Eleven

The first thing I see when I return to District Four is the blur of Annie Cresta flinging herself into my arms. She's pale and has dark circles under her eyes. And I think she's lost even more weight since we were separated just two weeks ago. I sort of wish she hadn't come to greet me. I'm still wearing Capitol clothes and I left immediately after my last appointment so I'm sure I'm still covered in perfumes and lipstick.

It's embarrassing.

"Come on," Annie says, tugging on my hand and pulling me away from the train.

It strikes me then that she is in the train station. Between coming home from her Games and leaving for the Victory Tour, I don't think she went into town at all. And now she's greeted me on her own at the train station? Apparently she's been hard at work getting better without me.

"Where are we going?" I ask as I let her guide me through a throng of people so used to my coming and going that all they really do is elbow me in the ribs to get by.

She doesn't say, she only keeps walking. And she walks until we reach one of the oldest docks in District Four. There's a rickety, half rotted old staircase that leads from the main dock down to the beach before - a beach that almost no one goes to because it's so dangerous to get there and get back up - and she heads straight for the steps.

I hesitate just a little. My mother always told me that there were evil spirits under the dock and that they want nothing more than to swallow up unsuspecting people who wander uninvited into their domain. It's silly that I still remember it, but I do. And I'm not sure I want to risk it.

"You're scared?" She seems startled, surprised, and confused by this realization. "You don't believe all those old stories about the evil spirits, do you?"

I shake my head, but I don't move a muscle. "Of course I don't believe them."

Annie goes down two steps, as far as she can go without letting go of me. She turns and blinks at me. "You don't believe them? You're sure?"

I nod once and try to step forward but my stomach knots uneasily.

She steps back up and stands in front of me, cupping her hands on either side of my face. "They're just stories, Finnick, I promise." Her voice is calm and soothing, and she isn't laughing at me at all. It's nice to experience. "Trust me?"

I do trust her and I show it by taking a step to her side, showing her I'll follow her anywhere.

"I come down here all the time," she says as we go down the steps lowly but steadily. "I have since I was a little girl. I always thought you must have."

I shake my head and grip her hand more tightly than I probably should. "The way my mother described the spirits... I was sure they were huge, ugly monsters that would rise out of the sea and swallow me whole. I don't know why she didn't want me down here so badly, but she didn't."

She stops on the last step, on the most rotted slat of wood, and lets me stay one step above her. "I asked my father about the stories once. He told me they were ancient stories and that neither he nor his father knew of anyone who'd ever disappeared down here so, according to him, it only stood to reason that the stories were a lie."

I wish it were that simple.

Annie shakes her head, telling me with no words that I actually said that thought out loud. "Trust me, Finnick," she murmurs, "but we can go back to the Victor's Village if you want."

"I don't." I can say that with certainty. "I don't want to go back to the Victor's Village."

She nods once and steps off the step and into the sand, still holding my hand. "You look tired. I know a way you can relax and feel better. Come with me?"

I'm following her already but I know I could turn around if I wanted to. I don't. "Don't leave me?"

She smiles briefly and then turns her back to me. "I'll stay with you until you tell me to go away."

That's all the reassurance I need and I follow her across sand strewn with driftwood and rotting seaweed. Just when I'm about to give it up for lost, and declare myself thoroughly lost with no way of running from the monsters that haunted my childhood and haunt me still, Annie comes to a stop in front of a circle of black rocks. There's a steaming pool of water in the circle, and I think that's what she's smiling about.

"I know it's probably not as good as the tubs in the Capitol," she says, nervously shifting her weight from foot to foot, "but it's really relaxing. It's hot springs. You should sit in it for awhile."

I hate the tubs in the Capitol. I like this, and I haven't even got in yet. "Sit with me?"

She blushes, I assume from my bluntness, but nods. "I said I'd stay until you told me to go."

Awkwardly, we both strip to our underclothes. Neither of us is naked and I like it that way. Maybe it's part of the reason I hate the tubs in the Capitol. She takes my hand and we step into the hot springs. Even the rocks are hot, and they feel so good against my aching, tired body when I submerge myself up to my neck.

Annie giggles at the happy noise that escapes from me. "Are there monsters waiting to eat us up?"

I close my eyes and lean back against the edge of the pool. "Maybe. I don't even care."

She giggles again and I feel her shift and settle beside me. "That's good enough for me."

We fall into silence for the next few minutes. All I can hear are the bubbles in the water and the tide going out from the beach beside us.

A thought suddenly occurs to me and I sit up, opening my eyes and tapping her shoulder. "What do you know, Annie? What do you know about where I was and what I was doing?" She knows more than that I finished her Victory Tour. That much is obvious to me.

She stares at the bubbling water, refusing to look me in the eye.

A part of me desperately hopes she knows everything, because then I'll have nothing to hide. Another part of me is terrified that she might know everything, because then she'll hide from me. I hide my face in my hands and speak through my fingers. "Please, Annie, please tell me what Mags told you. I'm not mad that she told you something. I could never be mad at her or at you. I just need to know what you see when you look at me."

I feel her move more than I see her move. Then I feel her bump her shoulder against mine. "You want to know what I see when I look at you?" she whispers so softly I have to strain to hear her over the water all around us. "Okay. I'll tell you what I see when I look at you. You're Finnick. You like to laugh, but you're afraid to laugh. You want to love, but you're afraid to love. You want to live, but you're afraid to live. You don't know how not be scared, even though you hate to be scared. That's what I see."

It doesn't tell me if Mags told her about my Capitol girlfriends, but it tells me enough. I close my eyes and exhale slowly. "I thought I was a better actor than that."

She bumps me again. "I'm not your audience."

She has a point there and I open my eyes to look. "Do I have any secrets from you?"

"Of course. I don't know what your favorite color is." She laughs when I start in surprise. "I will never tell anyone your secrets, Finnick, not any more than you would tell anyone mine. I will listen to whatever you want to tell me whenever you want to tell me. Just like you would for me. All that matters is that you don't give up on yourself. That's all."

Apparently the tables have turned for the moment. Annie's acting like my mentor. More than that, she's acting like my friend. I don't think there's anything more I could ask for.