A/N: Canon-typical violence depicted.
HAYMITCH POV
My job was to watch the Games from the outside and then on the third day of 'em, I was to meet with Epsilon, Zeta and their team when they came to rescue us all from this hell of a place that Frills called home. For a minute, I thought the whole plan was compromised when Peeta hit the force field because I knew sweetheart wasn't gonna do shit if the boy was dead, but thankfully, fish boy knew what he was doin' and saved the boy. My
While I was in the control room, I watched as Katniss recognised what the arena was, and no, the arena wasn't designed to kill her or throw her off. Plutarch Heavensbee, otherwise known as Beta, designed the arena to benefit her the most. "Putting her in an environment that only she knows best will help keep her alive as long as possible," Plutarch had said. "Plus, it might give her more fighting power. Especially when she meets the boys." The boys in question were Epsilon and Zeta, otherwise known as Cailean and Calum Fòlais. They were smart as shit and more talented in science and mechanics than anyone I'd ever met, and on top of that, they were Hebridean, too, just like Katniss, but of course, there was a reason for that - Cailean and Calum were Katniss's younger brothers. I didn't know the whole story, but I knew the girl came over to Twelve from Hebridia with her family and there was some big attack that killed the rest of 'em, leavin' just the boys as survivors. District Thirteen rescued the survivors of the attack, and there were a couple hundred of 'em.
My own name was Theta, Finnick Odair was Kappa and Beetee Latier was Iota. We were the three in charge of the rebellious movement in the districts. Beetee was in charge of technology, Finnick of espionage and I just kept the two of 'em in check. I was always the damn babysitter, wasn't I? That left Gamma, who was Commander Boggs, Delta, who was Commander Jackson, and Eta, a young girl called Carolina who was on track to become a commander herself, but I knew nothin' beyond her first name. Alpha was President Alma Coin of District Thirteen, and while I tried hard to respect her, she was nothin' more to me than some cold old bitch with a dry pussy.
When the kids (and Mags) finally settled down for the first night, the faces of all the tributes who'd died during the day began to show up in the sky. Eddie Barker and Imogene Walker from District Five, John Sellers from District Six, Woof Darwin and Cecelia Ember from District Eight, Benedict Albion and Lalla Addison from District Nine, Rodney Fuller from District Ten and Seeder Palmer from District Eleven. Nine tributes dead, fifteen tributes left alive. It sucked that we couldn't save more of the tributes, but our main focus was on Peeta and Katniss. Beetee, Finnick and Johanna were second priority and the remaining rebellion sympathisers - Mags, Lily Taupe from Six, Blight Duluth from Seven and Chaff Lemell from Eleven - were third priority, but they likely wouldn't make it out.
The first night for the kids was full of a lot of trouble. First, they were surprised by the lightnin' hittin' a tree at midnight, and then came the poisonous fog. This arena was set up so that there was a different danger in every sector, which activated upon its assigned hour in clockwise formation. At midnight, lightning hit a tree in the twelve o'clock sector. At one o'clock, poison fog took over the sector. At two o'clock, small bear mutations would become violent in their sector. At three o'clock, jabberjay mutations would take over the sector, terrorising the poor bastard that got trapped in it. At four o'clock, blood rain would fall from the sky in the sector. At five o'clock, a rockslide would fall down the mountainside. At six o'clock, poisonous mushrooms would release spores, kind of like the poisonous fog, only it would make whoever got trapped in it hallucinate. At seven o'clock, which was at the very top of a mountain, a dangerous blizzard would come in and freeze the sector. At eight o'clock, ocelot muttations, which were some kinda big cat, would roam the sector. At nine o'clock, a fire would sweep through the trees, burning everything in its path, but everything would be fine again in time for the fire to destroy it all over again in twelve hours. At ten o'clock, a large wave would come from the top of the sector and head down to the beach. At eleven o'clock, some sort of dangerous clickin' insect would become active. Each sector would become safe again when the hour was up and each danger stayed only within the confines of its sector, but how long would it take the kids to figure that out? Plutarch only informed me of this and instructed me not to tell even Beetee, Johanna or Finnick, so every tribute was left in the dark.
