The clock's discussion had gone on for too long, to the point Olive voluntarily walked off. Wiress' song was mildly annoying, and so it was Beetee's mumbles for the 'wire', whatever he meant besides Wiress, who stood by his side on the sand. She didn't go too far away. Only a few metres towards the treeline. Somewhere that the water could never reach and the plants all around made her mother's voice appear in her mind, telling her not to approach anything she didn't know for certain.
"My name's Olive Navin Cresta," she mumbled, her fingers tracing a pattern on the sand. "I'm twenty-three years old. My family is in District Four. I'm in the Hunger Games." Then, like time had frozen, she paused, going over what she remembered. Concretely, what she had been doing the past minutes or perhaps hours. "What am I doing on the treeline by myself?"
"You forgot?" Johanna stopped right in front of her feet, snapping Olive's attention out of her surprise.
"No, Johanna—"
Olive couldn't finish talking as Johanna turned her head over her shoulder to check on the rest of the group, who made sure Katniss wasn't too bothered with the recent bickering—almost fighting off—with her. "How much? 'Cause if it's like some hours, I'll keep it from Finnick. If it's more, I'll force you to tell him yourself."
"I'm not sure." Olive sighed. "When did I walk off? I remember Katniss saying something about the Arena being a clock… then… it's all a blur."
As if sighs were as contagious as yawns, Johanna allowed herself to relax and sigh softly. "Good. Not much then." She turned her head back to Olive, flashing her a side smirk, but her eyes not concealing her genuine worry in front of her friend. "You better get up. Finnick wants us on the move. We're gonna check out if brainless over there—" she pointed at Katniss "—is right about this whole clock thing from the Cornucopia."
Right after regrouping, the seven of them took off towards the Cornucopia through the closest sand strips. Just as imagined, the entire place was deserted except for the weapons from the very first day. There were no signs of the Careers ever having come back, nor that they would have had the time to do so since they were still on the second day.
"Clean it, will you?" Peeta asked Wiress, placing the wire in her hands as Beetee lay in the bit of shade in the Cornucopia.
Like a child, or an extremely affected adult, Wiress nodded and scampered to the water's edge, where she began to sing while proceeding with her definition of cleaning; dumping the coil into the water.
"Oh, not the song again," said Johanna, rolling her eyes. "That went on for hours before she started tick-tocking."
"And what's going on now?" Olive asked, watching Wiress stand up straight out of the blue and point at the jungle.
"Two," said Wiress, pointing somewhere in the jungle, which had just begun to be eaten up by the fog.
Katniss nodded. "Yes, look, Wiress is right. It's two o'clock, and the fog has started."
"Like clockwork," added Peeta. "You were very smart to figure that out, Wiress."
"Oh, she's more than smart," corrected Beetee. "She's intuitive." All eyes turned to him, who nobody had actually expected to hear from any time soon. "She can sense things before anyone else. Like a canary in one of your coal mines."
Olive had to admit that not even her lurking curiosity over the bird or why it was even brought to the coal mines could maintain her attention in the conversation. She just picked up words. Warn. Air. Die. Weapons. Restock.
Reassembling weapons—that was what they were doing. Most of them, at least. Not that Olive noticed right away either. It took Katniss a few minutes and some dragging around to get her to react to anything. Although it wasn't the touch of a brand-new bow, or her stocked-up quiver being left in her hands. It was Finnick, whose hand pressed against her back to make a couple of circling motions, which got Olive blinking her way back to reality.
"Everything alright over here, girls?" he asked, to which Katniss nodded.
"Yeah, just making sure we have arrows to spare. Wouldn't want to repeat the monkeys' situation," replied Katniss. "All done now."
"Good," he said. "Let's go back, then. Your husband's been drawing something on a leaf for the past ten minutes, and I'm starting to get worried about his sanity."
