If the arrow hadn't been lit on fire, Finnick never would have seen it coming. But the flash of orange light catches his eye as it arcs down toward him, and he's able to curl into a ball just in time. The arrow dives harmlessly into the grass behind him. Or not so harmlessly: Hungry flames burst to life where the arrow lands, licking greedily at the oil coating the stone surface. The conflagration unfurls at an impossible rate, forcing Finnick to move quickly or risk becoming its next victim. Then he sees her: Bellona standing at the edge of the platform, wielding her bow and a quiver full of new arrows, firelight magnifying the wildness in her eyes. She's already nocking another arrow. Suddenly, Finnick is certain he's about to be the next reason the cannon fires.
It turns out he doesn't have to. Bellona turns just in time to dodge a sword brandished by none other than Ruby Riveta, caked with dirt, soaked in oil, and shrieking like a wildcat.
To astonished to even swear, Finnick commando crawls up the stairs until he can get his feet under him and scramble the rest of the way to the top.
In the few seconds it takes him to ascend the rest of the stairs, the fruit of violence already spatters the concrete in a constellation of red. Bellona and Ruby are engaged in a deadly battle, each trying to outmaneuver the other. District 2 has her knives and a metal-plated armguard, but 1 has a sword and a shiny new shield. It's small and round, but it holds up well enough against Bellona's blades.
Through the haze of panic and oil clouding his vision, Finnick spots a long drawstring bag lying at the mouth of the Cornucopia. The 4, while rumpled, is still clearly visible, stitched into the cloth in gold thread.
"Stop!" Bellona screeches from the other side of the pavilion. But she can't turn her blades on him without exposing herself to Ruby.
Abandoning any pretense of caution, Finnick barrels across the pavilion and yanks his gift from the bag. He only has a fraction of a second to take it in: A magnificent golden trident, its prongs as sharp as shark teeth, its surface gleaming like fish scales. Wrought from metal so opulent it might have been dipped in sunlight, the weapon is so perfect, so purposefully crafted for killing, Finnick almost hesitates to use it. Almost. The only question is, who will be his new weapon's first victim?
An anguished cry of pain has Finnick whirling around, trident poised to throw. Bellona has Ruby pinned against one of the columns supporting the pavilion, the latter's sword and shield kicked to the side. Ruby is sprawled on the ground, bleeding from a cut running diagonally across her face, narrowly missing her eye. Her gaze lock with Finnick's, and in it shines a single, desperate plea for aid. When Finnick hesitates, she begs aloud.
"Help me," she whimpers. "I was trying to save you! We're allies, remember?"
"Is that what you told Alabaster when you gave me up for him?" Finnick questions, unable to keep the bitterness out of his voice. It bothers him, more than he allowed himself to acknowledge until now. After what Ruby had said and done with and for him, and after she had dismissed Alabaster time and time again, she went back to him anyway, rendering Finnick the odd man out once more. It wasn't until he joined up with Caspia that he fully comprehended the stress of having to fend for himself, of being dangerously and heartachingly alone.
"We were never allies, Ruby." Slowly, adjusting his grip on the trident to allow for a lightning-fast reaction, he begins to creep up beside Bellona. Her bow, while only at half-draw, is still loaded and incredibly deadly in her hands.
"What do you know about allies?" Ruby retorts. "Your own district partner didn't even want to ally with you. Poor, pathetic Finnick Odair, as alone in the arena as he was in life."
"I'd rather be alone than surrounded by people who don't care about me," Finnick shoots back. "At least people like me for who I am. There's nothing remotely real about you. Does Alabaster know how little you really care about him?"
Ruby scoffs. "Does Caspia? Gold, plastic, it ends up all the same: Melted down, remade into something pretty and usable."
Finnick wags his trident ever so slightly in Bellona's direction, indicating his next move. "What have you been remade into?"
Ruby's responding grin raises the hairs on the back of Finnick's neck. "Something horrifying." Then, uttering a terrible cry, she hurtles head-first at an unsuspecting Bellona.
Propelled backward by Ruby's reckless charge, Bellona's head hits the Cornucopia with a heavy clang. She falls to the ground senseless, the bow falling from her grip. Finnick kicks it away and reaches down to grab Ruby's blade when he hears his name, a shout filled with fear and pain, that fills his veins with ice and trips his heart into an uncountable rhythm.
