick.

Slow thieves don't stay thieves for long after all.

11 is frightening in her speed in the trees though and Finch can only shudder when she remembers another twelve year old from 3 who had similar skills in climbing and movement in the 13th games.

That girl came second, killed 2 people directly and also provided a distraction that allowed her ally to cut a third victim's throat open.

Finch purposefully tries to avoid thinking about the other victor (who also happened to be from 3) also renowned for their climbing skills.

She hopes to god that Rue doesn't become anything like that and not just for Finch's sake.

No one aims to become a monster after all when they enter the games.

Except maybe the first Victor from 6.

Finch manages to stay with the flying girl for a while until they reach a muddy embankment. Something has given Rue pause and Finch watches as the girl looks down like a magpie on something shiny.

Or a bird of prey on a mouse.

The little girl lithely moves off the tree, to the ground, with a shocking speed and goes over to the embankment.

She can't see anything but clearly Rue has.

Suddenly the embankment seems to move slightly. There is a person there!

Finch thinks it must be Mellark.

He's hidden himself under the mud and weeds and was almost invisible to see.

Finch is pretty sure the two are talking now but she isn't quite close enough to hear them. She attempts to move closer but is stopped when she sees Rue pull out an arrow from her little bag pack.

That Rue immediately plunges into Mellark's chest.

As Finch watches The Boy from 12 doesn't make any move to stop it. Finch think he might have just let Rue kill him.

Which Finch thinks must mean that, either he was too badly injured and it was a mercy kill, or without Everdeen he didn't want to live anymore.

Frankly Finch isn't sure which options worse.

The cannon goes after less than a half a minute of the arrow being in Mellark's chest and Finch runs.

She runs as far and as fast as she can away from the girl who's killed two of the leading tributes in the hunger games.

Finch has no idea what happens next.

Day 8

8:00am

Finch is hungry.

Unlike Rue she hasn't had any sponsorship gifts yet and after what she saw last night and so far this morning the careers supplies aren't really an option anymore.

The 3 boy is an absolute bastard.

Not enough that he killed the career pack but he's now made the Cornucopia into his own personal fortress.

Finch watched him do it from up in a tree.

The mines he had clearly dug up on the night the careers died after he gave up hunting, thirty or so minutes after Everdeen's cannon went, clearly deciding that wasn't where his strengths lay.

Instead each and every mine from around the Cornucopia has been dug up and set elsewhere. Finch is observant but it takes even her longer than she'd like to find the signs of the mines in the grass.

Once she has figured out the system she only manages to count about 80 or so before realising significant numbers are missing.

It's only by luck that she figures it out. A glint of something shiny under some weeds on the rim of the cornucopia.

Because the bastard has hidden some in the foliage surrounding the glade.

One step and it's the last thing most tributes would ever do.

Meanwhile the 3 boy is sitting prettily in the centre of The Cornucopia supplies enough for a month surrounding him.

As she contemplates all of this she starts feeling angrier as a silver parachute falls from the sky.

Surrounded by weapons, food and the biggest source of water in the games Finch is puzzled at what it could be.

The assholes, in the Capitol, have given the 3 boy a violin.

3 boy is delighted by the gift and quickly proves to the Capitol they were right to send it to him.

Finch will admit that the boy plays beautifully. Very beautifully. It's fairly soft though and unless a tribute was relatively close bye they wouldn't hear it very well.

Finch curses as she realises what the violin symbolises.

3 boy thinks he's so safe that he can play his music and not have to worry about any of the other tributes.

Why would he? Most ranged weapons would struggle to reach him and the odd few that could are no risk if he darts back into The Cornucopia. In addition he has a defence surrounding him that will take out any tribute whose not observant or has seen him put it into place.

She stays watching him though as he finishes the piece until he turns directly in her direction, looks up at her spot, where she thought herself well hidden, and winks at her.

Then blows her a kiss.

Finch is livid then.

That performance was not just arrogance directed at the rest of the tributes but also deliberately mocking her in particular.

He must have seen her watch him set up the mines and the bastard knows…

He knows that the defence system is enough to protect himself against the other tributes and even Finch knowing where a lot of them are isn't a threat.

3 boy begins laughing then. He begins laughing at her.

She can't take it anymore and gets out of there.

The 3 boy's laughter still echoing behind her.

13:17pm

On reflection it might have made more sense to steal from the boy from District 10. He's still got some food and can't move quickly at all. It would have been easy to go in gather some food and then get out.

Yep it would have been easy to steal from District 10.

Instead though Finch thought that it was a good idea to steal from little District 11.

Rue only had a slingshot.

Those were her thoughts as she pilfered a significant chunk of cheese and a few cuts of dried meat from Rue's little nest that she had made.

She couldn't see Rue nearby and it seemed a good idea at the time.

It wasn't a good idea.

She knew that for certain when the girl came back with a groosling that was definitely dead and had a dart sticking out of its neck.

Little Rue sure has a temper on her that's for certain.

Because now Finch is running for her life and she realizes once again that the girl from 11 is a demon in the trees.

