Liberosis - The Hunger Games

47

The four of us who remain have working on transforming the arena into something both comfortable and protective. Peeta and Finnick sit together as Finn teaches him how to weave leaves into bowls. Peeta's attempts are far from advanced but given the disastrous memories for my first time trying to weave, his work is impressive.

Finnick was always better at that sort of thing, me- I was a fighter, who was unfortunate because I couldn't even show off in that department. Finnick was just so damn good at everything, it would have infuriated me if I weren't so smitten with him from such a young age. Both of us were capable of violence, the primary difference between Finn and I was that I was more prone to act upon it. As much as he argued against it, Finnick was a gentle person, who cared for people and gave them everything that he had. He was selfless, genuine, and forgiving. I rarely felt good enough for the man.

As I toyed with the ring on my left hand, Atlas sat beside me with a thud. We sat just out of Finn and Peeta's range of hearing, so as he uttered the words, "What the hell is going on with you?" I knew they were meant for me and only me.

The vomiting, the dizziness, the fatigue, it wasn't like me. I rarely got sick, but everyone that knew me knew that illness was debilitating for me, it came in powerful waves that had the potential to immobilise me for a week. But my sickness wasn't something I could think about right now, not when so much was at stake.

Not when I had to protect Peeta.

Not when I could lose the love of my life.

I ran through all my memories, trying to remember if I'd ever told him that. Of course, I told him I loved him, had I ever told him he was my soulmate? The missing piece of my heart, Finn was my whole universe.

Did he know that while he fell for me first, I fell harder, and faster, without any warning I had willing leapt from that cliff face and landed in his embrace?

I would hang the stars just for him if he wanted me to.

"Well?" Atlas raised an eyebrow, "What's causing this? How do we stop this?" He was trying to help, in his weird, gruff, Atlas/Haymitch way. I adored him for that, and I leaned into his side, he wrapped his arm around my shoulder awkwardly, patting my head as he did so.

"I'm just sick, ok?" I said lowly, "I will surpass,"

"When? I'm not going to be able to cover for you forever, you know that, right?"

I didn't know what he meant by that, but there was an underlying message in his tone that filled me with dread. Did he know something I didn't? What was he seeing in me that I didn't see in myself? "What-" I began, but I was interrupted by the rustling of nearby leaves. Each of us had our weapons at the ready, until Katniss came into view, "Jesus, Kat, you scared the shit out of us," I mumbled, flopping onto my back with exhausting.

Katniss winced at the nickname, but there was a flicker of amusement in my eyes which caused me to smile. "He'd been drinking recently when I shot him out of a tree, but I couldn't find his source. I swear, I covered every inch of ground in a thirty-yard radius." She held up a skinned hunk of flesh and I pursed my lips at the sight.

For some reason, when I left the games, I had lost a love for eating anything meat-wise. There had been moments in my early days of surviving the games when I could only associate the sight with the bodies of my friends. Beck, stabbed, beaten and bloody. Elsie with a hole in her stomach. Thorn, swimming in his own blood.

Nausea rose in my throat at the thought.

"Can we eat it?" Peeta asked, lifting himself off the ground.

"I don't know for sure. But his meat doesn't look that different from a squirrel's. He ought to be cooked-" Katniss trailed off as she spoke, realisation written on her face at the end of her sentence. My eyes fell on Finnick, the man had bitten the inside of his cheek, a tired hand running through his damp hair. His eyes locked with mine briefly and he winked teasingly, sending butterflies straight to my stomach.