A/N: New Chapter! A bit on the longer side. The next two chapters I am predicting are going to be more filler chapters, and more on Maria's history as opposed to the present games.
There is a lot of POV switches in this chapter... I am not too confident about them, but I need to start up dual pov's- especially for the escape from the arena.
As always, welcome constructive criticism(as long as it is delivered nicely) Thank you for the follows and fav's, I really appreciate it! They are really nice and encourage me to keep writing! It really gives me motivation and I am glad that other people like my writing/story.
No one had anything solid to go off of, so we ended up just choosing a random path, with no idea what we are approaching. Finnick's hand left mine finally. Both our weapons up and ready to defend the group once we started down the sand strip. Jo is leading, Peeta supporting Beetee, Katniss in the middle, next to Peeta, with Finnick and I rounding out the group. Making our way to the jungle and its mysteries.
"Well, it must be monkey hour. And I don't see any of them in there," says Peeta. "I'm going to try to tap a tree." Not a good idea.
Finnick ends up stepping in, "No, it's my turn,"
"I'll at least watch your back," Peeta says.
"Katniss can do that," says Johanna. "We need you to make another map. The other washed away." She yanks a large leaf off a tree and hands it to him.
I unravel the spile off the vine around my waist and pass it to Katniss. Placing it softly in her outreached hand, "Be careful". An understanding is made in our interlocked gaze. Protect him for me.
A smirk forms on Finnick's face though, "Don't miss me too much Mo!" and they are off before I could respond. Trenching deeper into the jungle, their frames soon out of sight. It's funny. A few days ago she probably would have used this moment to kill him, and him to taunt and poke at her. A bond had formed when he saved Peeta when we all ran from the fog and fought together against the monkey mutts. Now all her animosity was aimed at Jo.
Peeta starts up another map with the leaf Jo thrust at him earlier. With a knife in hand, he started carving out the arena again. He was almost done when a scream broke out.
Katniss POV
An understanding was made between Maria and me, or at least that is what I tried to convey. Leaving Peeta with Jo isn't my favorite thing. But, just as she is trusting me to protect Finnick's back, I am trusting her to protect Peetas.
We make our way into the jungle, roughly 15 yards. Not too far, but far enough away from the rest of them, we can no longer make them out between the vines and trees. Finnick locates a good tree and starts jabbing at it to make a hole with his knife.
My bow is drawn and an arrow notched, I still can't lose the uneasy sense that something is going on. And that something has to do with Peeta. Retracing our actions from that first gong. Maria rescuing him at his plate, Finnick reviving him after the force field, the morphling sacrificing herself for him. The fight with the careers was quick, but Maria sacrificed her weapon to hit Brutus, and Finnick took a blade to the leg to defend Peeta. And now… Now, Joanna has him drawing a map again instead of him getting water. For some reason, other victors are trying to keep him alive, even if it means dying themselves.
What? For one thing, that is my job. He is my district partner. My… whatever. For another, it doesn't make sense. One of us can get out. So why haven't they picked themselves? Why Peeta? What did Haymitch say to them to get them to put Peeta's life above their own?
I have my reasoning for keeping him alive and prioritizing his life over mine. He is my friend. But if I were to have no ties to him, what would make me want to save him? Yes, he is brave, but every victor has to be brave to survive. There is the quality of goodness that is hard to overlook, but still… and then I think of it, what Peeta is so much better than us. He can manipulate his words. He annihilated the rest of the field at both of his interviews. He is strategic and charming and knows how to use the crowd.
I recall believing that was the gift the leader of our revolution should have. Has Haymitch persuaded the others of this? That Peeta's tongue would have far greater strength against the Capitol than any physical power the rest of us could claim? It still seems like a really long leap for some of the tributes. I mean, we're talking about Johanna Mason here. But what other cause can there be for their decided actions to keep him alive?
Finnick finished making a hole deep enough in the tree as I came to this conclusion, held out a hand, and said, "Katniss, got that spile?" I hold the metal tube out to him.
