The great fished shined like a newly minted coin beneath the deep water. Its terribly bright golden body swished and flapped against the meagre pulling of his line. His strength was no use against the sea beast. It had teeth the size of his fingers. His fishing line was lodged in the back of its mouth, and it was pulling him down with its panicked movements.

He could hold his breath for a long while, but even that wouldn't be enough.

It was going to swallow him whole.

It was night, or at least, that's what the gamemakers wanted them to believe. It had been 9 a.m. when they were placed in the arena six days ago, but the days were shorter here and the nights were longer. Unsurprisingly, they purposefully messed with the tributes sense of time and daylight to disorient them on a biological level. But in that moment, there were stars and the sun had long set, so on the Games' time, it was night. When you were tribute, that was probably the only time that mattered.

Finnick lay on his back with his hand tucked under his head so that his arm was at an angle. A makeshift pillow of a rock, with some leaves shoved around it, rested beneath his head. The air was crisp, but thin in the high-altitude air. The Games that year had been set in mountainous terrain. Gigantic rock formations, which Finnick had only seen in textbook pictures, rose out of the ground on either side of a large freshwater lake. Finnick knew they needed to reach the water, but they had to climb the mountain first. That wasn't easy. The air, the higher you climbed, was harder to breathe as it thinned out and the temperature dropped.

It would later be revealed that a tribute, the girl from 10, had merely died from climbing too high up the mountain. She had had asthma and was ill prepared for the climate without proper medicine. Another had lost his footing and plummeted seven feet down the rock hill. He broke his leg. Unable to move, his district partner had no choice but to leave him, and he died within the next few hours from both exposure of the cold and his injury.

Lucky for the young fisherman from District 4, he had always wanted to see the mountains. The trick was, of course, living through his trip.

For Finnick and his partner, it had been a trek, but they were both healthy, strong, and they made it to the bottom half of the mountain. A clearing with thick, secure coniferous pines surrounding it seemed to be waiting for them, and knowing how the gamemakers could shape the arena with only a few strokes of a keyboard, it just may have been. At this point, they would reach the lake tomorrow as it was only a few miles ahead of them.

With a heavy sigh, he turned over to face the young woman who lay across the clearing from him. She wasn't sleeping – he knew her well enough to know she wasn't – but she could've fooled him. Her eyes were closed and her features, that wild array of sharp lines and jagged bones, were relaxed.

"Beck," he whispered loudly, a smirk coiled across his lips, "are you awake?"

"No." A clean, but close-lipped smile zipped open on her face. She always smiled like that when Finnick said something, it was as if she anticipated something dumb tumbling right out of his mouth. His fellow District 4 tribute opened her eyes as she turned her head to face the young boy. "What do you want, goldfish?"

Beck was 3 years older than Finnick, and despite her bright face and smirky contemptful expressions, she wasn't typical District 4 beauty. For a prime example, Finnick was typical District 4 beauty. With the overzealous bronze curls, the sunkissed skin from hours on fishing boats, towering like a statue (even at 14), and molded and lean with muscle from a life of sea labor on the coastline. Beck was not. With her stocky, muscly stature, sharp little features, and a series of worried lines on her face, Beck looked like she was more built for hand-to-hand boxing more than anything else. On the second day in the arena, she had cut her hair, slicing it to a jagged, uneven chin-length style. She complained that it kept getting in her way. If I'm going to do anything in this arena, I need this shit OUT of my face.

"We need a strategy." Finnick told her.

"Gawd." She rolled her eyes and promptly closed them. "I'm going back to sleep."

Finnick sighed loudly. Dramatically. "I know you weren't sleeping." He picked up a pebble that lay by his rock pillow and threw it at her, which rustled-up a disgruntled groan from the young woman. Looking at her district partner out from the tops of her eyes, Beck sent a menacing glare in his direction. Finnick elected to ignore this. There were scarier things in this arena than Beck's sour ass attitude.

"There's five of us left." Finnick noted, having counted the remaining tributes based on the kill tallies that evening. "Us, District 1, and the boy from Two."

