Sunshine | Finnick Odair

| part 10 |

Katniss and Finnick wonder off into the jungle to tap some water.

"Prim!" I hear Katniss cry out repeatedly making everyone head towards the jungle.

My heart suddenly stops as I hear Finnick call out "AVANNA!"
Me and Johanna sprint into the Jungle following Katniss and Finnicks screams, with Peeta and Beetee not far behind. Finnick and Katniss run into some sort of transparent wall resulting in them smacking into it and bounce back onto the jungle floor. Finnick hit face-first and now his nose is gushing blood.

An invisible barrier blocks the area in front of them. It's not a force field. You can touch the hard, smooth surface all you like. But my knife and Johanna's ax can't make a dent in it. It must be the four-to-five-o'clock wedge. That means they will be trapped like rats until the hour passes. I watch as Finnick gives up, hunching on the ground, clenching his hands over his ears as if he's trying to crush his skull. A few tears roll down my face as I watch him.

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The barrier falls down and I run to Finnicks side.

"Hey it's ok, your safe now" I stoke his back pulling his mind out of the horrors. "Your safe"

He wraps his arms around my waste as he sobs into my chest as I gently stroke his hair.
"It's ok, they're safe"

"You don't know that"
He's right I don't know. They could have them. The capitol could have our family. Our biggest fears coming true.

"It was a jabberjay" I explain trying to ease both of our nerves with some sort of an explanation.

"No, that's what they want you to think" Katniss pipes up.

"How could they kill Prim? We're almost down to the final eight of us. And what happens then?" Peeta says to Katniss.

"Seven more of us die" Katniss says hopelessly.

"No, back home. What happens when they reach the final eight tributes in the Games?"

"At the final eight?" Katniss repeats. "They interview your family and friends back home."

"That's right" Peeta confirms.

"They interview your family
and friends. And can they do that if they've killed them all?" I add on trying to comfort the two.

"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." Peeta explains still trying to calm her down.

"You really believe that?" She asks.

"I really do" says Peeta.

"Do you believe it, Finnick?" She asks him.

He moves his head off of my chest turning his attention to Katniss. "It could be true. I don't know" He croaks our.

"Could they do that, Beetee? Take someone's regular voice and make it ..." "Oh, yes" he says interrupting me.

"It's not even that difficult.
Our children learn a similar technique in school" Beetee continues.

"The whole country adores Katniss's little sister. If they really killed her like this, they'd probably have an uprising on their hands," says Johanna flatly. "Don't want that, do they?" She throws back her head and shouts, "Whole country in rebellion? Wouldn't want anything like that!"

My mouth drops open in shock. No one could ever stop Johanna. Especially when she's angry. "I'm getting water," she says.

Katniss grabbed Johanna's hands stopping her from going any further. "Don't go in there. The birds-"

"They can't hurt me. I'm not like the rest of you. There's no one left that I love" Johanna says before walking off further.
Johannas family were killed shortly after her games. Snow asked her to sell her body, she refused. He then murdered her family, leaving her with no one. That is until she met Finnick and I.

A cannon blast brings us all together on the beach. A hovercraft appears in what we estimate to be the six-to-seven-o'clock zone. We watch as the claw dips down five different times to retrieve the pieces of one body, torn apart. It's impossible to tell who it was. Whatever happens at six o'clock, I never want to know.

Peeta draws a new map on a leaf, adding JJ for jabberjays in the four-to-five-o'clock section and simply writing beast in the one where we saw the tribute collected in pieces. We now have a good idea of what seven of the hours will bring. And if there's any positive to the jabberjay attack, it's that it let us know where we are on the clock face again.

Finnick and I weave some more water baskets and a net for fishing. I sit at the edge of the water, cleaning the fish Finnick catches and watching the sun drop below the horizon.

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The bright moon is already on the rise, filling the arena with that strange twilight. We're about to settle down to our meal of raw fish when the anthem begins, with the fallen tributes faces projected onto the sky. Two-thirds of us gone in a day and a half.

"They're really burning through us" says Johanna.

A parachute comes down with a pile of bite-sized square-shaped rolls.

"These are from your district, right, Beetee?" Peeta asks.

"Yes, from District Three," he says.

"How many are there?" Finnick counts them, turning each one over in his hands before he sets it in a neat configuration.
I don't know what it is with Finnick and bread, but he always has seemed obsessed with handling it.

"Twenty-four," he says.

"An even two dozen, then?" says Beetee.

"Twenty-four on the nose," says Finnick.

"How should we divide them?" I ask.

"Let's each have three, and whoever is still alive at breakfast can take a vote on the rest" Johanna says making
me and Finnick laugh. Causing everyone to give us concerned looks. No one understands our little mentally unstable trio.

I don't know how Johanna's still on her feet. She's only had about an hour of sleep since the Games started. Peeta and Katniss volunteer for the first watch. The others go out immediately, although Finnick's sleep is restless. Every now and then I hear him murmuring Caspian's name. He's worried about him, and I don't blame him. I can't peacefully sleep as the idea that the capitol have the power of hurting my son plagues my mind.

I listen to the sound of the gentle waves sending me off to sleep.

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Finnick sits up with a sharp cry, waking me up as he does so. I see his fingers digging into the sand as he reassures himself that whatever nightmare he inhabited wasn't real.

"I can't sleep anymore," he says. "One of you should rest."

"Or both of you, I can stay up with Fin" I say

"Your pregnant, you need your rest" Katniss says.

"I won't get back to sleep now. Just get some rest. No arguing" I tell the girl giving her no option.

"You can tell your a mother" she smiles, before getting comfy on Peeta's chest as she gives into her tiredness.

"Are you okay? What was your nightmare about?" I ask my husband looking up at him with worried eyes.

"It was nothing" he dismisses.

"Finnick don't lie to me"

"I was just thinking about our life back home. Our family" he says staring out at the water, tears threatening to fall.

"I'm sure their fine"
I don't actually believe that and he isn't buying my lie. I'm scared shitless. The power and pain the Capitol can conflict is utterly terrifying.

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