If it was a joke, Olive couldn't tell. But, apparently, Katniss did. She sniggered and shook her head, as if disregarding his comment, before walking away to join Peeta. Olive watched the couple from afar with Finnick, not noticing the smile that was creeping up on her face. Not for either Katniss or Peeta, but for the parallels she had just realised that existed. While Katniss and Peeta had probably not made their actual vows in their supposed secret wedding, she and Finnick had, and yet, they couldn't be open about it. They couldn't let the Capitol realise their relationship was past simple friends, let alone refer to one another as 'wife' or 'husband'.
"I wish you had let me know about your alliance plan with Haymitch," Olive said, glancing over at Finnick to make sure he knew she was catching up with the actual plan underneath the alliance.
"And putting you in danger?" Finnick whispered, not loud enough for any cameras to pick it up. "I'm not sorry for keeping it from you, but I know you deserved to be told."
Olive let out a light chuckle, which unconsciously turned bitter the more her eyes stayed on the couple from Twelve. "It doesn't matter now… maybe it never did. I could have forgotten about it either way. We both know how opportune my damned mind is."
"One step at a time." He took his hand off her back and turned to see the official couple asking Johanna questions about the 'sections' of the jungle. "For now, let's go with the others, OK?"
She was just about to nod, accept and follow him to the group, when she noticed. The Silence. The song she had learned to ignore no longer bothered her, as its singer was dead. Gloss let Wiress' body slide to the ground like it was nothing, her throat slit open. Quicker than anybody could react, Katniss loaded her bow and fired, which soon Johanna followed, burying her axe in Cashmere's chest. Finnick didn't miss a beat to protect Peeta against Brutus' spear, even if that meant letting Enobaria's knife get to his thigh.
Then, as deafening as they always were, the cannons for all three dead tributes roared around the arena. Olive stood by the centre of the Cornucopia, doubting what to do. Katniss and some others had started to give chase to Brutus and Enobaria, but she didn't feel confident in her running, much less her ability to fight off two careers, even with Johanna and Finnick around. However, if she had made up her mind sooner, there could have been a chance for her to avoid hitting her head against the ground the moment the Cornucopia detached itself from the sand slips, and started spinning around.
With her body devoid of strength, and a likely concussion, Olive rolled off together with some weapons towards the water. She fell in with such force it had no difference from hitting the ground moments before. There was no time to tell which way was up or down. The spinning blurred everything into the same unescapable blue nightmare. No more than a few seconds passed before she could stop spinning, her lips sealed to not allow the water to take advantage of her panic, and her hands scouting frantically for land.
In what was starting to look like pointless squirming, Olive's hand smacked against a solid surface. Strength came back to her limbs like a temporary gift, letting her hands grip the surface to propel half her body out of the water. Then, it all depended on her worm-like abilities to kick and drag what was left of her body onto the sand, where she lay over her stomach, motionless like a corpse, if corpses shook to their core.
"Olive!" A distant shout grew closer the more she struggled her way to the sand strip. "Liv, Are you OK?"
Her first few answers were interrupted by coughs of salt water. Although, Olive doubted she would have to reply. The way her hands were trembling, making sure her grip on the ground never faltered, or her desperation to keep even her feet away from the water would be things anybody could notice. Finnick especially. Johanna surely did the moment she caught up to them, taking over the comforting job, which she wasn't very good at, for Finnick, who had Beetee left to rescue.
"The Gamemakers really did you dirty with that one," Johanna commented, helping Olive not trip over her feet as they walked back to Peeta, who Katniss had left alone to retrieve the coil. "You're either their favourite or the one they hate the most. One can never tell."
"Let's go with apathy." Olive halted by Peeta's side, turning around to keep an eye on Finnick, who was bringing Beetee back, in case the Careers were to attack again. "It's all for the show. And I…" She checked her quiver, which unsurprisingly had lost all the arrows during her Gamemakers–designed swimming session. "I need arrows."
"Wait here. I'll go looking for some," said Johanna before leaving.