Watchin' the kids escape the fog was painful, mostly because the fog could paralyse 'em until they choked to death on it, but they managed to do it. Mags, on the other hand, sacrificed herself when Peeta became too compromised by the fog to get himself to safety. I had to look away from the screen, her death was so horrible. Of course, when they'd finally escaped the fog, they fell right into the damn bear sector, which was about to activate. Earlier, I'd sent 'em a spile to get water from the trees and Peeta went off to get some after treatin' their injuries from the fog in a small river. When the bear sector activated, I had to watch as the three of 'em - Peeta, Katniss and Finnick, fought off these small bear muttations, and Peeta almost got his throat ripped out of it weren't for Lily Taupe, who was camouflaged in a tree. She pushed the bear off of Peeta and got attacked, and Finnick killed the bear with his trident. Peeta and Katniss dragged Lily out of the woods and onto the beach, gettin' her in the water to wash the blood off of her, but it was too late for her.
"It's okay, it's okay. Hey... Look up at the sky," Peeta said to her in a comforting manner, of which he was so damn good at. "See all the colours? It's beautiful, isn't it? Focus on the sky..." It was hard to see 'em, as they were silhouetted against the sunrise, but Peeta and Katniss stayed by Lily's side until she died, leaving her to float in the water so the Capitol hovercraft could pick up her body.
"She sacrificed herself for you," Katniss said suddenly to Peeta, who looked at her. He knew Lily had been in on the rebellion, but he couldn't tell Katniss that.
"That doesn't make any sense," he replied nonchalantly. Everyone was surprised by a sudden scream, and then the sound of a cannon as a giant wave came from the ten o'clock sector, soaking the entire beach with water. Then, stumbling out of the four o'clock sector covered in blood, Johanna Mason came into view, followed by Beetee Latier and Wiress Maslow. Blight Duluth had originally been with 'em, but when the four o'clock sector was active, they stumbled through the blood rain and he ran into the force field. Katniss was distrustful of Johanna after that stunt she pulled in the elevator, but Peeta trusted her, so Katniss didn't have a choice but to accept her as an ally. Wiress had gone insane probably from the stress and the dehydration, and she kept sayin' 'tick tock' over and over again. I knew that genius had had the clock arena figured out. Johanna flipped out on Wiress, and Katniss shoved her away to take Wiress into the water to wash the blood off of her.
"Tick tock, tick tock," Wiress kept saying again and again.
"Tick tock," Katniss repeated, glancing around the arena. "Tick tock... circle... wedges..." She turned to look at the figures on the beach. "What's the English word for ' gloc' ?" she'd asked her allies.
"How the hell are we supposed to know, Brainless?" Johanna spat at her.
"Bloody hell," Katniss snapped back. "Time, the wee thing that tells it. The circle with all the numbers, what's that called?"
"A clock?" Peeta asked.
"Yes! A clock! The arena, it's a clock!" Katniss exclaimed. "Wiress, you're a genius!" A short time after, the six of 'em started headin' back to the cornucopia to regroup and assess the arena from the midpoint. "This entire arena seems to be laid out like a clock," Katniss was saying as she expertly navigated the rocks leadin' up to the cornucopia. "Each section has a new threat every hour, but they stay only within their wedge. It all starts with the lightning, then the fog, then the bloody fucking bears, then whatever the hell is in the next section, then the blood rain. That's the first four hours, and then at ten, that big wave hits from over there."
"Wiress, you are a genius," Finnick complemented the middle-aged woman as the six of them made it onto the little island. Peeta bent down over a sandy section with his knife, drawing out a picture in the sand.
"The tail points at twelve," he said, referring to the tail of the cornucopia, and then he bent back over to draw the wedges in the circle.
"That's where the lightning strikes at noon and midnight," Katniss chimed in, walkin' around the island to get a better view.
"Strikes where?" asked Beetee.
"There, at that big tree," Katniss answered him. While they were analysing their surroundings, Wiress went down to the water to put her hands in, muttering an old nursery rhyme called 'Hickory Dickory Dock' to herself.
