Love at Sea (Finnick Odair)

Chapter 29

"Think we might find some food here?" Katniss' voice broke the solemn silence that'd been cast over the room for the past hour.

"Worth a look," Finnick agreed. Since they weren't heading back to base, they'd have to scavenge food, they hadn't brought any with them. "You ok?" he asked Taiya quietly, she'd been resting her head on his shoulder while her mind whirled with thoughts.

Tyler. Mags. Buck. Annie. Johanna. Gloss. Haymitch.

They all would think that they were dead.

"Yeah," she sat up slowly. "I'm just going to sit with Peeta," she mumbled as she made her way over to the boy who was still slumped despairingly against the stairs.

Finnick cast one last look at her before he stood up to join Katniss and Gale in searching for food in the kitchen.

The first cupboard he opened was bare. That wasn't a good sign.

"Psst," Taiya whispered to Messalla as she watched him stand up to go help them. "Just two minutes," she pleaded with him. The three victors searching weren't going to have any luck finding food in the cupboards. They would've all been emptied. But the hidden provisions surely wouldn't have been. And there was no way those three were going to work out where Capitolites hid their stashes of food. Messalla knew. Taiya knew.

Messalla frowned but scooted closer to them. "Why don't you want to help them?"

"For my own entertainment," Taiya shrugged. "Finnick and Katniss are just collateral damage, but I'd love to get Gale's stress levels up about there being no food."

"Two minutes," Messalla agreed cautiously. He didn't want to get involved in whatever beef Taiya and Gale had going on, but he also wasn't going to risk pissing Taiya off. The girl was unstable at the best of times, and he didn't want to be the one to make her snap.

"Dammit!" Gale groaned as he opened the fourth cupboard. "There's nothing here!"

"I found a potato," Finnick offered, holding up a half-rotted potato he'd grabbed out of a drawer.

Both Gale and Katniss surveyed him for a moment, trying to work out if he was being serious. He was.

"Good job, Finnick," Katniss smiled briefly at him. "Let's keep looking."

"Can we help now?" Messalla asked Taiya quietly.

"Yeah," she nodded. "That was embarrassing to watch."

She stood up to follow Messalla into the kitchen, she couldn't wait to show off to Gale how much smarter than him she was.

"No, no, not in there," Messalla shook his head as Katniss opened up yet another empty cupboard. "I used to live in a unit just like this," he walked over to the mirror-panelled wall and pressed on the one pane that acted as a door.

"What the shit!" Taiya gasped. It was empty.

"It's ok," Messalla tried to calm her down. "People in the Capitol aren't used to going through hard times. We'll just try another spot," he smiled at her before walking into the hallway. There should be some food stashed behind the ventilation screen.

As soon as Taiya got a look at it though she was sprinting back into the main bedroom. The vent in the hallway was also empty.

"NO!" everyone heard her growl in anger when she found the hidden bedroom cupboard was also empty.

She came storming out of the bedroom and towards the group in the hall. Everyone held their breaths, they weren't quite sure what she was going to do. A relieved sigh left them all when she just pulled Finnick in for a hug.