That is when I hear the scream. So full of fear and pain it chills my blood. My veins turn icy, shooting throughout my body. The kind of chill is impossible to shake off. And so familiar. I drop the spile, ignore where I am or what is ahead, and know I must get to her, save her. I run wildly in the direction of the voice, heedless of the risks, tearing through vines and branches, through anything that keeps me from getting to her.
Where is she? Why is she in here? "Prim!" I cry out. "Prim!" Only another agonized scream answers me.
I don't care about the trail I leave, just crash into trees, vines cutting into my face and arms as I run. Tripping over branches and loose vines. I am getting closer to her. Almost there. Sweat pours down my face, stinging the healing injuries. I huff, trying to get some use out of the hot, damp air that seems barren of any oxygen.
"Prim!" I rip through a wall of green into a small clearing and the sound repeats above me. Above me? My head whips back. Do they have her up in the trees? I desperately scour the branches but see nothing. "Prim?" I say pleadingly. I hear her but can't glimpse her. Her next wail rings out and there's no mistaking the origin. It's coming from the jaws of a small, crested black bird perched on a branch about ten feet over my head. And then I understand.
It's a jabberjay.
I've never seen one before — I assumed they no longer existed—and for a beat, as I lean against the trunk of the tree, clutching the stitch in my side, I scrutinize it. I pull up a mental image of a mockingbird, fuse it with the jabberjay, and yes, I can see how they mated to make my mockingjay. There is nothing about the bird that indicates it's a mutt. Nothing barring the horribly realistic sounds of Prim's voice spewing from its mouth. I mute it with an arrow in its throat. The bird drops to the earth. I release my arrow and twist its neck for good measure. Then I launch the disgusting thing into the wilderness. No phase of hunger would ever entice me to devour it.
Finnick crashes into the clearing to find me wiping my arrow clean with some moss. "Katniss?"
Sensing his concern, "It's okay. I'm okay. I thought I heard my sister, but - " I was cut off by another pained scream. It isn't Prim, it was much older, I didn't recognize it. The impact it had on Finnick was instantaneous. The color vanishes from his face, no longer tan, and I can actually catch his pupils dilating in fear.
"Finnick, wait - " I reach out to assure him, but he is already gone. Gone in pursuit of the victim, just as mindlessly as I pursued Prim. "Finnick!" I shout, but I know he won't turn around and wait for me to offer a reasonable answer. So all I can do is follow him.
It's no struggle to track him, even though he's moving so fast, since he leaves a clear, trampled path in his wake. But the bird is at least a quarter-mile away, most of it uphill, and by the time I reach him, I'm winded. He is far faster than me and has been here for quite some time. He's circling around a massive tree. The trunk must be four feet in diameter and the limbs don't even form until twenty feet up. The woman's shrieks stem from somewhere in the foliage, but the jabberjay's hidden. Finnick's screaming as well, over and over. "Mags, Mags!" He's in a state of panic and absolutely unreachable, so I do what I would do regardless. I climb a neighboring tree, locate the jabberjay, and take it out with an arrow. It falls straight down, landing directly at Finnick's feet. He picks it up, slowly making the connection, but when I slide down to join him, he looks more desperate than ever.
My knees turn to water and I sink to the ground, buckling underneath me. Finnick is trying to tell me something, but I can't hear him. What I do finally hear is another bird starting up somewhere off to my left. And this time, the voice is Gale's.
Finnick snags my arm before I can run. "No. It's not him." He starts drawing me downhill, toward the shore. "We're getting out of here!" But Gale's voice is so rich in pain I can't help stumbling to reach it. "It's not him, Katniss! It's a mutt!" Finnick shouts at me. "Come on!" He moves me along, half dragging, half carrying me, until I can process what he said. He's correct, it's just another jabberjay. I can't help Gale by tracking it down. But that doesn't change the fact that it is Gale's scream, and somewhere, sometime, someone has made him sound like this.