Not paying any mind to the sudden offering, Olive nodded and directed her attention back to Finnick. It was surprising that Peeta didn't try to start a conversation of any kind, nor ask questions, though his worry over his own lover should be enough to distract him from everything but their powerlessness, staring and hoping. No arrows, no throwing knives, nothing to protect those they loved. The feeling, however, didn't banish even when Finnick got back to the Cornucopia with Beetee, nor moments later when Katniss left the coil in Beetee's lap.
Like a moth to light, Olive's sight landed on Finnick's thigh, which was bleeding through the already damaged bodysuit. "You're hurt."
"Brilliant observation," he said, and immediately wrapped his arms around her. Not having to mind any odd stares for it. Katniss and Peeta were in their own little world as well. "What about you?"
"I have my moments." She reciprocated the hug, ignoring the cameras and the Capitol as she buried her face in his chest. "We need to bandage the wound, Finnick. If it gets infected, we're screwed."
"'We'? I'd be the one dying, not you."
Olive let out a soft chuckle, like his words were nothing more than a joke. "I told death to hear my vow, and I'm gonna stick by that. If it comes for you, it comes for the both of us."
A minute passed in utter silence, letting both couples drown in their loved one's comfort for as long as the reality of their surroundings could be avoided, which turned out not to be long. Soon enough, Johanna came back with a quiver filled to the brim with arrows, calling everyone to get off the Cornucopia, no matter where.
Like many conversations had ended up ever since they had formed the bigger alliance, a discussion was created right away. Olive didn't partake in it, since her primary worry wasn't where they would go next. After all, if they got to an active part of the jungle, they should be able to get back to the Cornucopia and pick another path. Nevertheless, Finnick took part in it, trying to figure out where the twelve o'clock beach should be by the sun's position, all while following Olive's inquiring suggestions to bandage his thigh, which he did with his vest—the cleanest and best-conserved part of his entire attire.
"The sun only tells you it's going on four, Finnick," said Katniss.
"I think Katniss's point is, knowing the time doesn't mean you necessarily know where four is on the clock. You might have a general idea of the direction. Unless you consider that they may have shifted the outer ring of the jungle as well," added Beetee, while Katniss nodded her head with an unsure look on her face.
"Yes, so any one of these paths could lead to twelve o'clock," Katniss continued, suggesting circling around the Cornucopia, examining the jungle. Everything was perfectly symmetrical from what they could tell, even the tree where the lightning struck, which was in each section. "I should have never mentioned the clock, now they've taken that advantage away as well."
"Only temporarily," said Beetee. "At ten, we'll see the wave again and be back on track."
"Yes, they can't redesign the whole arena," added Peeta.
"It doesn't matter," Johanna commented, close to no patience left in her. "You had to tell us, or we never would have moved our camp in the first place, brainless." Her words apparently comforted Katniss way better than any other logical facts could, but Johanna spent no time acknowledging that fact as she turned to the entire group and folded her arms. "Come on, I need water. Anyone have a good gut feeling?"
They chose a path randomly, hoping for the best as they peered into its jungle, which had no activity at first sight. Peeta seemed convinced and even volunteered to tap a tree, but Olive didn't feel so confident. There was something about that section of the jungle, even if so slight, that she didn't like. It was like reliving a bad dream, and Finnick and Katniss going in by themselves didn't make it any better. Although she knew better than to go against whatever plan she had been told nothing of. Either way, since Peeta was not-so-discreetly restrained from following Katniss, she should do the same to show her trust in her ally.
"Peeta, the map," said Johanna, snapping Peeta out of his frozen state by the jungle's entrance and giving him a new leaf to work on.
Like she could start to hear the arena actually ticking, Olive felt the seconds pass, an eerie sensation eating up her mind and making a chill run down her spine. A distraction, even if so brief, would be much preferred over doing nothing, just waiting for Finnick and Katniss to get back. "Peeta, need any help?"