"So," said Peeta, drawing small pictures in the wedges of his circle. "From twelve to one, lightning. One to two is fog, then bears..."
"Bloody fucking bears," Katniss corrected him.
"Then bloody fucking bears," Peeta repeated. "And then... we don't know, and then blood."
"And then ten to eleven, the wave. What about everything else? Did anyone else see anything?" Katniss asked the group.
"Nothing but blood," Johanna muttered bitterly.
"Doesn't matter, as long as we steer clear of whatever sector is active, we'll be safe," said Peeta, standing up to examine his map.
"Yeah, relatively speaking," Finnick replied, exchanging a look with Peeta. Katniss eyed the two of them suspiciously. What they didn't see was Gloss Horne from One sneaking up behind the group and Wiress, grabbing her from behind and cutting into her throat with his knife. When the cannon sounded and startled the group, Katniss quickly drew her bow and shot an arrow at Gloss, striking him through the chest, and he fell back. Cashmere Horne came from a different direction, and Johanna shoved whoever was closest to her out of the way and hurled an axe at Cashmere, sinking it into her chest. She fell unconscious, but the cannon did not sound. Brutus then came from another direction and Finnick and Peeta prepared to fight him off, but then he ran off. Katniss followed him and Peeta tried, but Finnick held him back as Katniss and Johanna ran after Brutus and Enobaria, who were now running off the island.
Very suddenly, the island began to spin, and all five remaining tributes on the island fell off their feet and tried to hang onto the rocks for dear life as the island spun rather furiously. Johanna used her axe to keep her and Katniss on the rock and Katniss was only holding onto Johanna, while Peeta, Finnick and Beetee were dodging boxes and weapons. Cashmere, who was still barely alive, fell into the water. Katniss's hand soon slipped from Johanna's and she, too, fell into the water, and shortly after, the cornucopia stopped spinning. Peeta was the first to stand, his first thoughts likely goin' to sweetheart, and he searched around the cornucopia but only found Johanna. "Where's Katniss?" he asked her.
"I don't know, I couldn't hold onto her," Johanna replied, searching the water. Katniss was actually on the other side of the cornucopia, out of view of the others. Cashmere's cannon went off, and Peeta startled more than anyone.
"Katniss? KATNISS!" he called, running around to the other side of the cornucopia desperate to find any sign of his wife. He spotted her climbing up onto the rocks of one of the spokes - the one near the three o'clock sector. "Katniss!" Peeta ran to his wife as quickly as his clumsy feet could take him on the slippery rocks, falling to his knees beside her as she coughed and spit up water. "Katniss, are you okay?" he asked her, his voice laced with worry, and she gave him a thumbs up, then collapsed onto her side and rolled onto her back to look up at him. Her braid had fallen out in the water and her soaking wet hair stuck to her face, which Peeta pushed out of the way, and he bent down to kiss her. "My god, I heard the cannon and I thought..."
"It must have been Cashmere... or maybe Brutus... or Enobaria... or whoever else is left," Katniss replied, out of breath. "This is payback for scaring me yesterday." Peeta laughed, then bent down to kiss her again.
"Well, now I feel bad for almost dying," he replied playfully, and Katniss lightly shoved his shoulder.
"Shut up and help me stand up," she told him, which he did, and then he pulled her into his arms.
"Can we just get what we need and get off the bloody island?" Johanna exclaimed, breaking the moment. When they finally calmed down, the group made their way to sit on the beach of the three o'clock sector, probably not even realising that the sector was about to activate. That was the jabberjay sector, and I feared what all of them were gonna hear. When three o'clock hit, I found out quickly that this was meant to really hurt whoever was unfortunate enough to get trapped in that sector for the hour.
"MAMA!" I heard the voice of Lark shout from inside the woods. Both Katniss and Peeta picked up their heads in shock, their eyes wide as they heard the cries of their daughter calling from inside the woods.
"No... No, they can't..." Peeta said, knowing for a fact that there was no way their daughter could be in the arena. Katniss, on the other hand, could not ignore the cries of the voice that sounded like her daughter, and she got up and darted into the woods. "Katniss, no! Wait!" Peeta called after her, following behind.
