Debut - Locked to Katniss

[fuelforthefire]

Something was very, very wrong. I know the second the wire bounces back toward the tree. Finnick sees it too, Beetee the only one who’s so wrapped up in what he’s doing to notice. He can’t see what’s wrong, wrapped up in his winding the wire around the knife I’ve just given him, the knife I wish I had in my hands now.

When Brutus pounces on us I lunge for Beetee, for my knife, but Finnick gets in the way. It’s too late for the tribute from three, but Finnick pushes me, forcing me back and into the woods. “Go,” he hisses before launching himself at the Career.

Finnick saved me, I realise as I tumble through the trees, running and falling in equal measure. I’m not running away, I’m running to Katniss. The attack came too early and I need to find her. I need to make sure she’s safe; to make sure she doesn’t do anything stupid. The trees seem as if they’re trying to trip me and my leg isn’t helping. I stumble again, unsure of where I am and what is going on until I hear her call my name.

I call back with only a second of thought. I know she’ll be panicked, wishing we had never separated. She needs to know I’m alive before she does anything headstrong, before she sacrifices herself in some crazy Katniss gesture. Even if it calls Brutus and Enobaria down on us. It’s close to midnight and I’m sure of what she’ll be thinking. The kind of Katniss-like things that will get her killed.

She can’t die. There’s no going on for me without her. She has to live.

Hearing me call her name might be what keeps her thinking straight. If she knows I’m out here she’ll look for me. I hurl myself toward where I think she’s calling from, only I’m hurt now. There’s blood and I don’t know whose it is and where it came from.

Not far off the buzzing of the insects ceases and I realise that it’s almost midnight. It’s almost time for the lightning to strike. Had Beetee done enough? Would the tree electrocute us? Was she far enough away?

With that thought I know there isn’t enough speed. There’s no way I can make it through this jungle on time, that I can find her. I howl her name, hoping that whatever happens next she’s far enough away to be safe.

The world explodes.

That’s the only way I can think of it. The flash of white, the sparks, the fire that starts raining down. It’s only when the dome is illuminated in flame that I realise it. Too late I see the other game that’s being played. I should have seen it earlier the way the pieces all snap together, but I was so concerned with keeping Katniss alive, with outsmarting her at her own game that I couldn’t see it. I couldn’t see the picture, only the details.

I scream when I see the hovercraft, but I’m not sure I make any sound. Is my voice raw from calling for Katniss? Can anyone hear me? The cameras won’t be on, the Districts blacked out. But maybe they have their own fires burning tonight.

Revolution doesn’t mean much without her. I want to get away from the claw, away from the Capitol but I’ve gotten too much of the shock. I can barely control the way my body moves, I’m not even sure I ever made a sound.

I don’t want to be their pawn

That’s the last lucid thought I have. It's the last thing that flashes through my mind as the claw lifts me from the Arena.

Comments

[fuelforthefire]

It's okay once she wraps her fingers around mine. I was afraid that she'd pull away, that she wouldn't want to touch me, that maybe something had happened that changed things. I never really know with Katniss. She feels so much, but she's not very good at dealing with those feelings.

"I know." I'm looking around at the buildings that seem to loom up around us. This isn't the Capitol - or not any bit I've seen - and it's not any of the Districts either. I can't wait any longer. "Katniss, where are we?"

[vocalfuel]

"We're in Darrow," I say, a too-simple response that should probably have some sort of preamble. I don't know how to deal with any of that, though, and I don't know what good it would do. I've given him the most important information already — that I don't think this is anything like the Arena, even if I can't say for sure. The rest is just details.

Still holding on to him, I breathe in deep, the cold air stinging my lungs. "It's a city. Not in Panem. No one knows how we get here, but we do."

[fuelforthefire]

"Not in Panem." Those are the words that stick with me. How is that even possible. "District Thirteen?"

Only that's in Panem. This isn't. I'm confused and it shows in my eyes, in the way my hand tightens around hers. "How... Are we dead?"

[vocalfuel]

"No," I say, trying to hide how ridiculous I think that sounds. We're here, so of course we aren't dead. Besides, we'd remember something like that.

I'd remember it happening to him, but he's clearly from our second turn in the Arena, and while my Peeta might well have died that day, he didn't really. If he had, I would know. How to say that, though, I don't have the faintest idea.

I seize on his question instead. "How much do you know about Thirteen?"

[fuelforthefire]

"Only what you figured out." I know it's not much, it's all just rumors and conjecture. "That it might still be there, but they don't seem to be doing anything to help us. That the Capitol knows something and is probably hiding something."

When isn't the Capitol? I'm so tired of their games, and if this is a way out of that... I don't want to hope, afraid to be disappointed.

[vocalfuel]

"Right," I say. I should know this, I think, but after everything that's happened, I don't feel like I can try to make calls about any of it. My head's still too much of a mess, memories of Peeta at different points in time converging, becoming muddled, impossible to differentiate. It still doesn't even feel like he's here at all.

For that matter, I don't know how to tell him about how much time has passed for me, both back in Panem and the months I've spent here. I'm not even sure if he trusts me enough to take my word for it right now. "They always are."