A scream, something between a screech and a plea, appeared far deep in the jungle. It wasn't Katniss's or Finnick's, but a little girl's. One very well-known to anybody in Panem for the last year; Katniss's little sister. Primrose Everdeen was shouting, begging for help. And then, Katniss's own voice appeared, way clearer and nearer than Primrose's, and just as concerning.
"Prim!"
"Katniss!" Peeta's and Finnick's shouts echoed, just before Finnick's also took off into the jungle, further and further away from them.
Olive stared, baffled, at the jungle's entrance. She was living a bad dream. That was it, that had to be it. There was no way Primrose could be in the Arena. Not even the Gamemakers would survive the backlash that would provoke. But, if it wasn't real, that meant Katniss was on the hunt for an inexistent voice, bringing Finnick along with her to whatever dangers the jungle could hold.
Driven by worry, Peeta and Olive tried to run into the jungle, only to crash with an invisible wall before they could take a step past the treeline. The voice, like it had appeared, disappeared, and so did Katniss's and Finnick's.
"Katniss!" Peeta kept on shouting. "Katniss!"
"Finnick!" Olive joined Peeta in their useless attempts to knock down the wall. "Finnick…"
Long minutes passed before there was any sight of Katniss and Finnick, who came running down towards the beach, some kind of birds behind them. Peeta quickly stopped hitting the wall and lay his hands flat against it, trying to make at least Katniss understand, but neither did. The desperation in their faces, mixed with the poor sight they had of their surroundings since they kept glancing behind at the birds, jabberjays, was not letting them. Both smacked against the wall. Katniss with her shoulder and Finnick head-first, which made them bounce back.
Katniss dragged herself to the invisible wall right after, placing her hand over Peeta's, making sure it wasn't a force field. The knowledge, however, didn't distract her for long. With the jabberjays overpowering their minds, Finnick and Katniss closed their eyes, their hands tried to cover their ears, and they opened their mouths, as if they were trying to overpower whatever screams they were being forced to listen to with their own.
"It's no use," said Peeta, his voice losing all hope. "We can't get to them. We can't… Katniss…"
And so Peeta and Olive waited for the hour to be over, hunched, hands on the invisible wall, and watching, completely helpless, as their loved ones suffered. Once it was over, though, their reactions became quicker than lightning. Peeta, knowing the jungle would not be a good place to calm Katniss down, picked Katniss up and carried her out of the jungle, where Beetee had stayed. Olive could never do the same. She would like to, but she wasn't strong enough. Instead, she crouched down in front of Finnick, taking his hands with hers and whispering all the 'it's OK' sand 'it's over now' possibles.
The sound of her voice brought back some colour to Finnick's face, though his trembling hands weren't much better. As spaced-out as he was, he still let her and Johanna guide him out of the jungle and onto the beach. They sat him down near Katniss and Peeta, who were discussing how unlikely it would be for the Gamemakers to torture Prim, of all people.
"Katniss, Prim isn't dead. How could they kill Prim? We're almost down to the final eight of us. And what happens then?" Peeta said.
Peeta's words didn't have much success with Katniss, but they excelled with Finnick, whose eyes regained focus, and the colour left appeared back on his face. Olive didn't have to ask about the voices to know which the Gamemakers had used to torture him; Mags, Annie, Gianna, Theo, her father, Angel, perhaps even Librae and the other victors. And, if Peeta's words were true, that meant he wouldn't have to give her the bad news. He wouldn't have to look into her eyes and tell her that her twin was being tortured. That Annie and everyone they loved could be dead as far as they knew.
"Seven more of us die," Katniss replied, no hope left in her voice.
"No, back home. What happens when they reach the final eight tributes in the Games?" He lifted Katniss's chin, so she would have to look at him. "What happens? At the final eight?"
"At the final eight?" Katniss repeated. "They interview your family and friends back home."
"That's right." Peeta nodded. "They interview your family and friends. And can they do that if they've killed them all?"