I stop resisting Finnick, though, and like the night in the mist, I run what I can't fight. Just this time, it's my heart and not my body that's deteriorating. This must be another weapon of the clock. Four o'clock, I guess. When the hands tick-tock onto the four, the monkeys go home and the jabberjays come out to play. Finnick is right—getting out of here is the only thing to do. Although there will be nothing Haymitch can send in a parachute that will help either Finnick or me recover from the wounds the birds have inflicted.
Another scream broke out, Maria. This time it wasn't Finnick to drag me. I was straining to hold him back. Just long enough for him to realize she wasn't actually here. It was a jabberjay. Maria is back on the beach with Peeta, Beetee, and Johanna. She is safe. We need to go that way, not deeper into the jungle.
"It's all right, Finnick. It's just a jabberjay. They're playing a trick on us," I say. "It's not real. Maria is on the beach. And… It's not your… Mags."
"No, it's not Mags. But the voice was hers. Jabberjays mimic what they hear. Where did they get those screams, Katniss?" he says.
I can feel my cheeks grow pale as I understand his meaning. Blood leaving my face, "Oh, Finnick, you don't think they ..." Jabberjays mimicked sounds they had already heard. They copied. That was what they were meant to do. They couldn't make human noises they had never heard before. If they were letting out all those awful screams, they had to have heard it from somewhere.
"Yes. I do. That's exactly what I think,"
We started running again, away from Maria's screams. She was joined by another woman. Finnick must have known her too because he nearly turned around again. We managed to continue on. Ignoring what we could we made it.
The treeline came into sight. Peeta and Maria are there, a moment later Jo is next to them. Their hands are raised, palms facing us, even now hanging back from us. Why? Hadn't they heard? Why didn't they come running? Why did Maria not come for Finnick as soon as she heard her own screams?
We end up sprinting right into the reason why. The wall is so transparent we ran right into it, bouncing back onto the soil. My shoulder bore the worst of it, it popped out of my shoulder. Hissing with pain, I look over to Finnick. He as a trail of red down his nose, he ran face-first into the wall, taking the brunt of the trauma to it. This is why they didn't come for us. Beetee is even laying behind them, shaking his head. An invisible border barred the area in front of us. Not a forcefield, because we can touch it; it was smooth but still unbreakable. No spear, trident, axe, or knife could split it. It enclosed the entire wedge. We are trapped in this sector until the hour passes.
Peeta presses his hand against the surface and I put my own up to meet it, as if I can feel him through the wall. I see his lips moving but I can't hear him, can't hear anything outside our wedge. I try to make out what he's saying, but I can't focus, so I just stare at his face, doing my best to hang on to my sanity.
Then the birds start to come. One by one. Perching in the surrounding branches. And a carefully orchestrated chorus of horror begins to spill out of their mouths. Finnick gives up at once, hunching on the ground, clenching his hands over his ears as if he's trying to crush his head. Maria is at the barrier next to Peeta. She is yelling, or at least I think she is yelling, for Finnick. Her hands were waving around. Eventually, she settled and merely rested her forehead against the border.
I try to resist for a while. Emptying my quiver of arrows into the hated birds. But every time one drops dead, another quickly assumes its place. And finally, I give up and curl up beside Finnick, trying to block out the excruciating sounds of Prim, Gale, my mother, Madge, Rory, Vick, even Posy, helpless little Posy... Clenching my hands over my ears. I could still hear them screaming in pain, sounding tortured. It got louder and louder, creating a symphony of the worst sounds imaginable. I didn't know all of them, Finnick and half of them too. He was shouting and pleading for them. Annie, Mags, Maria, Romeo; occasionally a young boy would scream as well. We couldn't run from this, not like the mist. We just had to sit and wait in this pain.