Beck sat up, perhaps realizing she wasn't going to get much sleep with Finnick Odair yammering on about game strategies. "I can just imagine Flickerman –" She fixed an uncanny Flickerman-like expression on her face with the wide, charismatic smile expanding in place of her own grumpy melancholic one. "'I just don't know, folks – it looks like it's a game for the Careers. One versus Four, Two versus One, who will win? Only the Games will decide!'" She boomed in grand Caesar Flickerman fashion, complete with the enthusiastic gesticulating of her hands.

Finnick tipped his head back and laughed. "Don't forget the wink."

"Right!" Beck slapped her forehead. "How could I forget?" Unknowingly, she turned to a hidden camera within an evergreen pine and imitated that classic Flickerman charm as she offered a dazzling wink. The expression on Beck's face, her Flickerman imitation, and her lingering smile would make the Games news cycle for the next five hours. Flickerman, himself, would be dazzled by the District 4 teen who had a natural knack for celebrity impressions.

"Dead on, right?" Beck grinned at Finnick. Her smile was always a bit strange because it rolled up a little against her slightly crooked teeth. The effect of her smile was genuine, and it was obvious that her smiles were sincere. But that was on point for her – Beck never did anything she didn't mean.

"Dead…probably isn't the word you wanna use, given the circumstances." Finnick teased.

"Well, you're no fun." She cocked her head giving him one last peek of that weird smile of hers before she shifted it away. "So, what's the strategy, goldfish, or did you just wake me up for no reason?"

"Well, just to reiterate, you weren't sleeping." Ever the 'annoying little rich brat' (as Beck would have called him), he flashed her his own version of a smirk. "And to answer your question, I have a plan, but I don't know if it'll work." He rubbed his chin as if deep in thought. "Mags has to get us a trident for it work."

Beck scoffed; some of the things that came out of this annoying little rich brat's mouth. Her scoff shifted into a deadpanned expression as she realized he was serious. "Finnick."

"I think she could." An unattached smile was pulling at the edges of his lips. "How hard could it be, when it's us?"

Out of an old anxious childhood habit, Beck bit on her lip as she watched the smile that grew across Finnick Odair's face. There had always been two sides to Finnick, not only from watching him in the Games the past few days, but from what she remembered of that snot-nosed twat from back home. On the one hand, Finnick was good-humored, nice enough, a "good kid" as the old fishermen back home would've called em'. He was polite, well-mannered, and he mostly knew, thankfully, when to shut the fuck up. A lot of that came, of course, from being who he was.

An Odair.

Finnick's family wasn't something to joke about, and Beck knew from personal experience. His grandfather, the mayor of District 4, with high-ranking connections to the Capitol, and one of President Snow's "good friends," had been the Victor of the Fourth Hunger Games. The Games weren't as televised back in those days, but that didn't mean they weren't written about. The gore. The violence. It was too bloody for the Capitol not to exploit. And Achelous Odair, being just what the Capitol was looking for, had been vicious.

Having been a boy tossed on-and-off the large fishing tankers all of his life, Achelous was more than familiar with the act of "gutting a fish" in order to drain their blood for proper preparation. As it turned out, it wasn't much different on people.

Of course, when he came home, Achelous realized he couldn't be a sociopath in public. Perhaps that's why he curated the image of being charismatic around the Capitol citizens and philanthropic among the working-class District 4 fishermen. He was the first Victor to understand that an image was power. If you could control how the world saw you, you could get what you want. This was a message he passed on to his grandsons as they began their Career training.

As twisted as it, Achelous had always wanted another Odair Victor, another champion for the dynasty to continue. If you asked Beck, a 17-year-old girl who had been two years out from being free of the annual reapings, she probably would have told Finnick's old man to eat shit. Well, to be fair, she probably would have said that anyway. And she had. On several occasions.

"Finnick – a trident is exorbitantly expensive. Even you, Mr. 'golden fish,' can't swing that." Beck shook her head.

The golden fish, as they called him back home, offered a falsely earnest smile. "Maybe you're right." His blue-green eyes shifted to hers. Power flexed and moved across his sweet, boyish face. He was still a child, Beck thought as she looked at him and those almost, but not quite grown-up features. At the same time, he wasn't at all. Maybe she was right, but he was Finnick Odair, the golden fish, and he would find a way.