"I've got her!" Finnick exclaimed, shoving Peeta backwards so hard that he fell back, and he ran into the woods after Katniss. Soon, the jabberjays were mimicking Annie Cresta's voice, too, and when Finnick and Katniss finally realised that the voices calling them were only jabberjays, the pair of them ran back as the jabberjays began to flock.
"Katniss! Stop! Stop!" Peeta shouted through the barrier of the sector, but Katniss couldn't hear him, running straight into it. "It's not real! It's not real! They're just mutts, it's not real!" Peeta tried shouting to her, but she was too panicked to understand. She fell down to the ground, clamped her hands over her ears and screamed at the top of her lungs to drown out the screams that grew to include both Lark and Maevis, Prim and even that damn Hawthorne boy, who was nothin' but trouble. Finnick, on the other hand, was forced to listen to the cries of Annie and his mother, who was still alive. When the hour was up, Peeta was quick to give Katniss a shake and pull her back to reality. "Katniss, they're gone! They're gone. The hour's up! It's okay now, the hour's up!" he said to her. Katniss sat up very suddenly, almost whacking him in the face with her head, gripping his arm firmly.
"Lark! Maevis!" she exclaimed with fear.
"They're okay. Our daughters are safe, they're okay," Peeta told her. "It was just mutts, they were copying their voices, probably from modified recordings. They're okay. It wasn't real."
"And Prim..."
"Prim's okay, too." Letting out a massive sigh of relief, Katniss threw her arms around her husband and held onto him tightly, almost as tightly as she had when Peeta had almost died.
"They'd never heard your darling little girls or your darling little sister. The Capitol loves them. There'd be riots in the street. I'll go and get you some water," Johanna said bitterly.
"But the birds... they... they might..." Katniss muttered, looking up at Johanna.
"What? You think they might come after me next?" Johanna asked, and then she turned to face the sky. "YOU GOT SOMETHING BETTER, SNOW? JABBERJAYS AREN'T ENOUGH! YOU NEED TO DO BETTER! YOU CAN'T JUST PUT PEOPLE IN HERE!" She then turned back to the rest of the group, four sets of eyes on her. "What? He can't hurt me. There's no one left that I love." With that said, she stomped off, leaving the four of them behind.
When the group had finally recovered from the jabberjays, they returned to the beach, and Beetee then introduced his false plan of shocking the beach to kill the remaining Careers, but really, it was a plan to destroy the arena so we could slip in and get 'em. That night, the plan would finally take place, but until then, the plan was to keep Beetee alive until midnight to carry out the plan. While Beetee, Johanna and Finnick sat on the beach together, Katniss and Peeta went off on their own for a moment to themselves, although of course, hundreds of thousands of eyes were watching them very closely. Peeta and Katniss were discussing Katniss's distrust of the other tributes, and of course, Peeta knew better, but he had to pretend that he didn't so that Katniss, and the Capitol, didn't catch on. "You know what's going to happen after we carry out Beetee's plan," Katniss told him. "I don't want to be the one that shoots first."
"What if they don't wanna shoot first, either? What if no one wants to shoot first? Katniss, we don't know what's gonna happen," Peeta told her. "What if... what if we all decide not to shoot first?"
"They won't let that happen, not again. There was hell to pay when you and I made it out together, but five of us? No, they won't let that happen. You and I both know that there's only one person getting out of here, and it's going to be one of us," she replied firmly. God, she could be so damn stubborn! I really felt for the boy in that moment.
"I don't wanna talk about this..."
"We spent days avoiding this topic. It's going to have to come up sooner or later."
"Well, not right now. Right now... I just want to hold you."
"Peeta." A moment of silence passed between them. "Peeta, I badly want us both to make out alive. I don't want to kill anyone. I never did. I might be a hunter, but I'm not a killer. But that's not how the Games work... We're allied now against the Careers, and when they're gone, our alliance is going to break and I want us both to be out of there as quickly as we possibly can. I won't take any chances that might result in me losing you."
"Fine, then... we'll stick with these guys until midnight and if we hear a cannon... we'll go."
