19: Strike Four

Katniss POV

I slowly approach Finnick, who has tears slowly dripping down his cheeks. He must have been very close to Mags. She was his mentor before, wasn't she? And he must have been with her in the mentor room for years. Now she's dead. And it was my fault. If I had looked where I was going and hadn't tripped, she would still be alive.

She made a choice to give up her life for yours though, a voice in my head whispers. It wasn't your fault that she decided to jump off Finnick's back into the burning fog for you. It wasn't your fault that Finnick didn't catch up and decide to carry her instead. But I know that it is my fault.

Why did she do that? Mags is old, around eighty, so I suppose that it could have been that she lived her life and just wanted to save mine. But why would Finnick have come back for me? I'm a good ally yes, skilled with the bow and arrow, twelve in training. But I'm also a target and not worth the risk of going back into the burning fog for. Especially as our alliance had eight people in it back then. Seven now.

And then when we were at the cornucopia. An eight person alliance- even if Beetee, Wiress and Mags weren't going to fight- would definitely beat a three person alliance. So why did we decide that it was too dangerous and leave? Was it that they were protecting me? I know that these are rebellion victors that I'm allied with, but are they really willing to give up their lives so that I can live. It seems that they are. All along, they've been trying to protect me. Even Johanna.

It's a lot of responsibility knowing that all of these people are willing to give up their lives for me. No, more than just these seven. The people in the Districts during my victory tour who were rebelling, surely they must have known. Or did they? They looked so hopeful, blinded by the fact that I defied the Capitol and got away with it. Hardly got away with it really. The people who had been shot, almost in front of me.

They're all willing to die for this rebellion and I am at the centre of it. What if I mess it all up? If I die in these Games through a simple mistake like tripping then all of their sacrifices will have been for nothing. And I could so easily mess up. Can I really outwit the Capitol's best strategists if I only just realised that the other victors were protecting me? I'm playing Snow's game at the moment, just waiting for the moment when enough people rise up that it can become open.

Part of me is horrified at that idea: the idea of open war, the Capitol dropping bombs over Panem, shooting the people of the Districts, like we were taught about in the history of the first rebellion. What if all that I'm doing is dooming the citizens of Panem to an even worse future, like the original rebels did.

But on the other hand it will be a huge relief. No more acting like I love the Capitol and secretly trying to stir up rebellion. No more having to restrain myself whenever I'm around Snow or his followers. Just the simply reality of killing as many Capitol soldiers as possible. By that time I'll just be one more soldier. Nothing special.

"Finnick?" I ask. "I'm sorry about what happened to Mags. It was my fault."

For a moment he says nothing. Then I reel backwards from the punch he gives me. His trident is held in front of him defensibly. I raise my hand to my cheek. The pain is spreading across my face. That will leave a bruise. I deserve it though and I can't be angry at him, he did save my life after all.

Haymitch plucks the trident from his hands. "We're an alliance," he growls at Finnick. "If you're going to attack us, you'll have to leave the alliance. I know that you're upset about Mags- everyone who knew her is- but she's dead. You have to move on. We're still in the Games, we need to think rationally. You can deal with your emotions after."

There won't be an after for him though. For any of us except for me. How long was Haymitch planning on keeping this from me? Why did he let me think that all of these tributes would stick a knife in my back at the first opportunity if it suited them? Perhaps it was to keep me aware of the possibility that they would. Mags gave up her life, but she's eighty and would have died at some point anyway. And Finnick just punched me in the face for approaching him.

"She killed Mags," he accuses. "I know that you want to keep her alive and I won't betray the alliance, but she deserved that."

"Mags killed herself," I argue. "Yes, it was my fault that she had to. I made a mistake, I admit that. But it was her choice to give up her life for me. You can't deny that."

"No," he says. "But it is your fault that she's dead."

"She would have died anyway," Johanna interrupts us. "Finnick, she was old and weak. She couldn't run on her own. If it came down to you and her at the end, are you honestly telling me that you would kill yourself for her?"

"No. But she could have had a few more days at least."

"At most," Haymitch says.

"A few more days in hell," Johanna adds.

Finnick nods. He stands up and wipes away the tears. The sad look on his face is replaced with a determined one. "I'm sorry," he says to me curtly. "Give me back my trident," he orders Haymitch. "Now."

Haymitch hands him the weapon and he turns around slowly. "Look over there," he says gesturing with his trident.

There appears to be a mound of dark brown fur. Another mutt, probably. I notch an arrow into my bow and point it at the direction of the creature. I release the arrow. It turns around and howls. A gorilla with sharp teeth. Teeth that could do some damage if they come into contact with my flesh. It runs towards me.

