"Nightlock. Nightlock. Nightlock," Katniss breathed into the holo before she dropped it into the sewer.
It immediately exploded, blowing up a storm of fire that Katniss had to hurl herself away from.
He had to have made it. He had to have. It was his idea to drop the holo, but what if he hadn't moved quickly enough? What if she'd just blown up Finnick?
"Come on, come on, come on," Gale yelled as he scooped up Taiya's unconscious body. "Let's go! Keep moving! Keep moving!"
Katniss could hear the sound of the girl's breaths. They didn't sound good.
The squad ran away from the tunnel, and out into an underground railway station. As soon as they emerged, they were being shot at by Peacekeepers. They'd been lying in wait, ready to pick off anyone who might have survived the mutts in the sewer system.
Gale had to run behind a pillar to avoid the gunfire. He didn't have many options to defend himself. His arms were carrying Taiya, he didn't have a spare hand to pull out a weapon. They had to get out of there now.
Katniss fired an explosive arrow in the direction of one group of Peacekeepers, successfully eliminating the threat, and then they were off. They were running away as quickly as they could, hoping to outrun the Peacekeepers.
This meant they were slightly distracted, which led to Mesalla's end. A beam of light had shot down from the ceiling, instantly disintegrating his body. Only the gun that had been in his hands was left. The rest of him was gone.
"Go! Go!" Gale yelled at Cressida as he passed her. The girl had frozen in shock as she processed what had just happened to her friend. She looked devastated.
"Keep going! Keep going!" Katniss snapped Cressida out of her stupor and pulled her arm along, forcing her to continue running.
The number of pods was increasing. These deadly lights were beaming down at random intervals, there was no predicting it. Gale had to quickly jerk out of the way to avoid him and Taiya being hit by them.
Peacekeepers were still firing at them. It seemed like a hopeless situation. Gale could feel Taiya's blood coating the hand that he was holding behind her back, she was growing paler and paler by the second. His neck wound was bleeding profusely as well. Holding Taiya meant he was unable to apply pressure to the injury the mutt had given him. He did not want to be responsible for her death, despite their arguments, they were on the same team. They didn't like each other, but that didn't mean either one wanted the other dead.
Turns out, the situation at hand could get worse though. Another pod activated. This one was buried in the floor. There were ripping saws in the ground that were quickly advancing towards them. The saws were vicious enough that it was tearing apart the concrete beneath their feet. If someone got caught in this trap, it'd be game over for them. The traps were moving faster than they were, it was gaining on them.
Gale pumped his legs as hard as he could. This wasn't how it was going to end. They hadn't come this far to be defeated. After what the Capitol had done to 12, he wasn't going to let them win this one.
He let out a groan of pain, but he'd made it. He'd gotten both him and Taiya to sturdy ground. The saws didn't reach here. But they couldn't stop now, they had to keep going. So Gale didn't stop, he kept running. He'd gotten to the bottom of the stairs that would take them to the ground level when he realised the others weren't following him.
He saw Katniss and Peeta on the ground when he turned around. They'd had to throw themselves to safety to avoid the pod, but it seemed Peeta was now stuck in another of his breakdowns.
"Peeta come on!" Katniss tried to call him as she grabbed her bow. But the boy still wasn't moving. "PEETA!" she snapped, immediately racing back to his side when she saw he wasn't moving.
That was when Gale knew. He never had a chance. She'd never leave Peeta. Peeta had crept up on her, she might deny it, but it was moments like this when he saw it. He saw it when he watched Peeta's interview with Katniss in the District 13 cafeteria. He saw it on her face when he got back from rescuing the victors from the Capitol. He didn't know what he could do now to win Katniss over. She'd decided, even if she didn't know it yet. It was always going to be Peeta.
"Peeta, we have to keep going. We have to keep going," she tried to pull her district partner off the ground.
"I'm a mutt!" Peeta shoved his face into the concrete, repeating back the slur Katniss had aimed at him earlier. "I can't keep control."
"Yes, you can! Look at me!"
"Leave me! I'm a mutt!"
"Look at me! Look at me!" Katniss grabbed Peeta by the chin and forced his head up so they were face to face.
And then she kissed him.
Gale clenched his jaw as he watched.
"Stay with me."
"Always," Peeta nodded. He was back. This was the real Peeta.
"Come on," Katniss nodded in relief as she stood up and ran back to the squad.
Gale was already on the move. Peacekeepers would be swarming the area, they couldn't hang around.
"I know where we are!" Cressida yelled out as soon as saw a sign with the station name on it. "I know a place! Up those stairs."
It was Finnick's face that greeted Katniss when she got up to the street level. His face was lit up on the screen.
WANTED. For sedition and treason.
Katniss slowed down. He had to be alive. She couldn't have killed him. He deserved to live. He'd just gotten married to the girl he'd been with for nearly 9 years. The one he'd pined for since he was a child. He'd told Katniss all about the future they'd wanted together when they were in District 13.
She couldn't have taken that from him. She wouldn't be able to live with herself.
That couple had lost so much of their lives to the Capitol. They deserved happiness. And yet here they were, Finnick either dead, or trapped in the sewers, and Taiya with a gunshot wound to the chest. This wasn't meant to be their ending.
"Keep going," Cressida pushed Katniss along. Cressida raced in front of the squad, leading them around the corner and up to the door of a clothing shop. She began pounding on the door with all her might, while the rest of the squad backed her up, ready to defend her if someone attacked. Cressida continued banging on the door, but her head turned away, she was looking for Gale. "Bring her up," she called out to him. "Bring her to the front."