Finnick had found a way for everything in these Games. He was skilled with those knives, she had to hand it to him. In the opening minutes, Beck had managed to grab a spear from the Cornucopia, not unlike the kind her mother had taught her to use when she was a child. Finnick – written off as a tall, gangly kid by the other tributes – had grabbed hold of a knife. Skilled fingers flexed and wrapped around the handle of the miliary-grade weapon. It was fancy, but it was a stupid choice of weapon. Knives were ineffective, unless you were at close range. In the Hunger Games, why would you want to be in close range?

She had yelled at him – Finnick, stick to the plan! But he didn't. He grabbed hold of the District 7 boy by the hair, the one who had been scrambling to find an axe, and brought the knife down. Unable to watch, Beck looked away. When she looked up, Finnick had grabbed hold of the boy's axe, and was running towards her. Blood was spattered on the side of his face. The image of Achelous – another bronze-haired and beautiful Odair – with viscera dripping down the side of his face came sharply into her memory.

Would he kill her? Beck thought as he raced towards her. Had it all been an act? Her breath was caught in her chest. Should she run?

Beck – go! Finnick ran directly past her as he raced towards the mountain. Mags had tipped them off that there would be water in the arena – the circumstances, the type, conditions, and access were hard to know, but all the same, for two kids from District 4, that was all they needed to know.

Keep moving until you reach the water, Mags had told them, and then make your stand.

"So, what? Your plan is to just kill everybody with a trident? How do you even know how to use a trident?" Beck asked, knowing her question was completely moot. Of course, a rich boy didn't use a spear like her poor pearl-diving mother had, he used a long-handled golden trident. With a fishing tool like that, he had probably caught giant fish in the deep waters beyond the bay. You had to be inordinately strong and methodical to use a weapon like that, and no doubt Finnick was.

Sensing her unease, Finnick's excited expression softened, and his smile withered. "It's not like I like killing people, Beck."

"Oh, yeah? Coulda fooled me for a second there at the Cornucopia."

The young boy shot her a frustrated look and moved his gaze down to his hands. He began to absent-mindedly twist a vine into a sailor's knot – two loops around, three back and through the hole, and tighten. A knot to hang onto from the mast of a sailboat. Every child in District 4 knew it before they could even talk. He had gone silent. Beck assumed the conversation was over and settled back into her half-laying, half-slumped position against a nearby coniferous pine. She didn't have to respond to him, she didn't have to feel bad for saying what she did; he was bred for this, she was reaped.

"Don't you wanna go home?" Over the word 'home,' Finnick's voice cracked.

When Beck looked over at him, his fingers were stuck in the vine, a knot made useless by his lack of motion. If he wanted it to still be a sailor's knot, he'd have to start over.

The young woman released a sigh, it was long and exhausted. Home. A flash of memories came to her. In the sunlight of a day that felt like a lifetime ago, a little girl held her hand as they stood in the gooey, wet sand of the cast out tide. In another memory, a tall woman with strong cheekbones and a crooked smile like her own, taught her how to wrap her tiny fingers around a spear. Hold it lightly, don't tighten your grip until the last second. Years later, a boy with golden waves and amber-green eyes would catch sight of her as she stabbed two fish straight through-and-through with the end of her mother's spear. He would whistle and say something dumb, What I wouldn't give to be on the end of that stick. She would glare at him, sharply, and the boy would cackle at the rage that flared across her face. It was probably when she punched him that he fell in love.

Home. Tears welled in her eyes. "There's five of us left, Finnick." She looked away from Finnick Odair's pretty, boyish features, his face was suddenly all too sharp of a reminder of what she had lost.

"We're so close, Beck – we just gotta hang on. We'll get to the lake tomorrow and we'll do what Mags told us to do: We'll stand our ground, we'll—"

Turning sharply back towards him, Beck's eyes locked onto his face. Her gaze gave new definition to the phrase 'shooting daggers' as her eyes dug violently into his. The flicker of her tears shimmered in the moonlight. "And we'll what?"

