Love at Sea (Finnick Odair)

Chapter 19

Taiya's head whipped around frantically as she surveyed the arena. They had a sixty second countdown until the games began. The Cornucopia consisted of a field of snow and surrounding the Cornucopia was a snowy forest. Taiya looked to her right and saw a pair of gloves laying on the ground. Looking down at her bare hands she knew these would be essential, you can't win if you lose your fingers to frostbite.

"Theo," she mutters to herself and looks around until she spots him standing about 5 tributes to her left. He's also frantically looking around. Neither of them had even seen snow until today. As soon as he looks in her direction he freezes. 'You wait there, I'll come to you,' he mimes with his hands and she nods numbly, not paying much attention.

The starting gong goes off and Taiya immediately sprints off her metal plate and towards the gloves. As she reaches them, she sees small hands grab them at the same time. She immediately looks up to see Cooper, the young 13-year-old boy from District 10. He looks up to see who else is at the gloves and immediately jumps back in fright as he sees her, a Career, staring at him. Taiya glances down at the gloves and then back at the scared boy in front of her.

"Here," she whispers, throwing the gloves at him, which he frantically picks up before speeding off into the forest. Taiya stood up and looked around, not being able to spot Theo immediately she began to panic. "Theo!"

Seeing the tributes from 1 and 2 already at the Cornucopia, she knew getting there was her best bet. She took two strides towards it before yelping as she was slammed to the ground. Spluttering snow out of her mouth she flipped herself onto her back to see the District 5 male, Eddie, clambering onto her. Taiya immediately noted that he didn't have any weapons on him and began to attack him. She jammed her finger into his eye and punched him in the ear with her other fist. He immediately grabbed at his face, releasing his hold on Taiya. She flipped them around and sat on top of him, holding him down as he groaned. She needed a weapon, anything to help her.

"Four!" she heard and looked over to see Hero had noticed her scuffle with the tribute from 5. He grabbed a knife and slid it over to her. She could see Eddie had begun to recover from her quick attack so she lunged forward to grasp the knife before quickly turning back around and shoving it into his head with a cry. She quickly pulled it back out and stood up, trying to look anywhere other than the body of the boy she had just killed.

Hero ran up to her, carrying a belt of knives for her. "Thanks," she breathed.

"Over there," he pointed out. The girl from 5, Nina, was still standing on her plate. Tears streaming down her cheeks. Hero fought with a sword, a close combat weapon, he wouldn't be able to take her out without running too far away from the Cornucopia. Taiya would need to do this, out of the two of them she was the only one who could do something about her from a distance.

Taiya buckled up the belt around her waist and pulled out a throwing knife and measured the distance in her mind before throwing the knife, sending it straight into the chest of the girl.

"Nice shot," Hero congratulated as he turned and slammed his sword into the chest of Sterling from District 8 who had been trying his best to sneak up on them.

Taiya quickly checked to make sure there were no other tributes about to attack them before quickly hurrying off to find Theo.

"What were you thinking!" she heard bellowed and sighed in relief as Theo ran up to her, pulling her in for a quick hug. "I told you I'd come to you and you just took off!" he scolded.

"Sorry," she apologised before quickly pulling away and looking at what had been going on. All the rest of the Careers were now engaged in their own fights that they were very clearly winning. Taiya spotted a tribute sneaking through the cornucopia and quickly threw a knife on instinct. It slammed into the back of the girl from 11, making Theo jump. Watching as red blood stained the crisp white snow, Taiya let out a shaky breath.