"And after that?"
"I'm not discussing after that."
"Peeta."
"No, Katniss. You are the mother of two beautiful girls who need you."
"They need you, too."
"They need us both, but you're right, they're not gonna let us both leave this arena again, so it's going to be you. It has to be you." I watched the boy pull off the medallion that Effie had given him and he opened it up to reveal pictures of Lark and Maevis, Agnessa, Prim and Gale. When we discussed it, I'd told him to put his own picture in there, but he'd said the point was to show her that there were people still alive who needed her - even though he was gonna get out of the arena, too. "It's the principle of it. She needs to know, even for the future," he'd told me. I tuned back into the Games, where a still somewhat frustrated Peeta was trying to convince Katniss to not die for him. "These people... they need you... Sure, our daughters need me, too, but my parents don't. My brothers don't need me. My friends don't need me."
"What about me?" Katniss interrupted him. "Peeta, I need you, more than anyone else in the world. I told you this. I need you to live, otherwise, life isn't worth living."
"Don't say that... the girls..."
"Have a very loving family that can care for them. But I can't live without you, Peeta... I won't. I love you so much that I cannot face this world without you." There were tears falling down her cheeks now, and the boy wiped them away.
"I love you, too... but you have to live... For them." Katniss shook her head, then threw her arms around the boy and captured his lips in a kiss.
"Find someone to make you happy, who loves the girls as much as I do..."
"Don't talk like that. I will never find someone that I could ever love as much as I love you. Do you really think that I could have any chance of living without you? I can't do it, and I won't do it, either."
"Then don't be selfish and take yourself away from me because Peeta, I refuse to live without you." She kissed him again so he couldn't argue, and I coulda sworn the two of 'em were gonna go at it until Johanna interrupted 'em. They prepared to set up for the lighting strike, and this was where I left the control room.
I made my way back to the twelfth floor of Tribute Tower and climbed onto the roof, which was covered by the starry sky of night. After a moment, the hovercraft that would be rescuing me and the other tributes landed on the roof, and when the door opened and the ramp slid out, I was almost surprised by the face I saw at the top of it. A pale face, flanked by reddish-blonde hair and silver eyes that shimmered with firmness and ambition. I smiled in amusement.
"Freya Deshannon," I said, and her lips curled up in a smile. "You're a fuckin' ghost if I've ever seen any."
"Snow's tried to kill me a lot of times but he hasn't succeeded yet," she replied smugly. "Getting on? We're five minutes shy of midnight."
"Yeah, yeah," I said, joining her on the hovercraft, and it took off to get out of the Capitol's detectable airspace while we waited for the right moment.
KATNISS POV
"Why can't Peeta and I go together?" I'd asked Beetee. He'd instructed Johanna and I to take the copper coil down to the beach while Finnick and Peeta protected him by the tree.
"Because there's two Careers so I need two bodyguards. Peeta and Finnick are the strongest out of all of us," Beetee replied.
"Is there a problem?" Finnick asked me curiously, and I glared at him, setting the coil down and walking over to Peeta, wrapping my arms around his neck and drawing in his lips for a kiss.
"I love you," I whispered quietly to him when I hugged him.
"Don't say goodbye," he whispered back to me. "I'll see you soon..." He broke the embrace, then kissed me again.
"I'll see you at midnight," I said at a normal volume.
"All right, let's go," Johanna said, and I picked up the coil and began to follow her, glancing at Peeta one final time over my shoulder before he disappeared from my sight. We walked for a little while, but soon, I felt some slack on the coil, and when I glanced back behind me, I could see that the coil had been cut. I was nearly blinded by being whacked in the head by Johanna with the coil and I fell to the ground, blindly reaching for my bow while I tried to fight off her attack. I couldn't die, not here. Not when I couldn't protect Peeta. I knew these people couldn't be trusted! But Johanna was strong, and she sat on my chest and carved into my arm with her knife, then with her hand, spread some blood on my neck. "Keep quiet and don't say a word!" she hissed at me, getting up and running off. Whimpering from the pain and the fear of not knowing what happened to Peeta, I laid there for a moment as I heard footsteps approaching.