"Caspia!" Finnick reacts before he thinks: Filled with a newfound, fear-filled strength, he sweeps Ruby off Bellona and drags her to the south side of the platform, one arm encircling her neck, the other pressing his new trident against her throat.
"What are you doing?" Ruby hisses, too astonished to struggle.
"Be quiet," Finnick orders. For once, she obeys.
Standing at the bottom of the steps, Alabaster has Caspia clutched in a similar grip. She's weaponless, her right eye is swollen shut, and her nose is dripping blood, but otherwise she appears unharmed. Some of the tension escapes Finnick's chest, but they aren't out of danger yet.
"What a nice surprise!" Alabaster calls. "All the Careers back together again." His lips curls up in a sneer. "Except the dead one."
In a split second, Finnick runs through the verbal arsenal at his disposal. Given their rather tenuous relationship, he could try to turn the District 1's tributes against one another, but it's too risky a tactic with Caspia's life hanging in the balance. "What makes you think she means anything to me?" Finnick says, motioning at Caspia with his trident. "She didn't want to be my ally before the Games. Why would she be my ally now?"
Alabaster cocks his head. "Fine. Then we can feed her corpse to the fire together."
"If you so much as harm a hair on her head, I swear I'll slit her throat." Finnick's grip tightens reflexively around Ruby, who gasps and rakes her nails down his arm hard enough jagged lines of scarlet spring up in their wake. He taps his trident against the tender skin of her neck in response, the barbed prongs sharp enough to draw blood with the slightest pressure. "Then I'm taking your gift and you'll never catch me. I know this arena, and I know the river. You'll be dead before you know what hit you."
"Really?" Ruby protests. "You're choosing her over me? She didn't fight in the bloodbath with you! She didn't save you from a giant snake!"
"Like I said earlier, you were never my ally," Finnick growls in her ear. "Face it, Ruby: We never would have lasted." Their alliance—if one could even call it that—would have concluded like this anyway, with one of them at the nonexistent mercy of the other. This is how it always had to be; their story had been written out the moment their names were called at the reaping: Finnick's blade, Ruby's throat, their fiery reckoning.
The Capitol must be enraptured by the poetic tragedy of it all.
"And I just took down Bellona for you," Ruby chokes out, her hands stilling. "This is how you repay me? By threatening to slit my throat?"
"Shut up," he says, partially to Ruby, partially to the guilt starting to prick his insides. Then, louder: "We don't have all day, Alabaster. This fire isn't going to wait for either of us."
Fueled by the oil rain, flames have begun to spring up on the east and west sides of the pyramid, encompassing it in a ring of blistering fire. Heady black smoke rises from the conflagration, stinging Finnick's eyes, nose, and throat. This fire must be some strange Gamemaker fabrication, because it has begun to climb the stairs of the pyramid like a ravenous, scorching beast, leaving behind nothing but destruction in its wake. Though the flames haven't yet touched the southern side of the pyramid, they will soon. Alabaster, at the bottom of the stairs, would fall victim to their deadly heat before Finnick. Already he's beginning to cough.
"Come on, Alabaster," Ruby pleads. "It's me."
"Yeah, Alabaster." Finnick twitches his trident again, sending a rivulet of Ruby's blood sliding down his forearm. "Listen to your district partner."
"What's keeping you from taking off with my gift once you get your district partner back?" Alabaster challenges.
Suppressing a groan of frustration, Finnick hauls Ruby back into the pavilion to the mouth of the Cornucopia, where a drawstring bag stitched with the number 1 is slumped against the mouth of the Cornucopia next to the untouched bags for Districts 10 and 11. Bellona is still motionless, her eyelids and limbs twitching sporadically. Maybe Finnick is lucky and Ruby inflicted fatal damage to her brain.
"Get the bag. If you try anything, I'll gut you where you stand," Finnick warns. As she bends, he bends with her. The whole thing feels oddly perverse, like he's spying on her while she's changing clothes. The moment her hand touches the material, he tightens his arm around her neck and pulls her along, practically dragging her back to the north side of the pyramid.
