Victor by Night | Finnick Odair

Hope : 22

Chapter Twenty Two

While Johanna collects water and my daggers, Beetee fiddles with his wire, and Katniss takes to the water. I need to clean up, too, but I stay in Finnick's arms, still too shaken to move.

When Katniss returns, she looks much better. Her face has the color returned to it, and her eyes look light, more alive. She sits down next to Peeta, and although I know they didn't mean for me to overhear their conversation, I can hear it anyway.

"Who did they use against Sage?" Peeta asks.

"Somebody named Tuls," Katniss says.

"Must be Tuls Skynerth," he says.

"Who?" Katniss asks.

"Tuls Skynerth. He was Sage's only ally in her Games. He was killed as soon as the Games began," says Peeta.

"I don't remember those Games much," Katniss says. "Was that the desert year?"

"Yeah. Tuls is the one who Sage did a memorial sorta like Rue's... she set him off into the watering hole on lilies. The whole Capitol was sobbing," says Peeta.

A cannon blast brings us all together on the beach. A hovercraft appears in what we estimate to be the six-to-seven-o'clock zone. We watch as the claw dips down five different times to retrieve the pieces of one body, torn apart. It's impossible to tell who it was. Whatever happens at six o'clock, I never want to know.

Peeta draws a new map on a leaf, adding a JJ for jabberjays in the four-to-five-o'clock section and simply writing beast in the one where we saw the tribute collected in pieces. We now have a good idea of what seven of the hours will bring. And if there's any positive to the jabberjay attack, it's that it let us know where we are on the clock face again.

Finnick weaves yet another water basket and a net for fishing. I take a quick swim and put more ointment on my skin. Then I sit at the edge of the water, cleaning the fish Finnick catches and watching the sun drop below the horizon. The bright moon is already on the rise, filling the arena with that strange twilight. We're about to settle down to our meal of raw fish when the anthem begins. And then the faces ...

Cashmere. Gloss. Wiress. Mags. The woman from District 9. The morphling who gave her life for Peeta. Blight. The man from 10.

Eight dead. Plus eight from the first night. Two-thirds of us gone in a day and a half. That must be some kind of record.

"They're really burning through us," says Johanna. "Who's left? Besides us and District Two?" asks Finnick.

"Chaff," says Peeta, without needing to think about it.

A parachute comes down with a pile of bite-sized square-shaped rolls. "These are from your district, right, Beetee?" Peeta asks.

"Yes, from District Three," he says. "How many are there?"

Finnick counts them, turning each one over in his hands before he sets it in a neat configuration. I don't know what it is with Finnick and bread, but he seems obsessed with handling it. "Twenty-four," he says.

"An even two dozen, then?" says Beetee.

"Twenty-four on the nose," says Finnick. "How should we divide them?"

"Let's each have three, and whoever is still alive at breakfast can take a vote on the rest," says Johanna.

I don't know why this makes me laugh a little. I guess because it's true. When I do, Johanna gives me a look that's almost approving. No, not approving. But maybe slightly pleased.