Love at Sea (Finnick Odair)

Chapter 36

"Why don't they call you the boy on fire?"

"Huh?" Peeta turned to look at Taiya. She'd gotten out of surgery the previous evening. It'd been a rough 24 hours. The rebels had won the war. Everything was in chaos.

Prim had died. The Capitol had killed her. In their desperation to hold back the rebels, they'd dropped bombs on everyone gathered outside the mansion. This included the Capitol's own children. It was beyond cruel. Prim had got caught up in the bombing. Prim was gone.

"Boy on fire. I'm talking about double standards, Peeta," Taiya murmured, her words slurry by the cocktail and medicine and morphling coursing through her veins. The doctors had given her medication to speed up the healing process, but it was tremendously painful, so they'd also put her on a very high dose of morphling to counteract it. "We have to talk about it. Katniss wasn't the only one on fire. You were too. And people always forget that. You were the boy on fire."

Peeta bit his lip at the mention of Katniss being the girl on fire. Taiya had no idea the irony of what she was saying. Katniss had been caught up in the bombing at the mansion as well. She was in surgery right now. She had third-degree burns all over her body that the doctors were working tirelessly to repair. She really had become the girl on fire.

"You're on some strong meds," he remarked gently, he didn't want her to know how worried he was.

"Yes I am," Taiya acknowledged with a dopey smile. "But that doesn't change my point. I think we should make flyers. 'Justice for the bread boy on fire. Because he was also on fire.' I think that should get the message across perfectly."

"I love it," Peeta agreed. He was doing his best to be cheerful for her, but it was hard. Tigris had been sent to help stitch up wounds in the street, she was no doctor, but she was a seamstress which had been deemed good enough, so Taiya had no one else. Delly assured Peeta she'd sent word to District 13 that Taiya was in the hospital, but it could be a while until Tyler got there. So he had to stay with her. It also meant he was able to regularly get updates on Katniss, he really didn't mind staying with Taiya.

"Doesn't it make you angry? We as a society should do better. You were set on fire twice, Peeta."

"I wasn't really... set on fire." Peeta chuckled. It was fake flames on a costume.

"You became one with the fire, Peeta. You were the fire. The fire was you," Taiya drunkenly insisted.

"How much of this stuff are they giving you?" Peeta frowned as he looked at the IV bag of morphling. He'd seen people on morphling before, but they'd never spoken as much rubbish as Taiya had been doing for the last twenty minutes.

"You want to know what's also an injustice?" Taiya continued, her thoughts switching to a new topic. "I've never tried your bread. You're bread boy. But you've never made me bread."

"I decorated a cake for you?"

"But you're not cake boy. You're bread boy. Buck is the cake boy. Where is Buck?" Taiya's train of thought deviated again to a topic Peeta didn't want to discuss out of fear of upsetting her.

"I'm sure he's on the way," Peeta reassured.

"You have the power of the bread," Taiya declared with a giggle, immediately recoiling when she felt an agonising pain in her chest.

"They messed us up pretty good, didn't they?" Peeta remarked with a sigh.

Taiya was not amused though. "What... what do you mean by that? I'm doing fine. I'm not like you with all the 'oh I must kill Muttniss' talk," she mimicked his voice.