Rescue Me

Thirty Eight

"Hey," Someone was shaking me awake. I slowly opened my eyes to see Finnick, I blinked the blurriness away and sat up. "We're leaving in about twenty minutes."

"Thanks," I mumbled as I rubbed my eyes again.

"You wanna get him up?" I nodded and grabbed my water that was sitting next to me. I glanced over at Cato, who's back was to me. I poked him and got no response. I gave him a harder poke and saw him stir.

"We're leaving soon," I told him. I saw him flip over, flashing me his bright blue eyes. What a pretty site to see this early in the morning.

"Good morning to you too," He muttered. I licked my dry lips as I remembered last night.

"What did you want me to say? Good morning sleepy head?" He chuckled. I'm definitely not that soft girl anymore.

Last night Cato tried to cuddle me, as I laid down with him after he had his episode. Which was sort of weird, because that hasn't happened in at least a year, maybe more. I didn't want this to happen so soon, I didn't want to fall into his trap again. But he was making it so hard. I fell so fucking hard last time we had 'gotten to know each other' like this, and I did not want to make that same mistake again.

I didn't want to get hurt, again.

I leaned my head back as I let out a deep sigh, I didn't want to walk more today. My legs were already screaming at me to stop. I dug my fingers into my muscles, trying to move everything around in there to attempt to make them feel less sore.

"You sleep okay?" He asked. I nodded. "Then what are you staring at?" I blinked a couple of times before looking up at him.

"Just trying to wake up," I told him. It was early, I'm not sure how early but the sun was up. I heard everyone rummaging around, trying to gather the things they spread out over the night. "How did you sleep?"

"Fine," He sighed and ran a hand through his hair. "Where are we going today?"

"Still trying to get to Snow's mansion, but now that we're all dead, it makes our lives ten times harder," I told him. When I was comforting Cato yesterday, Caesar came on air honoring all of us because we were all now supposedly dead.

"Alright everyone, let's go," I heard Lieutenant bitch grumbled out. I guess she's not a morning person either.

"Do you want to walk with me today?" He asked. I nodded before watching him stand up. "We should walk towards the back of the group."

"Why?" I asked. I usually walked at the front with Katniss.

"I don't want you to be near the front in case something happens again," He explained. "It's not like I can protect you from any of these things." He extended his hand to me and I grabbed it, he effortlessly pulled me up. 

"There's a lot of things you can't protect me from," I told him.

It was true, it sounded like a fairytale ending to think that once we get to the mansion we're just going to take down their troops and kill Snow. It's a lot more complicated then that. And my fear of something happening to Cato again has resurfaced.

"Don't remind me," He mumbled. He grabbed my bag, and then his own. I slipped it over my shoulders and zipped up my jacket. I felt disgusting, I should've showered here last night.

As we walked outside, everything was left just as it was yesterday. The second Lieutenant still hung from the sky like a spider in its web. The oil still splattered amongst the buildings, covering only half its length. The marble stone streets were empty, the trains however, were still running.