Maria POV
A scream. It was coming from a young girl. A girl far too young to be here. Peeta and Katniss are the youngest victors here. This scream is from someone far younger than us. It was cut off- not finished. There was no canon, so they didn't die. Still, I started moving to the tree line. Jo, Peeta, and I, making our way to where Finnick and Katniss were last seen. Weapons up and ready.
While moving I ask, "Do you know who that was?"
"I don't know, she sounded a bit young for anyone this year" Jo responded with the same thoughts that were swirling around my own head.
Peeta was way ahead of us, running for Katniss. He had recognized the young girl's voice; "Prim!"
Prim?
Katniss's younger sister. What is she doing here? I mean, she can't be actually here in the arena, but…
Deja Vu. Peeta stumbled back a few steps and crashed into me. Unlike last time, we both remained upright and standing. He caught my outstretched hand to steady me.
"Mellark you need to stop running into things"
"There's a wall… Some sort of shield". His hands are out and pressing against something transparent. When I walk up to it I can feel it is solid. Pushing into my fingertips, it is smooth and sturdy. There is no way we are getting through that. I can't tell how high it goes, but we walk around for a while, hoping it ends somewhere. It doesn't. It isn't a forcefield, no shocks or chinks. It is an invisible barrier, separating us from Finnick and Katniss.
I end up jabbing my spear against it; all it did was clunk and fall to the sand. Peeta's knife did no damage, and Jo's axe couldn't stick. Nothing is going through that border. It probably encapsulated the entire wedge. It won't lower until the hour passes. What are the chances? What are the chances we would choose this sector?
I feel useless here. We can't do anything but sit and wait. Jo ends up going back to Beetee, pacing back and forth down the beach. "They'll be fine. Katniss and Dinnick are good fighter's and whatever this is… they can handle it. They're strong."
I am trying to reassure myself, and Peeta. It is the only thing I can do. I certainly can't fight this, we are blocked away. My heart beating out of my chest like the opening ceremony drums. Thumping and rattling in my chest, bashing against my ribs. My mouth is dry. I want water, but that is what got us into this whole mess. My fingers are clenched, gripping white around my spear.
It feels like the hour should be over already. Every second is a minute in my head. And then they are there.
They come crashing through the trees, but we can't hear them. I know we should hear the ruckus they were causing, the snap of the branches, the sound of feet hitting the earth. They are clumsy in their motions, we should hear them. The wall must block out sound too. That explains the cut-off scream.
We are up against the wall now, our palms pressing into the wall. I am yelling for them now. I know they can't hear us, but at the speed, they are running they are definitely going to crash into the wall. Jo must have heard Peeta and me, and she came back over to us.
They both ended up running right into the invisible barrier. Katniss was lucky, she took the blow to her shoulder. Finnick wasn't so lucky. He might have broken his nose, it took the brunt of the force and is now bleeding. I can see when it clicked. The anger left their eyes and began filling with despair. There was no saving them. Katniss ends up sitting up and going over to Peeta. Their hands are almost touching, psalm only separated due to the transparent wall.
"It's okay Katniss. It'll be okay. You can get through this. I'm here. I am here and I'm not leaving." it is a mantra he is repeating, despite the fact she can't hear him.
Finnick stays on the floor. I am trying to get his attention. My arms are waving around, desperate for him to just open his eyes and see me. With all the communication Mags has on her bad days, we have hand signals and movements for her to talk to us. Those are what my hands are doing now. If he could just open his stupid sea-green eyes, sit up, and look at me, we could talk. I try. I try for a few minutes but it is clear he is far too affected by whatever is going on. He just hunches over and grabs at his head. Clawing his ears and pushing the heel of his palms into them.
Then we see what was happening to them. Black birds. One by one they surround them, perching on branches singing. They have to be some sort of mutt, otherwise, the pair wouldn't be as affected. Katniss is shooting them down; one after another drop to the floor. She runs out of arrows eventually. She falls into the same position Finnick is in. Curling on the ground and retreating into herself.
And Peeta and I sat, watching them, helpless to do anything for the longest hour of my life.