She almost has a heart attack when a dart hits a tree less than 2 feet away from her.

Finch guesses that if one of Rue's darts hits her she is going to be as dead as the groosling she saw.

Finch does not know what possesses her but she veers towards the corn field where Thresh is. It's a big corn field and Thresh tends to lurk near the centre so if she sticks to the outskirts maybe the big 11 boy won't break her in half. It's the only place other than the cornucopia where there aren't trees for Rue to lurk in.

She's managed to put some distance between her and Rue now but has been running at full pelt for close to five minutes. As she bursts through into the slope that leads to the cornfield she feels a moment of temporary relief.

Finch will only need to hide there for a second or two and then-

Finch is having a really crap day because Thresh seems to have chosen that moment to come out of the cornfield.

Finch is frozen in fear for a moment and her brain seems stuck as to who is the biggest threat:

Rue who has killed two people in the past forty eight hours and had poison darts now.

Thresh who could probably break the neck easily of any tribute left in the arena, bar the lame boy from 10, as easy as popping open a soda bottle cap.

Finch decides that the forest might be slightly safe. If she zig zags she might even lose Rue who seems to have paused at the sight of Thresh while she's in the trees above.

Finch makes the right choice as it gives her a chance to escape.

It was close today though. Too close.

Finch can't help but be frustrated. The arena was meant to get easier after the death of The Career Pack and The Lovers from 12.

Not harder.

Day 9

Even Finch heard the sound of combat from where she's been hiding all day so when a cannon goes it isn't much of a shock.

What is a shock is the fact that it was Rue who killed the 10 boy.

Damn Rue scares Finch more and more each day. Cato was eighteen and had been training all his life for the games. Rue is twelve years old, has no training, and at this point has gotten more kills than quite a few of the career pack managed.

Only Thresh doesn't seem to realise that fact because he's happily chatting to Rue as the little girl tells what can only be generously described as half truths about what happened to Mellark and Everdeen as Finch hides watching and listening nearby.

"Katniss was finished by Tracker Jackers" Rues says mournfully.

"But she was alive until I smothered the life out of her with my little bag pack." Adds Finch mentally in her head.

"Cato cut him bad with a sword, but it was an arrow that killed him in the end" Rue answers with a sorrowful expression when Thresh asks about Mellark.

"An arrow I stabbed him with in the chest as he lay barely able to move in the mud." Adds Finch mentally in her head once again.

Finch decides it's a tossup now on who the most sinister tribute left in the games is.

The boy who cut the throats of the career pack as they lay immobile and unable to defend themselves from tracker jacker stings or the sweet little girl from 11 who is currently playing her tribute partner like the 3 boys violin.

Finch can't believe she's in the final four with those two.

Thresh has somehow become the least dangerous of the three.

Finch needs something insanely lucky to happen to get out of this.

The throwing stars that drop down as she muses don't seem like they'll be enough.

Day 10

Finch already regretted her choice seconds after it was made.

She could have warned the boy from 11 about the mines. That would have been the decent human thing to do.

It's what she should have done.

Instead she crept up behind the big 11 boy and pushed him forward.

She didn't know.

She didn't know that one mine wouldn't kill him instantly.

She didn't know…

Afterwards she couldn't look at the 11 boy screaming in pain.

The mine had only blown off his legs. He wasn't even heavily bleeding. Finch wasn't sure if it was the force of the explosion ripping the limbs away or a cauterising effect or what. Instead the only thing she could see or hear was the 11 boy screaming in pain.

Within seconds Rue was at his side.

That startled Finch. By the look of it Rue had been tracking her. Probably to kill her. Instead Thresh now had a monopoly on Rue's attention. For all the 11 girl's flaws she still cared for her district partner.

Finch ran.

Finch is sure that the little girl spent time trying to save her District partner. There was little blood after all so it might even have been possible. A minute later though Finch heard a cannon ring out.

What had she done?

She was meant to be a good person. Now she's no better than Rue, or the boy from 3 or even the dead Cato.

Those thoughts stay with her the rest of the day as a parachute comes down with food to complement her throwing stars.

She tries to let it comfort her.

Maybe she has a chance still.

Maybe she can win.

She sleeps fitfully that night.

Day 11

5:34 am

It happens just when night starts to turn into the beginning of dawn and Finch is barely awake when it occurs.

When she first hears the sound.

The humming of a tune in the trees above.

There for a moment then gone just as quickly.

Finch went rigid the second she heard the first sounds and crawled deeper into the burrow she made in the roots of a large tree on the third day of the games.

She's always been compared to a fox so she suppose it's fitting she's behaved like one in the arena.

Foxes shouldn't be afraid of birds is what she tells herself now as she knows who is up above her.

Then she remembers that Foxes aren't the only animal that burrows and right now Finch feels more like a mouse.

A mouse that a particularly vicious bird is after.

Finch can't go any deeper into her burrow when she hears a voice.