Finnick jumps in front and spears it with his trident. "We'll take the ones on the left, you take the ones on the right!" he shouts to the rest of our alliance. Looking around, I notice a circle of the mutts closing in. Damn. I yank another arrow from my quiver and fit it to the bowstring.

The gorilla jumps and I nail it in the eye with an arrow. Next to me, Finnick lunges at one with his trident. I shoot another that comes up behind him. How many of these are there? Would the better option be to run? Another one dead. They can't come into the next section.

"Look out," a high pitched voice screams. I whirl around. It's right up in my face. For a moment, time seems to slow down. I notice the saliva dripping off its unnatural fangs as I fumble for an arrow, a knife, anything. The jaws close downwards. Then the mutt falls back. It has an axe sticking out of the side of its head. Johanna stands in front of me.

She struggles to yank the axe out when another mutt advances from the side. Electra sticks one of her short swords in it and I finish it with an arrow to the head. They just keep on coming. Haymitch is fighting two at the same time. Both Haymitch and the gorilla have wounds. My next arrow narrowly misses the gorilla. I can't get a clear shot with Haymitch in the way.

Before I get another chance, Beetee is there. He clutches a large coil of wire and brings it down over the mutt's head. Again and again with more strength until it finally collapses, blood spilling from its mouth. Haymitch finishes off the other one.

A new wave of gorillas spills through the trees.

"They'll just keep coming!" Electra shouts. "We need to run."

She's right. All of the other things have lasted for quite a while. The jabber jays didn't go away just because I shot some. I turn around, burying one last arrow into the neck of a gorilla mutt attacking me.

I run. Pain stabs through my foot from where I twisted my ankle earlier, but I'm not going to let another ally die for me. This time I'm no where near the front of my allies. I even lag behind Wiress and Beetee- and they're going slowly so that I can keep up with them. The gorillas are hard on our heels.

I turn my head in time to see one of them leap for my face. I stick my bow out in front. There's no time to draw an arrow. The bow doesn't make a good shield, but it's better than nothing. Is this where I die? Looking the horrible creation of some Capitol scientist in its red, blood-crazed eyes.

"No!" someone shouts.

A body leaps out from behind the bushes. She tumbles into the undergrowth with the gorilla. There is screaming and I can hear the tearing of flesh. Somehow I doubt that it's the gorilla's flesh tearing. I can't save her though. My next arrow embeds itself into the stomach of the lead gorilla coming through the trees.

Only then do I send an arrow at the gorilla in the bushes, but by that time it's too late. The cannon sounds through the arena for the second time in less than a few hours. Another person who died so that I can live.

There is no time to stop and see who it was. Another three gorillas appear from behind trees and I have to run. I only have two arrows left, I can't waste them now. The tribute is forgotten, the pain in my foot is forgotten. All that matters now is following the rest of the tributes to safety.

My shoes crunch over the leaves as I practically fly over the ground. My heart thuds so loudly that it sounds like everybody in the arena and in the audience can hear it. I bet I'm getting the screen time now. The twigs scratch at my face, leaving small lines of blood as I pass. I don't care. Small scratches are better than giant bites.

Finally, I burst out of the jungle and onto the beach. I collapse onto the warm sand. The gorillas stop at the edge of the forest, like there's some sort of invisible force field stopping them from getting through. Maybe there is. Johanna and Haymitch step in front of me with their axes. I could have used them a few minutes ago.

"The careers aren't here. Probably searching for us. We're safe here," Haymitch says. "Get up. We need to be alert, you can't just lie in the sand and wait for them to arrive on top of us."

Sighing, I struggle to my feet. Haymitch is right. I can't narrowly escape the gorillas and only then by having another tribute sacrifice her life for me to be killed by the careers now. I gaze at my allies. Who's missing? Who died so that I could live this time? To my surprise, they're all here.

"Who was the cannon?" Beetee asks. "We were worried that it was you."

"No," I gasp out. "No. It was another tribute. Female. She jumped in front of a gorilla to save me. It killed her. I don't know who it was. Not a tribute I know."

"The only female tributes left are you, Johanna, Electra and Wiress- who are here, and Cashmere and Enobaria- they wouldn't save you- and the District Six one."

"A morphling." She may have been weak and on drugs, but she was aware enough to know about the rebellion. This makes me hopeful. If even she knows about the rebellion, does that mean that everybody in District Six does? Could there be protests and riots going on right now? And people dying, I remember.

"Well, I think that we've registered that staying away from the cornucopia and hiding in the forest doesn't keep us safe," Johanna says, glaring at the rest of us. "So perhaps we should go over to the cornucopia and make our camp there, like I suggested in the first place. If you had just listened, Mags would be alive now."

She doesn't have to be so rude about it. Finnick is the first into the water. I admire the way he swims for a moment. Gale and I learnt how to swim in a lake in the forest, but by the looks of it her learnt properly. Probably everyone in District Four does, they're pretty rich and they live on the sea.

