𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐘'𝐋𝐋 𝐉𝐔𝐌𝐏 𝐎𝐅𝐅 𝐓𝐇𝐀𝐓 𝐋𝐄𝐃𝐆𝐄 𝐓𝐎𝐆𝐄𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐑.
What District 2 victor, Saffron Creek, and prodigy, Finnick Odair, share is the very antithesis of what has been stolen from them. They test the edges of the rules that construct t...
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fact and feeling . . . . .
Katniss Everdeen is well acquainted with anger, but she cannot tell if her immediate rage is directed at her society or herself for allowing everything to develop so far.
It all started with the berries.
Or perhaps it began far before then, when she first ducked under the electric fence. Or maybe everything, these treasonous tendencies, started with the death of her father. She doesn't know, and it isn't what she focuses on then. Instead, she sits next to Peeta Mellark, her knees pulled to her chest while Haymitch Abernathy talks over a replay of the Reaping.
"Cicero Helbor," he is saying, "and Saffron Creek from District 2. Not Enobaria, surprisingly, breaking up the Career pack."
He paces. To the right of the screen. To the left. Right again.
"She's agile. Capitol likes her."
Katniss raises an eyebrow, always the skeptic. While Cicero is obviously bloodthirsty, she thinks that Saffron is far more interesting, though Haymitch brushes past her without significance. She watches as Saffron, stone-faced, raises her hand to volunteer. She doesn't flinch when Enobaria growls against her ear, baring her strange, filed teeth at her.
The screen shifts once. Twice. Finnick Odair's face occupies the height of the frame. He is smiling at the camera, revealing his dimples.
"Finnick Odair, right?" Katniss asks.
"Yep," Haymitch confirms. "Capitol darling, total peacock, but extremely skilled." Dramatically, he flips his hair.
She scoffs.
"Weaknesses?" Peeta leans forward.
"Of course." Haymitch presses a button and suddenly they are watching an elderly woman volunteering in the place of a girl who appears on the verge of collapse. "Mags Flanagan," he introduces. "His long-time friend and mentor." Then, his lips purse as if he has swallowed something bitter. "She's a wonderful woman, really. And Saffron Creek."
"I thought they were just a publicity stunt."
"That's what they want you to think—that is what everyone thinks—but watch the two of them in a room together and you'll realize you were wrong." He chuckles and it is genuine.
Abruptly, he stops pacing and meets their eyes directly. "You might learn something from them."
Ten floors below Saffron Creek folds and unfolds blank sheets of paper into accordions length wise, and then again width wise, simply because it gives her hands something to do. Finnick strides laps around the perimeter of her room.
"It's too late to get in shape now," she tells him.
He ignores her. "You didn't have to volunteer." A stray hand parts the gilded waves of his hair.
"But you knew I would."
Her hands are still in motion. Folding and unfolding.
"And you would still be here," she sighs.
If she was more poetic, maybe she would tell him how her sorrow would burn her until she was nothing but ash if she existed in a world where he didn't. But she is only a simple girl with a quick tongue.
"Just say 'Thank you, Saffron. I would be so lonely without you.'"
Their hearts feel like they are permanently constricting. They can hear their heartbeat counting the seconds.
"I hate your smartass," he says.
"That's unfortunate."
She stands and takes him by the shoulders and halts his movement.
"I have been next to you since you were just a little baby," she says quietly, pinching his cheeks.
"I was seventeen," he interrupts.
"Same thing. The point is, we'll be together for this, too."