Finnick POV
It took several moments for it to register that familiar gentle hands were touching him, trying to pull him back up, it was over. The screams were still going through. Filling my ears, ringing in my mind. They settled, sank into me and they won't leave now, their anchor far too heavy to lift. Eyes remained clenched, lids glued closed, unable to open up. He wanted to open them, they were just so heavy. Muscles locked and rigid, like the mist, got to him again, shutting down his body. It takes two to move me.
Soothing, gentle hums, and soft spoken words. They can't carry me like Katniss, but Jo and Maria try. Maria sits me down in the sand and lays me against her. My head is on her lap and she is softly stroking my forehead and my cheeks. I feel frozen, despite the wet air and sweltering heat. It took a while before my hands lowered from my ears, but once they did, they dropped to my sides, limp and loose. Her voice filled my ears, replacing her screams.
"It's okay Finnick. It's okay now. It's over. It's all done. You're safe now-" her hands caressing my face and my neck. Not as smooth as normal, the scabs covered both of them, but it was Maria. It was Maria and Finnick. Everything was okay. She was alive. Not screaming in pain. She was alive and speaking to him, "I'm here. You got out. You made it through the hour Finnick. You're okay now. It is all done-"
She was there. Her round eyes locked with his. Gentle blue framed by full lashes. Her bright eyes softened for him. Faint traces of sunspots on her nose. I can feel her thighs beneath me, cushioning my head as she runs her hands through my hair. Gradually feeling more and more present, no longer lost in my head. She became my anchor. Her sharp face and crooked smile. The glow of her tan skin and blinding eyes. I am out. I am out away from the jabberjays and with Maria.
When I go the strength to speak I interrupted her soft soothing words, "-you didn't hear them," it came out as a whisper, voice rough and gravely from all the yelling.
"We heard Katniss' sister, in the beginning". Finally present enough, I could make out Katniss and Peeta in a similar position. Beetee remained unmoved, and Jo was on lookout. "But you are right, I didn't hear them."
"Mags… I heard Mags and Annie. They were screaming for my help. You too. Screaming in pain. My parents. Tang and even Hali." Of course, Hali is already dead. Set to sea back home after the announcement of the quarter quell was too much. The capital definitely doesn't have her.
"It wasn't real Finnick. Just jabberjays,"
"-But jabberjays copy" voice still weak, "they copy what they hear and I heard…"
"That is what the gamemakers want you to believe" her words were still soft, but they were sure, strong, and unbendable. "It wasn't their voices, and it wasn't mine. It is probably some capital technology." She was so confident in that thought it was hard to refute it.
We sat there in silence for a moment. Just the crash of the waves from the beach, and Peeta's soft words. Maria ended up giving me soft kisses. Peppering them across my face. My forehead, the bridge of my nose, the high point of my cheeks, my chin, my jaw, the tip of my nose. There was no place on my face she didn't give a soft kiss too. I didn't think I could be in love with her more than I already was.
Her hair is still tied into sections, but she has bits of hair that fell out and they frame her face. Curled up and wild, like the rest of her hair usually is. The sun hits her hair, chestnut, but streaks of sunlight run through them. I want to run my hand through it, try to catch the trail of light, but it's tied away. Her eyes remind me of home. When the wave peaks and crests, crashing into itself, filling with air and white bubbles. She is strong, and steady, but is still soft with me. Graceful even, despite her athletic stance and firm stature. And so beautiful.
I can't wait to get out of here. Waking up to Mo, and falling asleep to her. To say I love her, out loud. I'll shout it out to the whole world to hear. Scream it to the ocean, off the cliffs, to anyone and anything. Kiss her awake, and kiss her to sleep. To dance with her. To live with her. To be with her for real. Damn, I just can't wait to start my life with her. She is a good distraction. A distraction from the fact that Snow is torturing everyone we know.
Katniss starts getting louder. Peeta is having a hard time calming her down. "No, they were torturing her, she's probably dead."