Finnick was taken aback. He looked hurt, his features spread apart like fresh soil that was stabbed for tilling. "We'll win." He said softly.

"It's gonna be you and me, you know. it" The young woman snapped. "We'll get to the lake, we'll deal with the others, and then it's gonna be you and me." As she was talking, she frantically pointed between them as if to emphasize her point. "And then what?! You're gonna kill me?! I'm gonna kill you?! What the hell do you think is gonna happen? There's no way out of this." Her face melted as her features shifted inwards, congealing into a heartbroken sob.

Beck knew, when it came down to it, she would lose. Finnick had too much training, he had too much of his grandfather in him. That violent, unpredictable, homicidal old man who had been crowned and championed his whole life for his devastating ferocity. She would die by his grandson's hands. She would never see home again.

Across the clearing, beneath the stars, the young boy watched his district partner, a girl he had known for four years, crumple under the inevitable circumstance they both knew was coming. The gravity of Beck's words was not lost on Finnick. That's why he was here, after all. He had made a promise. Not to Beck, but to his brother.

I volunteer. He had stood-up, directly behind his older brother at the reaping, and smiled for a camera that was waiting for him. It starts the moment you are chosen, his grandfather told them. The Games don't start in the arena, but the second they lay eyes on you. Finnick knew how to play the game. After all, he had trained for it his whole life.

Calder had rapidly turned to look behind him at his little brother. With a heartbroken little shake of his head, his lips mouthed the shape of his name. Finn.

But it was too late – Finnick was already moving, already getting out of line, and confidently walking towards the stage.

Ah, brotherly competition, his grandfather chuckled from the stage as Finnick came towards him. Achelous' face may have played off Finnick's stunt with a good-humored expression – as if volunteering for the Hunger Games was a little joke between them – but his eyes steamed, raged. This wasn't how this was supposed to go. Finnick wasn't going into the arena that year. The plan was always for Calder to be the Victor, not Finnick. And perhaps Cal would have followed along with Achelous' plan, if not for the fact that he had become a big dumb idiot in love with a pearl diver from the Sunken Bank.

That pearl diver had been chosen for the arena. She was small and sharp like the spear that would become her weapon of choice. It had been his grandfather's punishment. Cal would go into the arena with the poor Sunken Bank girl he fell in love with. And the best and darkly ironic part of it was, Cal would either have to die, so that the girl could win, or he would have to watch her die.

But Finnick loved his brother, and he wouldn't let him go through that.

Please, don't do this. His brother begged him after the reaping. They were sitting beside one another on the couch of the mayor's mansion. They had both been in this room hundreds of times for holidays, family traditions, and birthdays. This would be the last time they were together in this room. If you tell Achelous you don't want to do it, he'll make a change. He'll switch the names. He'll fix it. Don't be stupid.

Finnick ignored his brother. He smiled. That sweet, sacrificial smile that Finnick inherited from their mother. I'll keep her safe, Calder. I'll get her home.

He remembered the day Cal met the pearl diver. All glittery and giddy, and that overwhelming pride of his, that too-good-for-you haughty asshole persona, had seemingly taken the day off. If he ever fell in love, would he be the same way? Her name is—

"Beck." Finnick called from across the clearing. "I'm not going to kill you."

With a soft gasp of emotion, halfway between a laugh and a sob, Beck smiled. Tears and snot ran down her cheeks. "How do you know I won't kill you?"

"Because you're a sucker." He teased with that Odair charm returning to his face in the form of a victorious little smile. He made her laugh, that was a victory. "And, you know, Cal would be pretty mad if you killed his baby brother."

At the mention of his brother, Beck closed her eyes as more tears slipped out from beneath her massive eyelashes. Even the bay gates of Beck's lashes, couldn't keep that kind of water from escaping. "They'll make us kill each other."

"Then we wait." Finnick said, perhaps a bit too cheerfully.

