Flames to Embers

34- Jabberjays

Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes comes out in three days!! I'm going on Saturday with my mom and sister-in-law and I'm soooo excited!! (you can tell im excited by reading my username)

Katniss's victory was short-lived. Peeta drew out his map of the arena, or what we knew of it, and just as he finished, Katniss tensed up beside me.

"Are you alright, Love?" I asked softly. She shushed me quickly.

"Do you hear that?" She asked.

I listened for a moment before I finally caught on. For the first time since we met up with Johanna, Beetee, and Wiress, it was silent. Until a cannon sounded. Katniss turned quickly, an arrow flying from the string and impaling through Gloss's left calf. He stared in shock, knowing as well as I did that Katniss chose not to kill him, even though our ally was dead on the ground beside him, a slit running through her jugular.

With a grunt, Johanna threw her axe over her head, landing it firmly in Brutus's skull. It was odd, attacking these people. There was no lost love between Brutus and me, but it still made me a bit nauseous, watching him fall to the ground, lifeless. A second cannon was heard.

The third came soon after. Clove and Cashmere, the two remaining Careers, bolted from the jungle to join the fight, despite being vastly outnumbered. Both the knife-thrower's aimed for Peeta and Beetee, who stood off to the side, staying out of the fight. I watched in horror as Clove's knife sailed toward Peeta's heart, when something moved in my peripheral. We hadn't seen her there, but the thin, sickly District 6 Morphling addict flung herself in front of her fellow Victors. One knife struck her stomach, the other embedded itself in her leg.

Katniss let out an audible relieved sigh. I glanced at her, feeling myself relax. The two men were either dead or immobile. The two women were outnumbered and had lost their element of surprise. Johanna and I started to approach them, when the ground moved out from under my feet, sending all of us crashing to the ground. I caught myself on the rocks. Katniss tumbled down beside me, and I grabbed at her arm desperately.

"Hold on," I grunted. My voice was lost in the noise of the rushing water and screaming tributes. My heart spiked as I felt her grip loosen. She slipped from my grasp just as Johanna snatched up her other arm, grunting from the strain.

"Hold on, brainless," she commanded, her axe firmly implanted in the rocks. Katniss's eyes grew wide as, once more, her grip slackened over the slippery cliff. Johanna and I screamed her name in unison as she slipped from Johanna's hands, down into the churning water, joining the bodies Brutus, Wiress, and the addict.

The spinning slowed to a stop not long after. The three dead tributes were missing, along with Katniss and Gloss. Cashmere and Clove were seen bobbing in the water, searching for Gloss who was incapacitated by his wounded leg.

I dove into the ocean as soon as the spinning ceased, my eyes open against the burning salt. Katniss was nowhere to be found. I swam up to the surface for air. "Katniss!" I cried out. "Katniss!"

"I'm right here, Finnick," I heard her say. She sounded far off, and as my surroundings came into focus, I realized I had drifted far away from shore. I dove under the waves and swam back. Katniss was in my arms before she had the chance to say anything.

"I'm alright, Finnick," She told me. "You're not the only one who knows how to swim."

My hand was shaking like a leaf as it stroked her soaked, knotted hair. I couldn't lose her. She still had at least sixty years ahead of her. And I intended to be there for all sixty.

The soft jingling of a parachute is what forced us apart.

"Bread," Johanna said happily as she opened it.