"Katniss, Prim isn't dead. How could they kill Prim? We're almost down to the final eight of us. And what happens then?" Peeta says.
"Seven more of us die," she isn't wrong. Normally that does happen.
"No, back home. What happens when they reach the final eight tributes in the Games? What happens? At the final eight?"
Where is he going with this? "At the final eight?" Katniss repeats. "They interview your family and friends back home."
If they are going to be interviewing them that means everyone is still back home, in four. Annie, Tang, and Romeo are still in Victor's Village. Ridley is safe, he isn't in the games with us. But Mags…
"That's right," says Peeta. "They interview your family and friends. And can they do that if they've killed them all? That's how we know Prim's alive. She'll be the first one they interview, won't she?" he asks. "First Prim. Then your mother. Your cousin, Gale. Madge," he continues. "It was a trick, Katniss. A horrible one. But we're the only ones who can be hurt by it. We're the ones in the Games. Not them."
"You really believe that?" Katniss says.
"I really do," says Peeta.
She turns to me, "Do you believe it, Finnick?"
"It could be true. I don't know," Like Maria says, maybe they have some tech that does it. I don't know. Maria wouldn't lie, but maybe she just believed that lie, so she didn't think she was lying. She really did think everyone is safe, but are they? "Could they do that, Beetee? Take someone's regular voice and make it ..."
"Oh, yes. It's not even that difficult, Finnick. Our children learn a similar technique in school," says Beetee.
"Of course Peeta's right. The whole country adores Katniss's little sister. If they really killed her like this, they'd probably have an uprising on their hands," says Johanna flatly. "Don't want that, do they?" She throws back her head and shouts, "Whole country in rebellion? Wouldn't want anything like that! You know, you can't put everybody in here!"
No doubt they are going to cut all of that out. But- they all heard her. The gamemakers heart her yelling about the rebellion. Joannah has always been outspoken, brave in the face of the capital and Snow, but this? Was it brave or was she insane? Maybe a bit of both.
After her rant, she picked up some shells and started to head towards the tree line. "I'm getting water," she said.
Katniss catches her hand as she passed. "Don't go in there. The birds - " The birds must be gone. The hour is over. Like the monkeys, they should disappear. She should be okay, but I still don't want her to go. Evidently, Katniss doesn't want her in there either.
"They can't hurt me. I'm not like the rest of you. There's no one left I love, outside of this arena" Johanna says, and frees her hand with an impatient shake. Mo. That's about all she has left.
She had been like me and Mo. Almost at least. Like all other desirable victors, Snow wanted to use her. She was young and attractive, 17 when he started threatening her with the possibility of selling her body to his 'friends' and other wealthy people from the capital. Of course, when it became a reality Johanna refused. Unbending to Snow, she faced the consequences. She doesn't have anyone left in 7. Just has Mo and I, and Snow can't threaten us to get her to do what he wanted.
I was almost like her. Almost had no leverage. I tried to say no to Snow, my parents died and I had no one. I found them. Hanging in our living room. I was 16. They didn't do it. I know it was him. But I still had Mags. And then later, I had Mo, and then Annie to take care of. I was almost free like Johanna. But, she wasn't really free. She was still here, in the arena, in the games. You never leave them.
Still… what about Mags? She isn't back at home. She is in the thick of it, in the capital. We haven't gotten anything from 4 since the bread. She could be dead now. "Mo… what about Mags. She isn't back home."
She hesitated. "-I. I don't know Finnick. I don't want to lie to you, it could have happened, but.. Mags is tough. She is a victor. A survivor." She got called away soon after.
"Ria, mind giving me some backup?"
She looked a bit reluctant, she was slow to move, waiting for me to say something. I didn't. So she gave me a kiss and headed into the jungle with Johanna. It's fine. She'll be fine, it's just 15 yards…
It'll be fine.
A/N: We are almost to the plan and getting out of the arena! Following, favoriting, and commenting are great motivators for me, so thank you to everyone who has!