"Ruby has the gift, Alabaster," Finnick announces. "And she can confirm that it hasn't been tampered with. It's not just yours, remember? It's a gift for both tributes from each remaining district."
Alabaster scowls and jerks his head, nudging his oil-heavy braids away from his eyes. "Nobody cares, Odair. Now we let go on three, all right? One…two…three." At the same time, they release their respective hostages.
Ruby makes a mad scramble down the stairs until Finnick snaps, "Take it easy!" He raises his trident, ready to throw it at the slightest provocation. Ruby pauses and glances back, and the raw hatred burning in her expression is so ferocious Finnick is surprised his skin doesn't start to boil. A small voice niggles at the edges of his consciousness, and as hard as Finnick tries to repress it the notion still flickers to life: Maybe it wasn't totally fake after all.
Finnick is still trying to get rid of the thought when Ruby turns and shuffles down the remaining steps to join Alabaster, while Caspia makes her way up to him. Treacherous guilt begins to creep up his throat, bitter and nauseating, until Finnick swallows it down. There can be only one victor in the end.
He distracts himself by watching Caspia, who sports a new limp. She tries to hide it, but Finnick notices straightaway. What did Alabaster do to her?
As they pass each other, Ruby stops and says something to Caspia too soft for Finnick to hear. Whatever she says, Caspia doesn't react. Then they continue on their way until Caspia stands at Finnick's side, breathing hard through the blood trickling from her nose.
"You got out this time, Four!" Alabaster shouts, pointing his sword at them as he and his ally turn toward the trees. "Don't expect to be so lucky next time!" Then they turn and flee, darting through patches of flame to take refuge deep in the rainforest. Finnick watches until he's sure they've gone. Then he exhales a long, stale breath and turns to Caspia, who's pinching the bridge of her nose and has the audacity to look bored.
"Took you long enough."
Finnick rolls his eyes and appraises Caspia out of the corner of his eye. "Are you all right?"
Caspia grimaces and waves her hand. "Nothing a little time won't heal."
If she's not willing to share, Finnick isn't going to press. He heads for the mouth of the Cornucopia, eager to open the gifts left for the Callows. "You know, a you're welcome would be nice," he says, giving his trident a dramatic twirl.
"And risk stroking your giant ego even more? I don't dare."
Finnick laughs. He's still laughing when Bellona's arrow hits him in the side.
Finnick stumbles back with the arrow's momentum, hand clamped to the wound trickling blood down his shirt. He's so stunned he can do little more than move his mouth, trying to shout, to curse, to say something, but words refuse to form. They are lost somewhere in the void between cogency and stupor. Somehow Finnick ends up on the ground, struggling to draw in a breath through the piercing agony shooting through his ribcage. Caspia yells something unintelligible and snatches the trident from his nerveless fingers, but Bellona's voice, slurred and uncharacteristically loud, stops her short.
"Don't move."
"Kill him and it'll be the last thing you ever do." It's the most solemn promise Finnick has ever heard Caspia make.
"Why should I kill him? You have the trident, you kill him."
Through red-tinged vision, Finnick sees Bellona at half-draw, another arrow pointed directly at his heart. She totters a bit, blinking rapidly as if her sight is obstructed. The blow against the Cornucopia must have injured something inside her brain, or Finnick would be dead right now. There's no way a fully alert Bellona would've missed a fatal shot at such point-blank range.
"And why would I do that?"
"Because you-you're not like the rest of them: Deceitful, disloyal, willing to say or do anything just to gain the upper ha-hand. You have the heart of a victor, Caspia, and I could use someone like you as my ally. One is still out there, you know, along with two other Callows. I could use a good tribute's help-p in taking them down." The right side of Bellona's face twitches; Finnick doesn't know if it's from the trauma or incredible stress or both.
"But you want me to kill him first."
"It's a simple task," Bellona urges. "You ki-kill him, and there's one less tribute between you and the crown." Caspia glances back at Finnick, the Golden Boy of Panem, wheezing and bleeding out on the cement. He props himself up on one elbow, trying and failing to ascertain the damage done by the arrow.