I jump in myself. The cold water washes off the sweat from the chase. It gets into the cuts on my face and stings. Salt water. I rub it over my face, trying to ignore the pain. My mother and Prim always soak people's cuts in salt water before doing anything else. I don't know why, but they wouldn't do it if it was pointless. I wonder what they're doing now. How did Prim feel when she saw me almost die twice in just the past few hours alone?

I reach the rocks that make up the island of the cornucopia and yank myself up. No more weapons or backpacks left here. We took all we could last time and the careers must have learnt to take the other supplies with them if they can't spare enough for a guard. It would probably be easier if they did still leave a guard because then we could just pick off the guard whilst the rest are hunting. Unfortunately, the careers aren't stupid though. I guess there has to be something about them that's vaguely intelligent for them to win the Games.

I suddenly wonder if everyone in District Four is a volunteer. In an entire District that at least parts of it are wealthy, a District which has career training schools, you would think that every year they would manage to have one male and one female volunteer. Otherwise they probably wouldn't have the academies. They are a career district- so does that mean that Finnick volunteered? I start to view him in a different light now. For a fourteen year old to win the Games, he must have had at least some training.

What about Annie? Mags? Were those years just bad years for volunteers? Maybe there aren't volunteers every year. After all, the District Four male in the seventy fourth died in the bloodbath. Mara said that he wasn't a career, I recall. Not everybody is a volunteer I guess. But Finnick.. A non-volunteer very rarely wins. I don't think that a non-volunteer would end up being the youngest victor of the Hunger Games. Maybe I should just ask instead of pondering.

"Finnick, were you trained? Did you volunteer for the Games?"

Finnick turns around. "Do you really think that an untrained fourteen year old would get an eleven in training?" he asks me. Probably not. I wasn't trained though, I got eleven too. But I'm guessing that was different. Finnick probably didn't throw a trident at the game makers.

"No. I doubt that would happen. But that doesn't mean you volunteered. You can have training and be reaped. So did you volunteer?"

"No. Quite a few of our tributes don't. A lot of parents buy their child a weapon and have them train with it for a few hours a week though, just in case. Nobody wants their child to go into the Games unprepared, even if it is only a small chance. Of course, the trident was my weapon. I enjoyed training with the trident, so I trained for longer than my parents wanted."

"Oh. In District Twelve there isn't really a preparation for if you get reaped. Weapons aren't easy to buy, unless it's something like throwing knives. And seeing as being reaped is so unlikely, practically no one trains with weapons and survival skills for it. And our tributes generally aren't too strong from under feeding, so it would be pointless."

"So did you just get that good with the bow and arrow without training?" Finnick asks smiling. "Where did you get one of those from. I don't believe that it was just pure natural talent that let you get eleven and twelve in training using it. Or that Gale was so good with snares naturally."

Is he trying to get my family and I arrested? It sounds like he knows about the hunting. That said, he hasn't specifically mentioned it and a lot of people in the Capitol probably think the same think. And I doubt that I would be able to be arrested anymore. There's something under the victor agreement that any crimes you committed before are forgiven. Of course, I've hunted since my victory, but that doesn't have to be known.

"Gale and I trained together before the Games. My father taught me how to make a bow and arrow when I was around ten." He's dead now, they can't do anything to him. "He hunted with it. After he died and I met Gale, I showed him how to make one and we learnt to use it together because we both had loads of tesserae. My name was in the reaping ball about twenty times. Exactly twenty in fact." Truth mixed in with some lies. I don't think owning a weapon is illegal. Nor is training with it. Hunting is definitely against the law though.

"Oh. I never had to take tesserae, I was just reaped against the odds. My name was only in the reaping ball three times- the mandatory amount. How many times was Prim's name in there? What about Gale's?"

"Prim's name was only in the reaping ball once. I would never let her take any tesserae. And with my victory money, she'll never need to take any now either." Thank God. Unless the reaping is rigged, Prim will never have to enter the Games. And I doubt Snow would dare to rig it. Too obvious. Her name probably isn't even in the reaping ball anymore. "Gale was in forty two times to get enough food for his brother and sister."

It's interesting to learn about the other Districts. Here and in the mentor room if I get out alive will be the only places where I can do it. All that they teach us at school about the rest of Panem is location on a map and what they produce. There'll be shots of each District in the victory tours, but we don't find out about the habits of each District.

Maybe one day there will be free travel between Districts. If I get out alive and stir up all the Districts and the Capitol doesn't massacre us in a war. If the rebellion succeeds.

xXx-X-xXx

Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed the chapter. Please leave me a comment telling me what you thought.

-MoonOfPluto