"What?" Gale frowned. There was no way he was bringing the unconscious woman up closer when he didn't know what was coming.
"We'll need her to get in, bring her here," Cressida pleaded.
Where Gale hesitated, Peeta didn't. Peeta marched forward and pulled Taiya out of Gale's arms, taking her into his own before he walked up to the front and stood beside Cressida. He trusted Cressida.
"Someone's coming!" Peeta gasped. The glass was textured, so he couldn't see through clearly, but he could make out a shadow walking closer and closer.
The door to the shop slowly opened and Cressida pushed it open, racing into the shop. "Shut the door, shut the door," she pleaded with the woman as the rest of the squad swarmed in.
Katniss was willing to take care of the witness, she immediately loaded an arrow in her bow and pulled back, willing to strike the woman down if she called out for Peacekeepers.
"No Katniss. It's ok, it's ok," Cressida tried to calm the girl on fire down. This was a friend. Not an enemy. Gale was racing his way around the shop, he was surveying for any hidden traps while the rest of them dealt with the shop owner. "Tigris, do you remember me? I'm with Plutarch's underground. We need your help. Look," she pulled Peeta closer to her. The tactic worked, and Tigris instantly stiffened. "She needs your help."
"Clear!" Gale shouted back to the squad. But no one was paying attention to him, they were watching the cosmetically altered woman who hadn't taken her eyes off of their wounded squad member.
She took a step towards Peeta and the boy's eyes instantly darted over to Cressida.
"It's ok," she assured him. Tigris wasn't a threat to Taiya.
This was her tribute. The one who she knew was reaped on her cousin's orders, not by chance. The odds were never in her favour. This was the girl she couldn't save from her cousin's vile games, despite her best efforts, trying to protect this girl had gotten her fired from the Games—a punishment for getting attached her cousin had said.
Peeta didn't stop her as the woman laid a hand against Taiya's cheek.
"What happened?" she asked quietly.
"She was shot," Cressida answered.
Tigris' head darted up and she let out a low growl. She sounded like Prim's cat Buttercup.
She glanced down at Taiya one last time before she was marching through her shop, leading them to the back without a word. Tigris leant down and pushed away a rug, revealing a hatch cover in the floor that she lifted up to reveal a basement to hide in.
"I know you," Katniss nodded her head in recognition. "You were a stylist in the Games."
Tigris sucked in a breath. She was surprised anyone from the Districts remembered her anymore. Tigris reached up to push off her hood, revealing to Katniss more of the tiger-style tattoos she'd had placed to cover her face.
"Until Snow decided I was getting too attached," Tigris replied, her voice laced with an icy hatred for her cousin.
Katniss followed Tigris' eye-line to land on Taiya. That was why Cressida was so insistent on her being brought up to the front. "You were Taiya's stylist," she realised. She swore she'd heard Taiya mention someone named Tigris before, but she hadn't known who she'd been talking about. "I'm here to kill Snow," Katniss assured.
A small smile graced Tigris' lips. All of these years she'd had to watch children die, and the survivors be tortured by the Capitol. All of that was on her cousin's head. Her cousin's craving for power wasn't a surprise, it was his penchant for cruelty that shocked her. That wasn't the Coryo she'd grown up with. She'd wanted the Snow family to rise back up the ranks, but not at the expense of innocents. She'd only woken up to his true nature when he returned from District 12 without Sejanus or any knowledge of what happened to the songbird victor. But Tigris knew. She could see through him now.
Katniss was the first one to descend into the basement, followed by Peeta. Tigris wanted to follow, but she couldn't. She had to stay in the shop. Peacekeepers would surely be doing sweeps of the neighbourhood and she needed to be ready to answer the door if they came by. If she was down in the hidden basement, her delay in answering the door would raise suspicion.
"We'll look her over and let you know," Cressida touched the stylist's arm to reassure her. "Is there anyone you trust? A doctor, someone who could help?"
"I know a doctor," Tigris answered. "But I don't trust him."
Cressida nodded. They didn't want to involve anyone they couldn't trust unless it was absolutely necessary. "We'll assess her first, and then let you know the next step."
Cressida went to go downstairs, but Tigris grabbed her arm. "Where is he?"
"Who?" Cressida frowned.
"Her fiancé."
"Husband," Cressida swallowed nervously, she didn't have an answer to Tigris' question. "They got married in secret."
Tigris' eyes widened in surprise. She remembered the evening she was styling Taiya for the Capitol victory party for the 74th Hunger Games. She'd been so bitter about celebrating Katniss and Peeta's win, but there was something new on her necklace chain that kept her smiling whenever she held it. As soon as the rest of the prep squad left and it was just the two of them, Taiya told her that she and Finnick had gotten engaged.
Tigris had come straight home that night to start designing her wedding dress. The prototype for it was down in that basement with the rest of the squad.
"Where is he?" she asked again.
"I don't know," Cressida admitted. "He got trapped and had to fall back. Then there was an explosion. We don't know if he got away in time."
"Does she know?"
"No," Cressida shook her head. "No, she was already unconscious. She has no idea he's not with us still."
Tigris turned to the side and began rummaging in a bag until she pulled out some vials of morphling. "Give these to her. She'll be in pain when she wakes up and you need to keep her calm. Don't tell her about her husband until she's stable," she gave Cressida a small push, encouraging her to go down the steps and into the cellar. "Knock on the hatch four times when you have an update on my tribute," was the last thing Tigris said before she lowered down the hatch cover.