Beck released a congested laugh at his tone. There was no one like Finnick Odair. She had misjudged him, she realized. This stupid rich boy, who, out of all the District 4 Victors, had chosen Mags Flanagan as his mentor because instead of a bloodbath, she had won her Games by outsmarting everyone else. This young fisherman who complimented the little girl from District 11's knots and helped her learn the one that would save her life in the Games (at least for a little while). This kid who had only chosen to be here for his brother.

"Besides," Finnick was saying as he leaned back against his rock pillow, "it's the Hunger Games." He closed his eyes with a self-satisfied smile. "Who knows what'll happen? Relax a little bit, will ya?"

What did you do? She snapped at her little sister.

He was mean. Her sister said with an intense frown through her ferocious tears.

You can't just stab people. That's mean. She took her by the shoulders and gave her a shake. The little girl crossed her arms, and her expression grew dark. A tiny girl with the unruliest expressions in the whole world.

You always told me to stand up for myself.

I know I did, and I want you to, but—

The little girl shifted her gaze up to her older sister's. What do you do if there's no other choice, Beck?

In the middle of her dream, something wet and slimy dropped onto Beck's face. "Blagh!" She sat up sharply, as the dead fish, which had been rudely plopped onto her face, flopped onto the dirt.

"Goddamit, Finnick!" She hissed as she stood up and grabbed hold of the fish. He must have caught it from one of the nearby streams.

The young boy guffawed at her disoriented, soured expression. Just as her little sister had the most intense and distasteful expressions, so did Beck. He was hopping around, cackling like a stupid idiot, which he was.

"You're supposed to eat the fish, Beck, not throw it on the ground." He teased in mid-laughter. His eyes widened as she picked up the dead fish and proceeded to throw it at him. He held his hands out for protection. "Wow – way to waste a perfectly good fish. You know, I caught that for you."

"Oh, my God. I'm gonna die with you." Beck exasperatedly moaned.

Finnick, who had only just begun to calm down, started laughing again. "You know, most people die alone. So, that's somethin'. Besides," his smile widened, he was practically giddy, as he bent down to pick something up, "there's plenty to celebrate besides dying." The early morning sunlight caught a glint of the golden handle in his hand. With a rushed sense of anticipation, Beck's eyes shifted up to the glittering tips of the three-pronged trident.

"You…" Her jaw dropped. The golden fish had really done it. That charm and the sweet boyish melancholia from last night had paid off. Just as in his Flickerman interview, the Capitol was in love.

Finnick's grin sealed itself across his face. "Woke up next to it. Mags even had a sweet message to share with us: 'Finnick, you were always my favorite.'"

Beck's face broke into a grin as she shook her head at the young boy. "God, you're such an annoying little rich brat."

Finnick twirled the long-handled trident in between his hands. He moved it with such languid grace that, for a moment, Beck was caught off guard. The contemptful 'you're such an idiot' smile stayed on her face, but her heart sunk. Finnick was a dumb kid, but he should have gotten the chance to be a dumb kid more. Instead, he was so skilled with that weapon, so at ease with something so terrifying. What could this boy have been, if he had only gotten the chance to be a child?

When they reached the flat lakebed between the two mountains, they took stock of their surroundings. The lake wasn't as deep as they would have liked. It could still be dangerous, especially if the other Careers weren't as aquatically trained like Finnick or as natural at swimming and diving as Beck. But they had been hoping for a significant depth, one that could be used for deception as well as stealth.

A deep body of water was almost like a second home for a pearl diver like Beck. She spent up to ten hours a day diving 15-20 feet under the surface in order to scaffold fresh oysters. The oysters would be gutted and gently boiled until they spit the pearl out, which was collected, cleaned, and sent off to District 1 for jewelry assembly. Beck had become adept at moving 30-pound rocks with little air left in her oxygen tank, searching for oyster beds where hundreds of them would hide on the shelves of oceanic cliffs.

This small freshwater lake, which had seemed large in the distance, was not as deep as the open waters back home. It also was not as cold. This wasn't bad – it was still an advantage to the District 4 tributes, but it would be more of a fight. The other tributes who could swim wouldn't hesitate to enter a shallow, warm lake that could be the only obstacle between a Hunger Games victory.

