The next few days I got to know Finnick Odair. Let me tell you, I didn't expect to actually like him. But he did in fact have a good sense of humor and is easy to talk to. He knew when to listen and when to speak and what to say. I wouldn't just call him my ally. He was more like my friend. One day he asked about my necklace.

"This?" I asked, holding it up for him to see. "Oh, my sister Johanna gave it to me when I said goodbye. It's a locket with a picture of my family."

"Can I see it?" He looks at me, his eyebrows raised. I just nodded and opened the locket, revealing the photograph shaped in a heart.

"Can I ask you a favor?" I ask, biting my lip as he examines the picture.

"Do I get to know what it is before I agree to it?" He smirks as he closed my locket.

"If I happen to lose and you win, can you give this back to my sister during the victory tour?" I inquired quietly, fingering the locket.

He nods. "Of course, I just don't want you thinking that you'll… lose," he says with hesitation.

"No, no, it's just in case," I reply quickly as I hear footsteps behind me. Not just one pair, but three. I gulp. I turn around to find three careers standing there, each with a devilish look on their face and a deadly weapon in their hands.

"Hmmm," says one of them, I think the boy from one. He appeared to be the leader because the other two were standing behind him. He scratched his chin and glanced between Finnick and me. "Which one of you should I kill first?" He smirked. Not the playful and silly smirk that Finnick Odair smirked, but an evil smirk. I wanted to charge at him. But I didn't have to. The boy from one was already doing it to me.

Apparently he had chosen to kill me first. Before I knew it, I was pinned down, an unfamiliar bumpy feeling of the ground under me. I glanced over at Finnick, who was fighting the other two quite incredibly. And there was me, looking weak as a peanut as I was helplessly thrashing under the boy's grasp. The leader of the pack was raising his weapon - a sword (very cliché for the Hunger Games, I know) about to make the death blow. Fortunately, Finnick had made his way through the two careers, one laid on the ground and her canon sounded. He lunged at The leader as I winced, shutting my eyes tightly. Right when I realized he wasn't on top of me, I grabbed my ax and stood up, facing the other career. The girl from two.

I swung my ax at her, hitting her shoulder. I gasped as I ducked under her attack to whack me with her spear. I took the time to stab her foot, causing her to drop her weapon, grab her foot, and scream. I screamed louder to cover it up, scheming. She looked absolutely terrified, but I had to do it. I sent my weapon through her chest. I heard her cannon and turned around to see how Finnick was dealing with the last career. It was not well.

Finnick Odair never could have looked more helpless.

He sat against a tree, his trident nowhere in sight. He looked weak, fragile even. He was shaking as if he were freezing. The career stood over him, looking proud. He doesn't even look back when the cannon fired. My scream had been louder than the girl from four's, hopefully causing him to believe that I had been the one to die. I stood behind him, acting as if I were his ally and raised my ax, making it sound that I was on his side. I winked at Finnick, who looked expressionless, staring blankly at the tribute, breaking his gaze for a moment to catch mine.

"How should we kill the boy, Marina?" He asks, crouching down and resting his elbows on his knees. "I hope you don't mind that we're killing your district partner." He chuckles as he examines Finnick. "It's a good thing we didn't let him join our alliance. Right, Mar?" He turns around briefly to find is was not in fact Marina. His eyes widened as I swung my ax at his neck, slicing his head off his body completely. I took a step back and gawked. Axes didn't cut through trees that easily, that's for surely. "C'mon," I told Finnick urgently as I held my hand out to help him stand up. He took at it, studying my face.

He found his trident and took a last glance at the careers that could've been his allies and sighs of relief.

As we walked through the scattered forests on the hilltops, Finnick whipped up a conversation. "You're treating that like it was nothing," he says, sounding a bit more like his old self again. "That… was brilliant."

I shook my head rapidly. "There is nothing good about tricking someone so I have use element of surprise to kill them," she snaps. It came out a little harsher than intended.

He nods. "Yes, I know what you mean. But that was still impressive. I'm complementing your intelligence that happens to come in handy."

She takes a deep breath as she changes the subject. "What did the career mean when he said it was a good thing that he didn't let you join the alliance?"

A pause. Quite an long and uncomfortable pause, actually.

"He didn't kick me out. I just didn't want to join them. So I didn't. Didn't even go to the bloodbath, actually. He's trying to make himself seem like the scarier guy, like he's the one who's controlling the games. He hates the fact that I abandoned him because of the sole reason that I didn't want to be his ally and cheer every time we killed a tribute."

Another pause. I knew he was trying to be deep and everything, but there was a reoccurring thought in my head.

"If you didn't go to the cornucopia, where did you get that?" I nodded toward his trident.

"Sponsor gift," he replies.

My eyes widen. "Oh my God! How many sponsors do you have? This is the most expensive gift I've ever seen!"

He looks at me smugly. "A lot."

"Yeah, a ton!"

"We probably have even more now that I've got you as an ally."

I laughed. "As much as we both know that's not true, I like that you're making an effort to make me feel like I'm getting us more sponsors. If you could even have any more, it'd be because we took down most of the careers and stole their sponsors." He gives me a confused look. "Finnick, do you know why you have these sponsors?"
"Uh, because they think I'm going to win?"

"Yes, that, but because you're kinda beautiful and all the Capitol ladies want a… well, a good looking guy to emerge from the games."

"Why?" He asks, looking confused. I seemed to forget that he is only fourteen. He didn't know what they do to victors that win the games.

"Nevermind," I said as I waved it off.

That night before settled down at our camp that we made at the top of one of the hills, we heard the national anthem and saw that the boy from one, both from two and the girl from eight were all dead. This left only one career left, the girl from one. I smiled to myself, telling Finnick to go to sleep and that I'd wake him up when I got tired. He nodded before laying his head down and zoning out, his snores coming only minutes after he fell asleep.

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