"Johanna," I heard a whispered voice say - Finnick's. I pretended to be dead so that he wouldn't notice me - strange how I hadn't heard a single cannon. Peeta must have gotten away. When Finnick was gone, I got up and followed the wire back to the tree, startling when I saw a large explosion followed by Beetee's limp form lying on the ground, but still no cannon sounded. I searched for Peeta, but he was nowhere to be found.
"Peeta?" I called. "Peeta!" Was I stupid yelling out like that? Sure. Finnick and Johanna probably thought I was dead. Why didn't Johanna kill me, actually? She had the perfect chance to do it, yet she didn't. "Peeta!"
"Katniss!" I heard a voice off in the distance call - Peeta's.
"Peeta!" I called back to him, but he sounded so far away. I heard footsteps approach me, and when I drew my bow, I saw Finnick step into the clearing from the woods, his hands raised.
"Katniss," he said calmly. "Don't shoot me. Don't shoot anyone."
"Where's Peeta?" I demanded from him.
"I don't know, he ran off in the other direction to chase off Brutus," Finnick replied.
"I knew you couldn't be trusted," I spat at him, ready to shoot an arrow straight through his heart.
"Katniss, wait!" Finnick exclaimed. "There isn't time! Remember who the real enemy is..." The enemy... Was it really Finnick, like I initially believed? Something was telling me that that wasn't so, that Finnick wasn't the one to blame for everything that went wrong tonight. Finnick certainly wasn't to blame for the last four years of my life. Four years of constantly living in fear wondering what was going to happen to my family, wondering if everything I did was enough to keep my daughters safe from the reaping. Maybe I didn't have to live in fear anymore, and maybe Finnick was telling me that there was another way. So many people had died for Snow and the Capitol and the stupid fucking Hunger Games, which were a punishment for the sins of people who were now long dead, the reminder of a failed rebellion. Well, what if there was another rebellion, and it didn't fail? Twenty-three lives were taken every year for seventy-four years, and for two years, forty-seven lives, and for one year - the year Peeta and I won the Games - twenty-two. That added up to over eighteen hundred lives - one thousand, eight hundred and eighteen, to be exact - taken for the entertainment of people who had had their pride wounded by those who were suffering at their hands while they thrived and rubbed it in our faces.
Not anymore.
Lowering my arrow from Finnick, I picked up what was left of the copper wire. If I could destroy the arena, maybe it would spark a rebellion. I wouldn't live to see it, but Peeta would, and maybe Finnick and Johanna, wherever she was. Peeta would live to see it and he could lead it with that beautiful golden tongue he possessed. If there was anyone fit to lead a rebellion, it was Peeta Mellark. My Peeta Mellark. My husband Peeta Mellark, father to my children, who may live to see a future that doesn't threaten their lives every day. I wrapped the copper wire around my arrow, then drew it back, aiming it at the sky.
"Katniss, what are you doing?" Finnick asked me cautiously, and I listened for the clicking of the insects in the next sector - it had stopped, which meant that the lightning would come any second.
"Starting a rebellion," I replied, and not a moment too soon, the lightning struck the tree, and I launched my arrow up at the arena sky. As the electricity coursed through my own body, throwing me back onto the ground harshly, I watched as my arrow lodged itself in the sky and electrocuted it, revealing the panels of the arena, and then the sky began to fall.
Around me were fires everywhere as the pieces of the arena sky fell, natural moonlight shining through. A bright light suddenly caught my eye and I was blinded by it, seeing nothing else but this light. This was it. This was the end of me, and that was okay. My death would kickstart a rebellion that would make the world a safer and better place for my daughters, which was all I could have ever asked for. No more Games, no more Snow, no more fear. Peeta would be safe from Snow's grasp, and he would live to be the most incredible father to our two beautiful daughters. Lark and Maevis, my beautiful girls that I loved so much, would finally be safe.
In the light, I saw a dark mass, but before I could make out what it was, the world went black as I slipped into unconsciousness.
A/N: What's going to happen now that the arena is destroyed? Will the rest of Panem take the bait that Katniss left them, or will they take some convincing?
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