There were also trees all along the banks of the lake, which could be a benefit for the other tributes. In fact, the other Careers could be hiding there now. Either way, it was nearly time for the finale – they would be coming.

"Traps?" Beck asked.

Finnick nodded. "Yeah, that'll work."

Beck jogged off to begin netting up a series of tree taps. When it came to tying knots, Beck was just as skilled as Finnick. She was a fisherman, too, if only a different kind. As her fingers went to work tying together a rudimentary, but solid foothold – which she hoped the District 1 asshole, Rhine Carver, would step into – she remembered the dream she had had that morning. It hadn't been so much of a dream, but more of a memory. Her little sister, Glass, looking up at her. Eyes like hard blue marbles that glinted with tactile and shiny tears. What do you do if there's no other choice?

Glass was always like that – overly emotional, overly sensitive, overly angry, overly expressive. There was never another option, when it came to Glass, and she was going to do what she wanted to do. With that over-the-top emotionality and severe case of stubbornness, Beck could only smile, she wondered where Glass could have possibly gotten that from.

With a jerk of her hands, she tightened the knot and dropped it to the forest floor. She subtly covered it with a few leaves, hiding it from view.

Moving about thirty yards over, Beck began on a new type of net trap. For this one, she needed the leftover rope that she had managed to snag from the Cornucopia. This was the last of it, she could only hope that it would work. The rope was nice, too. Thick and elastic, but strong enough to catch anything and keep it trapped. The price of this roping alone probably cost more than the cottage she and Glass shared on the Sunken Bank, south of the District 4 city center. It was funny how the weapons they used to kill each other – including Finnick's trident – were worth more money than most of the tributes had probably seen after twelve hours of labor.

The cost of living in the districts was low, but they were all poor. So, how was that any different from living next the Capitol elite?

Is this enough? Calder asked her from a memory, two years ago, as he set down the basket of food on the dinged-up kitchen table. She remembered how nasty she had been to him, when he had only been trying to help. I know Glass is sick, and I just wanted to… He fiddled with his hands. They were calloused and strong, he had probably woven a million of the same nets she was knotting together now.

It's more than enough. Thank you. Her voice had been shaky. Surprise, another hardened girl from District 4, who wasn't good at being vulnerable.

If you need anything more— He began, but Beck cut him off.

What do you want, Calder? You just want to feel better about yourself? She snapped. Help the poor girl who made you feel bad?

No, I—

Because we're fine, you know? I'm doing fine. I don't need you. She tightly crossed her arms around herself as she looked away from him. Her tears were visible as her eyes shifted to the wall, not wanting to look at him. Her shoulders were tight and tense. The weight of the world was not a stable one and it was prone to sudden movements that made the young woman uneasy in the face of someone who only wanted to help.

Calder had been silent for a long moment, until he quietly spoke-up. I know you are, Beck. I know you don't need anyone. You're so strong. He stepped towards her, gently, as if he would spook her with a sudden movement. But you don't need to be strong all the time, not if you don't want to.

Beck's gaze, flooded with tears and heartache and loneliness, shifted to his as a crumpled expression tore itself across her features. Calder took another step towards her and reached for her tightly wound arms, the ones that held her own body, keeping it from the harm and generosity of others. He tenderly moved her arms away and stepped in with his own. Because I'm here for you, Beck.

With a grunt, the young woman stepped away from her finished net and tossed it up into the canopy of trees above. She finished by tying a taut, but hidden rope between the two trunks. One step over the line and the net would fall directly onto the unsuspecting victim.

Beck was about to move on to the next trap, but before she could take another step, she knew she was no longer alone.

Like thunder trapped in a boy, Gus Rampart, from District 2 stood over her. Like Finnick, you could tell the boy had been trained his whole life for the Hunger Games. He was a Career through-and-through: big, violent, and good with any weapon. Even if she could reach her spear, it wouldn't have done any good, Gus would know how to use it just as well as she did. District 2 tributes were specifically deadly because they knew how to use a weapon exactly as it was intended; they were the ones who made them.

With a hint of that characteristic, self-defining contempt, Beck smiled up at him. She was a whole foot and a half shorter than he was. "Hiya, Gus."