If Caspia doesn't obey, Bellona will certainly shoot her. Even in her discombobulated state, at least one of her arrows is bound to hit its mark. Once Caspia is dead, she'll turn on Finnick, and he won't last long in his own injured state before she kills him as well. Both tributes from District 4 dead, and with them goes the chance of saving their district from another year of despair. If Caspia kills Finnick, then Bellona may very well let her live. Bellona doesn't know how to fish the river, and she'll want help hunting down Ruby and Alabaster. Who knows—with Bellona rendered so unsteady, District 4 could end up with a victor after all.
"Look at me, Finnick." It's voiced as a command, one Finnick has no desire to obey. But he's being televised right now, being broadcasted to District 4 and all of Panem. His parents wouldn't want him to die a sniveling, spineless coward's death. He wants his parents to be proud, to sing elegies honoring his bravery and skill. He wants the sea to echo his name, to be gentle when his family lowers his body into its depths and he is carried away into oblivion. So he tears his eyes away from the ground and stares right at Caspia, hoping the dread quaking his bones isn't revealed and magnified in his expression. When he sees it reflected on Caspia's face, a terror greater than any tribute or mutt he's ever faced captures his heart in a chokehold.
Caspia smiles, a sad, broken thing, and all at once Finnick understands what she is about to do. "Sing a song to the sea for me."
Then she whirls around and strikes at Bellona with an anguished battle cry.
The moment the trident makes contact with Bellona's bow, the world capsizes. It takes on a fuzzy, hyperreal quality, the landscape submerged deep underwater, shimmering and wet like a canvas saturated with fresh paint. Flames dance in the background, their heat searing his skin, smoke obscuring his vision in a grayish haze. Finnick lies there like he's watching the scene play out on a television screen, detached, uninvolved, a stranger in his own body.
Bellona screams in fury and blocks Caspia's initial attack with her bow, but it clatters from her grip under the force of Caspia's blow. It would have been the demise of any lesser tribute, but Bellona weaves under and around Caspia's next attack, maneuvering behind her opponent and buckling her knees with a powerful blow to the back of the legs. Caspia drops, but she still has the trident. She twists around mid-fall and sinks the prongs into Bellona's thigh.
Crimson blooms on Bellona's leg and she gasps, eyes wide with shock, as if she can't believe someone managed to draw her blood. Bellona staggers back to avoid Caspia's next swing, drawing a stiletto knife from a sheath strapped to her leg.
"Run!"
Caspia's shouted order yanks Finnick back into reality like a riptide. He struggles to regain his balance, fighting wave after wave of dizziness threatening to topple him every time he moves. The world rings and glistens, swimming in and out of focus, instantly, sharply, and overwhelmingly real. Red spatters the ground beneath him, forming a neat puddle on the ground. Somehow, he gets it into his thick skull that he needs to put pressure on the wound. One hand clamped over his ribs and the other scrabbling at the smooth metal surface of the Cornucopia, he finally manages to plant both his feet and attain a mostly upright position, though his limbs are as weak and unsteady as loose sand. Though his lungs burn for air, he can't seem to draw oxygen in fast enough. His ears scream with high-pitched, wordless sound. But through the chaos rattling his brain, a single thought shines bright and unwavering, a lighthouse's lantern breaking through a dark storm:
Caspia. He has to help Caspia.
As the tide is pulled toward the shore, Finnick starts toward them, fumbling for one of the tiny knives tucked behind his vest. Then he spots the sponsored gifts out of the corner of his eye. Everyone else thus far has received weapons; surely there's something in there he can use. He grabs a bag at random and rips it open. Inside is a wooden shaft topped with a long, curved blade extending almost perpendicularly from the handle. What is it? The blade certainly isn't made for stabbing. Well, if nothing else, he can slice Bellona to ribbons with it. He starts toward them as fast as his legs will take him, the weapon clutched in both of his rapidly numbing hands.
Caspia has managed to drive Bellona away from Finnick toward the north side of the pyramid. Hungry flames lick at their feet, eager to climb their oiled legs and consume them entirely, but they manage to stay just out of the fire's reach, blades flashing, feet darting back and forth, a deadly tempest of skilled resolution. The fire hasn't yet spread to the pavilion floor, probably because the roof has protected most of it from the oil rain. Caspia must spot Finnick out of the corner of her eye, because the ghost of a grin tips up the corners of her mouth.
She's still smiling when Bellona whirls inside her defense and plunges the stiletto into her chest.