"No?" Katniss asked, taking way longer than Finnick to find some sense in Peeta's words.
"No. That's how we know Prim's alive. She'll be the first one they interview, won't she?" Peeta carried on trying to convince her, knowing otherwise the doubt would eat up her mind to a dangerous state, more so while in the Arena. "First Prim. Then your mother. Your cousin, Gale. Madge… It was a trick, Katniss. A horrible one. But we're the only ones who can be hurt by it. We're the ones in the Games. Not them."
"You really believe that?" Despite Peeta nodding, Katniss wavered, looking for the only other person who had suffered the same as her; the only other person whose judgement should follow her same scepticism. "Do you believe it, Finnick?"
"It could be true. I don't know," Finnick replied, his hand squeezing Olive's as if he just realised he had been holding it all along. "Could they do that, Beetee? Take someone's regular voice and make it…"
"Oh, yes. It's not even that difficult, Finnick. Our children learn a similar technique in school," said Beetee.
"Of course Peeta's right. The whole country adores Katniss's little sister. If they really killed her like this, they'd probably have an uprising on their hands," added Johanna flatly, the sensitivity not being anywhere in her list of current concerns. "Don't want that, do they? Whole country in rebellion? Wouldn't want anything like that!" Then, after a very shocked reaction from the two youngest victors, she picked up some shells and headed towards the water, hardly saying anything before leaving. "I'm getting water."
"Don't go in there. The birds—" Katniss tried to stop her, which even she knew wasn't necessary, since the jabberjays were long gone and the hour was over.
"They can't hurt me. I'm not like the rest of you. There's no one left I love." Johanna glanced over to Olive and Finnick quickly before walking off, disregarding any further comments anybody could have.
There was no chatter after that, and Olive doubted it would ever come. Katniss was way too immersed in her own thoughts, enjoying the protective feeling Peeta's arms gave her, to even spare a single look anywhere else, but Peeta's face or the sand. So she took the opportunity and pulled Finnick to his feet with their intertwined hands. Just like Peeta was Katniss's anchor, she was Finnick's. But nothing would change while they stayed in the sand, sitting around like the hopeless children they had once been. Instead, something that reminded him of home, even if she had to fight her mind and body to go anywhere near it, would be much more preferred.
"Liv," Finnick mumbled. "The water."
The waves from the artificial sea reached their feet as they walked, but Olive didn't stop there. She took a couple of steps further into the seawater, breathing in and out softly to make sure Finnick wouldn't notice, and sat down right there, bringing him along with her.
"It's not home, but it's close enough." She smiled, caressing the back of his hand with her thumb to soothe him somehow.
Finnick made an attempt at a chuckle, which died quickly. His sight fell back on their hands as he interlocked their fingers and gave her hand a gentle squeeze. "District Four, the sea, the water… None of that is my home, Liv. You are."
"Finnick… what—" Before Olive could even voice her worries, Finnick carried on.
"Those jabberjays were horrible, but they reminded me of something. We're in the Arena, Liv. We're in the one place that only one person gets to escape from. That is, until last year. So, if we may die, who cares?" Finnick asked, though he didn't keep on talking, nor make any move that could be the last confirmation of their relationship; he gave that sole right to her.
Olive detached her hand from his, making Finnick misunderstand her intention for the split second it took her to plant a chaste kiss on his lips. "You know, after the fog, the monkeys, the wave, and the damned Cornucopia, you'd think we would've figured this out sooner."
"Be grateful we did at all," he replied, his tone lighter than what it had been all day. "But, I'll admit, being able to start bragging about my wife feels great."
"There's like eight other people here apart from us, Finnick. And half will want to kill us at some point. Not much opportunity to brag, I'd say." Olive chuckled.
"I'll take any over none," he said. "Besides, we have the lovebirds as allies. Two recently-married couples fighting together. Isn't that a great story?"
"It is. The best kind." She nodded.