Seven

Over the next few days, I discover that Annie is as alone in the world as I am. It bothers me that I never bothered to ask her about her family in the Capitol, but I can't say just why it does. Maybe it's because I can't help but wonder if I could better help her now, or at least have been better prepared, had I known this little fact. The past can't be changed, though, so I can only proceed with the information - provided by the mayor in an entirely accidental way - that her mother and her grandmother had perished in a hurricane a year before she was reaped and that she's worked as weaver and lived at the mayor's house since, having been friends with his daughter.

I get the idea he's not keen on his daughter keeping up that friendship, not with a victor who killed a thirteen year old and then lost her mind on national television. I can only hope his daughter is capable of thinking for herself. I'm not one to talk, though, about keeping friends who don't live in the Victor's Village so I resolve to let the chips fall where they will.

"How worried are we that she's been sitting on the steps, staring at the ocean, all night?"

I jump when Librae says something from behind me. She really should know better than to sneak up on a victor, especially given the fact that she's got two scars from sneaking up on Muscida and her knife. "Who's been sitting where all night?" I ask, even though I have a sneaking suspicion I know the answer to that question.

She jerks her bony thumb toward the house next to mine, a place Mags had decreed would be Annie's house. "New girl. I saw her sitting there before I want to bed and she's sitting there now. Given the storm last night and the fact that she's soaked to the bone, I'd say she was out in the storm."

I don't particularly like Librae. The second oldest of us victors from Four, she's passionately in favor of anything the Capitol does and yet she looks at me with barely veiled disgust even though she knows why I do what I do, even if she doesn't know all of it. Maybe she was Mags' favorite before I came along, I don't know.

What I know right now is that I'm transferring my anger over not having noticed Annie to Librae for having noticed and not done anything.

I push her out of my way and jog across the wet sand to Annie's back steps.

She's not just shivering when I reach her, she's shaking like a brittle leaf about to crumble into a thousand tiny pieces. And she has no idea I'm crouching in front of her.

Needing to get her to focus on me, I put my hands over hers and pry her fingers out of the fists she's got them clenched in. She doesn't fight my manipulations of her body and, once I've got her hands stretched out, she leans forward and wraps her arms around my neck.

To say I'm startled by it would be the understatement of a lifetime. I can't hesitate, though, or I'll lose her to whatever's held on to her mind all night. I wrap my arms around her shaking body and lift her off the steps. It's still cold and she needs to be warm before hypothermia sets in - to survive the Hunger Games only to die because you spent a night out in the cold rain would be injustice at it's finest and most horrible. I don't know just how to take care of her, though, so I do what I've done every time I've felt lost since I won the Games.

I go to Mags.

Librae clearly doesn't approve but she didn't do anything so I'm certainly not asking her for help. I push past her again, carrying her across my yard and up onto Mags' porch. My mentor is sitting at the kitchen table with Ron and Muscida, both of whom jump to their feet when I kick the door open.

Mags looks at me for a long moment before she nods once. "Undress, Muscida. Hot bath, Finnick," she says slowly but firmly.

It takes us another moment to realize she's not telling Muscida to undress and me to take a bath. She wants Annie to be stripped of her soaked clothes by Muscida and for me to get a hot bath ready. It makes sense.

Annie, however, is having none of it and starts screaming like she did when the stylist tried to give her clothes on the train. Only this time she's not cowering in a corner, she's digging her fingernails into my neck and shoulders as she fights me trying to put her down so we can all do what Mags said.

"Maybe you want to do each other's jobs?" Ron suggests just loudly enough to be heard over the screams. "She seems a bit more comfortable with Finnick."

Ron has a knack for underestimating, being underestimated, and understating. I don't think he likes me, given that he's older than me and won the Games after me but I'm still the most popular victor from Four, and I don't particularly like him very often but I'll give credit where it's due. "I've dressed her before," I tell Mags - who is recovering more every day although her speech still lags behind, "I'll do it again."

Seeming relieved, Muscida disappears into the first floor bathroom and I hear the taps turn on. Ron makes an excuse to leave, promising to check on any damage caused by the storms.

I do my best to disentangle Annie's legs from waist, thinking that if I can get her standing on her own two feet it'll be easier to take care of her, even if she is still clawing at me. As long as I keep talking to her, quietly and about the color of the sea that's crashing against the shore outside the window, she doesn't scream and she lets me do what I need to do. She doesn't let go of me on her own, and when I force it she only allows it long enough for me to pull the shirt over her head. I drop her wet clothes on the tiled floor by the oven and tug her toward the bathroom.

"Okay, Finnick?" Mags asks, getting to her feet and using the countertop as a support to walk to the tea kettle. "Can you do this?"

Can I do this? Can I take care of the shivering, naked girl whose got her body pressed against mine as though I might be the only thing in the world she trusts?

No.

"I don't know," I say instead, not wanting to let Mags down.

Leaving the kettle behind, she comes and squeezes my arm. "You can do this," she says with the same firm confidence she had when she said the very same words to me the last time she saw me before I entered the arena. "I know you can. I'm here, if you need me, but you're strong. You can do this."

As if agreeing with Mags, Annie presses her face into the crook of my neck and sighs.

I lean to the side just long enough to kiss Mags' forehead and then I guide Annie to the bathroom.

Clearly a little skittish around the younger woman, Muscida leaves the bathroom with a promise to stay in the hallway in case I need help. Annie doesn't notice so I thank her and step inside.

I worried right after the Games that Annie would be terrified of water, given that she literally had to swim to survive, but a night of sitting out in a rainstorm says otherwise. I also know that she's spent at least two hours every day wading along the shore. So it isn't any problem for me to lower her into the steaming tub full of water.

She keeps holding on to me but her nails aren't embedded in my flesh anymore. And slowly, very slowly, she relaxes back against the side of the tub.

I fold myself onto the floor beside her and let my arm dangle in the water, not caring that the sleeve of my shirt is soaked. Her shivering is stopping and there's a pink replacing the blue in her lips. That's enough for me.

As I watch her close her eyes and relax, I wonder about this girl who they say survived the Hunger Games. I don't know if this is surviving. Then again, I don't know if what I'm doing is surviving. Maybe we've invented a new sort of surviving, maybe we can do it together.

Somehow.

Someway.

Someday.