"Come out, come out little 5. Don't you want to play the game?" The voice says gently "You did earlier after all. When you did what you did to Thresh!" The voice finishes with rage.

It sounds a lot like the girl from 11.

Only not even close.

Rue sounded sweet and innocent, even after all she'd done, when she was speaking to Thresh.

The voice above is not the sweet tribute from 11 anymore, it's not even the controlled killer the person behind the voice had turned into since The Career Pack was taken out.

That Rue still had mercy.

The current voice makes a distinct promise of none.

Finch thinks rationally. In the dark Finch can see well quite naturally, the benefits of being a thief in the night back home, and with the throwing stars she now has Finch has a good chance of taking out Rue.

Finch is about to go when something gives her pause for thought.

Rue is confident which means somehow there is something that Rue thinks gives her an advantage.

Tributes have done odd things in the past when their district partners have been killed. Some have given up, some have fought on for the win in honour of their fallen partners, and some have just ignored their partner's deaths.

There is another kind of tribute though.

It doesn't happen as often but when it does it can get very bad indeed.

Some tributes seek revenge on behalf of their district partners or on behalf of others they liked or allied with in the games. A few even became Victors.

The worst kind of Victors.

The Victors who killed in a manner that was torturous or inhumane.

The sadistic punishment of a boy from her own District.

An injured girl pushed into a pack of starving mutts that were some of the worst seen in the games up to that point.

Any of the career pack who died during the 28th games.

Those other three victors. The special three. The worst three.

Finch shudders.

She isn't sure if Rue would be like that. Or what Rue is capable of doing. She isn't willing to find out though under any circumstance.

A few victims over the years have taken hours to die.

Many, many hours.

8:00pm

Rue is there all day.

Waiting for Finch to appear from her burrow in that section of the woods.

Finch is thankful that the 11 girl doesn't know exactly where she is. Finch almost risked popping her head out a few times to see if she's still there but didn't in the end.

Finch knows she made the right decision when she hears Rue curse.

"A rabbit! A rabbit! All day waiting and just a rabbit. I'm sick of waiting for you, for now, 5. I'm dealing with 3 first but don't forget 5 you will die for Thresh." Rue says with a cold anger.

"It will be painful"

"And you'll wish you'd have stepped on a mine instead"

Finch hears tears after that from the little girl.

"I'll keep my promise Thresh. I'll keep my promise."

Then Finch hears Rue leap away through the trees.

Finch still doesn't move.

She's still far too scared to.

Day 12

It's early when Finch is woken up by an explosion.

For a moment she's relieved. As long as Rue is dead she can probably take down 3 with her throwing stars with a bit of luck.

Then she hears another explosion and realizes that something different is happening.

She sneaks close to the cornucopia glade and watches as mine after mine is triggered by the 11 girl.

Why didn't Finch think of that?

Probably because she didn't have any weapons at the time to fight him afterwards.

3 boy looks frightened but as the mines continue to trigger she can almost see the plan forming in his mind.

Quickly she sees 3 start rifling through his pile of weapons until he locates a set of throwing knives.

They were probably Clove's.

3 is waiting for Rue and Rue can see it.

This could make for an interesting final duel.

One to which Finch has a front row seat incidentally.

The pair exchange words but Finch is still too far to hear before they go for each other.

As final duels go it's not particularly a battle. It's more like a quick shootout.

A knife leaves a hand.

A dart leaves a blow gun.

The 3 boy falls.

Rue does not.

She will soon though because a throwing knife is sticking out of her chest. It's clearly not in her heart however because she's still standing.

Rue in a state of shock pulls the knife out and looks at it with curiosity.

"Oh."

Finch chooses that moment to pick her way across the field in the path left by the exploded mines.

The little girl from 11 tries to bring the blow gun up to her lips but her fingers don't quite seem to be working.

The blow gun falls to the floor.

As Finch goes close to the dying 11 girl she wonders how she was ever afraid of her.

The 11 girl is swaying on her feet now and Finch almost pity's her.

Right before the girl from 11s eyes harden once more and a throwing knife hurtles through the air right towards Finch.

It cuts Finch's arm deeply.

If she hadn't moved in time it would have hit her chest.

Rue gives one last wet cough followed by flecks of blood, but she is smiling at Finch, as she says her final words.

"Worth a try"

The girl from 11 falls to the floor then, a bloodstained smiled still on her lips, and the final cannon goes.

Finch can only think one thing about her victory as the trumpets ring out.

How the hell did she win?


Hello Vesine here

Finch was fun. Personally I don't think turning Finch into a killer of multiple tributes would really suit Finch's character. On the other hand Marko Amon (3) is a relative blank slate and since Rue makes her initial decision in chapter one all bets are off.

In case anyone is wondering Rue is going to be the final chapter.

If you are starting to see a pattern in how the individual stories are going you're right.

In each chapter so far a lucky break happens for each individual victorious tribute negating the lucky breaks of others.

As a warning things aren't going to get more cheerful from here.

This is a tragedy after all.

As always reviews like and follows are very welcome and much appreciated.

All the best Vesine